In the Media

Desi author does a King on the Net - Economic Times

Our Hyderabad Bureau, Sept 25: If STEPHEN King could do it so could our very own desi Kings. And proving the point, V Amareswara Rao, an author of 45 novels and sundry movie scripts, has put his novel Beautiful Enemy on the web.

The difference being that Mr Rao goes a step ahead and claims his maiden venture on the Net will an 'interactive e-novel'.

And to top it, unlike the King he is imitating, Mr Rao is dishing it all out for free.

Mr Rao's serial will be published on the Net in English, Hindi and Telugu for the next 20 weeks, a release by Ardent Citylink Services, the company hosting the website said on Monday.

What's more, readers can name the characters, choose the direction of the story or catch on to different storylines anytime. In this first-of-its-kind novel, readers can specify up to four character names such as hero, heroine, villain and villainess, and the system remembers these names and uses them throughout the novel.

An additional feature being provided by Mr Rao is the facility to download one picture per character for display in the online album while you read the novel. If you have broken off in the middle of a chapter the site will automatically mark your page so that the next time you log on to the location, you will be guided to where you left off the last time.

Unlike traditional novels, the reader will be given an opportunity, in the middle of the story, to choose the direction or plot. A completely different story appears on the direction chosen.

Each story page contains context-sensitive artworks exclusively drawn by the author himself.

To make it a real Internet novel, most of the story pages contain hyperlinks to other Internet sites based on the story on that page.

After reading the final chapter, readers can request for a PDF version of the novel to be delivered with the character names chosen by the reader. With all this being dished out free of cost, the moot question however is whether Mr Rao will able to complete his pot-boiler or will he leave it with a suspense thriller?

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