# Fictional works of fiction. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 28, 2005, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-works-of-fiction/328337 "2005-10-28T17:29:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2005, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-works-of-fiction/328337/81 "2005-10-30T19:34:31Z")
> [@wevets](#): > > Yup! _Hyperman_ (I recently re-read _A Game of You_). Aaah, Hyperman…that makes much more sense than Ultraman, since DC has at least 5 separate caracters (of differing levels of in-canonness) by that name. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2005, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-works-of-fiction/328337/82 "2005-10-30T20:25:21Z")
I just remembered _The Unstrung Harp_, a novel by Mr C(lavius) F(rederick) Earbrass, that was the focus of a strangely pointless graphic short story by Edward Gorey. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2005, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-works-of-fiction/328337/83 "2005-10-30T20:54:43Z")
> [@Beware of Doug](#): > > I just remembered _The Unstrung Harp_, a novel by Mr C(lavius) F(rederick) Earbrass, that was the focus of a strangely pointless graphic short story by Edward Gorey. Not really pointless: one of the best works about the writing process ever written. Back to listing: In Theodore Sturgeon’s story “Two Percent Inspiration,” Hugh McCauley is a fan of the space opera adventures of Satan Strong, Scienctist, Scourge of the Spaceways, and Supporter of the Serialized Short Story. The story is memorable for its triple twist ending. ---
**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-works-of-fiction/328337/84 "2005-10-31T04:55:35Z")
The manga Fruits Basket often has some of the younger characters watching an anime based off of the whole monster fighting genre named Mogeta. ---
**Author:** ![Feydeau](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df788c/32.png) [@Feydeau](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Feydeau)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-works-of-fiction/328337/85 "2005-10-31T07:23:17Z")
> [@ExtraKun](#): > > Just a very brief hijack - what will be the copyright implications if someone tries to write a book, using one of those forementioned titles? None. You can’t copyright a title. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-works-of-fiction/328337/86 "2005-10-31T08:01:54Z")
> [@kidchameleon](#): > > Off the top of my head… > > Well, there’s the book Misery(IIRC) in the book Misery, by Stephen King. And Mort Rainey’s books _Everybody Drops the Dime_ (maybe _A Dime_) and _The Organ-Grinder’s Boy_ from _Secret Window, Secret Garden_. Are we including songs? In _The Stand_, King has a character named Larry Underwood who’s becoming somewhat of a celebrity right about the time that the plague hits, after recordng a song called “Baby, Can You Dig Your Man?” ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-works-of-fiction/328337/87 "2005-10-31T09:02:26Z")
Stanislaw Lem has written a few of books solely about non-existant books, which he used as a means of looking at interesting ideas that might not work fleshed out to a full-length novel. _One Human Minute_ was the introductions to three made-up works. _Imaginary Magnitude_ and _Mortal Engines_ were collections of reviews of ficticious works. And of course there’s _Don Quixote_, by Pierre Menard (in Jorge Luis Borges’ _Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote_). Menard’s _Quixote_ is identical and superior to the orignal. ---
**Author:** ![snorlax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@snorlax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snorlax)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-works-of-fiction/328337/88 "2005-10-31T09:49:03Z")
Another Vonnegut invention is [The Books Of Bokonon](http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/personal/bokonon.html), a scripture for the religion of Bokononism found in _Cat’s Cradle_. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-works-of-fiction/328337/89 "2005-10-31T11:46:34Z")
> [@ITR champion](#): > > Baron Bodissey’s legendary masterwork _Life_ is mentioned in several of Jack Vance’s science fiction novels. It’s not clear whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, but at least one professor promised good grades to any student who read the entire thing. Short excerpts appeared in _The Face_ and _The Book of Dreams_. (And of course Vance’s _The Book of Dreams_ provides only a few bits and pieces from Howard Alan Treesong’s _The Book of Dreams_.) Ah, _Life_, by Unspiek, Baron Boddissey, harshly decried as “sixty volumes of rhodomontade and piffle” IIRC. (I’m unsure about the number of volumes, but not about the pejoratives.) I think snippets actually occur in _all_ the Demon Princes novels, since I’m fairly sure I’d heard of it before I even knew there were any sequels to _Star King_. And in that same series there are regular (one per book) extracts from _The Avatar’s Apprentice, from “Scroll from the Ninth Dimension”_, featuring the adventures of the hapless wizard-in-training Marmaduke. I’d like to read that. 🙂 Whereas on the other hand, _Moreta’s Ride_ **ought** to have remained merely a story-within-a-story in _Dragonflight_. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![wayward](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a87d85/32.png) [@wayward](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wayward)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-works-of-fiction/328337/90 "2005-10-31T12:31:43Z")
Robert Rankin’s books very often contain references to the Lazlo Woodbine detective novels, written by one P.P. Penrose, as well as a number of sci-fi books by the same author. Of, course Rankin’s characters quite often seem to realise that they are in a novel, and more than once have ended up interacting with the fictional-fictionl ones, so things can get a little confusing… ---
**Author:** ![Boulter\_s\_Canary](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e79b87/32.png) [@Boulter\_s\_Canary](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boulter_s_Canary)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-works-of-fiction/328337/91 "2005-10-31T12:45:56Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > On \*\*Terry Pratchett’s \*\* Discworld there is the _Necrotelicomnicon_, written by the Klatchian necromancer **Achmed the Mad** (although he preferred to be called **Achmed the I Just Get These Headaches** ). 😃 Not to forget **"Achmed the I Just Get These Headaches’ Book of Humerous cat Stories"** ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-works-of-fiction/328337/92 "2005-10-31T13:00:54Z")
**Polycarp** writes: > [@](#): > > I have never read the source material myself, but I gather that the Sherlock Holmes canon includes reference to a non-existent Watson account of a Holmes exploit entitled “The Case of the Giant Rat of Sumatra.” Wwell, not really. There are several such cases of Sherlock Holmes noted in The Canon, but the point is that, although they occurred, they were never written down by Watson. On top of which, they were supposed to record actual cases solved by Holmes, so that they were not supposed to be “works of fiction”, either. But, to complicate matters, most of the referred to cases have been done as pastiches by admirers. There was a pretty good book-length version of The Giant Rat out circa 1975. Some of the other cases were “The Adventure of the Lighthouse, the Politician, and the Trained Cormorant”; “The Canary Trainer”; The Singular Affair of the Aluminum Crutch"; “The Adventure of the Second Stain” (After referring to this one twice, Doyle eventually actually wrote it); The Affair of Isadora Persano (who was found stark raving mad in a room with a matchbox containing a worm unknown to science). There are a _lot_ of others – more than I think the casual reader of Holmes realizes… Adrian Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr used these as the bases for “The Exploits of ASherlock Holmes”. By the way, I’ve long suspected that one of the above served as inspiration for Frederick Forsythe’s “Day of the Jackal”. See if you can figure out which one. ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-works-of-fiction/328337/93 "2005-10-31T18:35:42Z")
> [@N9IWP](#): > > The detective novels that JL Picard holodecked in Star Trek TNG. Just as you say, the book never existed in real-life. However, as I recall, the book was kinda’ (but not really) based on [Casino Royale](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/014200202X/104-7853922-4138350?v=glance). ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-works-of-fiction/328337/94 "2005-10-31T18:49:42Z")
Since songs and poems have been mentioned, Ursula LeGuin has mentioned several in her earthsea books, including: - The Creation of Ea - The Deed of Enlad - The Deed of Erreth-Akbe - The Deed of Ged (which is specifically said to omit most of the events of the last three-fifths of ‘a wizard of earthsea’, though one might expect them to be included.) - The Deed of Morred - Lament for the White Enchanter - Song of the sparrowhawk ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-works-of-fiction/328337/95 "2005-10-31T19:14:26Z")
> [@Scott Plaid](#): > > Just as you say, the book never existed in real-life. However, as I recall, the book was kinda’ (but not really) based on [Casino Royale](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/014200202X/104-7853922-4138350?v=glance). You’re confused. You’re thinking of the NextGen episode where the crew interacts with a set of psychic figments set up as a result of an astronaut’s copy of a novel. (Which is a legit example for this thread.) The previous poster was referring to Picard’s oft-adopted identity of Dixon Hill. I don’t know that we ever heard the titles of any of the Dixon Hill mysteries, though. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-works-of-fiction/328337/96 "2005-10-31T19:29:18Z")
Woody Allen usually has invented wonderful titles for his Kafkaesque, tortured playwrights to have written, for example, Dark Penguin (a masterpiece) Geese Aplenty A Cyst For Gus We also can’t forget Saul Bellow’s _Seize The Day_, in which the con artist Dr. Tamkin writes a groaningly bad poem entitled “Ism vs. Hism” P.G. Wodehouse’s novel _Cocktail Time_ is about a fictitious novel of the same name. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-works-of-fiction/328337/97 "2005-10-31T19:37:02Z")
> [@CandidGamera](#): > > You’re confused. You’re thinking of the NextGen episode where the crew interacts with a set of psychic figments set up as a result of an astronaut’s copy of a novel. I remember that one. The astronaut was trapped in the casino based on the events in the novel. He kept a diary, and the last entry said: “With such a pointless plot and cliched characters, I will welcome death when it comes.” Must have been a pretty lousy novel. ---
**Author:** ![dasgupta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@dasgupta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasgupta)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-works-of-fiction/328337/98 "2005-10-31T21:37:05Z")
We’ve also got _The Books of Bokonon_ in **Cat’s Cradle** by Kurt Vonnegut. ---
**Author:** ![marque\_elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71c47a/32.png) [@marque\_elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marque_elf)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-works-of-fiction/328337/99 "2005-11-01T03:10:22Z")
The play **The Real Inspector Hound** by Tom Stoppard uses this device to mind dizzying effect. What starts out as 2 men actually on stage watching a play called \*\*The Real Inspector Hound \*\* turns into those watchers becoming part of the play which we are watching to their conducting a real murder investigation of a murder commited during the performance of the play to the “real” commission of a murder during the play to, if I remember correctly, one of the investigators becoming a murder victim himself. Where reality begins and what part of the show is fictional and what part is actual becomes the real subject of the play. Not only is it incredibly, and intentionally confusing, but also very funny. ---
**Author:** ![brianmelendez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/65b543/32.png) [@brianmelendez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brianmelendez)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-works-of-fiction/328337/100 "2005-11-01T03:30:01Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > One episode of “MASH” centers around the missing last page of some mystery novel. _The Rooster Crowed at Midnight_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-works-of-fiction/328337.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fictional-works-of-fiction/328337.md?page=6)