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{{trope}}
{{quote|''In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitch-Hiker's Guide has already supplanted the great [[Foundation|Encyclopaedia Galactica]] as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words DON'T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.''
|''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]''}}
Quotes from other [[Fictional Document|fictional]] books being used as an [[Epigraph]] or part of the [[Framing Device|frame]] of the story. They are not part of the text proper.
These quotes are always apposite, and often provide painless [[Exposition]], rather than relying on [[As You Know]]
{{examples}}
== Comic Books ==
* The tracts of text ending each issue of ''[[Watchmen (
* "Old jungle sayings" in the classic newspaper comic ''[[The Phantom (
▲* The tracts of text ending each issue of ''[[Watchmen (Comic Book)|Watchmen]]'' are usually presented as excerpts from books, reports, etc.
* A quote from ''The Herodotus Complex'' by P'oilgof Livy starts every [[Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire
▲* "Old jungle sayings" in the classic newspaper comic ''[[The Phantom (Comic Strip)|The Phantom]]''.
▲* A quote from ''The Herodotus Complex'' by P'oilgof Livy starts every [[Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire (Comic Book)|Buck Godot Zap Gun for Hire]] trade paperback, as well as each issue of the story arc "The Gallimaufry."
** Relevant excerpts from ''Fleeztrow's Guide to the Gallimaufry'' are also part of "The Gallimaufry."
== Fan
* At the start of each chapter of ''[[Kyon
* ''[[
▲* At the start of each chapter of ''[[Kyon Big Damn Hero (Fanfic)|Kyon Big Damn Hero]]'' there are extracts of self-help books on being a hero, some poetry, or texts that are implied to be from future documents/books, usually relevant to the chapter.
* By the same author, ''[[Renegade (
▲* ''[[Tiberium Wars (Fanfic)|Tiberium Wars]]'' likes to begin each chapter with a quote from one of the characters involved, and often ends with a hefty excerpt from military intelligence reports or research papers, [[Shown Their Work|making it clear that the author's done his work]] and knows his way around [[Command and Conquer Tiberium|the Tiberium 'verse]].
* Every chapter of the ''[[How to Train Your Dragon (animation)|How to Train Your Dragon]]'' fanfic ''[[A Thing of Vikings]]'' starts with a passage, sometimes extensive, excerpted from a book or other document written centuries after the events of the story, offering both [[Foreshadowing]] and tantalizing hints at the [[Alternate History]] that resulted from the events of the first movie. These works, dated anywhere from the fourteenth to nineteenth century, offer brief windows on a world where, among other things, the Norse religion had a powerful resurgence that drove Christianity back out of at least part of Europe, the [[Industrial Revolution]] kicked off more than half a millennium earlier than in our timeline, and a massive Empire descended from Berk has governed a fair portion of Europe under democratic principles for nearly a thousand years. They include a [[Wikipedia]] counterpart called "Wikikenna" (from the 1800s), the ''Encyclopedia Norlandia'' (1642), ''The Second Flowering Of Yggdrasil'' (a history book or paper from 1710), ''The Wing and The Ax'' (a [[Big Book of War]] written by Astrid Hofferson Haddock), and most interestingly ''The Dragon Millennium'' which is undated but in at least one passage makes it clear that it comes from a period where nanotech and space travel are common (and which is published by "Manna-hata University Press, Ltd." -- "Manna-hata" being the original Lenape word which became [[New York City|"Manhattan"]]).
▲* By the same author, ''[[Renegade (Fanfic)|Renegade]]'' features Codex entries in line with those from ''[[Mass Effect]]'', to better explain how [[Fusion Fic|the addition]] of [[Command and Conquer Tiberium|Tiberium]] to the setting has made things very different.
== Film ==
* In the film ''[[
▲* In the film ''[[Twenty Twelve|2012]]'', Jackson Curtis's unsuccessful sci-fi novel ''Farewell Atlantis'' is symbolically important and is brought up throughout the film. Parts of it are read aloud on two or three occasions.
