Anthony Zuiker's Suspense Thriller 2.0

I am going to say from the outset that I want lots of comments on this post, because I think it will be warranted. And also because I am not quite sure what I think about it. But to sum up, CSI creator Anthony Zuiker, whose memoir MR. CSI will be published next year by Collins, now adds fiction to his book resume - though not quite in the usual format, as Variety reports:

"CSI" creator Anthony Zuiker has made a seven-figure deal with Dutton to create a series of three suspense-thriller "digital novels."

Project is a publishing hybrid that broadens traditional book reading into a multiplatform experience that includes filmed components and an interactive social networking site.

At the conclusion of each five chapters, readers will be given codes to log onto a website that will feature two-minute filmed vignettes providing a cinematic bridge to the next five chapters. At the book’s conclusion, readers can join an online community in which they can interact with others and hatch characters and storylines. The best suggestions will be incorporated into future titles, Zuiker said.

"I want to give traditional crime novel readers a more immersive experience," Zuiker told Daily Variety.  The online component "offers publishing a chance to catch up with the YouTube generation that has lost passion for reading."

Ah, but do traditional crime novel readers WANT a more immersive experience? That is the question. But then, this section, especially what I'm about to bold, is the most telling:

Zuiker came up with the idea when he set out to write a crime novel and realized he had problems with the traditional format. 

"I personally don’t have the attention economy to read a 250-page crime novel from start to finish," he said. "I realized that the way I’d like to consume a novel is to be rewarded every couple of chapters by seeing something visual that enhances the narrative."

Zuiker will write a 60-page outline for each book, then supervise a novelist who’ll turn it into a 100-chapter book. Zuiker will write and direct 20 "cyber-bridges," the two-minute video segments that supplement the pages.

So basically Zuiker wants to have his Patterson cake and eat it too? Which is fine, but again, is this for the "traditional" crime writer or some nebulous larger audience that DC might reach more effectively with its upcoming Vertigo Crime line, or kills its hours with GTA IV or Spore?

Clearly changes are afoot, and they must be afoot in an industry that is as confused about the future as it's ever been. But is this the way to go? I don't know, and I'm skeptical, but also damn curious.

Comments

[Dave White]

When I read the beginning of this post, I thought--"That's kind of cool, but will probably stem a whole bunch of controversy over whether or not it will change publishing."

I don't think it will. There will always be books. There will probably be a bunch of these as well, but it'll be another fad that fades, I'm sure. (Though my family genes are always wrong about this sort of thing--My dad thought Mork and Mindy would be canceled after one episode.)

But the problem is Zuiker's quote about his "attention economy" and the need for something visible. That bothers me. To me it makes him a bit shallow. "Well if I can't spend time with 250 pages... I'm going to attempt to change the whole publishing world." I don't know if that's his entire thought process, but I read it that way. He doesn't even have the attention span to write the thing, just an outline. It's like some of the students I've encountered who won't give a book a chance after two pages becuase it's too long.

There are a lot of different types of literacy out there competing for our attention. The internet, email, texting, magazines, newspapers, poems, novels, short stories... this is just another aspect of that literacy.

[Dave White]

Oh and should this fail...it could put Dutton in zugzwang. They will have no choice but to lose money (AKA chess pieces.) Man what a great word.

[I.J.Parker]

The American television fare is about as lightweight as you can get. Keep in mind, it has to serve everybody.
Mixing print media with visual media will therefore lower the quality of crime fiction further.
Though, of course, it may be a moneymaker for that very reason.

[Howard Shrier]

Zuiker doesn't have the "attention economy" to finish a 250-page book without pictures? My eleven year old has figured that part out.

[Bill Crider]

So this is what it's come to. I knew I was old and out of it, but geez. I'd never read (if that's the right word) something like that. I'll just sit in my curmudgeonly corner with my books, thanks.

And think of it: seven figures for three books, for which Mr. CSI has only to write 60-page outlines. That's nearly as good as my deal with St. Martin's.

