Variegated shafts of light pulsate against the retina with explosive intensity. Optic nerves quiver, dancing with the sweet electrical joy of the messages they carry. As the ganglia become aroused, fresh neural pathways spring into existence...

...but what's there to do after you finish reading that book?

If it's 9TimeZones.com, you simply close the cover and open your browser. This project's coauthors have created an innovative design, combining their real-world softcover/hardback with a website that takes over where the book leaves off. Viewed as a whole, this achievement has been described as "the digital analogue to Griffin & Sabine" and "a synergistic 84, Charing Cross Road for the third millennium's cyber-age." The publication's dead-tree portion includes a charming melange of eMail correspondence, thought-provoking short fiction, and a powerful romantic-thriller screenplay. In fact, the latter piece prompted director Francis Ford Coppola to remark, "I think that script set in Budapest is quality stuff." But the cyberspace component of this venture offers even more.

When a traditional, old-style book eventually comes to an end, we regretfully resume the threads of our pleasantly interrupted lives, after the author abandons us to our own devices. But this volume's epilogue holds shining promise: "the website will feature updates." In other words, these two writers have pledged not to leave us stranded up the bitstream without a paddle. Sure enough, their romantic cliffhanger is resolved, and any web surfer can find out how the cyber-relationship fared, after the often-harsh realities of meatspace put it to the test.

To paraphrase one of the authors, from another context: "when salt is continuously added to a glass of water, the saline mixture eventually becomes unable to hold any more crystals. But after that solution is heated, more salt can dissolve into the liquid. If you remove the heat and drop in one last grain of salt, the supersaturated concoction quickly deposits its burden onto the newly-added seed crystal, which magically grows before your very eyes. On the Internet, concepts frequently germinate in a similar way, expanding by accretion around certain kernels. Clever notions beget more and more ideas, sometimes forming powerful chain reactions." A free think tank which serves the entire planet is finally open for business, and every so often, one seed crystal blossoms into a delicate, organic jewel like this.

Someday, we'll see many books that feature similar multidimensional designs, but in the meantime, this groundbreaking accomplishment masterfully conveys its hopeful message of love, forgiveness, and bright-eyed adventure.

9TimeZones.com. An eMail screenplay collaboration between Hungary and L.A. (includes first draft script 'The Fall In Budapest') [ISBN 0-7388-0613-7; $14.40 Xlibris trade paperback 9/1999; 316 pages], by Alan C. Baird with Anikó J. Bartos

Copyright © 2000 Kevin Densmore All Rights Reserved

Kevin Densmore lives and writes with a wild abandon which might devour lesser men. He's a former Hollywood denizen who moved into the Valley of Silicon, where he rearranges electrons.