Level 26: Dark Origins

Level 26: Dark Origins is the ‘first ever Digi-Novel’ by CSI creator Anthony E. Zuiker.

What, praytell is a digi-novel, I hear you ask? This is a very good question. The basic idea is that you have this book, right? And you have this website, right? And as you read this book, when you get certain parts it gives you this code, and you go to the website and enter the code to unlock a little video thing that continues the story from where you left off. Then when that’s over you go back to the book and read some more, ’til the next cyber-bridge, when you log on to the site and enter the code and watch some more of the story.

Exciting.

No really, this is a really awesome concept. Really, really, awesome. Really, really, really, really, really, awesome.

For real.

I quite enjoyed the story. It’s pretty well-written, and it’s disturbing, and creepy, and sad, and everything you could hope for in a book about a serial killer who’s been at it for decades and who is pretty much impossible to catch.

That’s pretty much a real general idea of the story. Sqweegel is this serial killer guy who transcends all other serial killers. He has been killing people for years, and has never come close to being caught. Until Steve Dark comes on the case. Dark comes closer than anyone else before him to putting a bullet in Sqweegel, but unfortunately things go terribly, terribly wrong and he ends up giving up on catching the monster. Now, a few years later, Sqweegel has been promoted to a level 26 killer, the only one of his kind, and the Special Circumstances department of the US Government’s only hope of catching him is to convince Steve Dark to come back to his job and finish what he started.

Some stuff happens and some people die.

Like I said, I really enjoyed it, but the cyber-bridges left something to be desired. They felt kind of disconnected from the story that was going on in the book. Like, they were cool and all, but only a couple of them felt like actual extensions of the book, and only another couple were really that fantastic. Snails was my favorite, all creepy and disturbing and stuff.

I think that Level 26 a great idea, and this book is pretty well done, but if they wanted to expand this idea to its full potential, the cyber-bridges should have been a bit more important to the plot. As it is now, there’s really no reason to watch them as you read the book, other than for curiosity’s sake. They don’t really stand alone all that well, although some of them are kind of entertaining, and having to stop reading the book to get to the computer kinda took me out of it a bit. And pretty much everything that happens in the videos is just described in the next chapter of the book, anyway, so you’re pretty much experiencing the same thing twice…

And as for the being-pulled-out-of-it-to-go-to-the-computer-thing, I know that lots of people on the site were saying that it’s completely fine to just read through the bridges and watch them later, which I normally probably would have done. But I wanted to do it as it was meant to be done. Kinda like watching all the Star Wars films in order from I-VI to see if that somehow makes the prequels better than they actually are.

I really liked the contortionist playing Sqweegel too. I thought that was a nice touch, because contortionism is kinda creepy as is, but a contortionist serial killer? Downright frightening. The problem is that sometimes the contortionality just kinda comes off as comical, rather than creepifying and scary.

People were talking about glaring continuity gaps between the book and the videos, but to be completely honest, I mostly didn’t notice, and when I did it just wasn’t that big of a deal. It’s pretty easy to deal with.

So, anyway, my final declaration is that Level 26: Dark Origins is a really good book, and while the video cyber-bridges leave a bit to be desired, the overall experience was entertaining and I would definitely recommend it.

I hope that the cyber-bridge videos are a bit better for the next book, and that they are more connected to the book and more important to following the story. As in, not having what you just watched described right away when you go back to reading. That seems kinda like saying that the videos are negligible, and if they are, then there’s just no point in having them.

Lastly, the title of the next book, Level 26: Doppelganger of Darkness… please change this. I do not want to go out into public and have to admit I’m reading a book called Doppelganger of Darkness. People will be all like, “Oh, I think my six year old’s reading that.”

I mean, it’s a fricken alliteration. Come on. No. Please no.

So yeah. Level 26: Dark Origins. Check it out, maybe.

-Ben

And some proof that this is actually me:

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