If you've read the novel but not the RinkChat play, you may be interested in knowing what's different about the play. I actually recommend not reading this page at all and just reading the play 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 play are minor.

• Illustrations - The RinkChat play is told with pictures. Each line of dialogue is prefixed by two pictures: one depicting the character speaking, and one depicting the location that character is in at the time. Increasingly as the play progresses, there are photoshopped manglings of the illustrations to accommodate death scenes and gun-waving and other physical activity.
• Audience Feedback - The transcripts of the play include reactions from those present in RinkChat at the time. The comments range from the sympathetic ("DON'T DOOOO IIIIIIIIIITT!!!") to MST3K-like ridicule ("Disrespecting your elders is the leading cause of death on paradise islands!") to wonderfully wrong predictions about what will happen next.
• Substantially Shorter - Although the audience feedback adds to the total length, the story as told in the play is much quicker. For one thing, there is virtually no narration at all -- it's almost all dialogue. For another, there are no off-island flashbacks whatsoever. The stories told in the flashbacks (save for Jay's), don't exist in the play. Curtis does not appear at all.
• Humor - The tone of the play was largely serious; however, there were moments of humor that were cut for the novel. Early on, for example, Ramona rescues Cody from the cliff in a rather more bizarre manner. Also, several of the chapters begin with false-starts, joke continuations of the storyline I threw in just to get a laugh. Most significantly, note the "end credits" of the play.
• Character Differences - For the most part, the characters are the same, just more deeply developed in the novel. Matt and Genevieve, however, underwent pretty fundamental changes. This alone probably doesn't warrant reading both versions of the story, but it's significant nonetheless.