They add a little something extra.įor example, Brandon Sanderson sells vials of allomantic metals similar to the ones allomancers imbibe in his Mistborn series. Swag in its most rudimentary form is effectively an advertisement feelies go a step further. I always have loads of swag at my table I know many other authors do as well.

Go to any convention and you’ll come away with a haul, bookmarks, pens, bottle openers, tote bags, stickers, rubber bracelets, flyers. Now, I realize that tchotchkes or swag is common across a lot of industries, and it’s something that crops up in the book industry as well. These started with Infocom titles such as Zork, Planetfall, and the game version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Props, booklets, coins, runes, histories, cloth maps, and much more. Feelies included with Infocom’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the GalaxyĪ feelie was the name given to the bonus content included with the boxed versions of video games in the late eighties and early nineties. So I quickly googled the term and was surprised to learn that “ feelie” was not only a Huxley invention (or a college-rock band from the eighties) it was also a slang term used in video games, particularly for a type of swag. Within the novel, Huxley references “feelies” a sort-of hybrid source of entertainment where all senses are stimulated. While musing over this, I decided to do a little research.

Say whhhaaaat?Īllow me to explain how I got here. It was as good as I remembered and was a pleasure to re-read it during in my “ Year of Classics.” But, this isn’t a post about classic dystopian novels this is a post about storytelling and swag. Last weekend, I finished reading Aldous Huxley famous dystopian novel, Brave New World.

Feelies brave new world