Fictional Document: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

* Much of ''[[Princess Tutu]]''{{'}}s plot revolves around the fictional fairy tale "The Prince and the Raven".

* Near the end of the ''[[Chrono Crusade]]'' manga, there's quotations from both Mary Magdalene's prophecies, and Azmaria's memoir. It's implied that at least some of the manga is "based on" the book Azmaria wrote.

* The villain of ''[[Monster (manga)|Monster]]'' bases his identity on a [[Mind Rape|brainwashing]] children's book. The story, along with several others, is reproduced in the series with full text and illustrations.

* ''[[Chobits]]'' features a picture book which corresponds to the main character so completely that it's little wonder when it's revealed that {{spoiler|it was written specifically for her.}}

* ''[[Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?]]'' has a fairy tale called "Argonaut", which is about a boy who grows up to become a hero. It's a favorite of the protagonist of the main story arc and one of the supporting characters of the "Sword Oratoria" arc.

 

* ''Under the Hood'', Hollis Mason's autobiography, and an issue of the ''Tales From the Black Freighter'' comic in ''[[Watchmen (comics)|Watchmen]].''

** Also parts of Dr. Manhattan's back story.

** The manuscript "Journal of Sir Francis Haddocke, Captain in the King's Navy, Commander of the vessel Vnicorn" from ''The Secret of the Unicorn''.

 

* ''[[Kyon: Big Damn Hero]]'' opens every chapter with an excerpt from one of these, whether a guide to being a hero, poetry, or some sort of diary.

* [[Exoria|The Exoria Files.]]

* ''[[Undocumented Features]]'', given that it spans centuries of story time and much of a galaxy, unsurprisingly has quite a few, including BaconBooks' line of self-help books for people with... ''unusual'' problems (''So You've Become Unstuck in Time'', ''So You've Just Arrived From A Parallel Universe'', ''So You Don't Want the Creature to Eat You'', and so on...).

* [[The Teraverse]] is liberally supplied with these, some of which are actually stories written as part of the verse, and at least one of the stories, ''[https://www.tthfanfic.org/story.php?no=32228 What's What in the Teraverse]'', is actually a sampling of Fictional Documents or excerpts therefrom.

 

* ''[[Mirror Mask]]'' has "The Really Useful Book" and "A Complete History of Everything".

* In the original novel ''Frankenstein'', the actual method of bringing [[Frankenstein's Monster|the Monster]] back to life is never detailed. In the [[Mel Brooks]] film ''[[Young Frankenstein]]'', this fact is parodied by the discovery of a book by Frankenstein entitled simply ''How I Did It''.

* In ''[[Ghostbusters II]]'', Egon finds information on [[Big Bad|Vigo]] in a reference text called ''Magicians, Martyrs, and Madmen'', written by an author named Leon Zundinger.

 

* When medieval poet Wolfram von Eschenbach wrote ''Parzival'', a German retelling and continuation of [[Chrétien de Troyes]]' ''Perceval'', he answered criticism of discrepancies between his version and Chrétien's earlier ones by claiming he was being faithful to the original account by one "Kyot the Provencal", whom he alleged to have been Chrétien's source as well.

** ''The Book of Mazarbul'', the record of Balin's [[Apocalyptic Log|doomed]] Moria colony in ''The Lord of the Rings''

* ''The Encylopedia Galactica'', [[Isaac Asimov]]'s ''[[Foundation]]'' series.

** Some that specifically deserve to be called out from ''[[The Belgariad]]'': ''The Mrin Codex'' and the ''Darine Codex'' are the collected ravings of two madmen inspired by the prophesy of light. ''The Ashabine Oracles'' are writings by [[Big Bad|Torak]] under the influence of the prophecy of dark.

* Juliet McKenna likes them even more; she [[Encyclopedia Exposita|prefaces nearly every chapter]] with a fictional document. Some of them are only [[Cow Tools|tangentially relevant]].

* In ''Der Schimmelreiter'' (''The Rider on the White Horse'') by the 19th-century German writer Theodor Storm, the narrator claims to be piecing together from memory a novella he read as a youngster.

