A new kind of book...

An English teacher at work sent me a blurb about a new kind of book that she is reading and suggested I try it. It's not a new genre since it is science/dystopian fiction (sort of), but a new style. It's an e-book, but more.

The book is called The Silent History and was written by multiple authors. Allow me to explain. I am reading the book on my iPhone or iPad.

Here's the blurb on the website: The Silent History is a groundbreaking novel, written and designed specially for iPad and iPhone, that uses serialization, exploration, and collaboration to tell the story of a generation of unusual children — born without the ability to create or comprehend language, but perhaps with other surprising skills of their own.

But what does that mean? The story is told through daily updates of about 1500 words each, each called a Testimonial since it is written from the perspective of a different character (teacher, parent, doctor, therapist who has dealt with the "silent" children over many years). After each "volume" (20 installments) there is a five day break to allow others to read in case they joined late (like me).

But, the cool thing is that readers can also explore the book in more depth if they want through Field Reports, which are written by readers! Each field report is written as if the author witnessed a "silent" is attached to a specific geographic location; the reader must be within 10 meters to read the report. So, as you travel in real life you may find reports on vacation. My colleague wrote one that was accepted so this week I am going to try to get to her location in our town to read her field report.

So far I've read Volume 1 and am enjoying it!