Hao Jingfang, who won the last year's Hugo Award, has released a piece of interactive fiction she composed with five other authors in Shanghai.
The story,"The Beginning of Han," was uploaded to an interactive literature website qiaobooks.com late last week. It cost 9.9 yuan (about 1.4 U.S. dollars) to read.
With 400,000 characters, it is about Liu Bang, founder of the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC - 24 AD). Through different option, readers can find their way to nearly 50 endings.
"Interactive literature is increasingly accepted by readers," Hao said. "While we are talking about different possibilities, we acquire new knowledge."
Hao won the Hugo Award with "Folding Beijing" in the category of best novelette at the 74th World Science Fiction Convention. She plans to donate the gains from the new fiction to a welfare project in Tibet.
The writer said she is interested in an earlier dynasty, the Qin (221 - 207 BC), and did not rule out the possibility of writing another interactive fiction based on that history.