[Guyot]

Here's the thing... Zuiker represents the future. His generation and those that follow are being spoon fed this ADHD entertainment and their minds know of nothing else. Look at his freaking quote - he's such a moron. But he's the current generation. And yes, it is eventually going to kill the book, or at least make it a cool vintage thing: "Oh, you read books? How retro of you."

Those that scream the novel will never die, well, you folks are going to die at some point. And it will die with you. My kids are being raised on books, not TV or the internet. But that's in our house - we can't control their outside environments that are forcing "technology" down their throats. So, my kids will always have a love and appreciation for books. But they will be in the vast minority. I would say 95% of their peers have little-to-no knowledge/experience/appreciation of books.

And no, the Harry Potter argument doesn't mean squat. Yes, books will always be around "in some form", but I bet my life that in 12 years, the traditional publishing industry (as we know it) is a ghost - there will be event books, and there will be goofs who self-publish, and everything else will be some techno hybrid.

And it's our fault. As a society, we rely so much on technology that we're losing touch with reality. Does anyone communicate anymore without texting or emailing? Our cell phones do everything but fix our food, but we can order food from them.

Okay, I'm ranting, but it's true. Unless there's a HUGE movement to show Generations Y and Z what books truly are, then books are dead. Gens U, V, W and X are not going to be around as long as Y and Z. Unless we buy lots and lots of NEW books, then the industry is doomed. It's all about dollars. And all this interactive BS provides almost zero overhead, with a profit margin light years beyond print publishing.

Back to Zuiker... truly the 2nd luckiest man in showbiz. If it weren't for his agent (the fabulous Sonya Rosenfeld) and her putting Bruckheimer with him (and COMPLETELY reconfiguring the script and concept), Zuiker would still be that guy he was - hanging out at LA clubs, pretending he's black, talking about what an undiscovered genius he is.

[Karen Olson]

Ditto Howard's comment. I mean, come on. If this is what publishing thinks it has to do, then we need to look at the bigger picture. Do we want kids to grow up not able to read a 250 page book without some sort of video stimulation? That's really sad.

[Ray Banks]

What the hell's a "suspense-thriller", anyway? Sounds like a bad German-to-English translation. Is it something I should be reading/watching? Should I condense that word to "retching" in anticipation of this momentous event? After all, my attention economy is in full recession.

[Dave White]

Here here Paul

[David J. Montgomery]

Would anyone honestly want to read a book from someone so moronic that they freely admit -- rather than be ashamed by -- the fact that they are unable to concentrate long enough to read a 250-page novel?

What depressing commentary on the state of intellectual life in our country. Not only do we no longer read; we no longer even have the decency to be embarrassed by that fact. It's like when Steve Jobs a few months ago trumpeted that "people don't read anymore." Reading is so unhip, so retro, so hard to make a buck off of -- why would anyone want to do it?

So now we'll get "interactive" nonsense like this, and "novels" you can read on a cell phone, and we'll descend further into a dumbed-down culture where literacy will cease to be a meaningful concept.

[Leonard T. Carruthers]

Sarah you start off this blog by writing "I am not quite sure what I think about it." Surely you have an opinion. I've been reading this blog long enough to know you have anopinion on everything---you are, after all, a critic! And we need our critics to lead us not to sit back and wait for consensus to emerge. Readers come here to learn what you think. That is what we are interested in reading. We are looking for critics like you to be leaders not followers. You can help us understand a situation like this by laying out the pitfalls and promises and implications. I can see the commenters are already doing that but I hope that you will do so as well. I'm sure I'm not alone in wanting to know what YOU think.

[Sandra Ruttan]

On a personal level, I agree with David J. Montgomery.

On a practical level, I can see that there may be a *different* market for what Zuiker's aiming to produce. This feels more like the evolution of the graphic novel to me than the demise of books.

Part of me can't help feeling it unfortunately has a place, and considerable market, in our ADD generation. The former educator in me isn't pleased with things that seem to cater to our dwindling attention spans. I've been on the wrong side of both teachers and parents who want their kids put on ritilin just because it's easier to deal with them, even if they don't have a legitimate attention deficit, and for me this ties in with that thinking. Let's make sure nobody has to read for too long - wouldn't that be boring. I think it has the potential to engage a new market, primarily of people who aren't avid readers, and if so, it will have its place. I find reading graphic novels requires a different approach over reading books, and what Zuiker's doing isn't going to substitute the experience of reading for me.

[John Dishon]

One guy has one creative idea and all of a sudden people are predicting doomsday for the publishing industry and books as a medium. I can't believe you guys are getting so frazzled over one project.

I think it' an interesting idea. At least it's something different, something to break up the monotony of the by-the-numbers crime fiction being published these days. And just because there are new ideas and new technologies does not mean that the old ways are going to become extinct. Anything is possible, but such defeatist attitudes do nothing to help the situation. Cell phone novels already exist in Japan, yet books are still published there. Change is a good thing; it reinvigorates. The novel is not going to go extinct. They maybe be published differently in the future, but the life of the novel does not hinge on the state of popular/mainstream/genre fiction.

Maybe this guy's idea will succeed, maybe it won't. But creative endeavors should be encouraged, not scorned.

[Richard S. Wheeler]

Mr. Zuiker's format has a grave weakness. Switching back and forth between script and visual media means that the "lostness" the reader feels when immersed in a good story, whether on film or in a book, will be repeatedly shattered.

Really good storytelling, whether on a screen or in a book, results in the reader being transported into the author's world, and the reader's own life disappears for a while. Mr. Zuiker's approach largely negates that.

I suspect it will indeed appeal to a few people, but far more will prefer the immersion in the story that a fine book or film offers.

We are seeing not the end of book publishing, but the sort of fragmentation into specialized topics that appeal to specialized groups, and I have little doubt that fiction delivered in books will continue to enjoy a lively readership.

[Dave White]

I think, John, the problem from people here isn't the fact that he's trying something new. Good for him... But I think it's the manner he goes about it. The fact that he can't read a 250 page novel. That he needs to spice it up and reward himself. I don't think this is going to destroy books, but I think the author's attitude--if believed by the majority of people--can severely hurt reading. If reading's retro or not cool and you need to reward yourself with TV because you can't pay attention.... that's the problem.

[Stacey Cochran]

My personal mission has developed into building better book television and multi-media for books.

It is a serious mistake how poorly developed book-related television media has been and currently is. I totally believe that books (and the authors who write them) will benefit from multi-media exposure.

Four years ago, when I said that POD was here to stay and would benefit publishers, people disagreed. Now, four years later, major publishers have embraced the technology and are able to keep books in print forever.

Now, we are on the verge of a mass media revolution as it relates to books. Online audio books are the hottest ticket in publishing. Borders National is reinventing itself with bordersmedia.com

http://www.bordersmedia.com/home.asp

And I have recently landed a major book deal with Macmillan/St. Martin's, where St. Martin's has invested generously with a technology grant to develop a multi-media companion to the book at its launch.

It is ignorant to think that media exposure will hurt book sales. And it is appalling that Book Related television is a dinosaur relic of boredom.

I imagine the folks who reinvented food-related television saw a similar opening for the Food Network twenty years ago. Today, the Food Network is a vibrant healthy multi-media powerhouse.

My mission is to do the same for books.

[John Dishon]

If that is the case, then Dave, aren't you misplacing the blame? Zuiker is tapping a market that already exists; he's not creating the audience. Literature reflects the changes in society; it doesn't cause them. So if you blame Zuiker for dumbing down society with this new approach, then you must also extend that criticism to genre fiction as a whole. I mean, over the years, the intellectual level of popular entertainment has gone down.

Popular entertainment used to be Shakespeare. Now it's CSI. It used to be Dickens. Now it's Patterson. So there must be some larger issue, or more likely, a complex arrangement of issues that has brought about this dumbing down of society. The entertainment just reflects that change.

Simple writing is praised amongst crime writers today. Lean/muscular/minimalist/spartan--whatever you want to call it, that idea of writing simple and clear is favored among crime writers today. We wouldn't tell Shakespeare or Dickens to write that way, though, right? So maybe genre fiction has helped dumb down society. If you're going to blame Zuiker's idea, then it makes sense.

