Building Imaginary Worlds: The Theory and History of Subcreation

In Building Imaginary Worlds: The Theory and History of Subcreation, Mark J.P. Wolf provides a comprehensive overview of imaginary worlds, including those in literature, comics, film, radio, television, board games, video games, the World Wide Web, and other media.Whereas most approaches in Media Studies are medium-specific or narrative-specific, this book is world-centered in its approach, while still taking issues of narrative and media into consideration. Chapters touch on: a theoretical analysis of how world-building extends beyond storytelling, the engagement of the audience, and the way in which worlds are experienced a history of imaginary worlds that follows their development over three millennia from the fictional islands of Homer's Odysseyto the present an examinations of transmedial growth and adaptation, and the demands they make on a world an analysis of the transauthorial nature of imaginary worlds, the resulting concentric circles of authorship, and related topics of canonicity, participatory worlds, and subcreation's relationship with Creation The book also provides the scholar of worlds a glossary of terms and a timeline that spans three millenia and more than 1,400 imaginary worlds, including the names of their authors and the works in which they made their first public appearance.