== Literature ==
* The ''Encyclopedia Galactica'', [[Isaac Asimov]]'s ''[[Foundation]]'' series.
* ''The Book of Counted Sorrows'', [[Dean Koontz]], repeatedly.
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* Princess Irulan's histories in ''[[Dune]]''. All of Frank Herbert's ''Dune'' novels make use of this, quoting from fictional (auto)biographies, treatises on religion/politics, journals...
** Not to mention almost every other major work by Herbert.
* The Guide itself, ''[[
** And sometimes the ''Encyclopaedia Galactica'' in the series, although the Guide has the major selling point of being slightly cheaper and having "'''Don't Panic'''" printed in large friendly letters on the cover. As well as not taking up a parking lot.
** Also subverted; sometimes the Guide's entries were full of non-sequiturs and gags completely irrelevant to the story. Sometimes these were never mentioned again, and sometimes they became plot-critical [[Brick Joke|brick jokes]] as a double-subversion.
** Sometimes, a future edition of ''Encyclopaedia Galactica'' would simply be used to confirm what the ''Guide'' had already predicted years ago, lending an aura of authority to statements like ''"The Marketing Division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation is a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes"'' as ''"Curiously enough, an edition of the Encyclopaedia Galactica that had the good fortune to fall through a time warp from a thousand years in the future defined the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as "a bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came"."''
* The biography of [[Thursday Next]], and several other fictional documents, in the ''Thursday Next'' series.
* The introduction to Michael Crichton's ''The Andromeda Strain'' is written as an introduction to some official report of the events of the novel. All his novels after that one followed suit.
* Juliet McKenna likes them even more; she prefaces nearly every chapter with a fictional document, some of them only tangentially relevant.
* ''The Encyclopedia of Marvels, Life Forms and Other Phenomena of Zamonia and its Environs'' in ''[[The
* The protaganists Rules and Things to having a Funner Life in Bud Not Buddy.
* The title and chapter pages of [[Stephen King]]'s more epic novels quote anything and everything from T.S. Eliot and Thomas Wolfe to Blue Oyster Cult and King's own fictional characters.
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** Asprin has commented that he bitterly came to regret doing this, as making up all the quotes proved to be the hardest part of writing the novels. The later books in the series drop the practice.
* Jack McKinney's ''[[Robotech]]'' [[Tie-in Novel|Tie In Novels]] used quotes from various in-universe sources to comment on the events of each chapter.
* ''[[The Tough Guide to Fantasyland]]'' by [[Diana Wynne Jones]] calls these "gnomic utterances". One of her novels, ''[[Fire and Hemlock]]'', also uses quotes from the ballads "[[
* The prologue of ''[[Young Wizards|So You Want To Be A Wizard]]'' quotes extensively from the [[Great Big Book of Everything|wizard's manual]] in order establish what wizards are and how [[Insistent Terminology|wizardry]] works.
** The [[Young Wizards]] series in general contains a few quotes from the ''Book of Night with Moon''.
* ''[[
* ''[[Jonathan Strange
* Pournelle's [[
** Oddly enough, the sequel to ''The Mote in God's Eye'' actually (for the most part) uses real historical quotes.
** Pournelle's collaborator, [[Larry Niven]], is also very fond of this. His book ''Destiny's Road'' is full of quotes from planetary science surveys, local lore regarding the colonization of an alien world and the ultimate fate of some colonists, and quotes regarding local customs. A very early chapter opens rather ominously quoting an excerpt of a military absentee court-martial.
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** These provide at least one second-reading shudder, as a poetic epithet used in an epitaph in book 1 is given graphic and disturbing illustration in book 2.
* ''[[The Wheel of Time]]''
* ''[[
* ''[[Redwall]]''
* ''[[House of Leaves]]''. Either half of it, or all of it, or if you're really brave, none of it.
