The Princess Murderer

"'The Princess Murderer,' a Flash fiction, was originally published in the Iowa Web Review in 2003 and deals with a number of formal and thematic issues that are of interest to scholars of digital fiction. Due to its satirical approach to intertextuality, it may be referenced as both a hypertext in the Genettian sense of being based on an earlier hypo-text (Charles Perrault's 'La Barbe bleue,' or 'Bluebeard') and a piece of fan fiction. Its distinctly ludic character is thematized and problematized by references to the fatal repercussions of clicking (clicking equals killing princesses) and by the tongue-in-cheek subversion of stereotypical melodramatic game endings (having to save the princess, but what if there are too many of them all of a sudden?). Of further analytical interest are, for instance, the text's focus on gender/pornography and technology, on Gothic fiction and media, and its multimodality (you need sound to read it)." -- From Electronic Literature Directory