Penguin's foray into online narrative,

We Tell Stories, would impress me more if Chapter 1 of the very first story, The 21 Steps by Charles Cumming, didn't begin with the tired cliché 'I was the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time.' But keep an eye on the project, it's one step, if not twenty-one, in the right direction.

Sometimes I do wonder if editors assume that online readers are literary dolts. Cumming's story is nearly as leaden as Buchan's original but even as satire would hardly work. And frankly, the map interface is just plain tedious.

Update: Apparently there are some clues I've missed, which nevertheless doesn't change my opinion of the writing or the story. And there are undoubtedly more thrilling - and more aesthetically stimulating - ARGs out there.