Though as you might expect from Abrams, it’s a very puzzling sort of book. The underlying text is a surreal political novel written in the forties by one V.M. Straka, but the real story unfolds in the margins of that text, as two modern-day college students scribble notes back and forth in an attempt to unravel the author’s true identity. The challenge of fleshing out such an ambitious, multi-layered work prompted Abrams to recruit a collaborator, novelist and three-time Jeopardy! champ Doug Dorst. 

 

“When I heard the proposal, all those circuits lit up, the puzzle part of my mind, the game-playing part of my mind just lit up,” Dorst says in Episode 98 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast.