After Marisha Pessl finished her first novel, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, she got to work on a side project: Calamityphysics.com. The Web site is a companion piece to the book, designed as a window into the life ”” and dorm room ”” of the young protagonist, Blue van Meer.
Visitors can pick up objects, zoom in on pictures and newspaper clippings, visit Blue’s MySpace page or unfold a map of the Great Smoky Mountains, where the story takes place. A distracting June bug buzzes around a bright blue desk lamp.
“What we really try and do is ”¦ deliver the unexpected right up front, to just capture the immediate reaction of an audience and hopefully engage them enough that they’re curious to continue poking further,” says Mark Ferdman, the creative director of Freedom Interactive Design, the company that built the site.