However, I think society has changed for other reasons, whatever those reasons are, but it was society that changed first, not the entertainment, not the literature.

I happen to agree with Richard, above. I don't think the combination of written and visual media will blend well. But we already try to do that today, with book trailers. With a book trailer, you're trying to sell a written work by advertising using a visual medium.

[David Thayer]

This announcement is the most target rich environment of the summer and I tip my hat to the melding of pop culture and mainstream publishing. However given the state of our infrastructure I worry that cyber bridges might collapse under the weight of these interminable 250 page novels.
I'd like to know more about "supervising the suspense writer" assigned to work on the outline. Is this a sly reference to corporal punishment?
An alternative approach to Zuiker's might be to read an entire chapter and then polish the Ferrari or mow the lawn or something. No need for a cyber bridge there.

[Dave White]

Perhaps, we are misplacing the blame. But at the same time we could also try to battle against it. For every Patterson, you have a Connelly, every CSI you have The Sopranos. There is smart and popular genre fiction in any medium can be intelligent.

Again you jump on lean writing, but if it deals with complex issues, is it less intelligent? I doubt it.

However, it seems corporations and the people who've been behind such shows as CSI believe their audience needs dumbing down. And the more the people in charge of creating such shows or books, the less intelligent shows there are out there. If we are flooded with these shows don't we then become dumbed down?

I suppose an audience can choose not to watch or not to read, however, but we don't want that option either. It's clear that intelligent writing and television can thrive on bestseller lists or with high ratings, but it strikes me that authors and creators are at times more scared to create it. Zuiker believes that his experience is everyone's experience and he's at the helm.

[Michelle Gagnon]

It's a sad day when someone who claims to be a writer says they don't have the attention span to read a 250 page book (which is a fairly short one to boot). But is it possible that an experiment like this might attract a younger audience schooled on video games? Maybe, but part of me doubts that group makes up CSI's core audience. I think they tried something like this with Heroes recently, didn't they?

[Leonard T. Carruthers]

Is anyone blaming Mr. Zucker for dumbing down society? I did not read that in any of the posts above. I think it would be more accurate to say that he is trying to take advantage of a society that has dumbed itself down. This is a sad fact in my eyes but it also creates a lot of commercial opportunities that can be exploited. Where there is money to be made there will always be people looking to take advantage of the situation for better or worse. Mr. Dishon, I have read several of your coments on this blog and I'm curious about them. You seem to make the point in every one of your posts that you are contemptuous of mystery fiction. I don't have a problem with that outlook. Like the wise man once said, opinions are like asshole---everyone has one and they usually stink. But if that is the case, why do you read and comment on a website that is devoted to mystery fiction? I think everyone must understand your point by now. You don't like crime novels. You are too good for them. We get it.

[Bryon Quertermous]

This sounds more like a marketing plan than a true evolution of the book and I think it will fail. He trying to dip into two audiences that aren't really compatible. The traditional book reader will be put off, as has been shown here, by the true stupidity of his statement and what I imagine will be the poor quality of a book someone like that turns out. The techno-savvy folks will be turned off, as Richard mentioned, by having to go back and forth between the book and the computer.

I'm all for inovating a stagnant and archaic field, but out of a sense of passion, not a sense of ignorance which is what this seems like. But like I said, it seems like an intriguing idea for marketing. I would love to be able to read a whole book and then continue that experience online and such. This could be the perfect sort of thing to lay the foundation for a traditional books roll out, much like the WhySoSerious games before The Dark Knight.

[I.J.Parker]

This has turned into a wonderful thread with many clever and thought-provoking comments. I'm still laughing about Ray's contraction of "reading-watching." So right! So funny!

But Richard Wheeler's reminder that the visuals take the reader out of the story so that he loses the "lostness" in it was a profound insight into what we have already lost through switching from books to visual stimulation. We know the effect of that on academic performance (students lack the vocabulary to comprehend their assignments), but what of the psychological impact? What of the loss of the power of imagination, of creating images in the mind?

Perhaps there aren't many people left who haven't grown up with television and movies. How could they possibly know what has happened to their brains?

