Rating: 
Summary: A combination of the completely obvious and obviously wrong
Review: "Pause & Effect" is a mind-numbingly shallow book. Practically every observation the author makes in this book is either completely obvious or obviously wrong. Definitely NOT worth the money.
Rating:
Summary: A combination of the completely obvious and obviously wrong
Review: "Pause & Effect" is a mind-numbingly shallow book. Practically every observation the author makes in this book is either completely obvious or obviously wrong. Definitely NOT worth the money.
Rating: 
Summary: INSPIRING!!
Review: An excellent book! It is beautifully designed, no question. It made me look at video games (and television and books) differently. Most useful is that it tries to make a general approach to narrative. There's examples from thousands of years ago that are still worth thinking about today. A GREAT inspiration for designers! Meadows does a great job (though a few sentences I had to go over again). I've read it twice because, like a good movie, it deserves it. I'd recommend you not only buy it, but read it twce yourself.
Rating:
Summary: A beautiful and lucid introduction
Review: Anyone, theorist, artist, philosopher or entrepreneur, who has an interest in contemporary media and communications theory, cultural theory, aesthetics and design, and the philosophy of contemporary culture ought to read this book. It is a seminal text that seeks to cross boundaries, seek new borders, and open new horizons. In the often abstract realm between ideation, culture, and aesthetic theory, Pause and Effect seeks to act as a bridge that links these elements and grounds them within the prescient moment.In an era in which history as we have known it has come to an end, this books serves as a singular oracular perspective on that tradition and where it may yet lead us. This text, if it can be limited to such a closed system, is for anyone who seeks to exist in the future. "A Story is only a beginning..." Pause and Effect is a calling out to writers, artists, designers, students, and anyone wishing to have a voice. Really, it is a call to that within us that makes us want to write and tell stories and to our very ideas of stories themselves. This is not strictly a book about the future of Internet based design; it would be a mistake to categorize this as a text only of interest to programmers, graphic artists, and computer game designers... Over the next 240 pages Meadows takes us through an extraordinarily rich landscape, filled with hundreds of stunningly beautiful images, from classical art to contemporary animation (including many of his own), dozens of interviews, and his own reflections on the theory of the development and possible future of narration... His objective is to link interaction, visual art, and literature by pointing to the importance of "perspective" in each of these. Via a discussion of perspective in art, from medieval art and the long dead voice of Giotto di Bondone, Meadows weaves a history of perspective from the individual to the cultural and societal and now, once again, back to us, the reader as the individual. He guides us through narrative history, from Aristotle to Gustav Freytag, to Edgar Allen Poe to contemporary games like Deus Ex and the on-line world of Banja. Interwoven with this is the notion of interaction - not simply its roles, its definitions, its applicability and its changing shape before us, but true interaction. Meadows doesn't simply tell you about the storytelling worlds he sees forming, he brings you into them via a series of candid interviews from leading programmers like Marcos Novak, to comic writer Scott McCloud. There is a final affect that Meadows adds to the text of Pause and Effect - the "narrative" of St_Elmo. It is perhaps not fair to call this a text itself, however, as this artist, Meadows, almost sneaks it by us. Along the margins of each page is a series of boxes, each box containing a character and a series of scenes. St_Elmo is a story, a narration, embodying a deep semiotic meaning and calling to us to not simply read the story, but to take part in it. If this indeed is Meadows' desire in writing Pause and Effect then he has succeeded enormously. This is not a book that should sit in the once posh offices of the dot.com world; rather it is a way of thinking about storytelling, and as such it belongs on the desks of writers, students, and literary theorists as a beautiful and lucid introduction to the subject and passion of narration... Were Pause and Effect to simply stay within the often publicly distanced realm of digital design, then we, as an interactive audience, would lose the broader and more subtle implications that this text has to offer.
Rating:
Summary: A must buy for interacitve storytellers
Review: As a documentary filmmaker who is starting to work in the the interactive arena, this book is a map through the maze. Mark Meadows provides a detailed and interesting explanation of the evolution of narrative and how that evolution is pushing us into interactive narrative. The book helped me understand interactive design but also expanded my horizons for the work I am presently doing and will do in the future. Interactive narrative is the future for us storytellers, and this book helps us ride the turbulent waves of its development.
Rating:
Summary: From a web developer perspective...
Review: I can't really do justice to this book by merely reviewing it. However, since this is meant to be a review, I'll muddle through as best I can. Pause & Effect is aimed at designers who want to do more than shove information at a target audience, or get people to buy stuff online. Mark Meadows discusses interactive narrative and how it relates to actual experience in online situations, as well as real life. He does this by example, by logical argument, and by simply conversing. While there is some deep theory, the text is extremely approachable, and eye-opening to say the least. You won't find formulas to make you a better designer or artist, nor will you come away with a set of rules or guidelines. What you will find is a new approach to recognizing and developing media, perspectives most people are not likely to have thought about, let alone design from. This book has the potential to drastically change the designer and developer mindset from implementation to creation, from problem solving to architecting new challenges and solutions. Let me be clear; you will have to work. And it will be a joy. Meadows requires the reader to get involved, to seriously consider the ideas presented and run with them. Pause & Effect will be useless to those who are happy with flashing ad banners and multitudes of pop-up/under/over/behind windows or other annoying attempts at grabbing attention. However, if you want to understand and ponder the very basis of human interaction and involvement with your visitors, this is a wonderful place to start.
