Michael Joyce
an annotated bibliography

See Joyce's homepage for a complete list of his publications. I list only those I've read and/or about which I've found secondary literature.

General information

Fiction writer, poet, essayist; co-developer of Storyspace with Jay Bolter and John Smith. Undoubtedly the best-known and most written-about hypertext fiction writer to date, and likely the most accomplished.

A brief biography is available at Eastgate's site.

Michael Joyce's home page is available from Vassar or AALN.

Hypertext Fiction

Afternoon, a story (3 spaces, 3 links; 1995?).
The "granddaddy of hypertext fiction" as Robert Coover has called it. This "teaser" converted to HTML gives no hint of the rich texture of the original complete version (539 spaces, 951 links; 1987), which was written in Storyspace and is available from Eastgate. (4/25/95)
CRITICISM & REVIEWS
Bernstein, Mark, Jay David Bolter, Michael Joyce, and Elli Mylonas. "Architectures for Volatile Hypertext." In Hypertext '91, Association for Computing Machinery, 1991, pp. 243-260.
Literature is fortunately a lively enough art that this sort of analysis cannot kill it--though not for lack of trying. No! Just kidding! But the first time I read through this piece and came upon the following clause, explaining a diagram of the linking structure of Afternoon--"[it] is simply the graph-theoretic adjacency matrix ... [raised] to the seventh power"--I couldn't get over what a treasure "simply" was in the midst of that. I'm not sure about the worth of that diagram, but it is admittedly a perspective I'd never thought of, and the article contains some valuable discussion of volatile hypertexts (i.e., the kind the Web ain't--one that changes depending on readers' decisions) and is a good eye-opener for anyone who thinks the Web is the alpha and omega of hypertext.
Bolter, Jay David, in Writing Space
Chapter 8
Douglas, J. Yellowlees. "'How Do I Stop This Thing?': Closure and Indeterminancy in Interactive Narratives." in Hyper/Text/Theory, pp. 159-188.
Close readings of Afternoon and "WOE--Or a Memory of What Will Be" by Joyce's most thoughtful (and thorough) critic to date. The best piece of writing on Joyce I've yet seen.
Douglas, J. Yellowlees. "Is There a Reader in This Labyrinth? Notes on reading Afternoon," in Computers and Writing: State of the Art (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992), pp. 29-39.
What appears to be an earlier version of the part of the essay above focussed on Afternoon. I have not yet seen Douglas's dissertation, but I suspect the various versions of this essay came to fruition in it and in her forthcoming book. I'd appreciate it if someone could enlighten me on this.
Landow, George P., Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology
Chapter 4
Revis, Kurt. Lit 180c: Postmodern Literature, Hypertext Presentation
A sketchy discussion of "afternoon" with a couple of worthwhile differences from other writings here: 1) it's available on the Web; and 2) it contains some healthy skepticism about both the story and software written by someone with (as far as I know) no connection to Eastgate.


[NEW] Twelve Blue (1996)
As far as I know, the only place on the Web where you can read a complete, original hypertext fiction by Joyce. A new piece written for the Web and published as one issue of Eastgate's HypertextNow newsletter (1/4/97).

[NEW] Twilight: A Symphony (Eastgate, 1996; Storyspace CD)
Joyce's much-heralded second hypertext novel (1/4/97).
CRITICISM AND REVIEWS:
Lombreglia, Ralph. "So Many Links, So Little Time." Atlantic Unbound, November, 1996.
A generally positive review, although Lombreglia notes his problems with disorientation in the text. The highlight of the article is an e-mail interview with Joyce (1/4/97).


"WOE--or, a Memory of What Will Be"
I have not read this. There is at least one published essay about it.
CRITICISM AND REVIEWS
Douglas, J. Yellowlees. "'How Do I Stop This Thing?': Closure and Indeterminancy in Interactive Narratives."
See above under "Afternoon."

Criticism & other non-fiction

"Mola" (with Carolyn Guyer, Nancy Lin, Suze Schweitzer, and Nigel Kerr)
A hypertextual discussion carried on among the five participants in 1994-95. One of those things that looks like it was more fun to participate in creating than to read, as an outsider, after the fact. For some background and a little orientation, read Nick Routledge's brief introduction at the World3 site where "Mola" is maintained, or the following essays, both well-written and in some ways more interesting than the "Mola" itself: ([UPDATED] 1/4/97--new URL at Joyce's homepage.)
CRITICISM AND REVIEWS
Lin, Nancy. "Mola Essay."
An informative essay about the project's genesis ([UPDATED] Note: Unfortunately, this seems to be MIA. Last checked, 10/20/96)
Tolva, John. "Ut Pictura Hyperpoesis: Spatial Form, Visuality, and the Written Word."
A thoughtful discussion of the visual characteristics of hypertext often obscured by Web browsers currently available. "Mola," Tolva argues, cuts against the "page" metaphor of the Web by linking everything (however, he's inaccurate in claiming this makes "Mola" unique, or even original--this had previously been done in a Web fiction at least once, in the otherwise forgettable short story "Mercury," by Mike Benedetti). A paper to be presented at Hypertext '96. (1/6/96)


Of Two Minds: Hypertext Pedagogy and Poetics. University of Michigan Press, 1995.
This collection of essays written over the past eight years or so is a must for anyone studying hypertext fiction. Some are of them are available online (see links below). Among the best pieces are the informative "Hypertext and Hypermedia," a concise history of hypertext writing; "What I Really Wanted to Do I Thought," in which Joyce briefly recounts how he became a hypertext writer (about half of this essay is available through Joyce's web site); "Siren Shapes," which defines the crucial distinction between "exploratory" and "constructive" hypertexts; and "The Ends of Print Culture," (available online under a slightly different title from Postmodern Culture). The introduction is also available online. Valuable for the bibliography alone, some 200+ cited works; however, I can't think of a good excuse for an academic book--let alone one about hypertext--not having an index.Ordering information and excerpts are available at the Of Two Minds homepage at the University of Michigan Press Web site.(9/20/95)
CRITICISM AND REVIEWS
[NEW] Heaps, Allan. "Michael Joyce's Of Two Minds: Hypertext Pedagogy and Poetics" (review). In Kairos, Vol. 1, Iss. 3, Autumn 1996.
I haven't had a chance to read this yet, but I hope the article is as neat as the whirling image of Joyce's book. At a glance (and only that, mind), it appears to consist more of summary and paraphrase than of evaluation or opinion. If you're prone to vertigo, headaches, or impatience, here's an alternate title-page link around Kairos' Frames-'R'-Us layout (10/20/96).
Rosenberg, Jim. "Making Way for Making Way: Co-striation Act Topographer of the Mingle Scriptor Transform Dance."
Overall an excellent, balanced, informed review, only minimally marred by Rosenberg's tendency to stand in awe of Joyce (cf. the first and last paragraphs).

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Last update: February 10, 1997
© 1995, 1996, 1997 by Michael Shumate
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