* Craig Thomas has used this at least twice in his novels, such as ''Wolfsbane'' and ''[[Firefox]]''.

* The excerpts from Princess Irulan's various scholarly works (and other people's, for that matter) that [[Encyclopedia Exposita|appear as chapter headers]] throughout the ''[[Dune]]'' novels.

** There's also ''The Orange Catholic Bible'' that Yueh gives Paul.

** Pratchett is very fond of this trope; other examples from [[Discworld]] include ''The Necrotelicomnicon'' aka ''Liber Paginarum Fulvarum'' (a [[Tome of Eldritch Lore]]), ''The Joy of Tantric Sex with Illustrations for the Advanced Student, by A. Lady'', ''The Book of Going Forth Around Elevenish'', ''The Little Folks' Book of Flower Fairies'', ''The Bumper Fun Grimoire'', ''How to Dynamically Manage People for Dynamic Results in a Caring Empowering Way in Quite a Short Time Dynamically'', ''Wellcome to Ankh-Morporke, Citie of One Thousand Surprises'', and many more, usually parodic versions of real books. The ''[[Universe Compendium|Discworld Companion]]'' includes a full list.

*** Several have been [[Defictionalization|Defictionalised]] for merchandising purposes, including ''Where's My Cow?'' (a children's book) and ''Nanny Ogg's Cookbook'' (a follow-up to her in-universe book ''The Joye of Snackes'').

* About half of each the books in ''[[The Pendragon Adventure]]'' is journals from Bobby Pendragon himself, detailing his stays and attempts to save the Territories.

* Extracts from [[Thursday Next]]'s autobiography are scattered throughout [[Thursday Next|the series of the same name]]. Extracts from others characters' jottings/memoirs also feature prominently.

* ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' has stacks of these, from trading cards to school textbooks to government pamphlets to wizarding comic books.

** Not to mention JKR's predilection for [[Defictionalization|turning some of them into published works]] (''[[Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them]]'', ''[[Quidditch Through the Ages]]'', ''[[The Tales of Beedle the Bard]]'').

* [[Speculative Fiction]] author Bruce Sterling's short story ''Our Neural Chernobyl'' was written as a ''review'' of a fictional monograph (a non-fiction book on a specific real-world topic) about the "neural Chernobyl," which described the development, release, and consequences of a retrovirus that caused massive growth in brain complexity in almost all mammals, something catastrophic for humans as the process makes humans massively intelligent, but effectively burns out the brain after a while. The story even touches on the book's exploration of the controversial topic of non-human uplifting from the virus, where many animals became much more intelligent, to the point cats developed torture devices to use on mice.

* ''[[The King in Yellow]]'', a fictional play script from the book of short stories of the same name.

* In particular, the film ''The Navidson Record'' from ''[[House of Leaves]]'' doesn't actually exist, and the protagonist tells you this in the book's introduction. Meanwhile, the meat of ''{{color|blue|House}} Of Leaves'' is an [[Everybody Is Jesus in Purgatory|academic analysis]]/summary of said film. A few of the people and books referred to in the analysis's footnotes are real; the vast, vast majority of them are completely made up.

* The French sci-fi writer Bernard Werber frequently uses this device. The ''Ants'' trilogy has fragments from his fictional character Edmond Wells's ''Encyclopedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge'', which was later published in paperback form under Werber's name (rather disappointingly, it mostly intersperse the bits already quoted from it and include little, if any new material). This last detail is egregious since Wells explains in his atypical encyclopedia that he thinks he is turning schizophrenic and the paperback makes it sound as if it were Werber's voice (moreover, Edmond actually dies just before the beginning of the first novel and only appears through flashbacks and the ''Encyclopedia'', and he's a bit of a [[Mad Scientist]] at that). Also, the ''Thanatonautes'' series has fragments from a character's collection of world myths and legends concerning life after death. [[Post Modernism|Yes, you know what it means]].

* Used from time to time in ''[[Sword of Truth]]'', mostly in the form of books of prophecy. Being prophesies, they are then [[Screw Destiny|promptly ignored]].

