Monthly Archive for May, 2010

Now that the iPad is out, publishers and developers are rushing to be the first to come out with multimedia e-books like the now-famous app, The Elements, and the interactive Alice in Wonderland iPad e-book. Today I’m reviewing the iNecronomicon, which is probably the greatest technological advance in necromancy since the “Mad Arab” Abdul Alhazred himself started transcribing the buzzing and croakings of insects to create the original document.

I’m not going to get into what the Necronomicon is. It’s one of those subjects where if you have to ask, you don’t want to know. Let’s just say that anybody who might have a real use for it is someone you would probably want to avoid. The book is sought out by powerful cultists, the fatally curious, the dangerously insane, and the criminally stupid.

The publisher, now-defunct Voynich Press, proudly noted that the iNecronomicon made it through the Apple Store approval process on the first try, because there was nothing there that violated Apple’s terms and conditions. To download it, however, you have to call a phone number and find out where in the Apple Store it has been hidden. Then you have to pay $3000 to download and install it. The publisher claims that they made the fee this high so that the book won’t be downloaded for laughs by drunk college students. I say three thousand clams is cheap for a book that a person used to have to murder someone to get their hands on.

No need for that here: Voynich Press sent me an iPad pre-loaded with a review copy (please see my disclosure policy). I suspect that they found themselves forced to contact me because my supernatural status allows me to peruse a document like this without risking my life or sanity (see the list of possible side-effects at the end of this article).

An Interactive Masterpiece

As mentioned before, the publisher has, of course, gone bankrupt. When embarking on a project such as this, you have to realize that you’ll attract more ancient curses than a mummy expedition. My questions about the translator of the text were left discreetly unanswered, but I was told that Voynich press took great pains to protect the people who worked on it. Tasks were broken out in the style of how the Manhattan Project was completed, where each person only worked on a piece of the project and none were exposed to the whole. Still, they lost no less than nine staff members to freak accidents, madness, criminal insanity, suicide, and a never-before-seen incurable rotting disease. Of these nine, two are still at large. At some point in the production of the book, a specialist had to be brought in to remove a giant cocoon from the editor’s house. It was discovered hanging from the rafters in his attic, and was so large that they had no choice but to remove it in pieces.

First Incident

While I may be immune to the effects of the text, there were still some strange goings-on while I had it. Despite the fact that it locks, and a password is required to open it, I was dismayed to find on a few occasions that the iNecronomicon had opened by itself. Once, I entered the room to find a giant eye gazing out of the iPad, and on another occasion, a huge tongue was curling up out of it. Also, during the time that I was working on this review, several items around my attic disappeared, including a just-brewed hot pot of lotus green tea, an out-of-print copy of Sanshiro by Natsume Soseki, and an ancient stuffed animal.

Second Incident

The good news is that this is a Necronomicon that a child could use. The bad news is that this is a Necronomicon that a child could use. The illustrations are hair-raising, and the text has been completely re-translated from a recently rediscovered Arabic original in San Francisco which scholars had thought had been lost in a fire. Also included are notes from Elizabethan magician John Dee, who created an earlier, infamous English translation of the tome.

The e-book is highly interactive. With a finger tip, the explorer can pour virtual elixirs, stoke virtual fires, awaken virtual Old Ones, crush virtual ghosts, and open virtual doors. A marvelously executed special feature allows the reader to scrawl unintelligible remarks over any section of text, or, should the reader feel moved to do so, scratch the eyes out of any of the illustrations. Tilting, shaking, swiping, and pinching all have their own effects on different pages, and it is easy to get lost in the deep, blindingly blank, and horrifying labyrinth that is the iNecronomicon.

Creepy Factor: 4 out of 5
Suspense Factor: 5 out of 5
Weird Erotic Tension Factor: 6 out of 5
Funny and/or Strange Factor: 5 out of 5

Final result: All the diligent and hair-raising work was worth it, and Voynich Press has truly and absolutely done The Unthinkable. This contribution to death alchemy will go down in history not as a mere smudge, but instead as a blight on the face of the Earth that may never be healed and could consume us all. If it weren’t for the unreliable locking mechanism, I would give the iNecronomicon for the iPad 5 out of 5 stars.

Indications and Warnings: This book is not recommended for use by children, persons with weak minds, groups of teenagers at remote cabins, or women who are pregnant or nursing. Side effects may include, but are not limited to, the following: temporary or permanent blindness, insomnia, epilepsy, heart murmurs from inside your floor, permanent full or partial paralysis, irreversible loss of good grooming habits, mind control relapse, loss of self, premature aging, explosive blossoming, insanity, madness, manic depressive disorder, multiple personality disorder, sudden organ rejection, spontaneous combustion, peter pan syndrome, and various uncontrollable compulsions such as stamp licking, nail hammering, child kicking, yammering and swearing, and playing the blues like you made a deal with the devil himself.