The sixth of Penguin's experiments in online storytelling has gone live today, the work of Booker nominee Mohsin Hamid. The (Former) General in His Labyrinth - with a nod to Marquez - is inspired by the One Thousand and One Nights. The reader is given two or three options at each stage of the story, so it can theoretically be told in a variety of different ways.
This elliptical fable, about the lonely fate of a despot, fulfils a now rather antique-seeming idea of postmodern narrative flexibility and readerly creativity. It has been tried before, but rarely with such elegance. It's also short enough that you can read through all the plot permutations fairly easily.
It is an interesting game, though whether it could be played out at novel or even short-story length is open to question. As is the matter of whether you'd want it to be - isn't hanging on to the coattails of other people's imaginations one of the chief pleasures of reading fiction?