* The ''[[Books of Pellinor]]'' are all written as if they are histories of the fictional land the books are based in. The back of the book even includes annotations, a bibliography, family trees and various other fictitious documents.

** The [[Other Wiki]] has a rather extensive list of [[wikipedia:Cthulhu Mythos arcane literature|Cthulhu Mythos arcane literature]], most of which falls under this trope. ''The Book of Eibon'', ''Unaussprechlichen Kulten'', and ''De Vermis Mysteriis'' are mentioned nearly as often as ''The Necronomicon''.

* Much of Karel Čapek's ''[[War with the Newts]]'' consists of fictional newspaper excerpts commenting on the situation with the Newts (and, eventually, the eponymous war).

** It's not so much a fictional ''document'' as a fictional ''nanotechnological superweapon'', but most of the time it looks and acts like a book.

* In the [[Ciaphas Cain]] novels, [[Literary Agent Hypothesis|Amberley Vail]] uses extracts from other sources to fill in the blanks left by Cain's self-centered account. These include the [[Purple Prose]]-filled memoirs of a future general in his unit, histories of varying accuracy, travel guides, and even a children's book about promethium.

* ''Sex Is My Adventure'', Josella Playton's undeservedly-infamous novel in ''[[The Day of the Triffids]]''.

* Garth Nix's ''[[Keys to the Kingdom]]'' has ''The Compleat Atlas'', which is a magic book that will tell you anything about the House.

* Many of the page quotes in [[Dean Koontz]] novels are from ''The Book of Counted Sorrows'', though this eventually became [[The Red Stapler]].

** Also Sherlock Holmes' treatise on the different types of cigare(ette) ash.

* ''[[The Inkworld Trilogy|Inkheart]]'' is the most important plot device within its eponymous frame story.

* Most of the books on the pig-related shelf in the library of [[Blandings Castle]], including most notably Lord Emsworth's favourite, Whiffles On the Care of the Pig. (The title is given with variations in different novels, in ''Galahad at Blandings'' the author is called Augustus Whipple).

** The epigraph of ''[[The Fault in Our Stars]]'' is from ''An Imperial Afflicton'', as a reference to ''[[The Great Gatsby]]'', whose epigraph is also from another fictional book.

 

* ''[[Bones]]'' makes frequent reference to the novels that Brennan has written, and one episode includes a series of murders that imitate those in one of her books. (In a playfully meta note, the books have the same title scheme as the Kathy Reichs novels that the series is based on, and "Kathy Reichs" is the name of Brennan's fictional forensic anthropologist.)

* ''Blush'', the fashion magazine whose offices are the setting for ''[[Just Shoot Me]]''.

** Between season 5 and 6, a fictional documentary TV episode on the DHARMA Initiative was released.

* The horror novels of [[Garth Marenghi's Darkplace|Garth Marenghi]]. Garth reads out passages at the start of episodes and [[Product Placement|has Dagless read one of them]] to keep his mind occupied.

 

* ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]'' has ''Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooey'', as well as ''Chewing'', a magazine about chewing gum. (Also, ''Commander Coriander Salamander And 'Er Singlehander Bellyander'', the sequel to ''Hamster Huey'' is mentioned once.)

* ''[[Peanuts]]'' made reference to a whole series of books starring ''The Six Bunny-Wunnies'' on various adventures, authored by one Helen Sweetstory. Over a dozen titles were given, each usually mentioned only once, but ''The Six Bunny-Wunnies Freak Out'' is the most widely remembered for having been banned by the local school board and subsequently championed by Linus.

 

* ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' has numerous fictional documents that are quoted in cards' flavor text and in some of the novels and comics. Some of the notable ones include ''The Antiquities War'', an epic poem about the Brothers' War that the comics and novel are [[Literary Agent Hypothesis|supposedly based on]]; ''Sarpadian Empires'', whose first six volumes are quoted in Fallen Empires flavor text and whose seventh volume was printed as a card in Time Spiral; and ''The Underworld Cookbook'', which is only quoted on three cards (one of which is from the self-parody expansion Unhinged), but whose author's name, Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar, is the longest word ever to appear on a Magic card. ''The Love Song of Night and Day'' actually exists and was written as part of the worldbuilding for the ''Mirage'' expansion, and can be read [http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/feature/145 here.]