Rating:
Summary: From a web developer perspective...
Review: I can't really do justice to this book by merely reviewing it. However, since this is meant to be a review, I'll muddle through as best I can. Pause & Effect is aimed at designers who want to do more than shove information at a target audience, or get people to buy stuff online. Mark Meadows discusses interactive narrative and how it relates to actual experience in online situations, as well as real life. He does this by example, by logical argument, and by simply conversing. While there is some deep theory, the text is extremely approachable, and eye-opening to say the least. You won't find formulas to make you a better designer or artist, nor will you come away with a set of rules or guidelines. What you will find is a new approach to recognizing and developing media, perspectives most people are not likely to have thought about, let alone design from. This book has the potential to drastically change the designer and developer mindset from implementation to creation, from problem solving to architecting new challenges and solutions. Let me be clear; you will have to work. And it will be a joy. Meadows requires the reader to get involved, to seriously consider the ideas presented and run with them. Pause & Effect will be useless to those who are happy with flashing ad banners and multitudes of pop-up/under/over/behind windows or other annoying attempts at grabbing attention. However, if you want to understand and ponder the very basis of human interaction and involvement with your visitors, this is a wonderful place to start.
Rating:
Summary: A composed approach to a large problem
Review: Other readers have found the book shallow. Unfortunately this is an indication of the reading that went into the book, not the writing. Pause and Effect assumes a level of reader education, reader participation, and it moves over large ideas quickly. The book points to the invention of visual narrative and goes on to explain how it has changed over time, showing why video games are part of a much larger narrative history and that "interactive narrative" is an emerging process. It is rare to find an academic book that is both as carefully constructed and as beautifully co-ordinated as Pause & Effect. There is nothing shallow about showing how visual art, interaction, and writing are combining in new ways, and what this means to contemporary literature. One has to only read the table of contents to see that Meadows is being conscientious about his approach. Each of the 4 chapters (Theory, 2D, 3D, and Practice) are viewed through the triple lenses of perspective, narrative, and interaction. It makes for a 12-part composition that only a careful eye will notice. The book is overambitious, as it sifts through 2,500 years of history and better examples could be found, but in the end it is an excellent read and one that stands alone in a field where consideration is needed.
Rating:
Summary: A composed approach to a large problem
Review: Other readers have found the book shallow. Unfortunately this is an indication of the reading that went into the book, not the writing. Pause and Effect assumes a level of reader education, reader participation, and it moves over large ideas quickly. The book points to the invention of visual narrative and goes on to explain how it has changed over time, showing why video games are part of a much larger narrative history and that "interactive narrative" is an emerging process. It is rare to find an academic book that is both as carefully constructed and as beautifully co-ordinated as Pause & Effect. There is nothing shallow about showing how visual art, interaction, and writing are combining in new ways, and what this means to contemporary literature. One has to only read the table of contents to see that Meadows is being conscientious about his approach. Each of the 4 chapters (Theory, 2D, 3D, and Practice) are viewed through the triple lenses of perspective, narrative, and interaction. It makes for a 12-part composition that only a careful eye will notice. The book is overambitious, as it sifts through 2,500 years of history and better examples could be found, but in the end it is an excellent read and one that stands alone in a field where consideration is needed.
Rating:
Summary: Good on old news, bad on new news
Review: The value of a book depends upon what the reader brings; as such, the author must write to the state of mind of the audience. The reader who is contextually sympatico with the author will derive greater benefits than the reader who is coming from another place.
This book has strong context: readers who come from the media theory context will find powerful resonances with their existing intellectual framework. Other readers will scrape and scratch to find anything of merit.
My context is interactive storytelling. Truth in advertising: I recently published a book on the subject, and so might be considered a competitor. I do not, however, consider this book to be competitive with mine, not in the sense that it is inferior, but rather in the sense that it is from another planet. From my planet, this book appears to have plenty of interesting things to say about iamge and narrative, but when it comes to interactivity, I maintain that this book has absolutely nothing useful to say.
Consider the description of interactivity offered in these pages:
"Interaction can be described as many things. Catchwords abound: 'Engaging', 'Immersive', 'Participatory', 'Responsive', and 'Reactive'.
"Interactivity is a continuing increase in participation. It's a bidirectional communication conduit. It's a reponse to a response. It's 'full-duplex'. Interaction is a relationship. It's good sex. It's bad conversation. It's indeterminant behavior, and it's redundant result. It's many things, none of which can be done alone. Interaction is a process that dictates communication. It can also be a commication that dictates process. It provides options, necessitates a change in pace, and changes you as you change it."
I consider this to be high-falutin' drivel. Poetic drivel, perhaps, but drivel in the sense that it simply doesn't say anything that you can put to use. Take these ideas and put them into your mental thought-grinder and nothing comes out. They're Madison Avenue fluff, nothingburger sentences, full of verbal flourishes and pirouettes and signifying nothing.
The author is clearly a master of imagery, and has much that is useful to say about graphic design and the role of the image. If the author had the discipline to confine himself to those areas in which his expertise commands respect, he could have produced a fine book; indeed, when the book doesn't mention interactivity, it has much to offer. But the frequent poorly-considered discussions of interactivity ruin this book the way a burned sauce ruins an otherwise excellent entre.
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