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We think of the "Landscape" of the WWW as being a material
metaphor for places we might know or visit. We have "addresses"
and "sites" and the Web is variously a "highway" and a
"multiverse." Spatial metaphors also abound in electronic literature.
Hypertext is called a "spatially organized text" and writers often
speak of the structure and layout of a piece. Libraries, too, where increasingly
the "books" are stored electronically in remote locations, may present
their virtual space as mapping an analogous, but quite real, cyberspace.
In earthly landscapes, though, we know there is a difference between the map
and the ground, between the travel brochure and the journey.
The Lore and Lay of E-land
reasseses the skills and attitudes we bring to the landscape of electronic
literature and publishing. Our role may have changed, in this virtual world,
from producers, keepers, and distributors of the texts, to risk-taking scouts,
explorers in the trackless wilderness.
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