IF/static fiction crossover authors?

Max Gladstone was a XYZZY nominee for Best Setting and Best NPCs this year, and he’s also a Hugo nominee (for the second time) for the John W. Campbell award for Best New Writer. Which is kind of awesome, and I’m pretty sure it’s a first.

I was trying to think of other authors who are significantly active/successful in both static and interactive fiction, and the only two I can think of are Douglas Adams and Jim Aiken. I feel like I must be missing a bunch of names.

Who else fits this description?

Yoon Ha Lee. Alan DeNiro. Chrysoula Tsavelas. Dunno if Robert Pinsky counts.

Adam Cadre published a novel, too, although he’s mostly in screenwriting at the moment.

Mike Berlyn wrote a few SF novels in the 80s, although they aren’t much remembered.

Heather Albano has self-published some novels; I don’t know how well that’s doing. Same goes for Dan Ravipinto.

Robert Pinsky, Thomas Disch, George Alec Effinger – back in classical times.

There was of course Legend’s series of literary graphical adventures – Gateway, Xanth, Callahan’s, Death Gate, Shannara, Wheel of Time. You’d have to investigate how much any of those big-name authors were involved in the game development, though.

I’m kind of surprised there aren’t a lot more F/SF authors doing IF right now to be honest, but I guess it depends on how you define it. I feel like the AAA narrative game to static fiction crossover scene might be a lot more active.

I wrote a novel noone wants to publish. I don’t know if that counts.
I’ve self published it in Amazon and a printing-site here in Italy. With disastrous outcome, I must admit.

Jimmy Maher’s ongoing history of IF in his blog has touched this subject, for anyone interested. And if you’re not, it’s still a great read. Mostly he speaks in the context of Infocom and “Electronic Novels” both sharing a dream of bringing literature to IF, and in one memorably disastrous result, in Infocom, apparently finding a nameless SF writer huddled up under his desk, whipped into submission by ZIL and the complexities of actually writing interactive, dynamic fiction.

Didn’t Chris Paolini post a simple I6 game once?

The Eragon game? Certainly simple, and if I didn’t know, I’d have never guessed it was penned by an actual author.

The only game I’ve played so far where it was CLEAR to me that the writer was a professional and an amazingly good one at that was AMNESIA. Mind, I’ve yet to play Mindwheel, HHGG, and a few others. And we have no shortage of very good writers in our midst who happen not to be novelists (and some who do have published works, and we just keep thinking of them as IF authors rather than static ficion authors). But of the ones I’ve played, and limiting ourselves to our popular perception of “novelists” (published books, recognisable names, hopefully translated paperbacks/hardcovers/essays in other languages) AMNESIA definitely stood out, until the simulationism kicked in.

I guess I should mention Austin Grossman, who has script-writing credits on several AAA games (Deus Ex, a couple of Thief and Tomb Raider titles, Dishonored) and has also published two novels. (The second is about a videogame designer. I haven’t read it – too close to home.)

I agree there must be a lot more people who have that kind of crossover. They generally don’t get marquee credits on the game box, so it’s hard to list cases.

Jon Ingold’s published several stories. Jim Munroe’s also published some novels (with big publishing houses). though like Cadre he’s more doing movies now; his bio begins “I’m Jim Munroe, a novelist who stopped publishing with HarperCollins to showcase and propagate indie culture alternatives to Rupert Murdoch-style consolidation.”

Eric Mayer (The Thorn, HeBGB Horror) has written mystery novels with Mary Reed.

As someone who aspires to have a publishing career, I used to find it very hard to justify to myself spending time writing IF when I could be working on static fiction that might get published and get me paid. I’m sure that’s why I took about a 10 year break from writing any IF at all. I’m starting to figure out ways of getting back into it these days, which I’m glad about.

This thread has listed a number of IF titles for which the author got paid.

True: I wasn’t saying nobody could get paid for IF–just that I couldn’t! Of course I don’t get paid often or much for static fiction either.

Thanks for the info, everyone! I knew I was missing a lot of examples.

Also, I remember seeing Rob Dubbin’s name as a writer for the Colbert Report. I’m not sure if TV writing is in the scope of the original question, but it’s still Kind of Big.

It’s been alluded to, but not outright said in this thread; Douglas Adams wrote Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the game, and Bureaucracy and Starship Titanic. He’s definitely a Big Name.

That’s likely because he was one of the first two authors I named. I wouldn’t forget him!

I believe the creator of Black Crown on Storynexus is with Random House.