Okay, so, to explain the cool thing that happened to me this week, I'm going to have to give some backstory for new readers, backstory which of course regular readers will know already. So, I hope my old-skool readers will forgive me for boring them with the first third of today's entry...

Back in the summer of 2001, I and many others became obsessed with this online murder-mystery game that refused to acknowledge that it was a game, much less who was behind it; it had no official name as a result, of course, although was mostly known as "Who Killed Evan Chan?" by the solvers and "The Beast" by the people who were putting it together. (It's also sometimes known as "The Cloudmakers," after the group of people who banded together back then to try to solve it collectively.) And this was in fact a game to promote the Stephen Spielberg movie A.I., and all started when a number of unrelated geeks around the country were watching the movie's trailer, and noticed a person credited for a real position that sounded like science-fiction (like "Artificial Intelligence Psychiatrist" or something like that), named Evan Chan.

So if you looked up his name at Google, it turned out, it brought you to a "staff page" at a fake website for a fake university obviously from the future, but damn if the website didn't look real, all the way down to just dozens of pages actually being programmed. And there it listed a real phone number for Chan's supposed office, and if you actually called it, you got an answering machine message about how Chan had just been killed the weekend before, along with yet more tantalizing clues to where you might seek more info. And then this just led you deeper and deeper into this infintely complex rabbithole of "fake real" information (including fax numbers you could subscribe to, emailing lists, even physical get-togethers in half a dozen cities, where they gave out free drinks and passed out A.I. schwag).

Even more amazing to me, though, was just the sheer lengths this shadowy team had gone to to create fake material on the web that looked real, and to hide all the supergeek ways possible to deduce their real identities. I mean, the fake website from the radical fringe group looked like a website from a radial fringe group - not like what you see from a lot of cheap viral ad campaigns, where a slick Flash site has been doctored up to look cheap and radical. Their radical fringe website actually was created using WebTV, like all thosse fuckin' loons at radical fringe websites do; and with horrible colors picked, like bright green text on a black background, and of course with everything written in all capital letters, and the whole thing littered with cheap-looking public-domain animated-GIF clip art, American flags endlessly blowing in the wind and torch fires endlessly flickering upwards. And all the other fake websites associated with the game were like this as well - the fake academic website looked like an academic website, the corporate site looked like a corporate site, the robot prostitute site looked like a prostitute site. And if that group was supposedly based in another country, the game's creators actually registered the site in that country, under the character's name, so that even a "WHOIS" lookup wouldn't reveal the truth.

And a big part of why this fascinated me so much, of course, is that I've been writing non-linear fiction (also known as hyperfiction) for many years myself. And man, I would kill to have the resources to pull off such a grand project myself - with dozens of programmers and actors and multimedia specialists involved, all of them smart enough to understand how to pull it off, with the money allocated for movie shoots and dozens of fake websites, classified ads in paper newspapers, even a fake press conference where Spielberg himself passed out another clue to reporters. Dude! Who could this shadowy organization behind this game possibly be? Who exactly is the one piecing together this extremely complicated plot to begin with, one that requires a collective knowledge of such things as quantum mechanics, Latin and theoretical math to solve? And for fuck's sake, how do I get a job with them?

Because I should mention, see, that I've had this flirtation with the videogame industry a number of times myself over the years when it comes to this subject, and in fact it's a big dream of mine to someday actually get paid to be the puppetmaster behind one of these projects myself. (In fact, back in 1998 I actually got invited to pitch a project idea to some people at Capcom, who are based here in Chicago and who I knew through the poetry scene; they rejected my idea, but it was a cool experience nonetheless.) And this is really what became my dual obsession with the Evan Chan game, I guess; not just the infinitely complex details of the game itself, but also what the hell kind of brilliant ad agency could be behind such a game, and how a writer with hyperfiction experience could come to their attention. And if I could figure this out, maybe I could come to the attention of a massively multiplayer virtual online environment (you know, one of those "Second Life" or "Sims" type games) at the startup level, months before they're set to open and when they're simply looking for talented writers. 'Cause Good Lord, how much would I rather do that with my time these days than go back to being a secretary or executive assistant? Or a copywriter, for that matter?

So then four years went by and I never did find out who was behind it all, although I heard some executives at Microsoft were administering all the details (shooting the video, registering the fake websites, etc). And then just two weeks ago I finally got my answer, because of a news article in either the New York Times or CNET: it was a marketing agency called 42 Media, who in fact specialize in such weird-ass campaigns, and the puppetmaster was none other than a cutting-edge mid-career science-fiction novelist named Sean Stewart.

And this of course thrilled me to no end, because it confirmed the pipe dream I had been holding onto for four years - that a daring, cutting-edge novelist could in fact come to attention of such an agency, and get whisked off without much commercial experience into a project as cool as this. But then of course the original question still remains - of how Stewart came to the attention of this agency to begin with. Was he a traditional copywriter already, like I've had experiences with as well? Did he go to college with one of the founders? Do their kids go to school together? Is it the novels that are in fact his part-time work, with him actually more into business writing than I realized?

