the actual “book” may be going dinosaur on us, the unfailing relevance of text has proven it will continue to fuel the creative mind.

Almost every single classic is available online, posted on a Web site, sans fee.

No longer will we have to wait in line at the library for that copy of “War and Peace,” no longer will books face extinction through the hands of zealots and fascists worldwide. Books are in heavenly love with their new suitor and have officially kicked paper to the proverbial curb.

Chuck Palahniuk’s Web site, “The Cult,” is in no small terms a “revolution of the written work.” While there, you may peruse Chuck’s collection for a minimal fee, interact with other authors, post your own written works, and even enter contests and take classes in the art of literature.

The Web site gets around 100,000 hits a day and the registered users have eclipsed the 20,000 mark.

Palahniuk is the leader in this newfound form of literary interaction, but many others, including Craig Clevenger, William Christopher Baer, Neil Gaiman and even “The King” himself (Stephen, that is) have Web sites with great sources of works and exclusive nuggets for literary-minded folks.

Though much of the country is immersed in either video games or the latest reality TV show there is, undeniably, a growing interest in the power of the written word as it finds new vehicles.

Message forums and bulletin board systems are growing to uncountable numbers, with users creating whole new languages and styles of writing in the process. Hypertext has given us a whole new way of reading things and made it much easier to sort things like bibliographies and references.

While the actual “book” may be going dinosaur on us, the unfailing relevance of text has proven it will continue to fuel the creative mind.

While it is saddening to some that libraries may be reduced in size to a cabinet server cluster, the important thing is that “the word” lives on, and its new life-partner, the Internet, will ensure that it does for a long, long time.

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