Small Demons

I have been meaning to check out Small Demons for quite awhile, so I put it on the summer to-do list.  Today I got to it.  I was quite intrigued by this introductory video.




Here is some information from their website:

It all begins here. Suppose someone took every meaningful detail from all the books you love. Every song mentioned, every person, every food or place or movie title. And what if they did that for all the books everyone else loves, too. The ones you’ve never heard of. Suddenly you’ve got a whole world of seemingly random people, places and things, all gathered in one place.

Together they create something vast, wonderful and entirely new. A Storyverse. A place where details touch, overlap and lead you further. To new music to listen to. New movies to watch. Places to visit. People to know. And of course, new books to read. Getting started is simple. Just choose a book. See where it takes you.

I have signed up and have started exploring.  I have a few initial comments.  What Small Demons most reminds me of are reading maps.  Readers of this blog know that I have had quite a bit to say about reading maps.  I will not rehash it here since there is an entire permanent page  I have created on reading maps.  [Also, coming soon, NoveList will be publishing an article I co-wrote about Reading Maps.]

But basically, it appears that Small Demons takes all of the people, places and things mentioned in a book and pulls them out and regroups them.  As the video says, you can find books grouped by what movie or music is mentioned in them.

Again, like a reading map this all works best when you are dealing with books with a lot of frame--all the details, setting, etc...

Small Demons is fairly new so the list of books included is limited.  However, a few books which are there that I think are perfectly suited to this type of database are Ready Player One and A Visit From the Goon Squad. Use the links to see their Small Demons entries

I also think I have some patrons for whom a resource like Small Demons could be a reading life-saver. These are readers who like to read everything that mentions a specific place or features a specific time, or like my friend Joyce, everything with even a passing note about Faberge eggs.

I am going to play around some more on Small Demons.  Currently I am building my personal storyboard by marking books I have enjoyed.  I will get back to you with more impressions later, but for now let me know if you have used Small Demons or if you even think it would be something that would interest you.