Fluid (An Active Fiction Series)

by Travis Sentell

Product Description

Fluid is an "Active Fiction" title, a new type of e-book from Coliloquy. Readers have the freedom to choose 1 of over 500 possible pathways, influencing the thoughts and actions of key characters. But just as in real life, the choices you make are immutable and you must live with the consequences. You have only yourself to blame as the world burns or rejoices.

Chastity and Austin are two kids repeatedly thrown into contact with one another. Fate conspires to force them apart, time after time. When Austin is thrust into a job as the receptionist for Chastity's therapist, Dr. Abramson, the two undergo a series of regressions.

Dr. Abramson realizes that they have been struggling to find each other since the dawn of time. Life after life, their incarnations have experienced close encounters and torturous deaths. As God and the Devil watch and plot, the clock ticks. Nothing short of the end of all Creation is at stake.

Please note: Fluid contains content that may be inappropriate for children.

Product Details

• Version: 1.1 (What's new in version 1.1)
• Release Date: October 29, 2012
• File Size: 2.1 MB
• Language: English
• Publisher: Travis Sentell
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• ASIN: B00793C3K6
• Publisher License: Read
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #121,718 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An Exploration of Choice March 3, 2012

By James C. Aevaliotis

I found this book fascinating and enjoyable and frustrating (but in a great way). Sentell can clearly write. There are some phenomenally rendered characters (I particularly loved Bart, though each character has a distinct choice and their own arc). Sentell manages to make characters compelling and sympathetic without being cloying. He also brings humor to bear in a way that keeps things from getting precious. Plot and perspective also serve this story beautifully (and keep things interesting). We spend the book moving in and out of different perspectives, learning characters through their voice and their observations. Sentell also gives us important scenes (the first date for the book's most important characters, for instance) from new perspectives (the waiter in the restaurant where the first date goes horribly wrong).

These are all well-worn uses of novelistic form, though Sentell manages to marshall all these techniques to serve a new twist on an old idea: that humanity is pushed and pulled by larger forces. The big frame for the novel is a battle of good and evil and an exploration of free will. All the perspectival shifts serve the larger concept of cosmic battle and provide tantalizing hints of which force is pushing particular characters at particular times. Fluid is both a crucial metaphor for human susceptibility to bigger forces and one of the central forces of this story (there is a lot of rain in this book).

For all the ways in which Sentell is playing in well-known themes and ideas (free will, good versus evil, boy meets girl), he also takes seriously the notion of choice and malleability. Sentell seems to take both good and bad seriously and renders them both with care. It is in no way clear which will win, and the darker elements of story and character are so gleefully and effectively written that evil COULD actually win.

And this brings me to the most unique component of the experience of this book. Choice. From the very beginning, Sentell makes the reader decide how things unfold. The novel begins with a highly loaded question and a tough choice. And at key moments throughout the book, Sentell forces the reader to choose how the book proceeds. These are the moments that I found the most fascinating and frustrating. Sentell gives the reader perspective on both the human-scale story and the cosmic-scale story. It's not clear whether what's good for the humans is good for the cosmos. And because the reader has these broader perspectives I found each choice an excruciating exercise in deciding how to decide. Do I decide what the character does based on what I would do? On what I want for the character? On what I think I know of the cosmic struggle? On my gut instinct? It probably says more about me than anything else that gut instinct was my last choice. And by the time you've examined all the possible ways that one could make a decision is there such a thing as a gut instinct anymore?

For me, the experience of choice was where I felt I glimpsed what might fascinate Sentell in this. Each small choice is excruciating, and it's impossible to know how this choice effects future choices (even though we want to). And, worst and best of all, Sentell reminds us over and over again that we (and his characters) are making choices with the appearance of free will within a closed system. Are any of our choices really free if we don't know as much as the author knows? Can anyone know enough to make fully free choices? I felt invited into the vacillating uncertain mind of the novelist, which also happens to be a fascinating way to explore the question of free will.

I loved the experience of this book. It felt new and old at the same time, and used e-reader technology to fascinating effect. It is a bold experiment that manages to be accessible and enjoyable. This is a great success.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great books don't have to be published the old fashioned way anymore February 27, 2012

By E. Riebman

I could not stop reading this. FLUID is extraordinary and enthralling. The "Choose Your Own Adventure" concept drew me into the story and characters, and made me feel part of the book because at critical points in the story YOU choose what happens. It's a fascinating premise for a book that is so beautifully written, is fast paced and contains such an imaginative love story.

An early scene at a fast food drive-thru is fantastically original, jolting, and brilliant. After reading it, I could not put the book down. I'll also never look at a fast food drive through the same way again!

Anyone who has read Chuck Palahniuk's books will LOVE this. The writing is similarly graphic and engaging to books like Fight Club and Choke. In fact, one of the characters reminded me of the character in Choke. The language and rhythm of Sentell's writing is visceral and often grandiose even while the characters remain down to earth and real. Sentell is clearly working on many different levels as several different stories and characters become intertwined. FLUID felt a little like the movie Magnolia in that each character has their own interesting back-story and somehow they all come together as greater wordly connections and forces draw them together.

Sentell's style and sentence structure feels similar to Don DeLillo, one of the best writers of our time, in that each sentence is crafted with a rhythm and kind of poetry flows off the page. On the surface, the story is about two people coming together and falling in love, but there is SO MUCH else going on here. There is an ever-present subtext about the nature of free will, choice, religion, morality, etc.

I was blown away by the depth that this book has. While reading I couldn't help but feel it transcends this new interactive novel. It's not just a gimmick to get the reader involved in the story; it's actually a GREAT book!

I don't want to give anything away but it was really fun to read along with a friend and then compare how the story played out because everything in the story is the same; it's just that what happens to the characters or what they do is different for everyone. I could imagine this being REALLY great for book clubs, because it's a great book and everyone has their own experience reading it. FLUID goes to show that great books don't have to be published the old fashioned way anymore.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Exciting way to read! February 18, 2012

By The Tim Coston

Amazon Verified Purchase

This is SO cool!! I was so nervous with my first choice because it warns you that you can't go back until you have finished reading that path of the book! Scary - but makes you commit to your path. I can't wait until I am finished with this so I can go back and make some different choices. Don't we wish life was like this? hahah..