PBS HAS A STICKY, RUBBER-TILED FLOOR, AND A SMELL THAT SPEAKS OF CHEAP DEODORANT FIGHTING AN ENDLESS BATTLE WITH SOMETHING NASTY AND NAMELESS AND JUST OUT OF SIGHT. YET IT ALSO HAS SOMETHING OF THE HEROIC ABOUT IT: A QUALITY OF GIGANTISM THAT CAN INSTIL A HOPPER-LIKE SENSE OF LONELINESS, THE INSIGNIFICANCE OF THE INDIVIDUAL IN AN ENGULFING ENVIRONMENT.
MARTIN BAKER, THE INDEPENDENT
"The coach inches around a corner, the wheels on one side mounting a drift of snow in the gutter. You let out a sound – a scared, embarrassing-sounding little bark – and lift an uncertain arm out to protect yourself. Seated alone at the back of the coach, you’re the only passenger onboard so you allow yourself a further sound: a brief sing-song whine. Then the coach rights itself with a jump and presses on, hunkered against the snowstorm. Since you nodded off the snow seems to have intensified: the stuff takes up the windows, flurried layers shuttering off the surrounding night. Up ahead, through the driver’s window, you can just about make out a few blurred lines of light. As the bus crawls ahead the details sharpen, dark imprecision edging into a familiar network of concrete and steel: Preston Bus Station."
Bus Station: Unbound is the first in an series of uncanny, interactive site-specific fictions.
The novel-sized work starts as a coach draws into the iconic Preston Bus Station a few days before Christmas. It is snowing heavily, it is dark and the main character wearily trudges into the station knowing she still has miles to go before she gets home to a miserable Christmas party with a family she hasn’t been in touch with in over three years. She's broke, pissed off and miserable.
So far, so festive.
But what happens when the snow continues to fall and all the buses are cancelled? When all attempts to leave the bus station fail? When strange people start to appear in the station, when she overhears stories of missing teenagers, and when a crying boy in a hoodie asks her for help?
Thiis is interactive fiction. Part novel, part photo-book, part game - you decide what happens as you navigate through the real and imagined landscape of the iconic Preston Bus Station.
This is much more than a simple choose-your-own-adventure story. As a Curious Tales digital-only project, we've made something that just wouldn't work in a print edition. The text of Bus Station: Unbound can track your choices and depending on your preferences, you’ll read a story of late adolescent despair, a grieving and fragmented family, guilt, fantasy and restoration, or a gripping and frightening supernatural tale about a notorious building many have described as ‘monstrous.’ More likely, you’ll remix a unique combination of all of these. There are over twenty endings, and no limit to the amount of times you can restart, reread and try another path.
Bus Station: Unbound is another Curious Tale and will be published as a fully interactive e-book for Kindle with photography from Helen Power. It will be available to pre-order soon.
Please join our mailing list if you’d like us to let you know when it's available.
The novel-sized work starts as a coach draws into the iconic Preston Bus Station a few days before Christmas. It is snowing heavily, it is dark and the main character wearily trudges into the station knowing she still has miles to go before she gets home to a miserable Christmas party with a family she hasn’t been in touch with in over three years. She's broke, pissed off and miserable.
So far, so festive.
But what happens when the snow continues to fall and all the buses are cancelled? When all attempts to leave the bus station fail? When strange people start to appear in the station, when she overhears stories of missing teenagers, and when a crying boy in a hoodie asks her for help?
Thiis is interactive fiction. Part novel, part photo-book, part game - you decide what happens as you navigate through the real and imagined landscape of the iconic Preston Bus Station.
This is much more than a simple choose-your-own-adventure story. As a Curious Tales digital-only project, we've made something that just wouldn't work in a print edition. The text of Bus Station: Unbound can track your choices and depending on your preferences, you’ll read a story of late adolescent despair, a grieving and fragmented family, guilt, fantasy and restoration, or a gripping and frightening supernatural tale about a notorious building many have described as ‘monstrous.’ More likely, you’ll remix a unique combination of all of these. There are over twenty endings, and no limit to the amount of times you can restart, reread and try another path.
Bus Station: Unbound is another Curious Tale and will be published as a fully interactive e-book for Kindle with photography from Helen Power. It will be available to pre-order soon.
Please join our mailing list if you’d like us to let you know when it's available.
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