And yes, the "lean" writing style (short words, short sentences, short paragraphs, no description, no exposition, no adverbs or other modifiers) does indeed illustrate the lack of attention span and vocabulary among the "unread."

[Dave White]

"And yes, the "lean" writing style (short words, short sentences, short paragraphs, no description, no exposition, no adverbs or other modifiers) does indeed illustrate the lack of attention span and vocabulary among the "unread.""

What then, of Hemingway's short stories and parables? (I know some of his novels had a more complex take.)

[John McFetridge]

"So, my kids will always have a love and appreciation for books. But they will be in the vast minority."

I'm going to let you in on a little secret, Paul. Those of us who have a love and appreciation for books have ALWAYS been in the vast minority. That's not gonna change ;)

And Ingrid, I have to disagree that lean writing illustrates the lack of attention span. I think of Hemingway's comeback to Faulkner, "Poor, Bill, he still thinks big emotions come from big words."

Stories with real depth don't require more words, they require the right words.

[John Dishon]

@Dave: You're right, simple writing can be just as intelligent. Perhaps the change in our society is more of a change in sensibility, rather than intelligence. After all, the things Shakespeare wrote about we still write about today. Then again, society feels stupider now then it did when I was younger. The surge of reality TV shows doesn't help that perception.

@Leonard: The dumbing down of society was implied (as I perceived it, anyway) by the focus on Zuiker's inability to read a 250 page novel. I feel that David implied as much above when he says "depressing commentary on the state of intellectual life in our country". And actually, I wasn't blaming Zuiker either; rather I made the point you made, that society was already dumbed-down, and entertainment reflected that.

As to my own preferences and motives, I am not contemptuous of genre fiction; I am critical of it. But there are some genre work I like. Not that any of that matters. I like to discuss literature with people who have a different view than me. It's more fun that way, and more stimulating. What better way to learn about the other point of view than to challenge it? It's certainly better than everyone agreeing on everything. Furthermore, I back up my arguments. I've certainly never told someone I respected him opinion, then told him to leave because it wasn't the same as my own.

@Bryon: I think ignorance is dominant right now, as far as literature + the internet is concerned. The internet has already revolutionized music and it's changed film too. But it's not clear how literature is going to be changed by the internet. E-books are a start, but they've not quite caught on yet on a massive scale. Book trailers have limited success. So my guess is there will continue to be experiments like Zuiker's for a while, until we find the best way to blend the two together.

[John Dishon]

Hemingway is not as simple as people would like him to be. His simplicity comes from his diction, but his syntax is as complex as any good writer. Hemingway varied his sentence structure to produce whatever effect he was going for. He wrote plenty of long sentences with a variety of structures.And Hemingway himself described his writing as using the iceberg technique, where 10% is on the surface, and the other 90% is under the water. You definitely have to read into his stories. He also used his fair share of modifiers and he paid attention to scenery/weather/nature too.

[dick adler]

So Zulker doesn't have the attention span to read a mystery? Sounds like the shmuck who thought up those mystery parties of song and story. There are enough dumb people in the world -- why should we pay any attention?

[dick adler]

So Zulker doesn't have the attention span to read a mystery? Sounds like the shmuck who thought up those mystery parties of song and story. There are enough dumb people in the world -- why should we pay any attention?

[Kevin Wignall]

Are you "damn curious", Sarah? Really? I'm not. It sounds boring. I have a poor attention span in that I'm not prepared to follow a story from one medium to another - I want my CSI and my Law & Order dished up whole in 60 minutes, I want a film in two hours, no distractions (careful, you're losing me), I want a YouTube clip in NOW!, and I want a book over a few days. IMMERSION? How can you immerse yourself in something that sounds too much like hard work?

And Paul, I think you're wrong to dismiss Harry Potter. We're talking about children reading 700 page novels. Or look at Stephanie Meyer, the English version of whose new book is at No 14 in the German paperback charts, because children won't wait till January for the translation.

Zulker IS a moron, but not just because he's unable to read a book - he's a moron for underestimating the sophistication of the "YouTube Generation". We are that generation, as are the kids reading those HP books, and we can watch YouTube "and" read novels. Some of us can even write them, all on our own...

