In the year 1596, Anna is about to be burned at the stake. As the constable prepares to light the fire below her, she can do nothing but seek a solution in her own memory and imagination.

The Anachronist is a game in which you make choices that determine the outcome. By increasing Anna’s knowledge, you can create opportunities for her to act. By decreasing the entropy or disorder of the whole situation, you can raise the odds that the ending will be a happy one for all of the characters. If you try to conclude the story while knowledge is too low or entropy is too high, Anna will burn.

At the same time, The Anachronist is literary fiction. With as many words as a novel, it’s indebted to authors like Joyce, Borges, Calvino, and Pamuk. It uses modernist and post-modernist literary techniques–as well as an interactive format–to explore questions of perspective, historical change, and truth.

Emily Short writes:

The Anachronist is a Twine piece by Peter Levine. It’s long, and paced like a novel rather than like a short story or a poem; it very much belongs to the category of readerly IF [Interactive Fiction]. …

As for what it’s about, that is a little more difficult to describe. The protagonist is being burned at the stake in 1598 (perhaps), but in the moment that she stands in the flame, her mind wanders. She imagines her surroundings in Oxford, or possibly a painting of her surroundings; she thinks about alchemy, the art of memory, the intellectual commitments of a former teacher.

Your task is an abstract one, to do things that globally increase knowledge or decrease entropy. Part of the gameplay involves recognizing and selecting anachronistic references; those links aren’t highlighted for you, but if you succeed in finding something, that counts against entropy.

The knowledge aspect is a little trickier. Most of the choices at least in the early stages of the story are choices either to look more closely at some aspect of the world or else to move onward. My impression was that looking more closely would often increase knowledge, but I’m not certain how consistently that was applied. Some choices overtly claim to have changed your knowledge/entropy status, but I’m not sure that there aren’t other, covert alterations.

I have not yet had the time to read the whole thing. One of the themes so far is a meditation on cultural contact, on how people portray and understand those from other cultures. But that is definitely not the only thing going on, and I’d need to finish the piece in order to say much more.

It’s been online for about three weeks. Some other early readers’ responses are here. Or click to enter the world of The Anachronist.

Bertolt Brecht, An die Nachgeborenen (1939), in my translation from the very simple and direct German.

I

Truly I live in dark times!
A sincere word is folly. A smooth forehead
Indicates insensitivity. If you’re laughing,
You haven’t heard
The bad news yet.

What are these times, when
A conversation about trees is almost a crime
Because it implies silence about so many misdeeds,
When, if you’re calmly crossing the street,
It means your friends can’t reach you
Who are in need?

It’s true: I earn a living.
But believe me, that’s just a coincidence. Nothing
of what I do entitles me to eat my fill.
It’s a coincidence that I am spared. (If my luck stops, I’m lost.)

They tell me: eat and drink! Be glad that you did!
But how can I eat and drink if
What I eat is snatched from the hungry,
My glass of water from someone dying of thirst?
And yet I eat and drink.

I would like to be wise.
The old books say what wisdom is:
To shun the strife of the world and spend the short time
You’ve got without fear.
Do without violence.
Return good for evil.
Not fulfilling desires but forgetting
Counts as wisdom.
I can’t do any of that:
Truly I live in dark times!

II

I came to the cities in a time of disorder.
When famine ruled.
I came among the people in a time of turmoil
And I rebelled with them.
So the time passed
That was given me on earth.

I ate my food between slaughters.
Murder lay over my sleep.
I loved carelessly
And I looked upon nature with impatience.
So the time passed
That was given me on earth.

In my time, roads led into the swamp.
Speech betrayed me to the slaughterer.
I could do very little. But without me,
Rulers would have sat more securely, or so I hoped.
So the time passed
That was given me on earth.

Energies were low. The goal
Was far in the distance,
Clearly visible, though for me
Hard to reach.
So the time passed
That was given me on earth.

III

You who you will emerge from the flood
In which we have sunk,
Think
When you speak of our weaknesses
And of the dark time
That you have escaped.

