Ohio State University Press Digital Fiction and the Unnatural: Transmedial Narrative Theory, Method, and Analysis (Theory and Interpretation of Narrative)

Digital Fiction and the Unnatural: Transmedial Narrative Theory, Method, and Analysis offers the first comprehensive and systematic theoretical, methodological, and analytical examination of unnatural narratology as a medium-specific and transmedial phenomenon. It applies and adapts key concepts of narrative theory and analysis to digital-born fictions ranging from hypertext and interactive fiction to 3D-narrative video games, app fiction, and virtual reality. The book addresses the unique affordances of digital fiction by focusing on multilinearity and narrative contradiction, interactional metalepsis, impossible time and space, "extreme" digital narration, and medium-specific forms of textual "you." In so doing, the book refines, critiques, and expands unnatural, cognitive, and transmedial narratology by placing the form of these new narratives front and center. Review " Digital Fiction and the Unnatural is both compelling and convincing. The book presents new toolkits on the basis of digital narratives that involve antimimetic segments. On one hand, it thus fills a gap within digital narratology by highlighting the fact that various (and hitherto unexplored) unnatural segments exist in digital fiction. On the other hand, it takes unnatural narratology one step further by applying and refining the existing methodology through an entirely new corpus." --Jan Alber, coeditor of Unnatural Narratology: Extensions, Revisions, and Challenges About the Author Astrid Ensslin is Professor of Digital Humanities and Game Studies at the University of Alberta. Alice Bell is Professor of English Language and Literature in the Department of Humanities at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK.