John G. McDaid is a science fiction writer and citizen journalist from Portsmouth, Rhode Island. His hypermedia novel,
Uncle Buddy’s Phantom Funhouse, published by Eastgate Systems, was a New Media Invision Award finalist in 1993. As a member of the TINAC collective, he has spoken on digital narrative at dozens of colleges and conferences.
He attended the Clarion workshop in 1993 and sold his first short story, the Sturgeon Award-winning “Jigoku no mokushiroku” to Asimov’s in 1995. A novelette, “Keyboard Practice,” appeared in the January, 2005 Fantasy & Science Fiction, and his most recent story, “Umbrella Men,” was the cover story in that magazine in January, 2012. As a citizen journalist, he has written about local news and politics on his site, harddeadlines.com, for the past seven years; his reporting has also appeared on RI Future.
He attended Syracuse University, did graduate work at the New School University, and is ABD in Media Ecology at NYU. He lives in Portsmouth with his wife, Karen, son, Jack, and their feline companions Curiosity and Eclipse.
Versions
Uncle Buddy's Phantom Funhouse has been released in four formats, two of which on physical media and published by Eastgate Systems, Inc. The publisher's copyright date is listed as 1992, though the work was distributed in 1993. Hence, readers will find both dates listed for the work.✭Version 1.0 The Floppy Disk Edition for Macintosh
This edition features a box of five floppy disks; a 12-page installation guide; an installation flyer; a letter from Vortex: The Anthology of Cyberfiction; a nine-page short story, entitled "Tree;" two music cassettes, one entitled "Retribution" and the other "The Story of Emily and the Time Machine"
✭Version 2.0 The CD-ROM Edition
This edition, distributed in 1993, features a box of one CD; a 12-page installation guide; an installation flyer; a letter from Vortex: The Anthology of Cyberfiction; a nine-page short story, entitled "Tree;" two music cassettes, one entitled "Retribution" and the other "The Story of Emily and the Time Machine"
✭Version 3.0 The Emulated Edition
This edition created by the author and uploaded to the Internet Archive in January 2018 is a DOSBox emulation of the work that consists of the contents of the disks. No documentation of the other physical media packaged in the box is available.
✭Version 4.0 The Web Edition
This edition, developed in 2022/3 by students in Creative Media & Digital Culture and members of the Electronic Liteature Lab at Washington State University Vancouver, is an archival version for the Web. The physical media is included as downloadable documents or 3D models of the original.
