Figurski at Findhorn on Acid

Holeton’s hypertext belongs in the tradition of screwball comedy, but it raises that tradition to the level of metaphysics – a cross between Borges and the Marx Brothers » (Michael Tratner, Bryn Mawr College). When paroled murderer Frank Figurski encounters a priceless 18th century mechanical pig that may be a forgery, he embarks on a globe-trotting and time-traveling quest to determine its authenticity. Close behind are a cross-dressing journalist named Fatima Michelle Vieuchanger and Nguyen Van Tho, The No-Hands Cup Flipper.

Holeton’s combinatorial hypertext mixes numerology, science fiction, and pop culture with a cadre of unreliable or delusional narrators and multiple narrative paths. The novel’s scenes are nodes generated by every possible combination of the three characters, three places, and three artifacts. It was composed in the Storyspace hypermedia application and is part of the « Eastgate School » of classic hypertext fiction, which began in the late 1980s and arguably ended with the publication of Figurski at Findhorn on Acid in 2001.

Figurski at Findhorn on Acid has attracted critical attention from second-wave hypertext and Possible Worlds theorists Alice Bell and Astrid Ensslin and other scholars. It has been performed and exhibited at numerous venues including Electronic Literature Organization conferences, the Associated Writing Programs, eNarrative, Washington State University, and Stanford University.