Steampunk and the Enhanced Ebook

To find an app/enhanced e-book to review, I wanted to start searching simply, since if I were trying to find one for my own personal enjoyment, I probably wouldn't go far out of my way to find one. On my iPad, I opened the app store and searched for "enhanced ebook". I found two enhanced ebooks, both free, one titled "The Witcher" and one titled "SteamHolmes".

I downloaded both, but I immediately went for "SteamHolmes", opening it first for the keyword, 'steam', which I assumed was a link to its genre, steampunk. For those of you who don't know and may be interested, steampunk is known as a genre similar to science fiction (or even a sub-genre within) science fiction. Wikipedia supplies a lovely definition here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk, however, I'll summarize by saying that steampunk usually has a setting within the future (distopian or post-apocalyptic), the technology is a mix between 'far-advanced' and 'steam powered', while also being within a 1800s to early 1900s Victorian or American Wild West style.

A few easy examples of the steam punk style are below:

-From the realm of film:

-And for novels:

 

Description of SteamPunk Holmes:

As far as content is concerned, "Steampunk Holmes: The Legacy of the Nautilus" is a novel, with eight chapters full of text, based on the evermore popular Sherlock Holmes universe created by Doyle. To base a new storyline off of Sherlock and his companions is a smart move as the Holmes universe is within the public domain and already has a following.

Along with an interesting storyline, Steampunk Holmes has interactive pages, full of drawings that react with movement and sound once you tap them, as well as a unique soundtrack that plays in the background of the novel. If you want, you can set the enhanced e-book up to play narrative (essentially an audio book component that reads the text aloud to you), the soundtrack and automatically turn the pages, so you can sit back, watch and listen to the novel without ever needing to swipe a page.

There are also basic e-book functionalities present, like bookmarking, fast scrolls, and menus. Other enhanced features include a map and interactive media galleries, including "tap to launch" links within the text that pop up the connected interactive media.

Published by Noble Beast LLC, a "transmedia publisher specializing in fiction of the fantastic"(Twitter: https://twitter.com/NobleBeastBooks, website: noblebeast.com), and written by P.C. Martin, Steampunk Holmes has both a connected Twitter feed (https://twitter.com/SteamHolmes) and website steampunkholmes.com. Both the websites for Noble Beast and SteamHolmes were down when I checked them, but Steampunk Holmes' Goodreads page is up (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13564369-steampunk-holmes), as is the author's (https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3521319.P_C_Martin), and it seems that Steampunk Holmes is P.C. Martin's first non-fiction novel.

Published in 2012, Steampunk Holmes won the "Best App-Adult Fiction" award for 2014.

Evaluation: 

I loved this enhanced e-book. I thought that the storyline was well written and the functionality was a perfect fit. The only things that I would improve would be better links to the websites and a more obvious connection to the author (I had to investigate for a bit to find the name P.C. Martin). 

Impact:

The application is free, but I would have been willing to pay $10-$15 dollars for this e-book. I think that this is a great model as far as enhanced e-books go, and it does well on the app market. As we have previously mentioned, enhanced e-books just 'make sense' for certain genre, like children's novels. I believe that the steam punk genre may be another natural fit. 

-Jones