“like the codex it supercedes, hypertext is an incremental development in the technology of writing. But incremental developments (again as in the case of the codex) can sometimes have implications for our understanding of literary forms which are incommensurate with their novelty. Though hypertextual reading seems theoretically very similar to conventional reading, there are in fact substantial practical differences in the way readers of hypertext interpret fictional discourse, and these differences suggest that the fiction of forking paths may represent a significant departure from the fiction of the printed page”

- Stuart Moulthrop, "Reading from the Map: Metonymy and Metaphor in the Fiction of 'Forking Paths,'" Hypermedia and Literary Studies, eds. George P. Landow & Paul Delany (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1994): 125.