And so just completely and utterly on a whim, I decided to drop Stewart a line over the holidays, and see if it would actually get to him, much less if he might take a few minutes to answer some of these questions I just detailed. And lo and behold, not only did he write back, but we formed this ongoing correspondence over a couple of days where he answered all kinds of questions I had about the subject, and gave just some of the more fascinating stories I've heard in years about how he got involved with all of this stuff himself. (Well, that and I pieced some of it together from the things he says at his personal website.) And yeah, I know, I don't know why I'm always so shocked when something like this happens; I try myself, after all, to respond to all emails I get because of my writing, although that's been tougher this year because of an increased amount of letters, mostly I think because of the general rise in popularity all blogs are experiencing right now. And this is no big deal to me, to tell you the truth, because I honestly love hearing from readers, and am always happy to acknowledge that with at least a little "hey, thanks for your thoughts," so I don't know why it surprises me so much when other writers do it for me. But it does.

Oh, and man, there's such an interesting story about how Stewart got involved with The Beast in the first place. See, it turns out that Kathy Kennedy (Spielberg's producing partner) is in fact an obsessive fan of the super-duper SF author Neal Stephenson (as am I), and in fact owns the fabled film rights to his novel Snow Crash (which as SF fans know, has been in and out of development half a dozen times over the last decade, with no one knowing if it's ever going to get made into a damn film or not). So when she and Spielberg got this idea for this Evan Chan game, that was apparently one of the first things they did - call up Stephenson himself and originally offer him the chance to be the puppetmaster behind the whole thing. But Stephenson couldn't accept, of course, because he was in the middle of writing that fucking 3,000-page Baroque Cycle that he just recently finally finished. But it so happens that Stephenson is a big fan of Stewart's work, so on a whim himself said, "Why don't you ask him instead?" Which is what they did, which according to Stewart got him very excited, and so of course jumped at the chance at doing. And the relationship went so well, apparently, that Stewart's come on as an official senior writer for the agency, and has since had a heavy hand as well in that online "Halo 2" game that got so much press last year.

And you know, I'm not sure what exactly it is, but there's something that's been so gratifying about corresponding with Stewart this week, and hearing him talk so genuinely excitedly about his experiences working on the Evan Chan game - how he feels that it was literally a once-in-a-lifetime chance, how lucky he feels to have been a part of it. And I guess that's because it seems like such an exciting opportunity to me as well, and something I would so much like to have the chance to do too, so it's nice to hear someone in his position acknowledge that as well, and not be just some copywriting dope who's like, "Whatever, it was another assignment, I'm doing the new Burger King campaign right now and whatever."

And I should mention as well that this 42 Media agency behind it all sounds so fascinating, and I wish I knew more about them and what exactly makes them tick. One of the things Stewart admitted, for instance, was that 42's founder has this highly unusual approach to staffing - that for his agency's creative positions he specifically seeks academics, cutting-edge novelists and others who the rest of the ad industry never recruit - and Stewart made it sound as well that this guy does this for competitive reasons, because he understands how much better quality of campaigns they'll get from doing something like this, and how they get this whole pool of amazing talent as a result that none of their competitors realize even exist. And well...shit, how inspiring is that for a frustrated artist to hear (or fans of frustrated artists, for that matter)? I mean, obviously 42 Media is kicking major ass in their industry right now, collecting awards and generating the kind of insane attention that ad executives have wet dreams about; so maybe this will trickle down into the rest of that industry a bit, and more of these agencies will come knocking at the door of us non-linear writers. If nothing else, maybe I could actually start applying for jobs with startup MMORPGs without having my resume laughed at and wadded up into a little ball. Hmm...mmmaybe! And if nothing nothing else, it's at least inspiring to see one agency of this type actually be a success; that just like this arts center I'm trying to open in Chicago these days, these guys went into a traditional industry and dared to do things a radically different way than it was done before, were most probably laughed at by many for even attempting such a thing, and in time eventually proved them all wrong. I don't care if you're an arts collective or an ad agency or a, whatever, damn low-cost airline - it's always impressive, I think, to do things in a radically new, smart way and actually get away with it, and inspiring for all of us trying to do the same.

So needless to say, I'm happy to have a chance to publicly thank Mr. Stewart for so graciously corresponding with me this week, especially right in the middle of a holiday that he was obviously celebrating with his family. ("Oops, have to cut this short," one letter ended. "We're at the airport." Well damn, Sean, take care of your family's boarding passes before writing to a little dork like me!) It's something I always appreciate, which of course is why I try to do it myself when it comes to this site; and of course, as I'm always seeming to say this year, my apologies for it taking me so long to sometimes get back to all of you, and I hope you'll all continue dropping me a line anyway.