Our first "digi-novel"

Over Christmas break Mr. Lush and I read Level 26, a “digi-novel”. What's a digi-novel? Well, in a digi novel you log online every 20-30 pages or so to see a clip/scene that corresponds to the book. (you're given a code at the end of every few chapters to enter) The online scenes aren’t mandatory to understand the book, it just sort of adds something to it. The book itself is about the worst of the worst killer (a level 26 killer), and his sick twisted ways of getting one former FBI agent back to work on the case. (You can see more on the website itself) The book is by the creator of CSI and thus has a little mix of forensic evidence, although not as much as you'd expect basd on the shows. It was good and slightly disturbing, but not the kind of disturbing where you wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. There’s going to be 2 more books-one coming out this year and one coming out next, so it’s evidently done well in sales.

All in all, I liked the book and found the “digi-novel” aspect to be, well, a novel idea. Some of the scenes were good, and some were a bit useless (like going online to read a text message).  It does take away from the reader’s imagination because you’re given an image to adhere to, versus letting your mind create one based soley on the author’s words. But of course, it does add a little something to it as well and helps enhance the overall feel of the book, and gives you a break in reading to see a scene. Overall, I expect there to be more digi-novels in general; it seems like the kind of thing that will catch on - mixing media together - at least for a little while. We’ll see.