By Cassidy Lee · Originally reported by Richard Horgan (2010) · Wayback archive →
In November 2010, CSI franchise creator Anthony Zuiker gave FishbowlLA an exclusive interview about the next installments in his “digi-novel” trilogy. Level 26: Dark Origins (2009) had been the first attempt; Dark Prophecy was the new release.
Then
The digi-novel format combined printed prose with embedded video sequences accessed via codes — readers would hit a code mid-book, watch a 3-5 minute video that advanced the story, then return to the print narrative. The conceit was that a multiplatform serialized narrative could shift between text and video in a way that neither medium alone could deliver.
Now
The digi-novel format did not become the dominant interactive-storytelling structure of the 2010s. The Level 26 series concluded after three books. What emerged as the dominant interactive-storytelling format was different: prestige-television streaming, video games with substantial narrative elements, and choose-your-own-streaming experiments like Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018). Zuiker’s CSI franchise has continued — CSI: Vegas relaunched on CBS in 2021. The 2010 interview reads now as a snapshot of an early-decade attempt to extend a TV franchise into multiplatform storytelling that Hollywood eventually achieved via different formats than Zuiker was prototyping.