Cybertext explores the aesthetics and the textual dynamics of digital literature and its many diverse genres such as hypertext fiction, computer games, computer generated poetry and prose, and collaborative Internet texts such as MUDs. However, instead of insisting on the uniqueness and newness of "electronic writing" or "interactive fiction" (phrases which mean very little) the author situates these new literary forms within the larger and much older field of "ergodic" literature, from the ancient Chinese I Ching to the literary experiments of the OuLiPo. These are open, dynamic texts where the reader must perform specific actions to generate a literary sequence, which may vary for every reading.
Aarseth constructs a theoretical model that describes how these literary forms are different from each other, and demonstrates how the widely assumed divide between paper texts and electronic texts breaks down under careful analysis. He then confronts literary theories of narrative, semiotics and rhetoric with the new empirical field of ergodic literature, and examines the problems and potential usefulness of applying these theories on material for which they were not intended.
Horn highlights all the things you can expect to happen in an online community--thoughtful discussion, irreverent play, unabashed libido--and all the personalities you can expect to find--the clowns, the humorless, and the total jerks. In her personal style, Horn talks about what it is like to be a part of such a community both as a participant and as the person responsible for running it. She chats about how it looks and feels to judge whether a user should be banned or to introduce a celebrity like John F. Kennedy Jr. to the ranks. Horn also fills the book with excerpts from users' posts--many of them an excellent example of the bright banter that takes place when conferencing is going well.
Although Horn expounds on her own views on cybercommunity, she does so without pretense or pomposity. These are clearly personal views born of her experience and, even at her most forceful, Horn maintains a style that discourages readers from taking her discourse as The One Truth. Instead her writing shares the online world she's helped build and loves. Horn's personal tour of one small town in cyberspace has all the drama and humor of real humans interacting.