The Cruft Of Fiction

Author : David Letzler
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
Page : 324 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2017-06
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781496201645

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The Cruft of Fiction by David Letzler Pdf

What is the strange appeal of big books? The mega-novel, a genre of erudite tomes with encyclopedic scope, has attracted wildly varied responses, from fanatical devotion to trenchant criticism. Looking at intimidating mega-novel masterpieces from The Making of Americans to 2666, David Letzler explores reader responses to all the seemingly random, irrelevant, pointless, and derailing elements that comprise these mega-novels, elements that he labels "cruft" after the computer science term for junk code. In The Cruft of Fiction, Letzler suggests that these books are useful tools to help us understand the relationship between reading and attention. While mega-novel text is often intricately meaningful or experimental, sometimes it is just excessive and pointless. On the other hand, mega-novels also contain text that, though appearing to be cruft, turns out to be quite important. Letzler posits that this cruft requires readers to develop a sophisticated method of attentional modulation, allowing one to subtly distinguish between text requiring focused attention and text that must be skimmed or even skipped to avoid processing failures. The Cruft of Fiction shows how the attentional maturation prompted by reading mega-novels can help manage the information overload that increasingly characterizes contemporary life.

Author : David Letzler
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
Page : 315 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2017-06-01
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780803299627

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The Cruft of Fiction by David Letzler Pdf

Based on the author's dissertation (doctoral)--City University of New York, 2014.

Author : Mark Z. Danielewski
Publisher : Pantheon
Page : 738 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2000-03-07
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780375420528

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House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski Pdf

“A novelistic mosaic that simultaneously reads like a thriller and like a strange, dreamlike excursion into the subconscious.” —The New York Times Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children. Now this astonishing novel is made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and second and third appendices. The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story -- of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.

Author : Iain M. Banks
Publisher : Orbit
Page : 343 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2009-09-23
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780316075961

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Transition by Iain M. Banks Pdf

There is a world that hangs suspended between triumph and catastrophe, between the dismantling of the Wall and the fall of the Twin Towers, frozen in the shadow of suicide terrorism and global financial collapse. Such a world requires a firm hand and a guiding light. But does it need the Concern: an all-powerful organization with a malevolent presiding genius, pervasive influence and numberless invisible operatives in possession of extraordinary powers? Among those operatives are Temudjin Oh, of mysterious Mongolian origins, an un-killable assassin who journeys between the peaks of Nepal, a version of Victorian London and the dark palaces of Venice under snow; Adrian Cubbish, a restlessly greedy City trader; and a nameless, faceless state-sponsored torturer known only as the Philosopher, who moves between time zones with sinister ease. Then there are those who question the Concern: the bandit queen Mrs. Mulverhill, roaming the worlds recruiting rebels to her side; and Patient 8262, under sedation and feigning madness in a forgotten hospital ward, in hiding from a dirty past. There is a world that needs help; but whether it needs the Concern is a different matter.

Author : John Scalzi
Publisher : Tor Books
Page : 239 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2018-10-16
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780765388988

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The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi Pdf

New York Times Best Seller USA Today Best Seller io9's New Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books You Need to Put On Your Radar This Fall Kirkus' SF/F Books to Watch Out for in 2018 Popular Mechanics Best Books of 2018 (So Far) Goodreads' Most Anticipated Fantasy and Science Fiction Books The Consuming Fire—the New York Times and USA Today bestselling sequel to the 2018 Hugo Award Best Novel finalist and 2018 Locus Award-winning The Collapsing Empire—an epic space-opera novel in the bestselling Interdependency series, from the Hugo Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author John Scalzi The Interdependency—humanity’s interstellar empire—is on the verge of collapse. The extra-dimensional conduit that makes travel between the stars possible is disappearing, leaving entire systems and human civilizations stranded. Emperox Grayland II of the Interdependency is ready to take desperate measures to help ensure the survival of billions. But arrayed before her are those who believe the collapse of the Flow is a myth—or at the very least an opportunity to an ascension to power. While Grayland prepares for disaster, others are prepare for a civil war. A war that will take place in the halls of power, the markets of business and the altars of worship as much as it will between spaceships and battlefields. The Emperox and her allies are smart and resourceful, as are her enemies. Nothing about this will be easy... and all of humanity will be caught in its consuming fire. The Interdependency Series 1. The Collapsing Empire 2. The Consuming Fire At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Author : Cathy Moore
Publisher : Millbrook Press
Page : 52 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2002-01-01
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN : 0876144628

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The Daring Escape of Ellen Craft by Cathy Moore Pdf

Recounts how Ellen Craft and her husband, William, escaped from slavery disguised as "Mr. Johnson," a young white man with his arm in a sling, and his manservant.

Author : Lesley Henderson
Publisher : Edinburgh University Press
Page : 208 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2007-06-06
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9780748630899

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Social Issues in Television Fiction by Lesley Henderson Pdf

Why are some controversial issues covered in TV soaps and dramas and not others? How are decisions really made 'behind the scenes'? How do programme makers push boundaries without losing viewers? What do audiences take away from their viewing experience? Does TV fiction have a greater impact on public understandings than TV news? This exciting new book draws on unique empirical data to examine the relationship between popular television fiction and wider society.The book gives lively and engaging insights into how and why socially sensitive story lines were taken up by different TV programmes from the late 1980s to the 2000s. Drawing on a series of case studies of medicine, health, illness and social problems including breast cancer, mental distress, sexual abuse and violence it comprehensively traces the path of storylines from initial conception through to audience reception and uses contemporary examples to link practice to theory. For the first time, this book addresses production and receptio

Author : Rochelle Tobias
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
Page : 222 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2021-07
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780803215924

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Pseudo-Memoirs by Rochelle Tobias Pdf

"Pseudo-Memoir explores the twentieth-century return of a genre that had largely gone out of fashion after the novel came of age in Europe in the eighteenth century"--

Author : Annjeanette Wiese
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
Page : 266 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2021-10
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781496226792

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Narrative Truthiness by Annjeanette Wiese Pdf

Narrative Truthiness presents a new model for understanding truth and shows how a specific vein of postmodern writing engages with the overall goal of enhancing our interpretations of the complexities of the human experience.

