Faber is set to publish Arcadia, a new novel by Iain Pears. Involving a multi-layered story of history and time, it is conceived and written for digital publication and will be first released in a purpose-built app for mobile devices built by Faber and Iain Pears in partnership.
According to Faber, the novel’s characters’ lives will intersect in vivid ‘time-slip’ stories. As it mixes genres, periods and styles it can be read as a traditional linear story or episodically – reading and omitting sections as they choose. It is hoped that these different ways of reading will result in different relationships between characters and a variation in the way that stories can be told.
Iain Pears says: “Arcadia is, first and foremost, a story. But to work it needs the flexibility which only a digital format can provide.’
Faber’s Head of Faber Digital, Henry Volans is keen to stress that Iain’s project is not simply digital for the sake of it. “Instead it enables Iain to tell stories as he has always wished to do. More than anything we’ve seen, Arcadia is a natively digital novel in how it is written, edited and read. It is exactly what we at Faber have been looking for.”
The digital book will launch in autumn 2013, with a special print version and ebook editions set for release in spring 2014.