Rosemary Sutcliff’s children’s books, perhaps including The Eagle of the Ninth, were loved by journalist Naomi Alderman when she was in the Puffin club. In the Guardian newspaper today she writes about interactive fiction. “As a child, all I wanted was to walk into my favourite stories; interactive fiction is making that possible”.  Serious novelists, she notes, are now creating games with story and text.

“The first time I saw someone playing a computer game was around 1981, at the Puffin Club expo. The hall was filled with stands for my favourite authors – Joan Aiken, Rosemary Sutcliff, Lucy Boston – but the biggest queue was for the bank of computers where children took 10-minute turns playing a ‘text adventure’ …

… Novels and computer games occupy different ends of the cultural spectrum, but have in common the creation of imaginary worlds that beckon us to enter. “

Source: Technology | The Guardian.