This novel has never seen paper. As a stylistic experiment, I wrote it in HTML, the Hypertext Markup Language used by World Wide Web browsers. I didn't realize it as I began this project, but that deceptively simple change has turned this novel into something very different from other works of fiction I have written. Instead of typing my word processor's "italics" command when I wanted to emphasize something, I typed the HTML logical emphasis tag, and suddenly the world changed.

We still think of ourselves as the children of Gutenberg. For most of us, all the technology in the world still just brings us to the "print" command when we're done. But it won't stay that way, despite the best efforts of the Silicon Luddites--and we all know a few, don't we? The paperless society is closer than we think. And this brave new world demands to be taken seriously. Hence Indecent Communications.

This is a novel about revolutions. One of those revolutions is the technological revolution which has made such a thing as an electronic novel possible at all. Then there is the political revolution which we may well face in the coming days, as we strive to preserve the Internet as the bastion of electronic anarchy it has become. But perhaps most important is the social revolution. Nobody's making any money off this book. No publisher fronted capital for it. I wrote it, my good friend Kevin Fenzi graciously granted me space for it on his web server, and anybody with a modem can read it. The electronic age has no room for walls. So download a free copy of Netscape. Use Lynx if you have to. Or set yourself down in front of a terminal at your local public library. That homeless guy websurfing in the chair next to you is your electronic brother. Let the autocrats tremble in their steel-toed boots!

Lewis Call

zarathustra@thegrid.net


Substantial portions of this novel have previously appeared in Jamie's Amateur Fiction Hour, a very cool Web magazine.
On to Chapter One!

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