Author : Percy Lubbock
Publisher : DigiCat
Page : 165 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2022-08-01
Category : Fiction
ISBN : EAN:8596547120407

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The Craft of Fiction by Percy Lubbock Pdf

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Craft of Fiction" by Percy Lubbock. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

Author : Howard Mittelmark,Sandra Newman
Publisher : Harper Collins
Page : 273 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2009-03-17
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9780061862892

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How Not to Write a Novel by Howard Mittelmark,Sandra Newman Pdf

"What do you think of my fiction book writing?" the aspiring novelist extorted. "Darn," the editor hectored, in turn. "I can not publish your novel! It is full of what we in the business call 'really awful writing.'" "But how shall I absolve this dilemma? I have already read every tome available on how to write well and get published!" The writer tossed his head about, wildly. "It might help," opined the blonde editor, helpfully, "to ponder how NOT to write a novel, so you might avoid the very thing!" Many writing books offer sound advice on how to write well. This is not one of those books. On the contrary, this is a collection of terrible, awkward, and laughably unreadable excerpts that will teach you what to avoid—at all costs—if you ever want your novel published. In How Not to Write a Novel, authors Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman distill their 30 years combined experience in teaching, editing, writing, and reviewing fiction to bring you real advice from the other side of the query letter. Rather than telling you how or what to write, they identify the 200 most common mistakes unconsciously made by writers and teach you to recognize, avoid, and amend them. With hilarious "mis-examples" to demonstrate each manuscript-mangling error, they'll help you troubleshoot your beginnings and endings, bad guys, love interests, style, jokes, perspective, voice, and more. As funny as it is useful, this essential how-NOT-to guide will help you get your manuscript out of the slush pile and into the bookstore.

Author : James S.A. Corey
Publisher : Boom! Studios
Page : 132 pages
File Size : 44,5 Mb
Release : 2018-02-07
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
ISBN : 9781613988534

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The Expanse by James S.A. Corey Pdf

Based on the bestselling books and tying into the hit television series, THE EXPANSE ORIGINS reveals the untold origins of the crew members of The Rocinante. As interplanetary tensions reach an all-time high, the crew of The Rocinante finds themselves at the center of a conflict that threatens to destroy all of human civilization. But before they were heroes, each member of the crew faced moments that would come to define them and brought them one step closer to the ship they now call home.

Author : Marco Caracciolo
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
Page : 333 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2022-03
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781496230874

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Slow Narrative and Nonhuman Materialities by Marco Caracciolo Pdf

Slow Narrative and Nonhuman Materialities investigates how the experience of slowness in contemporary narrative practices can create a vision of interconnectedness between human communities and the nonhuman world. Here, slowness is not a matter of measurable time but a transformative experience for audiences of contemporary narratives engaging with the ecological crisis. While climate change is a scientific abstraction, the imagination of slowness turns it into a deeply embodied and affective experience. Marco Caracciolo explores the value of slowness in dialogue with a wide range of narratives in various media, from prose fiction to comic books to video games. He argues that we need patience and an eye for complex patterns in order to recognize the multiple threads that link human communities and the slow-moving processes of climate and geological history. Decelerating attention offers important insight into human societies' relations with the nonhuman materialities of Earth's physical landscapes, ecosystems, and atmosphere. Caracciolo centers the experiential effects of narrative and offers a range of theoretically grounded readings that complement the formal language of narrative theory. These close readings demonstrate that slowness is not a matter of measurable time but a "thickening" of attention that reveals the deeply multithreaded nature of reality. The importance of this realization cannot be overstated: through an investment in the here and now of experience, slow narrative can help us manage the uncertainty of living in an era marked by dramatically shifting climate patterns.

Author : Douglas Coupland
Publisher : Vintage Canada
Page : 530 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2011-03-18
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780307371393

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JPod by Douglas Coupland Pdf

A lethal joyride into today’s new breed of technogeeks, Coupland’s JPod updates Microserfs for the age of Google. Ethan Jarlewski and five co-workers whose names start with J are bureaucratically marooned in jPod, a no-escape architectural limbo on the fringes of a massive Vancouver game design company. The six workers daily confront the forces that define our era: global piracy, boneheaded marketing staff, people smuggling, the rise of China, marijuana grow-ops, Jeff Probst and the ashes of the 1990s financial tech dream. jPod’s universe is amoral and shameless. The characters are products of their era even as they’re creating it. Everybody in Ethan’s life inhabits a moral grey zone. Nobody is exempt, not even his seemingly straitlaced parents or Coupland himself, as readers will see. Full of word games, visual jokes and sideways jabs, this book throws a sharp, pointed lawn dart into the heart of contemporary life. JPod is Douglas Coupland at the top of his game.

Author : Mayo Mohs
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 1975-01-01
Category : Science fiction, American
ISBN : 0450023699

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Other Worlds, Other Gods by Mayo Mohs Pdf