The Well of Lost Plots (Thursday Next 3)

'Yes,' said the Bellman with a resigned air, 'I know they'll never be exactly the same but with a bit of luck we should be okay; no one in the Outland noticed when David Copperfield was replaced, now, did they?'

No one said anything.

'Good. Item seven. As you know, I am retiring in two weeks' time and the Council of Genres will need a replacement Bellman. All nominations are to be given direct to the Council for consideration.'

He paused again.

'Item eight. As you all know, Text Grand Central have been working on an upgrade to the Book Operating System for the last fifty years—'

There was a groan from the assembled agents. Clearly this was a matter of some contention. Snell had explained about the ImaginoTransference technology behind books in general, but I had no idea how it worked. Still don't, as a matter of fact.

'Do you know what happened when they tried to upgrade SCROLL?' said Bradshaw. 'The system conflict wiped the entire library at Alexandria – they had to torch the lot to stop it spreading.'

'We knew a lot less about operating systems then, Commander,' replied the Bellman in a soothing voice, 'and you can rest assured that early upgrading problems have not been ignored. Many of us have reservations about the standard version of BOOK that all our beloved works are recorded in, and I think the latest upgrade to BOOK V9 is something that we should all welcome.'

No one said anything. He had our attention.

'Good. Well, I could rabbit on all day but I really feel that it would be better to let WordMaster Libris, all the way from Text Grand Central, tell you the full story. Xavier?'

11

Introducing UltraWord™

* * *

"… First there was OralTrad, upgraded ten thousand years later by the rhyming (for easier recall) OralTradPlus. For thousands of years this was the only Story Operating System and it is still in use today. The system branched in two about twenty thousand years ago; on one side with CaveDaubPro (forerunner of PaintPlusV2.3, GrecianUrnV1.2, SculptMarble V1.4, and the latest, all-encompassing SuperArtisticExpression-5). The other strand, the Picto-Phonetic Storytelling Systems, started with ClayTablet V2.1 and went through several competing systems (WaxTablet, Papyrus, VellumPlus) before merging into the award-winning SCROLL, which was upgraded eight times to V3.5 before being swept aside by the all-new and clearly superior BOOK V1. Stable, easy to store and transport, compact and with a workable index, BOOK has led the way for nearly eighteen hundred years …'

WORDMASTER XAVIER LIBRIS –

Story Operating Systems – The Early Years

A small and rather pallid-looking man took his position on the dais; he could only just see over the lectern. He wore a white short-sleeved shirt and was almost weighed down by the number of pens in his top pocket. We all took a seat and gazed at him with interest; UltraWord™ had been the talk of the Well for ages and everyone was keen to learn whether the rumours of its technical virtuosity were true.

'Good morning, everyone,' began

Libris in a nervous voice. 'Over the next thirty minutes I will try and explain a little about our latest operating system: BOOK Version 9, which we have code-named UltraWord™.'

There was silence as the agents mulled this over. I got the feeling in that this was not just important but really important. Like being at the signing of a peace accord or something. Even Bradshaw, who was no fan of technology, was leaning forward and listening with interest, a frown etched on his forehead.

Libris pulled the first sheet off a flipchart. There was a picture of an old book.

'Well,' he began, 'when we first came up with the "page" concept in BOOK V1 we thought we'd reached the zenith of story containment – compact, easy to read and, by using integrated PageNumber™ and SpineTitle™ technologies, we had a system of indexing far superior to anything SCROLL could offer. Over the years—'

Here he flipped the chart over to show us varying styles of books through the ages.

'—we have been refining the BOOK system. Illustrations were the first upgrade at 1.1, standardised spelling at V3.1 and vowel and irregular verb stability in V4.2. Today we use BOOK V8.3, one of the most stable and complex ImaginoTransference technologies ever devised – the smooth transfer of the written word into the reader's imagination has never been faster.'

He stopped for a moment. We all knew that BOOK V8.3 was excellent; apart from a few typos that crept in and the variable quality of stories – neither of which was the system's fault – it was good, very good indeed.

'Constructing the books down in the sub-basements, although time consuming, seems to work well, even if it is a little chaotic.'

There were murmurs of agreement from the assembled agents; it was clear that no one much liked it down there.

'But,' went on Libris, 'endlessly recycling old ideas might not hold the reader's attention for that much longer – the Council of Genres' own market research seems to indicate that readers are becoming bored with the sameness of plot lines.'

'I think it's already happened,' said the Bellman, then checked himself quickly, apologised for the interruption and let Libris carry on.

'But,' continued Libris, 'to understand the problem we need a bit of history. When we first devised the BOOK system eighteen hundred years ago, we designed it mainly to record events – we never thought there would be such a demand for story. By the tenth century story usage was so low that we still had enough new plots to last over a thousand years. By the time the seventeenth century arrived this had lowered to six hundred – but there was still no real cause for worry. Then, something happened that stretched the operating system to the limit.'