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Fiction with an interesting concept |
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Wytil |
Nov 10 2002, 06:52 PM
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Through the mirror
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Member No.: 37
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Several years ago an American author Robert A Heinlein introduced an interesting concept in some of his fiction novels. The concept was that fiction became real or alive as soon as enough readers beleived in it.
In the book "The Number of The Beast" the first device for such traveling was invented and off through whatever our heroes went. 8)
Among the places they visit
I wrote a short story a couple of years ago and put it on FF.net. I think it was probably incomprehensable to most of those who stumbled across it.
But then I would not be surprised, most stories with a philosophical bent would be.
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Julephenia |
Nov 22 2002, 12:28 AM
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Reading too much fanfic
Group: Betas
Posts: 92
Joined: 17-November 02
From: New Jersey, home sweet home
Member No.: 76
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This sounds a bit like my philosophy class.
My philosophy Prof likes to use Harry Potter as an example of "fictitious ideas" and how he's "real" but not "real".
I take offense to this.
HP and many other fictional characters are *very* real to me - and many others who read them (who loves Anne of Green Gables - I swear, I'm her, sometimes.)
Fiction and imagination are so much a part of human culture, human life, that they often define people, eras, movements, and so much more.
Yeah, fiction is real. Because someone thought of it in the first place. And because I will always believe that somewhere, somehow, there *are* unicorns.
Becky, waxing whimsical
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Yoda |
Nov 22 2002, 12:48 AM
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I'm co-ordinating internationally!... help!
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From: no man's land
Member No.: 50
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I was just reading this and Julephenia's bit:
QUOTE | Fiction and imagination are so much a part of human culture, human life, that they often define people, eras, movements, and so much more. |
reminded me of what one of my friends once said:
'I am a piece of fiction!'
Now that's how to win an argument It was his brilliant (yet comical in a year 9 class) of making a good point, people's lives can be fictitious to someone else.
Not everyone will have lived in the same place all their lives, just as not everyone will have lived in too many places all their lives. Fiction is a term we can use to define a life we may never experience, but one that someone else already has.
Yoda
'I don't believe in magic, but that doesn't mean things can't be magical.'
~dar
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nome |
Nov 22 2002, 04:59 AM
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Queen of the Bowling Alley
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From: San Diego, California, USA
Member No.: 8
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What is real? If real is something you can see, touch, or taste, then reality is nothing more than electrical signals sent to your brain.
...or something to that effect. get a true Matrix-watcher in here.
But I agree, to some extent. you could almost define reality as something that can affect something else, but writing affects people, and is therefore reality. What it might describe may not be a historical event, but it is reality.
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"Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to." - Mark Twain Nome's LJ
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Roxanne |
Jan 19 2004, 07:59 PM
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Part of the furnishings
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Heinlein's book "The Number of the Beast" is where he really pushes this idea. He had quite a prolific output prior to that. In NOTB, his protagonists are fleeing the bad guys by using a craft that can travel between dimensions, for lack of a better term. (Sorry if I'm using the wrong term here - I'm working from memory, and it's been a while!)
At any rate, as the craft lands in various places, the "good guys" start to recognize the people/beings they encounter as the incarnations of literary characters. Some are from Heinlein's other stories, so you only recognize those if you've read his other works. Others are from classic literature, particularly the "golden age" SF juveniles that Heinlein loved, like the Oz books of L. Frank Baum, the Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the Lensman series by E.E. "Doc" Smith.
Heinlein's something of an acquired taste, but if you like him, you love him. But he's very opinionated, and a strange mix of conservative and liberal. I'd recommend starting with "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" (if you like SF) or "Glory Road" (if your taste runs more to fantasy).
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Roxanne "My formula for living is quite simple. I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night. In between I occupy myself as best I can"--Cary Grant
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Ravenwood |
Mar 3 2006, 08:56 PM
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Stealing socks
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From: Southern USA, but my heart is still in Montana
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I just have to put a few cents in here. RAH's theory was that every story ever written was out there somewhere, but that if you went looking for them, you would end up in the stories you liked to read, IE, most of us would end up in HP type stories, or other fantasies.
At one point he postulated that there was a certain number of universes, lying side by side like pages in a book. That number of course, was the number of the beast; 6 to the 6th power to the 6th power... Which is one of those silly numbers, that humans really can't comphend.
RAH's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is possibly the finest book I've ever read. (I so want to be a Lunatic Woman.
Edited because I'm the type of idiot that forgets to close tags.
This post has been edited by Ravenwood: Mar 3 2006, 08:58 PM
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Raven In twenty-two years, all I've learned is how much I really don't know. That, and that one Significant Other, a pint of Chocolate Syrup and two quarts of Strawberries can cure anything.
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