In 1989, in the centennial issue of the
The Wall Street Journal, Michael Miller's
"A Brave New World: Streams of 1s and 0s"
reviewed the computer accomplishments of the era.
"One new genre is the 'database novel' the creation
of Berkeley, Calif. conceptual artist
Judy Malloy," he wrote. "In her free-form work
'Uncle Roger' readers decide the order in
which paragraphs appear on their PC screens. They
can scroll through from beginning to end, or they
can pick a word or phrase and follow it through the
text. (A recent excerpt in the Whole Earth Review
consists of a string of scenes that all feature
the phrase 'men in tan suits')." [1]

The three files of the first electronic hyperfiction,
Uncle Roger, originally appeared from 1986-1987
on Art Com Electronic Network on the WELL.
Portions of the original Uncle Roger were funded
by the California Arts Council and Art Matters.

In the tradition of Greek comedy, Uncle Roger is a bawdy narrative
for adults. The work is mainly set at a series of parties
that are observed by a narrator, who in telling the story
intertwines elements of magic realism with Silicon Valley culture
and semiconductor industry lore.

The web adaption, originally implemented in 1995, has a different
look and feel than the original that I programmed in both UNIX shell
scripts and BASIC. In 1986, the original Uncle Roger offered
the reader a collection of keyword links that produced chains of linked
lexias and ran on the black and green or black and yellow text-based
monitors of the era.

The web version is redolent of the early web,
and, in order to preserve some of the web's history,
in this 2003 revision, I have resisted the temptation
to completely redo it. The text here -- expanded to include
material from the original that was not included in the first web
edition and also somewhat edited for web audiences --
is now the authorized version of the narrative.-- Judy Malloy

1. Miller, Michael "A Brave New World: Streams of 1s and
0s" Wall Street Journal Centennial Issue, June 23, 1989

further notes on Uncle Roger