For we went, changing countries more often than shoes,
In class wars, desperate
When there was only injustice and no outrage.

This we knew:
Even hatred of humiliation
Distorts the features.
Even anger against injustice
Makes the voice hoarse. Oh, we
Who wanted to prepare the ground for friendliness
Could not ourselves be kind.

But you, when
one can help another,
Think of us
Forgivingly.

(Originally posted in 2014.)

1.

The sidewalk is significant.
Its ridges hamper wheels,
Its cracks harbor meadows
And little things with wills.
It is safe–the street, maleficent.
It is hard–it doles out blows.

2.

The sidewalk barely registers:
Eyes on faces, signs, and lights.
Can you say what bore your shoefalls
As you strode down streets and flights?
Thoughts on larger characters,
You miss the fragile kid who falls.

3.

When that child belongs to you, though,
Down you’ll stoop to scoop her up.
For you again it matters that
A stick is in a cup.
Significant is the crust of snow
And sun stripes on the cat.

Agamemnon is like: I can’t believe we’re still stuck in this place. I am totally tired of waiting around for wind. I’m going to sacrifice my youngest kid to Artemis. Tell her it’s her wedding, she can marry that musclehead Achilles.

Cassandra to Iphigenia: Um, I wouldn’t go to your dad’s if I were you.

Agamemnon is all set to slaughter Iphigenia. But Artemis is like: JK, you can kill this deer instead and I’ll teleport Iphigenia to chill with the Taurians for a while. Just don’t tell anyone.

Electra: Orestes, did you hear what Dad did? He killed Iphigenia and now he’s like blatantly hooking up with Cassandra, who’s the most annoying prophetess ever and like half his age. Mom is having a fit!

Orestes is like: Dad, WTF? You sacrificed Iphigenia just so you could go on a trip?

Enter Clytemnestra, who is is like: Kids, chill, I’ll take care of it. Agamemnon, honey, come inside and take a bath. Your girlfriend can wait here.

Cassandra to Agamemnon: I wouldn’t go in there if I were you.

Clytemnestra to Agamemnon: Here we go, get in the tub. [Stab, stab, stab.]

Cassandra is like: I told him. This family never pays attention to me.

Orestes is like: OMG, what am I going to do? If I don’t revenge Dad, the whole entire House of Atreus will look, like, totally lame. But you’re not supposed to like kill your own mother, are you?

Electra is like: Um, Iphigenia was stupid anyway? I totally would have sacrificed her to Artemis if I’d been in Dad’s situation. Mom overreacted as usual. I hate her. [Exits, slouching.]

[Orestes slays Clytemnestra.]

Chorus of Boeotian Fisherwives: OMG! OMG! Life totally sucks for these guys!

[The trial of Orestes]

Bailiff: In the case of People v. Orestes Son of Agamemnon Son of Atreus, the defense has rested. Jury, how find you?

Furies: Guilty! Let us hound him to hell!

Various respectable Athenians: On account of the defendant’s dysfunctional home environment, we recommend counseling in lieu of human sacrifice and damnation.

Athena: The jury is split 50/50. Let the defendant go.

Furies: We’ll hound him anyway!

[Iphigenia in Tauris]

Iphigenia is like: I am so glad I don’t have to live in stupid old Greece anymore. Dad was so typical–ready to kill me just to go sailing. I can’t understand a word these barbarians say but they are so cool. If any Greeks show up, I’ll sacrifice them!

[Enter Orestes and Pylades, in chains, pursued by Furies.]

Iphigenia is like: Look, here come two Greek dorks now! Get them ready for the sacrifice. I am like totally up for cutting those two dudes’ throats.

Orestes is like: Um, Iphigenia? I’m, like, your long-lost brother?

Iphigenia is like: Oh yeah, look at you. What was I thinking–sacrificing you guys, hahaha. Let’s all escape from this place. Your boyfriend can come, too. I am totally ready to go home to Greece.

[Orestes rules justly for many years and then goes to hell with the Furies like everyone else.]