* [[Robert Rankin]] has ''The Suburban Book of the Dead'', the rewritten ''Suburban Book of the Dead'', works by the guru's guru Hugo Rune, and works ''about'' Hugo Rune by Sir John Rimmer. And that's just for starters.
* [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[Nomes Trilogy]]'' features epigraphs from ''The Book of Nome'' (a [[Cargo Cult]] religious text) in the first two books and ''A Scientific Encyclopedia For The Enquiring Young Nome'' (which misunderstands things almost as much, but in a different way) in the third.
* Cantra yos'Phelium's logbook in the ''[[Liaden Universe|Liaden]]'' series.
* Each of [[David Eddings]]' books opens with a short piece of narrative taken from historical records, history books, or religious doctrines within the context of the story. These serve to establish the setting and bring the reader up to speed, sometimes serving as a roundabout recap or providing context for the events. For instance, the first book of ''[[The Tamuli]]'' starts with a record from the Tamuli government summarizing the events in the previous series; the fictive author shows a great deal of secularism by dismissing cases of divine or supernatural influence as superstitious exaggeration, and derisively criticizes unfamiliar government practices such as voting or female rulers. The second recaps more events but is explicitly written by a different author while part of the same record and calls into question the previous chapter's take on things.
* The ''Trickster's Choice'' and ''Trickster's Queen'' have quotes of useful bits of advice Aly got at the start of each chapter - stuff from books, people she knows, etc. One example I can think of is Daine telling her that the Gods can sense lies, but if you don't make them suspicious enough to read your mind, they won't know if you left out stuff.
* ''[[The War Against the Chtorr]]''. "A Season for Slaughter" heads each chapter with [[Info Dump|extensive]] quotes from the "Red Book", a guide to the alien invaders to which the protagonist has contributed heavily.
* Baron Bodissey's ''Life'' in [[
** Bodissey's omnipresence is later lampshaded; a character guesses that the latest [[Ice Cream Koan]] is from Bodissey, since he's said practically everything.
** Also quoted in ''[[
* Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar from [[Mark Twain]]'s ''Pudd'nhead Wilson.''
* The ''Empire of Man'' series follows in Eddings' footsteps by having the book open with commentary from a biographer who is writing from a much later point after the events in the books. Some of the things the biographer says are quite important, especially the bits that show that {{spoiler|Roger never really shakes the reputation the [[Big Bad]] planted that he killed his family and drove his mother mad in order to force her to abdicate so that he could take over the Empire}}.
* ''[[
* Every chapter of books in the ''[[Star Wars]]'': ''Republic Commando'' series is preceded by an excerpt from an in-universe document. One book even had a Mandalorian-to-English dictionary as an appendix.
* The novel-length [[Ciaphas Cain]] stories contain "excerpts" from various fictional sources - often Jenit Sulla's [[Purple Prose|unreadable]] biography - in between chapters.
* [[Robert E. Howard]] puts epigraphs of dramatically manly poetry before each chapter of ''[[Conan the Barbarian|The Phoenix On The Sword]]'', but does not do this for other Conan stories.
* Charles Sheffield's ''Summertide'' (book 1 of the Heritage Universe) has excerpts from Lang's Catalogue of Builder Artifacts to explain the mysterious structures mentioned throughout the book. Extra points to the fact that the author of the catalogue is a main character.
* [[The Grimnoir Chronicles]] uses quotes from a variety of sources at the beginning of each chapter. Some are from or about characters in the books, but many just fill in details of the world, such as [[Theodore Roosevelt]] dying in combat against the Kaiser's zombies in [[World War
* Played with in [[Keith Laumer]]'s ''[[
* Some [[Doctor Who Expanded Universe]] novels have these. ''Theatre of War'' had excerpts from its fictional playwright's work, and scholarly works about his plays and theatre in general. ''The Also People'' quoted fictional pop songs, including regular DWEU [[The Ghost|unseen background character]] Johnny Chess, Silurian punk ("Outta My Way, [[Son of an Ape|Monkeyboy]]" by Third Eye), and Cyberman blues ("Tears of Rust" by Cyberblind).
