Collecting twenty essays written by distinguished scholars from the United States and Germany, The Holodeck in the Garden offers an informative tour of the complex interrelations between science, technology, and contemporary American literature. Contributors include Michael Berube writing on Colson Whitehead's The Intuitionist; Joseph Conte on William Gibson and Bruce Sterling; David Cowart on Don DeLillo's Cosmopolis; Carl Djerassi on science-in-fiction; N. Katherine Hayles on Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon; Ursula Heise on risk and narrative in the contemporary novel; John Johnston on network theory; Brian McHale on Harry Mathews, Kathy Acker, and Gilbert Sorrentino; Joseph Tabbi on William Gaddis; and Curtis White on the "Great American Disaster Machine."

Collecting twenty essays written by distinguished scholars from the United States and Germany, The Holodeck in the Garden offers an informative tour of the complex interrelations between science, technology, and contemporary American literature. Contributors include Michael Berube writing on Colson Whitehead's The Intuitionist; Joseph Conte on William Gibson and Bruce Sterling; David Cowart on Don DeLillo's Cosmopolis; Carl Djerassi on science-in-fiction; N. Katherine Hayles on Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon; Ursula Heise on risk and narrative in the contemporary novel; John Johnston on network theory; Brian McHale on Harry Mathews, Kathy Acker, and Gilbert Sorrentino; Joseph Tabbi on William Gaddis; and Curtis White on the "Great American Disaster Machine."

An updated edition of the classic book on digital storytelling, with a new introduction and expansive chapter commentaries. I want to say to all the hacker-bards from every field—gamers, researchers, journalists, artists, programmers, scriptwriters, creators of authoring systems... please know that I wrote this book for you.” —Hamlet on the Holodeck, from the author's introduction to the updated edition Janet Murray's Hamlet on the Holodeck was instantly influential and controversial when it was first published in 1997. Ahead of its time, it accurately predicted the rise of new genres of storytelling from the convergence of traditional media forms and computing. Taking the long view of artistic innovation over decades and even centuries, it remains forward-looking in its description of the development of new artistic traditions of practice, the growth of participatory audiences, and the realization of still-emerging technologies as consumer products. This updated edition of a book the New Yorker calls a “cult classic” offers a new introduction by Murray and chapter-by-chapter commentary relating Murray's predictions and enduring design insights to the most significant storytelling innovations of the past twenty years, from long-form television to artificial intelligence to virtual reality. Murray identifies the powerful new set of expressive affordances that computing offers for the ancient human activity of storytelling and considers what would be necessary for interactive narrative to become a mature and compelling art form. Her argument met with some resistance from print loyalists and postmodern hypertext enthusiasts, and it provoked a foundational debate in the emerging field of game studies on the relationship between narrative and videogames. But since Hamlet on the Holodeck's publication, a practice that was largely speculative has been validated by academia, artistic practice, and the marketplace. In this substantially updated edition, Murray provides fresh examples of expressive digital storytelling and identifies new directions for narrative innovation.

The spirit of gardening is a deepening connection with nature that transforms the gardener into an adventurer encountering lessons great and small. Author Jim Nollman sees the connection to the garden as the space in which a genuine healing relationship between person and place can be formed. Why We Garden is full of helpful tips from Nollman's decades of gardening experience, along with the Zen of gardening--the sense of place and purpose and what tending the land means to us. A beautifully written gem for the gardener seeking the simplicity and spirit of the land and a gift for all who are stewards of the earth.

An account of the creation of new forms of life and intelligence in cybernetics, artificial life, and artificial intelligence that analyzes both the similarities and the differences among these sciences in actualizing life.The Allure of Machinic Life

William Gibson, author of the cyberpunk classic, Neuromancer (1984), is one today's most widely read science fiction writers. This companion is meant both for general readers and for scholars interested in Gibson's oeuvre. In addition to providing a literary and cultural context for works ranging from Gibson's first short story, "Fragments of a Hologram Rose" (1977), to his recent, bestselling novel, Zero History (2010), the companion offers commentary on Gibson's subjects, themes, and approaches. It also surveys existing scholarship on Gibson's work in an accessible way and provides an extensive bibliography to facilitate further study of William Gibson's writing, influence, and place in the history of science fiction and in literature as a whole.

What is narrative? Ridvan Askin brings together aesthetics, contemporary North American fiction, Gilles Deleuze, narrative theory and the recent speculative turn to answer this question. Through this process, he develops a transcendental empiricist concept of narrative. Askin argues against the established consensus of narrative theory for an understanding of narrative as fundamentally nonhuman, unconscious and expressive.