[Dave White]

Kevin, you make a good point. Kids are going to read, but they're not going to read AS MUCH. I love the Harry Potter stuff, and I'm glad they're reading Stephanie Meyer, but there's so much out there to compete with: internet, video games, tv, movies, that the stories really have to catch a kid's eye and will have to continue to do that as they get old.

Not that that is a bad thing. Us writer will just have to keep writing better books.

[Leonard T. Carruthers]

I was very excited to read that Stacey Cochran got a book deal. Congratulations! That's very exciting. But you might want to be careful bragging about your 'major deal.' I asked a friend in the business about the book and he said you sold a proposal to co-write a textbook with your wife, and that the book was sold based on her name. (For "low 5 figures.") You should be honest with people and not mislead us about your accomplishments.

[ed]

If you openly admit that you don't have the attention span to read a mere 250 page novel from start to finish, and someone is actually paying you money to bang out words on a computer, you are not a writer. You are a creative typist. Anthony Zuiker's hubris here is nonpareil. There is no such thing as a "digital novel." There are only novels. And the real novels take some amount of art or, at the lower end of the food chain, craftsmanship. And that involves a key intuitive relationship with words. If you cannot be bothered to carry on this basic level of commitment, then you should be flogged before a committee of recidivist television enthusiasts, with the feral violence televised on an expensive pay-per-view channel that only morons like Zuiker will spend their sloppily-earned payola on.

[Sarah]

She asks and they deliver.

Leonard - hey, sometimes even a critic has to crowdsource. But I do agree with one comment sent to me today that this attempt at mixed media stands more of a chance at succeeding with SF/fantasy/horror than conventional crime fiction. Which means the other big mixed media deal involving Tim Kring (of HEROES fame) and Dale Peck, a story arc of alternate history that has video and game elements attached, may have a better shot at success. My curiosity is in whether this will come to pass and what sort of comparisons and contrasts can be made between Zuiker and Kring.

It also goes back to my emphasis on Zuiker's belief that traditional crime novel readers should have a more immersive experience, because I don't think he has a clue of what traditional crime readers want beyond his own reading limitations and the constraints of helming several CSI shows. Bottom line: Dutton's going to have a hell of a time marketing this beyond that first initial flush (which will require plenty of $$$ and probably not all of it from Dutton's coffers) unless the melding of story and video is truly exceptional.

John D - with regards to your lean prose comment, I'm reading Paul Auster's NEW YORK TRILOGY right now. The prose is lean and spare. And holy crap is there a multitude of other ideas and thoughts embedded beneath. That appeals to me much more than empty florid passages...

[John Dishon]

I took a look at Paul Auster's NEW YORK TRILOGY on Amazon's Search Inside feature, and I gotta say, I didn't find any spare prose. The first three pages of City of Glass is exposition about the character. A scene doesn't start until page 6. Now, the writing was good, I think. I enjoyed what I read (and I did skip around in the book, not just the beginning), but I don't see anything lean, or spare about it.

[Richard S. Wheeler]

I think that Mr. Zuiker's dual-platform storytelling may absorb egoists who are constantly monitoring how they feel about a story and aren't really interested in the characters. But I don't think the dual-medium approach will appeal to those who are interested in life and dilemma beyond themselves, and who would love to become lost in the stories of the protagonists and antagonists. In other words, I don't think this is a genre matter nor do I believe that science fiction readers would go for this more than, say, mystery or romance readers. It narrows down to what the reader seeks from stories.

[Charles Ardai]

We've seen gimmicks like this before. In the 1980s, a company called Synapse published a line of computer games that came packaged with partial novels. They called them "Electronic Novels." The gimmick was that you'd read the unfinished novel and then, when it left off, you'd turn on the computer and finish the story in interactive mode. They tanked. This will tank, too.

Every few years someone comes up with a kooky gimmick and sometimes the public's imagination is briefly captured (I think "Who Killed The Robbins Family?" was successful, but the sequel it spawned was not), but this sort of thing is at best a sideshow and distraction to the real stuff of telling stories.