== Live-Action
▲* [[Gene Rodenberry]]´s ''[[Andromeda]]''.
== Tabletop Games ==
* ''Sarpadian Empires'', which provides much of the flavor text to the "Fallen Empires" expansion of ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]''. Much of ''Magic'''s flavor text counts as this, actually, but this is the most iconic example. ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20081003130039/http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=114921 Sarpadian Empires, Vol. VII]'' appears as an actual card in the ''Time Spiral'' set.
**
* Too many to count in the margins of ''[[
▲* Too many to count in the margins of ''[[Nobilis (Tabletop Game)|Nobilis]]'', most notably the works of Emily Chen (''Doorknobs'', ''Viridian'', ''A Small Detour To Altair'' and others), Kneader Guy (''Earth Stories'', ''Air Stories'', ''Fire Stories'' and ''Water Stories''), Luc Ginnes (''On Serving the Nobilis'', ''Legends of the Nobilis'' and ''Void Stories''), Jackie Robinson (''Parables for Our Modern Age'' and ''Small Gods''), Merriweather James (''Principals of The Dark''), and Agusta Valentina (''A Philosophy of Treason''). So extensive was the collection of works with "excerpts" in the book that many readers were surprised to learn that none of them were real.
* A variation appears in many ''[[Shadowrun]]'' sourcebooks, where a running discussion of the main text, in electronic discussion forum format and complete with the occasional off-topic digression, will appear in the margins or along the bottoms of a book's pages.
* White Wolf ''loves'' these, especially in [[Old World of Darkness
* ''[[Paranoia (
** The next page repeats the trick: "NO HE DOESN'T".
** The 2nd edition rulebook presents "Tips for Traitors" as an excerpt from a much larger in-universe document.
*** Reading the above is considered metagaming. Metagaming is treason. [[Running Gag|Please report immediately to your nearest Termination Booth.]]
* The ''Van Richten's Guide'' series of [[Ravenloft]] supplements use this device constantly, both as in-character 'citations' by in-character "author" Van Richten, and as flavor-text sidebars. Such references come from personal journals, ship's logs, letters, and other written testimony from individuals who have encountered dangerous monsters; hence, the [[Undead Author]] trope often comes into play. Sometimes literally.
* ''[[Warhammer
== Theatre ==
* In the musical ''[[How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying]]'', the protagonist repeatedly turns to an advice book of the same name.
** Which ''actually exists'': Shepherd Mead wrote a series of cartoon books in the 1950s which were parodies of then-current how-to books, one of which provided the title and inspiration for the musical. [http://www.amazon.com/Succeed-Business-Without-Really-Trying/dp/0684800209/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1 The book] was republished in 1995 with the revival of the musical.
== Video Games ==
* The Codex in ''[[Mass Effect]]''
** A bit subverted, since the Codex is sometimes wrong: It's an in-universe document and therefore limited to what is public knowledge, not what the player [[The Reveal|finds out]].
*** And the Codex is also occasionally made [[Gas Leak Coverup|deliberately wrong]] by its in universe makers; one shining example is in ''ME 2'' when you look up 'Sovereign.' Apparently, Mr. Vanguard-of-Our-Destruction was a geth ship that just happened to look like a Reaper. [[Sarcasm Mode|Uh-huh.]]
*** In the [[Expanded Universe]] novel ''[[Mass Effect
* Played in ''[[
** In the Designer's Notes of ''Alpha Centauri'', Brian Reynolds said that [[Frank Herbert]] was his favorite science fiction author and cited ''The Jesus Incident'' as "the most important influence on the story of Planet".
