In this paper, we discuss a part of participatory culture that so far has not received much attention in the academic world; it is the writing and reading of game fan fiction. The focus in this paper is on fan fiction, based on three different games that represent three different game genres: Tetris, StarCraft and Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. The aim is to advance our understanding of how pl...

This paper is meant to be an introduction both to the short story Nebulous Mechanisms as well as the concept of science fiction prototypes. In the tradition of the legendary Isaac Asimov, we jump into the long and symbiotic history of science fact and science fiction. Briskly we move through current work in the field and delve into the particulars of the craft of combining current scientific re...

hrough the study of two models, the video games Metroid Prime 3 and Bioshock, the present article explores the relations between the game-play experience related to interactive fiction and the kind of narrative construction typical of two of the key science fiction genres: intergalactic conflict and the distopic city. By means of identifying two complementary dimensions that shape gaming experi...

In this article, we challenge the hegemony of western science fiction, arguing that western science fiction is particular even as it claims universality. Its view remains based on ideas of the future as forward time. In contrast, in non-western science fiction the future is seen outside linear terms: as cyclical or spiral, or in terms of ancestors. In addition, western science fiction has focus...

Making a theoretical case linking genre trajectory with artistic legitimation struggles, this paper seeks to explain the development of the American science fiction magazine. Across the fifty-plus years analyzed, science fiction emerged from its lowbrow pulp fiction origins into a highly successful, critically acclaimed genre across multiple mediums. This empirical trend is then modeled using p...

This article discusses the potentials of 3D virtual worlds as tool for science fiction prototyping in education. Science fiction prototyping has become an important resource for creating, discussing, and assessing the impact of future scenarios. Introducing this creative process into education and training can help students understand societal and contextual implications of future technologies,...

In TREC 2002 the Berkeley group participated only in the English-Arabic cross-language retrieval (CLIR) track. One Arabic monolingual run and three English-Arabic cross-language runs were submitted. Our approach to the crosslanguage retrieval was to translate the English topics into Arabic using online English-Arabic machine translation systems. The four official runs are named as BKYMON, BKYCL...

This paper focuses on fiction electronic books and their usability. Two complementary studies were drawn together in order to investigate whether fiction e-books can successfully become part of people’s reading habits: the Visual Book project, which found that electronic texts which closely resemble their paper counterparts in terms of visual components such as size, quality and design were rec...

The current study investigated whether fiction experiences change empathy of the reader. Based on transportation theory, it was predicted that when people read fiction, and they are emotionally transported into the story, they become more empathic. Two experiments showed that empathy was influenced over a period of one week for people who read a fictional story, but only when they were emotiona...

Crime is a popular genre of fiction, widely read but sometimes seen as 'throwaway'. Disregarding this type of fiction because it is seen as low quality does not take into account its value to readers. Reading has been established as a means of improving mental health and well-being-often known as bibliotherapy. This often focuses on fiction considered to have literary merit rather than genre fi...