Rebooting Electronic Literature, Volume 3 Chapter 2: Michael Joyce's "afternoon, a story"

"The Rebooting Electronic Literature (REL) book series documents born digital literary works published on floppy disks, CD-ROMs, and other media formats held among the 300 in Grigar's personal collection in the Electronic Literature Lab at Washington State University Vancouver. An annual publication, the book features selected works highlighted for a Traversal during the year. These events generally focus on the most fragile and prized in the collection. Among these are the 48 titles published by Eastgate Systems, Inc. between 1988 to 2004 –– that is, early hypertext and interactive works created predominantly with stand-alone software, like Storyspace, Hypergate, HyperCard, Toolbook, and Macromedia Director, and published before floppy disk and CD-ROM drives disappeared from computers and the rise of mobile media and mainstreaming of cloud technology eliminated the need for physical media formats." -- from Rebooting Electronic Literature Volume 3, Introduction

"By the end of 1985, [Michael] Joyce and [Jay] Bolter had developed a working prototype for Storyspace, the hypertext computer software which Joyce began using with his students in 1986, and later used to write his first hypertext fiction piece, afternoon, a story (1987). Writing in The New York Times, Robert Coover described afternoon as 'the granddaddy of hypertext fictions. . . a legend.'" -- from Rebooting Electronic Literature Volume 3, Chapter 2