Mark J. P. Wolf - Building imaginary worlds: the theory and history of subcreation

BUILDING IMAGINARY WORLDS

Mark J. P. Wolfs study of imaginary worlds theorizes world-building within and across media, including literature, comics, film, radio, television, board games, video games, the Internet, and more. Building Imaginary Worlds departs from prior approaches to the topic that focused mainly on narrative, medium, or genre, and instead considers imaginary worlds as dynamic entities in and of themselves. Wolf argues that imaginary worldswhich are often transnarrative, transmedial, and transauthorial in natureare compelling objects of inquiry for Media Studies.

Chapters present:

a theoretical analysis of how world-building extends beyond storytelling, the engagement of the audience, and the way worlds are conceptualized and experienced

a history of imaginary worlds that follows their development over three millennia from the fictional islands of Homers Odyssey to the present

internarrative theory examining how narratives set in the same world can interact and relate to one another

an examination of transmedial growth and adaptation, and what happens when worlds make the jump between media

an analysis of the transauthorial nature of imaginary worlds, the resulting concentric circles of authorship, and related topics of canonicity, participatory worlds, and subcreations relationship with divine Creation.

Building Imaginary Worlds also provides the scholar of imaginary worlds with a glossary of terms and a detailed timeline that spans three millennia and more than 1,400 imaginary worlds, listing their names, creators, and the works in which they first appeared.

Mark J. P. Wolf is Professor of Communication at Concordia University Wisconsin. He is the author of Myst and Riven:The World of the Dni, editor of the two-volume Encyclopedia of Video Games, and co-editor with Bernard Perron of The Video Game Theory Reader 1 and 2, among other books.

BUILDING IMAGINARY WORLDS

The Theory and History of Subcreation

Mark J. P. Wolf

First published 2012

by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Simultaneously published in the UK

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2012 Taylor & Francis

The right of Mark J. P. Wolf to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Wolf, Mark J. P.

Building imaginary worlds: the theory and history of subcreation / Mark J. P. Wolf.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.) 2. Imaginary societiesAuthorship. 3. FictionHistory and criticismTheory, etc. I. Title.

PN56.C69W67 2013

801'.92dc23

2012016677

ISBN: 978-0-415-63119-8 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-415-63120-4 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-0-203-09699-4 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo

by Cenveo Publisher Services

DEDICATION

A. M. D. G.

CONTENTS

An example of world documentation without narrative: typical pages from the enigmatic Codex Seraphinianus (1981) by Luigi Serafini (image courtesy of Luigi Serafini, Codex Seraphinianus, Milano, Franco Maria Ricci, First Edition, 1981).

Evidence of plant life on Tatooine. In the top image alone, one can find nine instances of plant life growing in the Lars homestead. In the center image, Aunt Beru holds a large vegetable (actually fennel) which she uses for cooking. In the bottom image, one can see a fringe of greenery growing in the valley along the path over which Lukes landspeeder passes as Tusken Raiders watch from above. All images from Star WarsEpisode IV: A New Hope (20th Century Fox, 1977).

World details in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (20th Century Fox, 2002). Staging in depth results in suggestive glimpses of distance objects and locations (top), while background details and events reveal further consequences of story events, like the flying droids seen outside Padms apartment that replace the window which was broken during the attack of the night before (bottom).

Examples of the 119 woodcut images that accompanied the 1481 edition of The Book of John Mandeville (circa 1357): a cockodrill of Silha (top left); an ox-headed man (top, right); the two-headed wild geese of Silha (center, left); a Blemmyae (center, right); a giant cyclops (bottom, left); and an Ethiopian with one foot (bottom, right).

Maps of Thomas Mores island of Utopia, from 1516 (left) and from 1518 (center), both attributed to Ambrosius Holbein; and from 1595, drawn by cartographer Abraham Ortelius (right).

Map of Madeleine De Scudrys Tendre, from 1654, which appeared with her novel Cllie, Histoire Romaine (16541660) and was designed by De Scudery and her friends, with the engraving of the final image attributed to Franois Chauveau.

Albert Robidas detailed drawings helped to illustrate his novels, which were visions of what life would be like in the 20th century, including an aerial rotating house (left) and a restaurant and coffeehouse atop an ironwork structure (right).

Typical pages from Little Nemo in Slumberland, including Befuddle Hall (left), which demonstrate McCays attention to background detail and visual world-building.

A section of the map drawn by George Annand showing Sinclair Lewiss Winnemac, and where it is located in the American Midwest.

Warren Robinetts Adventure (1979) for the Atari VCS 2600 was the first video game that cut screen to screen as the playercharacter moved through the games world.

Meridian 59 (1995) came packaged with a map (top) and featured a first-person view (bottom), and today is considered the first MMORPG.

Two very different maps of Mayberry, North Carolina, by Mark Bennett (top) and James L. Dean (bottom), extrapolated from the visual information provided on The Andy Griffith Show (Mark Bennett, Town of Mayberry, 1997, Lithograph on Rives BFK paper, 24.25 36.25 inches, Courtesy of the artist and Mark Moore Gallery) (Map of Mayberry courtesy of James L. Dean).

A detail of the Capital Region from Adrian Leskiws map of the Isle of Breda, as it changed over time. The top image represents the land in 2002, the middle image in 2004, and the bottom image in 2040. The top and middle images were created in 2003, and the bottom one in (images courtesy of Adrian Leskiw).

A Nsana (top) and a steam engine (bottom) from Arde, the two-dimensional world of A. K. Dewdneys The Planiverse (images courtesy of A. K. Dewdney).

The Utopian alphabet and a quatrain in the Utopian language, from Thomas Mores Utopia.

The view from the dock looking up the hill in Myst (1993) and in realMyst (2001). While Myst was made up of pre-rendered still images with 8-bit color,