I *do* think traditional publishing is in jeopardy and that the next generation is losing the habit of reading and that new technology poses both a threat and an opportunity -- but cutesy crossbreed projects aren't the future of anything.

[Barbara]

This is all very interesting. I can't really understand why he doesn't just make it all visual. What is the value added by having five print chapters, when print is not effective at giving people a visual jump-start?

Which is in itself kind of odd. I know I'm more than kind of odd, but I find reading far more exciting that television because the stories move so much more quickly, and the images are more vivid.

As for having to purchase a book with a secret code to go to something online - I think the wheels will fall off that idea pretty quick. Like a frigging overpriced school textbook supplememt, the bane of youth's existence.

How are you going to share that reading experience? You can't - it's against the terms of service. Sorry, dude. That's so not web 2.0.

[John Dishon]

I don't like the idea of codes either. Why not just put the videos on the website so anyone can view them. The only people who will view them will be the people who have the books, right? The videos wouldn't make sense to anyone else.

[mark haskell smith]

While I think it could be an interesting experiment in mixing media, it's all going to come down to execution. If Zuiker can write a great book - bizarre that he has trouble with the traditional format, perhaps TV really does rot your brain - and pull it off it'll be cool. But it seems like a pricy one off to me. Not the future of books.

[Cornelia Read]

Wouldn't it be way cheaper and more effective if publishers just started stapling little packets Ritalin to their book jackets?

Frankly I think this Zuiker guy's far-less-elegant "solution" shows a tremendous paucity of imagination.

Besides which, you wouldn't get to use a truly magnificent ready-made ad slogan: "Better Reading Through Chemistry."

[stevemosby]

Experimentation is good. But there's a difference between presenting something in a new way because it works and doing it just because you can't do it the old way. This feels a bit like the latter. Plus, it seems like a whole lot of effort. Will people be arsed enough to bother contributing?

It's kind of impressive, though: most people would take an inability to read a 250-page novel as their cue not to bother writing one. Seven figures too. I'm imagining the first video will be Mr Zuiker sitting cross-legged, clapping himself silly, in an empty room.

[Keith]

Apes who can't read are going to jump back and forth between words and video?

I'd like to be paid seven figures for that idea.

[John McFetridge]

"Better reading through chemistry," ha - that's good! Most people I know have self-prescribed for TV - "Better viewing through herb." It works for CSI. Not so good for reading, though.

JohnD: the other day Sarah linked to a story about how tired people are of the use of, "What we talk about when we talk about..." and that's true, but it sent me to my bookshelf to pick up the Raymond Carver again. His short stories might show a little of the beauty of lean prose.

[David Hewson]

I'd love to comment but I gave up on the phrase 'immersive experience'.

[Jason Starr]

Hmm, I wonder what 250-page books can't keep his attention--I think he just might need an expanded reading list, not a new format. I'm really curious to see how this fares, though. I think the advance is wildly ambitious, but it probably means there will be a lot of marketing bucks behind this. Maybe it will have some postive effect, and people who've never read a crime novel before will be exposed to the genre. I just hope he gets some "better writing" for this than the 250-page books that apparently put him to sleep. If not, he's doomed.

[David Thayer]

I'm afraid this will lead to new demands from literary agents. "I need a cyber bridge after the opening paragraph. Feel me?"

[David J. Montgomery]

Let's keep in mind that that "seven-figure deal" is counted in publishing dollars, not legal tender. Publishing dollars make for good press releases, but they don't put gas in the tank.

[Howard Shrier]

Here's my own prediction: Anthony Zuiker will one day be the last on a long alphabetical list of people who were wrong about the future. Just because you can watch Spiderman on your cell phone doesn't mean you should. Most of us will still use our phones for talking and our big-screens for watching, and we'll still read books.

[Sandi L.]

This is another example of pandering to people who don't want to think. He finds it difficult to finish a 250 page book? What is so great about reading is that I can make pictures in my mind and those writers who get the set right, the characters right, the plot right are the most creative people on earth. He sounds like so many putrid TV shows and movies that bore the hell out of me. Another dumbing down of the American populace.