If you've read the RinkChat play but not the novel, you may be interested in knowing what's different about the book. I actually recommend not reading this page at all and just reading the book instead -- but if you're not sure if you want to invest the time in reading another version of the same story, this page help you decide.

There are spoilers here. However, spoilers for the those things unique to the book are minor.

• Expanded Story - The novel has a substantially expanded storyline from the RinkChat play. This is true of all plot threads but most significantly of the Piper Downs backstory, which is only alluded to in the play but fleshed out into its own subplot in the novel. There are also additional scenes on the island that paint a fuller picture of all the plotting and scheming.
• Deeper Character Development - The novel has deeper portrayals of the characters and their relationships. This is particularly true of Matt, Cody, and Ramona, whose character arcs are fleshed out into psychological journeys, and also of Genevieve, Tyler, Camille, and Buck, who have backstories and motivations not present in the play. Character relationships are also fleshed out. Cody and Ramona, for example, are instrumental in each other's stories. Another relationship with a lot more substance to it is that of Matt and Julie.
• Closer Perspective - The play is told from the perspective of an invisible observer -- but the novel gets inside the thought processes of the characters' heads. Each piece of the story is told from the viewpoint of one of the characters. This may not sound like a big difference (and, certainly in terms of the plot, it isn't), but it does bring the reader closer to the experience of the story.
• More Serious Tone - The novel is darker than the play and takes the story quite a bit more seriously. In the play, the mortal peril is mitigated somewhat by the humor. The book does have some of the humor, but it's the character-based stuff, like Ramona's wisecracking. The shift in tone let me go to darker places in the novel. It was a good trade-off, but this is one reason why I couldn't do without either version of the story.

I'm tempted to go into more detail, enumerating all the little additions and improvements, but that would spoil the experience. These generalizations cover most of the bases. You can probably tell that I'm excited about how the novel turned out. Writing the RinkChat play was one of the most rewarding projects I've done in years, and yet, now that the novel is complete, it's like the play was just practice for the real thing.