Beckett: It's 'Silence Of The Lambs' Meets 'CSI'

Miles Beckett, co-founder of social entertainment company EQAL, helps fuse traditional media and new technology with CSI creator Anthony Zuiker's upcoming Digi-Novel Level 26: Dark Origins.

The Digi-Novel will combine a conventional novel with online content and a social network found at Level26.com. "Level 26 is set in the world of people who hunt down criminals," Beckett told Newsarama. "There are 25 levels of serial killers that describe the degrees of how screwed up these people are, how much of a sociopath, and this guy, Sqweegel, is a new level – Level 26. So, the degree of twistedness in the book and in the videos – I'll just say, it's pretty crazy." Beckett described the Digi-Novel's story as "Silence of the Lambs meets CSI."

"I think it is the first time there has been a book where it truly is intimately connected to video content that's, you know, throughout the book and then also tied to an online social network," Beckett explained. "[Y]ou read a few chapters – you can just read the book if you want – but you read a few chapters and there will be a call to action and in this case, you know, it's like a serial killer crime novel, so the killer sits down in the basement to watch a snuff film and he pops a video tape in the VCR, clicks play and it counts down, five, four, three, two, one – 'Go to Level26.com to watch this snuff film' – so you can, like, go to the website, log in, pop up the video, and you can actually watch this cinematic video that he's shot that's the snuff film or some other action sequence."

The video sequences are called cyber bridges, and they drive the reader from the book to the internet and then back to the narrative to continue the story. However, Level26.com will have more to offer than just cyber bridges. Visitors can "sign up for profile pages," Beckett shared. "They can start talking about the book. The trailer is already up there and Anthony is going to have a presence on the site. So he's literally writing text blogs. He's going to have a profile; you can send messages to him. It's pretty awesome. And the stories that he has from behind the scenes of CSI and stuff are crazy and he's going to be writing a lot of that on the website. And then also, there is opportunities for people to contribute to the books that are coming out afterwards because he has a three book deal. So for Book 2 and Book 3, people can actually go and, while they are reading Book 1, submit their ideas for characters and story lines."

"The website itself is going to really flesh out that greater universe," Beckett continued. "[W]e have a whole true crime section where we are going to be tracking actual criminal cases going on or murders or serial killers; historical serial killers stuff and mystery stuff and so really for anyone who is a CSI fan or a mystery or crime fan, we want Level 26, beyond just this book, to be a destination website for our fans."

The original interview is from Newsarama. Level 26: Dark Origins will be released on September 8th.

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