* The Pokédex, which is devoted to providing information about ''[[Pokémon]]'', such as appearance, attributes, and locations. Though, it's vague whether or not the entries read in-game are meant to be excerpts or the full thing. Also, some of the entries are likely made on the spot by the device in-universe, such as with Legendaries, whose abilities were not exactly common knowledge among Poké-experts except as folklore.
* The Logbook scans in the ''[[Metroid Prime]]'' series.
* When the player accesses the mission objectives screen in the ''[[Aliens vs. Predator]] 2'' game, they are also presented with short excerpts from the "incident report" compiled by [[Mega Corp|Weyland-Yutani]] after the end of the game. It is both used as an atmospheric framing device, and a way of including subtle [[Foreshadowing]] - for example, in the mission where the [[Predator]] first appears, the report excerpt categorically states that despite the insistence of certain parties, there was no physical evidence of the involvement of a third species. Also, each level in the game begins with a timestamp, such as "Incident minus two days," "Incident plus three weeks," or the ominous "Incident Start."
* Many of [[Infocom]]'s ''[[
* Each "act" of ''[[Tech Infantry]]'' has an epigraph quote either from a real or in-universe fictional work of literature, poem, song lyric, or a pithy quote from an in-universe fictional character. The title of each "episode" (four acts) is taken from the epigraph to the last act of that episode. Which means the episode title, and by extension the fourth-act epigraph, is chosen before anything beyond act one of that episode is written.
* Historical quotes in ''[[Call of Duty]]''.
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* A not quite known puzzle-strategy (yeah) ''[[Netstorm]]'' had an extensive manual with in-universe quotes used as epigraphs.
* "Avoid taking drugs, it ruins you." from ''Little Fighter 2''.
* The information screens in ''[[
* The loading screens of the later ''[[Total War]]'' games (''Rome'' and ''Medieval II'') have these. Plus in Shogun there's a philosipher in the throne room, who if clicked on gives you random quotes from [[The Art of War]]
* ''[[
** Nearly all of which you can find a [[Apocalyptic Log|recording]] of in their original context at some point in the game.
* ''[[Star Ocean: Till the End of Time]]'' and ''[[Star Ocean:
* ''[[
* ''[[Vagrant Story]]'' opens with a quote from famed historian [[Final Fantasy Tactics
* ''[[
* The Compilation of ''[[
* The Church Of The New Epoch's mission briefings in ''[[
* ''[[
* Several characters in ''[[
* The whole ''[[
* Both playable races in ''O.R.B: Off-World Resource Base'' consider an ancient document called the Torumin their Bible, some parts of which are quotes in the game.
* In ''[[Dragon Age]]: Origins'', the player occasionally finds parchments with fictional poems, stories, and legends throughout Thedas. These are logged into the game's
* ''[[Snatcher]]'' does this with a supercomputer that contains a lot of information about the game world.
* In ''[[
* In [[Valkyria Chronicles]], the entire game is setup like a history book that is divided with tabs that contain the main story and recorded entries about characters and weapons.
== Web Comics ==
* Hardwick and Little's ''Bestiary'', ''[[
▲* Hardwick and Little's ''Bestiary'', ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court (Webcomic)|Gunnerkrigg Court]]'', Chapter 3.
== Web Original ==
* In the [[Whateley Universe]], the author of the Phase novels often does this, with quotes from rock songs as lead-ins for chapters. But the quotes are usually from the fictional band Brass Monkey, so they can be as relevant as the author wants.
* Used in ''[[Look to
* In [[Guild Of The Cowry Catchers]], the quotes beginning each episode are from a pair of books by the [[Hero Antagonist]] and leader of the titular [[La Résistance]].
* Go type about:mozilla in the URL box in any Mozilla browser from Netscape Navigator 1 all the way up to the current version of Firefox. (Original Web? Not exactly, but close enough.) Or just google "Book of Mozilla".
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Fictional Document]]
[[Category:Exposition]]
[[Category:Paratext]]
[[Category:Information Desk]]
[[Category:
▲[[Category:Trope]]
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