** The end of the latest block, ''Rise Of The Eldrazi'', had quotes from a book called the War Diaries as flavour for some cards. It seems like an account of the terrible fighting against the Cthulu-sytle horrors of the Eldrazi, and contains sentences about crucical turning points.

** ''White Wolf'' enjoys making these - they did three for ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade]]'' (''The Book of Nod, The Prince's Primer'' and ''Revelations of the Dark Mother'') and another for ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' (''Chronicles of the Black Labyrinth'').

 

* Several games have used fictional documents as part of the documentation. Well-known examples include text adventures from [[Infocom]] and ''[[Ultima]]'' series.

* ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' has a few books mentioned in the game. Most notably one called "In the Darkness of Shadow Moses", a novelization of the events of the first game which is available to read on the main menu of MGS2.

* ''The Books of Chzo'', which includes ''The Book of The Bridge'', the ''Book of The New Prince, The Book of Victims'', and the ''Book of The Prince''. These Books are shown in pieces throughout the ''[[Chzo Mythos]]'' in order to flesh out most of the back-story and themes of the series.

 

* ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'': While researching the minotaur, Antimony was unimpressed with ''Gainsbury World Mythology'' and ''Mythology 4 Kidz!'' as sources. Later, she's seen reading ''[[Tannhauser Gate]]'', and Kat borrows ''Important Stuff (Like Science)'' from the library.

* In part 2 of the Lebanese comic [http://www.malaakonline.com Malaak: Angel of Peace], [http://www.malaakonline.com/II10.html a collage of fictional newspapers] is used on one page to suggest that the heroine has piled up missions and has been noticed by the general public. The papers' titles and contents (ads included) are all parodies of actual papers and places.

** So when you see something like ''Bean There, Done That'' (a book on coffee written by Vanamonde von Mekkhan under a pseudonym), it looks downright respectable despite the [[Punny Name]].

* The various mad science journals (including the New Journal of Malology) from ''Narbonic''.

* The ''Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries'' of ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]''.

* ''[[Unwinder's Tall Comics]]'' are ''loaded'' with fictional books. Unwinder is a fan of the ''After Dark'' series, a [[Twilight (novel)|romance novels involving zombies who are actually super-attractive athletes who can also fly]], as well as the epically dull sci-fi [[doorstopper]]s of Gary P. Rastov. Excerpts from all of these are provided, of course. The author even parodies his use of this trope, by having Unwinder [[Story Within a Story|write his own webcomic]], with said webcomic featuring its own, uniquely dull, fictional novel: ''The Gun and the Grapes'', which cranks [[Narrative Filigree]] up to eleven. Back in the main comic, a reader is unimpressed by Unwinder's metafiction.

* Several are mentioned in passing in ''[[The Mansion of E]]''.

 

* The entry on the [[Precursors|Iormunean Imperium]] in ''[[Open Blue]]'''s [[All There in the Manual|Worldbook]] quotes multiple fictional documents as the source of information for the otherwise completely unknown lost civilization.

** The Worldbook's article on [[The Church]] also features verses from their holy book, the Book of Zod.

** Port Allison's history also quotes passages from the island's discoverer, a Columbus expy named Julian Argenio.

 

* One episode of ''[[Kim Possible]]'' features the "classic novella" ''Lo The Plow Shall Till The Soil Of Redemption''. One critic describes it thusly: "snobby, pompous, overwritten, and the pictures [are] in black and white!"

* A ''[[Futurama]]'' episode features the [[Beck (musician)|Becktionary]] and the Rhyming Becktionary.

** The Foal Free Press, the newspaper at the school the Cutie Mark Crusaders attend.

* The [[Transformers]] follow the Covenant of Primus, a book of prophetic texts delivered by their creator-god, in many continuities, most notably ''[[Beast Wars]]'' and the "Aligned" continuity branch that includes the ''[[Transformers Prime]]'' TV series and a series of novels.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Fictional Media]]

[[Category:Exposition]]

[[Category:Index]]