The Raw Shark Texts - Negatives or Un-chapters

Negatives or Un-chapters

The Raw Shark Texts consists of 36 core chapters bound into the novel itself, and an additional 36 "lost" sections, known as "negatives" or "un-chapters" which exist outside of the main printed text. These extra 'un-chapters' (also written by Steven Hall) have been found periodically since the book's initial release, hidden either online or in the real world. Unique negative content has also been discovered in several translated editions of the Raw Shark Texts since publication of the original English language edition in 2007.

On 08/15/07 in The Raw Shark Texts Forum, Steven Hall wrote to following statement about The Raw Shark Texts negatives:

For each chapter in The Raw Shark Texts there is, or will be, an un-chapter, a negative. If you look carefully at the novel you might be able to figure out why these un-chapters are called negatives.

Not all the negatives are as long as a full novel chapter - some are only a page, some are only a couple of lines. Some are much longer than any chapters in the novel. About a quarter of them are out there so far. (It’s an ongoing project set to run for a while yet) Not all of the negatives are online, some are, but they're hiding. Some are out there in the real world, waiting to be found. Anyone with the Raw Shark UK special edition will already have Negative 6/36 and anyone with a Canadian edition will have Negative 36/36 (and also a good idea of what some of the other negatives are).

The negatives are not deleted scenes, they are very much a part of the novel but they are all splintered from it in some way.

Several sections of the Raw Shark Texts Forum are devoted to the ongoing process of discovering and documenting the negatives. Many negatives are still unaccounted for.