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| 9 | * The fundamental justification for ''Literature/SixteenThirtyTwo'' series by Eric Flint. |
| 10 | ** Epitomized in the e-zine [[http://grantvillegazette.com/ Grantville Gazette]] which is half excessively researched short stories and half excessively researched non-fiction articles. |
| 11 | ** Even before the e-zine, there was [[http://www.baenebooks.com/10.1125/Baen/0671578499/0671578499.htm?blurb Chapter 34 of the original novel,]] which barely qualifies as fiction. The book also includes an afterword in which Flint lists which characters are historical, which fictional, and which in between. |
| 12 | * Willard Price's ''Literature/{{Adventure}}'' series. Starring two brothers as zoologists traveling around the world collecting rare animals, the series includes, among other things, volcano spelunking, undersea exploration, old-school whaling expedition, and elephant hunting. Each book has a healthy sprinkling of fun facts about the locale the brothers are currently in. |
| 13 | * ''Litetature/AdventuresOnTrains'' builds each story around a real-life railway journey, and although they occasionally change things to make the story work, the authors detail any AcceptableBreaksFromReality in an appendix for each book. The target audience is middle-school-aged transport fans. |
| 14 | * ''Literature/AgatonSax:'' At one point in the Swedish edition of Agaton Sax and the Big Rig, Agaton Sax is hanging from a bridge in Scotland. The narration tells us a whole lot of technical data about the bridge, none of which is plot-relevant, before moving on with the story. |
| 15 | * Caleb Carr's thrillers ''Literature/TheAlienist'' and its sequel ''The Angel of Darkness'', both set in 1890s New York, are crammed with so much period detail -- including extensive quotes from contemporary authors -- that they could almost qualify as either history ''or'' psychology textbooks. With a healthy dose of sociology thrown in. |
| 16 | * Creator/MichaelChabon's ''Literature/TheAmazingAdventuresOfKavalierAndClay'' does this to give the (fictional) book a sense of being real history. Footnotes and small diversions from the narrative detail historical events and/or the actions of real people who are at times present in the narrative (such as Creator/SalvadorDali), as well as tracing the history of comic books throughout, and offering small 'gossipy' tidbits on certain subjects. It actually works brilliantly, although the reader is never quite sure which parts are real and which aren't. |
| 17 | * The Egyptology and history of archeology in the ''Literature/AmeliaPeabody'' mystery series is solid, because the author, Elizabeth Peters (IRL Barbara Mertz) is an Egyptologist and writes non-fiction under her real name. |
| 18 | * In the ''Literature/AmericanGirl'' book and doll series, at the end of each historical book is a "Looking Back" section that goes into some detail about the time period, and helps to place the character in the time. Kaya (Nez Perce) and Josefina (Mexican) had cultural panels involved in their creation as well, which is why Kaya is the only doll with a closed mouth (showing one's teeth is considered offensive to Nez Perce). |
| 19 | * In Brett Easton Ellis' book ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'', Patrick Bateman describes the clothing of almost every character he encounters, referencing many popular brands from the specific era and culture of late-eighties Wall Street. According to Ellis, he purposely dressed the characters in outfits that sounded accurate and plausible on paper -- if you were to see them, however, [[ImpossiblyCoolClothes the characters would look ridiculous.]] This idea was ignored in the movie for obvious reasons, as all the characters are very sharp dressers. |
| 20 | ** There is one scene where Patrick Bateman puts on two neckties at once. |
| 21 | ** He does the same thing with food starting out with unusual but plausible culinary creations (red snapper pizza, swordfish meatloaf with onion marmalade) and drifting into the absurd (mud soup) as [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness Bateman's connection to reality becomes more strained.]] |
| 22 | * Pretty much any story by Creator/PoulAnderson is likely to teach you something about astronomy or chemistry or mythology or biology or history or... |
| 23 | * K.A. Applegate did this for ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'', researching as much as she could on animals before including them as morphs in the books. Most of the time it works, setting up how the characters view the world as a new animal; other times it feels very forced, with characters bringing up useless facts for no reason; rarely it is used for terror. |
| 24 | ** Apparently this was enforced after she was called on a major blooper in the first book in the series: referring to knees changing direction the first time Jake morphs into a dog (dogs are digitigrade, i.e. they walk on their toes, with their "knees" actually being ankles). |
| 25 | ** Applegate also dabbles in military history and literature from time to time. |
| 26 | * Mary Gentle's ''Literature/AshASecretHistory'' manages to avoid infodumps while integrating large amounts of knowledge about late mediaeval warfare and equipment. |
| 27 | * Creator/IsaacAsimov wrote so much non-fiction on nearly every subject imaginable that it's surprising he didn't do more of this; however, his return to fiction after a long stretch of exclusively non-fiction was ''Literature/TheGodsThemselves'', which he wrote at least partly because a fellow author mentioned an isotope that couldn't possibly exist (ironically as part of a complaint about this very trope; the gist of the statement was that he disliked people criticizing his stories because he got some trivial technical detail wrong), and Asimov thought it might be fun to write a story about it anyway. |
| 28 | * Patrick O'Brian's ''Literature/AubreyMaturin'' novels are one of the best examples of this trope. First time readers tend to assume it was simply written by a contemporary author. |
| 29 | * Gary Jennings' ''Literature/{{Aztec}}'' novel is a massive door stopper consisting approximately on 30% plot and about 70% info on Precolumbian cultures, their societies, religious beliefs and way of living. Administrivia/TropesAreNotBad, in part due to the rarity of creative works based on Precolumbian societies and the fact that few people know about them, a lot of people consider the investigation more entertaining than the novel itself. All of his novels are excellent examples of this, not only ''Aztec''. For ''Literature/{{Spangle}}'', he joined a circus. And for ''Literature/{{Raptor}}'', he traveled extensively in the Balkans. |
| 30 | * Lew Wallace, the author of Literature/BenHur, sought to make the novel as historically accurate as possible, studying the Bible and looking into Roman history, geography, culture, language, customs, architecture, and daily life in ancient Rome, among other things; he wrote in his autobiography that he once "went to Washington, thence to Boston, for no purpose but to exhaust their libraries in an effort to satisfy [himself] of the mechanical arrangement of the oars in the interior of a trireme", a boat that got its name from its three rows of oars. Wallace did not visit the Holy Land until after his novel was published; he went there in the mid-1880s to trace the steps of Ben-Hur and test the accuracy of his description of Jerusalem. He wrote in his autobiography: "I found the descriptive details true to the existing objects and scenes, and I find no reason to make a single change in the text of the book." |
| 31 | * Alessandro Manzoni's ''Literature/TheBetrothed'' is well known and praised for his historical accuracy, even including important historical characters in the appropriate time and place. |
| 32 | * ''Literature/TheBeyonders'' features a "cursed lake" named Whitelake, in which everything sinks. However, Whitelake is actually composed of a non-Newtonian fluid -- much like cornstarch in water -- and all of its strange properties are explained by it. |
| 33 | ** The series' [[StuffBlowingUp Explodium]] du jour, orantium, is also very strongly based on alkali metals. It explodes on contact with water or (moisture-filled) air, needs to be sealed inside of a nonreactive substance, like a noble gas or a mineral oil, to keep from reacting, and it's very dangerous to extract. Its reaction is... more violent than the real stuff, however. |
| 34 | * Marie Brennan finds ways to work research into nearly all of her stories, but her ''Literature/OnyxCourt'' series has the greatest degree of it. She meticulously researched the daily life, politics, and events in 16th-19th century London, and it shows. More than once, she completely rearranged her plot when she realized it didn't fit with exact historical dates. |
| 35 | * Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold likes to get as much right as she possibly can: [[Literature/VorkosiganSaga Miles Vorkosigan's]] stint as a meteorologist in ''Literature/TheVorGame'' was inspired by her father's profession. The casting of the titanium mirror in ''Literature/FallingFree'' was checked out by metallurgists. She admits that the wormhole physics in that series is [[HandWave Hand Waved,]] though. |
| 36 | ** Both Cordelia in ''Literature/{{Barrayar}}'' and Fawn in ''Literature/TheSharingKnife: Horizon'' were also pretty clearly written by someone who has actually been pregnant. |
| 37 | * ''Literature/ChanceAndChoicesAdventures'' shows off a lot of historically accurate items and ideas from its setting (1830s-1840s Arkansas) including some remarkably obscure things like the Lefaucheux 20-Shot revolver. |
| 38 | * Creator/AgathaChristie worked as a nurse and in a hospital pharmacy before turning to writing; as a result, whenever she talked about poisons she knew exactly what she was talking about. One of her novels even saved a few lives as people were able to recognise the symptons of thallium poisoning from it. |
| 39 | * When Creator/TomClancy was an individual writer, before he became a franchised name, showing his work on the subject of arms, the military, and military technology was his hallmark, to the point where descriptions of the various weapons and vehicles interfere with the story. Not so much on sociological and political subjects. Since he licensed his name, the accuracy level is as likely to fall into FalselyAdvertisedAccuracy territory as not. |
| 40 | ** ''Literature/TheSumOfAllFears'' (which includes a great deal of information on the construction of nuclear weapons), he wrote to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory requesting information about the equipment used for the purpose. They sent him copies of the manuals for the machines they use, and various other information. He was apparently not expecting any reply to his request, and was quite surprised when the package showed up in the mail. Fortunately for us, ''The Sum of All Fears'' also contained an intentional aversion of this trope (similar to the Creator/StephenKing example below), where Clancy meticulously described what is actually a ''wrong'' way to build a nuclear bomb. Those sections read like any other carefully-researched description of military hardware in his books, but Clancy made sure the details were such that anyone following his "instructions" would fail to make a working device. |
| 41 | ** DoubleSubversion in ''Literature/TheHuntForRedOctober''. After he wrote that, the FBI came in to ask him just where he learned about the ''Los Angeles''-class submarine's inertial navigation system, which was top secret. Actually, he had made it all up from what he knew about submarine warfare...and his made-up version was pretty much dead-on accurate. |
| 42 | ** Also from ''Red October'' is one of the most accurate depictions of exactly what happens when a nuclear reactor goes into meltdown. Hint: [[spoiler:it melts.]] |
| 43 | * Creator/ArthurCClarke, being one of the original hard sci-fi authors, tended to explain the scientific background of his novels in appendices or "author's notes" sections, especially towards the end of his career. Thankfully he was pretty good at keeping the details out of the plot and dialogue (he assigns his own short ''Jupiter V'' to the category of the "gimmick story" where some neat little bit of science takes over the plot). |
| 44 | * Creator/HalClement was a classic "hard scifi" author and made sure his science was spot-on. In ''Literature/MissionOfGravity'' some of the descriptions seem quite outlandish, but he included an appendix which explains his "working out" and the physics in detail, ''literally'' "showing his work." He regretted losing the program he'd written to crunch the numbers for him, or he would have published that, too. |
| 45 | * Also worth mentioning is Butcher's ''Literature/CodexAlera'': |
| 46 | ** In which he has clearly done some research on Roman legions and cultural mores. Those aren't the only things either; a mention of how to introduce a new sheepdog (IIRC) comes up while Tavi is introducing Kitai to his legion. This is the fourth book. The protagonist hadn't been a shepherd since the first. |
| 47 | ** The furies aspect of the book came from a study of the origins of Pokemon (the series having started from a challenge to make a good story out of the worst combination possible. Butcher opted for 'the LostRomanLegion' and 'Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'). Butcher took note how Shintoism influenced Pokemon, particularly how every item could have a spirit or god living within. |
| 48 | * Aeron Clement did a lot of research when it comes to ''Literature/TheColdMoons''. The badgers may be {{Partially Civilized Animal}}s with their own peaceful society, but they're still badgers nevertheless. The book references more obscure facts, such as how most sows act aggressive towards their mates during birthing and how sows can withhold implantation in times of distress. There's also a lot of research on the Welsh wilderness, with [[SceneryPorn many references]] to wild plants, grasses, berries, and obscure species of animals. |
| 49 | * Mari Sandoz does this in ''Crazy Horse, the Strange Man of the Oglalas''. She interviewed still-living family members and friends of Crazy Horse, combining their stories with general facts about everyday life for traditional Lakotah. Joseph M. Marshall III (a Rosebud Sioux) does essentially the same thing in even greater detail in ''The Journey of Crazy Horse''. |
| 50 | * Creator/MichaelCrichton's books tend to deal with cutting edge or controversial topics that he researches quite thoroughly. Unfortunately, ScienceMarchesOn and leaves many of his older books very dated. Sometimes the information is communicated in a speech given by one of the characters, but it might also be communicated in abrupt nonfiction sections (exposition break!) that give new meaning to the concept of the omniscient narrator. |
| 51 | ** One Crichton novel which manages to avoid some degree of obsolescence is ''Literature/TheGreatTrainRobbery'' -- which, being written about nineteenth-century England, can't exactly become outdated. |
| 52 | ** It is also notable in this context that Michael Crichton's bread and butter comes primarily from grabbing onto a subject of widespread apprehension, fear, or paranoia and then building a novel around it: ''Literature/JurassicPark'', ''Literature/{{Disclosure}}'', ''Literature/{{Airframe}}'', and the screenplay for ''Film/{{Westworld}}'', to name a few. |
| 53 | ** He doesn't just show this in-story, either -- many of his books have 10+ pages of footnotes and cited references, particularly when covering controversial material like [[GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke genetics]] or [[GlobalWarming climate science]]. |
| 54 | ** This desire for accuracy comes across as particularly amusing in ''Literature/TheLostWorld1995'', when Ian Malcolm has a brief tangent discussing the wrongness of the belief that a ''Tyrannosaurus'' can't see you if you don't move -- a brief plot point in the preceding ''Jurassic Park''. |
| 55 | ** It's also known, however, that he has invented "sources" out of whole cloth. He's actually done it so much that he has admitted spending hours attempting to track down a source without being entirely sure if it's one he made up or not. |
| 56 | * In the foreword of ''Literature/ACryInTheNight'', Creator/MaryHigginsClark thanks a Dr John T Kelly for helping her with research into psychopathic traits and personality disorders. Given how scarily accurate Erich Krueger is to a real person with psychopathic/narcissistic traits, it paid off. |
| 57 | * Björn Kurtén's ''Literature/DanceOfTheTiger'' is another novel of the Ice Age which makes constant pauses in its story to relate tidbits of information on Scandinavian flora and fauna of 35,000 years ago. It also deals with the culture and society of various groups of hunter-gather Cro-Magnon and Neanderthals in great detail. Kurtén's day job was being a professor in paleontology and he wrote several nonfiction books on Ice Age and early mammals, which must have made the research easier. |
| 58 | * James Gurney's ''Literature/{{Dinotopia}}'' books are noteworthy for their surprising accuracy in their depiction of dinosaurs and other prehistoric life. ScienceMarchesOn, but he marches with it -- early books came out before the discovery that many dinosaurs were feathered. The most recent book, ''Journey to Chandra'', features a number of feathered dinosaurs. |
| 59 | * Done in every Literature/{{Dirk Pitt|Adventures}} novel. Clive Cussler spends a good two pages explaining exactly how the equipment Dirk and Al use works, right down to the most minute and unnecessary details, just to prove he knows all about what he's talking about. |
| 60 | * Richard Powell's ''Literature/DonQuixoteUSA'' has just enough information on banana farming and the Boy Scouts to establish that the narrator knows a great deal about both. |
| 61 | * ''Literature/SergeStorms'': Serge A. Storms, is a Florida history buff. Expect him to go off on multi-page lectures about obscure points of Florida history between (and in some cases during) his highly inventive and often karmically appropriate murders. Several times a book. This is in addition to all the trivia that gets mentioned in smaller doses, such as the exact hotel room that Jill Masterson was in while she helped her boss cheat at cards in the movie ''Film/{{Goldfinger}}''. |
| 62 | * Noel B. Gerson's ''Literature/DoubleVision'' contains a wealth of information on 18th-century daily life, geography and military history. |
| 63 | * While Jim Butcher's ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' books are pure fantasy, in "Grave Peril" he not only names the Destroying Angel mushroom correctly, but correctly describes its toxic effects on the system ''and'' one of its few antidotes. Undoubtedly, he picked this one in particular for the badass name, and got the fact that it's not just toxic, but one of the ''most'' deadly mushrooms that can be found as a bonus. |
| 64 | ** That's ''why'' it has that kind of a name. It would be silly to waste a name like that on something that gave you a mild stomach upset. |
| 65 | ** Physics and science play a massive part in the magic of the world as well, with Harry Dresden describing difficulties of certain types of spells or modifying spells he knows based on laws of thermodynamics and of conservation of energy and matter. Also, Butters is very accurate in his use of medical terminology and attempted explanations for magical phenomenon such as its effects on technology and the long-lived nature of wizards. |
| 66 | ** Also, he accurately represents the effects of a BulletproofVest. In fact, one poor victim experiences their very nasty downside. In particular, the bullet enters from underneath, the vest makes the wound far worse because the bullet can't leave. This nearly kills the victim. |
| 67 | * In his masterpiece ''Franchise/{{Dune}}'', Frank Herbert explains how one ''lives'' in a desert. Anyone who lives in a desert country can vouch for his credibility. The major break from reality being the quasi-mythological Worms, that naturally don't have to be realistic since they're meant to be mysterious and "magical" - and even then there are attempts to justify them. The planet is also filled with predators that would not be able to support themselves without prey creatures nor prey creatures without plants to start the food chain. Herbert later revealed that the sand is full of some infant forms of sandworm called 'sand plankton' and 'sandtrout' (that the full worms eat along with various inorganic things). Also, there is some kind of immobile hybrid plant-animal form of sandworm that lives deep under the sand in the system somewhere. Plants and small animals (like the kangaroo rat) can be found in shady rock crevices. |
| 68 | * Jean Auel's Ice Age ''Literature/EarthsChildren'' saga shows its work in a big way -- sometimes leading to extreme cognitive dissonance, when we go from descriptions of different kinds of Ice Age tundra grasses to softcore caveman porn (or vice versa) in the space of a few pages... or ''paragraphs'', in one notable case. Auel was a member of survival schools and consulted experts in small-scale and prehistoric life skills, so her detailed explanations of learning to do those skills are based on personal experience. Norma Fox Mazer did something similar for ''Saturday, the Twelfth of October'', living in a tent for much of the year and gathering plants (and sometimes bugs) for food. |
| 69 | * Creator/UmbertoEco is famous for this. It's gotten to the point that it takes detailed scholarly analysis to determine all the references to works, what's real and what's not, and what languages Eco used and why for his pidgin segments. There's even an entire guide to ''Literature/TheNameOfTheRose'', given the massive amount of references (from ancient theological texts to Sherlock Holmes) and Latin, German, French, and Babel-speak therein. |
| 70 | * [[TheWestern Western]] author J.T. Edson filled his novels with meticulously researched detail (especially regarding weapons) about life in the actual Wild West. In his later works, this became increasingly intrusive. |
| 71 | * ''Creator/EEDocSmith'' has author's notes at the beginning of both his ''Literature/SkylarkSeries'' and ''Literature/{{Lensman}}'' series noting that he's entirely aware that relativity says nothing can travel faster than light, but that hardly makes for fun SpaceOpera. |
| 72 | * Creator/GregEgan's novels read less like fiction and more like extended scientific articles. He's posted [[http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/ORTHOGONAL/ORTHOGONAL.html#CC eighty thousand words]] (and hundreds of illustrations) which work through the implications of the Riemannian (as opposed to Lorentzian) physics he's invented for the ''Literature/{{Orthogonal}}'' trilogy. |
| 73 | * Similarly, Creator/SMStirling's Literature/{{Emberverse}} novels go into great depth describing the various medieval weaponry adopted by the survivors, as well as the intricacies of Feudal, Pagan, Norse, Roman, etc. cultures that emerge in the aftermath of the Change. Stirling has confessed to being a "research fiend" who occasionally has to rein himself in and "actually get to writing the book". |
| 74 | ** Stirling is a huge mixed bag in the Emberverse, his geography and economical understanding of the area is horrible. He goes out of his way to make the major rivers historically filled with barges and riverboats unused just so he can have bikes doing mass movements of goods. He also doesn't research the area going into hippy and New Age groups when the area he puts most of the action has a massive Mennonite community. Then again, the pre-Change world of the Emberverse isn't, per WordOfGod, ''exactly'' like our own world, and there are a number of hints at significant differences throughout the series. |
| 75 | * ''Literature/EleanorAndPark'': The timeline of the plot and the original publication dates of ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'' line up exactly. |
| 76 | * ''Literature/EncounterWithTiber'', co-authored by ''Buzz Aldrin'', features a multi-page bibliography referencing from all of Buzz's NASA friends. |
| 77 | * ''Literature/TheExorcist''. William Blatty included numerous facts that'll appeal to fans of the seamy underside of Catholic and occult history. He's got everything from Montague Summers' ''Encyclopedia of Witchcraft & Demonology'' and a 1921 psychology text about real and falsified claims of possession, to claims of possession for political reasons in medieval days, to something he dug ''really'' deep for, the elaborate trick played on French Empress Eugenie Montijo by supposed medium D.D. Home during a SpookySeance in 1857.[[note]]"They caught him with his naked foot on the empress' arm!"[[/note]] This story was buried until 1930, when a Russian diplomat wrote about Home's deceptions for the British Society for Psychic Research. Until the '80s, that journal was the ''only'' place Blatty could have found it. |
| 78 | * The ''[[Literature/RealmOfTheElderlings Farseer Trilogy]]'' contains in-depth descriptions of Fitz treating dog diseases and giving advice for their feeding. |
| 79 | * Say what you want about ''Literature/FiftyShadesOfGrey'', but at least E.L. James knows that 520 takes you from Seattle to Bellevue and that there is a premier business club at the top of the Columbia Tower. |
| 80 | ** Ironically averted when it comes to the subject of the book itself. The book's portrayal of UsefulNotes/{{BDSM}} practices could really use some work... |
| 81 | * Colleen [=McCullough=]'s ''First Man in Rome'' and its sequels in the ''Literature/MastersOfRome'' series are beautiful examples of this and have historical maps, a hundred page long glossary featuring things such as the diversity of toga the Romans wore (and measurement of an adult male toga, and why Roman patricians could not have worn drawers) and the calendar, a defense of why she made two characters brothers-in-law, and a pronunciation guide, not to mention all the research she put into the stories themselves. She even says in an author's note that though she did not include a bibliography, she could have, and tells readers who want it to write to her. |
| 82 | * The ''{{Literature/Flashman}}'' novels by George Macdonald Fraser contain extensive footnotes placing the events of the story into historical context. |
| 83 | ** Fraser even uses his research to play with the reader by introducing errors into the narrative (supposedly written by Flashman) and then correcting them in the [[FootnoteFever footnotes.]] Although these are often trivial (Flashman is atrocious at spelling proper names, especially if he never saw them written down) sometimes Fraser faithfully reports that existing historical records make Flashman's version of events unlikely or downright impossible. |
| 84 | * Creator/FrederickForsyth. He actively sought information and pricing on the illegal weapons and tools required to stage a ''coup d'etat'' in Equatorial Guinea while researching for his novel ''Literature/TheDogsOfWar''. Some of his works have even been used as handbooks for criminals due to their level of detail and correctness in terms of the underworld. |
| 85 | ** He was actually part of a group that sought to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea. |
| 86 | ** Just to drive the point home, you can go to Paris and find the sniper's perch from ''Literature/TheDayOfTheJackal''. There's even still a post office there. Try it on Google Maps. Go ahead. We'll wait. |
| 87 | * Thriller author Dick Francis, once a top steeplechase jockey in his native UK, began his writing career by incorporating his extensive knowledge of horses and the international racing scene into every novel. This 'expert' gimmick worked out so well that in later years, having exhausted every direct racing angle, Francis has expanded out to giving the hero of each book another, vaguely esoteric, profession or hobby (eg. gold dealing, architecture, photography), the fine points of which are integral to solving the horse-based mystery. Francis even had his son write parts of a BASIC program for a novel featuring computers, in which he took great care to show exactly what a personal computer of the era was capable of doing, averting ComputersCanDoAnything (That novel also has a ShoutOut to Creator/FrederickForsyth in-universe: the protagonist has a hobby of target-shooting, and says that the only film he'd seen that accurately depicts the practise is Literature/TheDayOfTheJackal). |
| 88 | * Creator/DorothyGilman's novels, especially her Literature/MrsPollifax series, contain enough information on the geography, culture and people of countries from China to Italy that it's almost like being there. |
| 89 | * In "The Gold-Bug", Creator/EdgarAllanPoe walks the reader step-by-step through the process of decrypting a simple substitution cipher. |
| 90 | * Creator/ThomasPynchon actually worked for a time at a rocket plant, and in ''Literature/GravitysRainbow'', he includes many of the actual formulae used for V2 rocket propulsion systems. Pynchon's books are full of historical, scientific and mathematical digressions (''Gravity's Rainbow'' also contains several pages describing the processes that led to the extinction of the dodo), which is widely regarded as one of the reasons for their inaccessibility, though most of them relate to his central themes. |
| 91 | * Sean [=McMullen=]'s ''Literature/GreatwinterTrilogy'' exhibits this at various points when discussing the array of ClockPunk technology, antiquated gunnery, historical political systems, and cryptography, among other things. [=McMullen=], who has a background in computer science, admitted in an interview to having crafted a working model on paper of the computer powered by galley-slaves with abacuses around which much of the plot centers. |
| 92 | * Most of Philippa Gregory's novels, including the critically acclaimed ''Literature/TheOtherBoleynGirl'', are based on extensive research; she includes a fairly long bibliography and includes an author's note about what she fictionalized, what created on her own, and where she got some of her ideas (for instance, she got the idea for the men framed as Anne Boleyn's lovers at her show-trial being a circle of closeted homosexuals from the work of a historian named Retha N. Warnicke, whose work was published several decades ago). She has also visited quite a few of the castles and palaces she has written about, such as the Alhambra Palace in southern Spain and Ludlow Castle in Wales, both of which were featured in ''Literature/TheConstantPrincess'', her novel about Catherine of Aragon. |
| 93 | ** Warnicke, whose work she used, has tried to distance herself from the novel, disagreeing greatly with Gregory's portrayal of the Boleyn family. Although, in Gregory's case it may be more an example of ignoring the research, as it is doubtable that anyone writing about Mary Boleyn could've missed her promiscuous nature and some of the details regarding Anne's execution. |
| 94 | ** Definitely a case of doing and then ignoring the research. In TOBG, for example, although some scenes can be downright unnerving in how faithful to the historical record they are, other things are obviously not. For one, Anne could not have returned to England with Mary Tudor as stated in the novel, since she is known to have been at the court of King Francis, who succeeded the old king that Mary had married. As for Mary Boleyn's backstory, that's noted above. |
| 95 | * One of the most notable examples of Turtledove showing his work is in an appendix to ''Literature/TheGunsOfTheSouth'', when he reveals that he simulated the alternate-universe version of the 1864 US presidential election, by taking the original returns and allocating the candidates' votes according to his interpretation of how they would have been split (literally showing his math), ''without knowing beforehand who would win''. |
| 96 | * A key reason Creator/ArthurHailey was a huge best-selling author in the 1970s and early '80s was the incredible research he put into his novels. From the airports to the hotels to the banking and automotive industries, Hailey was brilliant getting into the inner workings of such places and making them relatable for the common reader. That was especially true with complex works like ''Literature/{{Overload}}'' on the power industry or ''Literature/TheMoneychangers'' and its inside look at banking as Hailey's research is what makes this novels feel so believable for readers. ''The Moneychangers'' alone shows incredible depth of knowledge into banking, the stock market, credit cards (something still new in the late 1970s), counterfeiting and even prison life. |
| 97 | * Creator/JKRowling seems to have looked into a dictionary for the ''Literature/HarryPotter'' series. For example, spell names translate into exactly what the spell does (e.g., "Expecto Patronum" = "I await a savior"). Yes, there is some CanisLatinicus, like "Wingardium leviosa", but most of it is correct. |
| 98 | ** May be better described as "Concealed Their Work": Although the author read Classics in university, many spells are simply what one would find by looking up their component words, one-for-one, in an English-Latin dictionary and ignoring necessary inflectional endings. This results in nonsense Latin such as "oculus reparo". |
| 99 | ** She did make one mistake: The spell "enervate" wakes someone up after they've been stunned. The word "enervate" actually means the exact opposite: "cause (someone) to feel drained of energy". She likely meant "innervate". |
| 100 | *** Which makes it doubly funny when she subsequently retconned the incantation to be "Re-enervate" (though she dropped the hyphen). Now the spell not only drains the subject of energy, it does it only after the subject is enervated. |
| 101 | ** When Hermione corrects Harry and Ron's Astronomy homework in the fifth book, she gives accurate information about Jupiter's moons, as pointed out [[http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2003/02jul_harrypotter/ here.]] |
| 102 | * Creator/RobertAHeinlein suffered from this a few times, taking far too much time to explain, say, how an artificial gravity system works. At other times, however, he handwaves these details. It really depends on whether or not the science of the time meant there was research to do... |
| 103 | ** In the book ''Expanded Universe'', Mr. Heinlein explain how Mrs. Heinlein and he spent many hours calculating the precise orbit of the spaceship in ''Literature/TheRollingStones1952'' when it departs Luna and slingshots around Earth toward Mars. They had to do it with paper and pen, because in the early 1950s there was no other way and he wanted it to be correct. |
| 104 | ** On anything technical Heinlein was ready to do the research. On other topics, not necessarily so much. In ''Literature/ToSailBeyondTheSunset'', his heroine talks about modern North American neopaganism...using the jargon of Freemasonry. Wiccans do not speak of their initiations as "being stooled", nor do they call their tradition "Wicca rite". |
| 105 | ** Most Heinlein "juveniles" are about ridiculously smart teenaged boys who end up flying spaceships on their own. They typically spend about ten or twenty full pages doing advanced math to escape from nasty aliens/Nazis/parents -- at ''least''. Somehow, though, Heinlein makes it work. For his one novel about magic lore (''Literature/MagicInc'', written in 1940), Heinlein also managed to do enough research about symbolism and demonology to put the original D&D writers to shame (''and'' wrote the other half of the story about ''lawyer tactics'', and ''still'' managed to make it sound exciting). By contrast, his pre-New Age spirituality novel ''Literature/StrangerInAStrangeLand'' handwaved everything the main character pulled off with "Well, he's from Mars". |
| 106 | ** One of the first commercial waterbed manufacturers discovered that he could not patent his product because Heinlein had already worked out how waterbeds would operate and described them in detail. |
| 107 | * Historical romance novelist Creator/GeorgetteHeyer's research in general is meticulous and for the most part is woven seamlessly into her stories -- Georgian manners, customs, attire and cant appear accurately and organically. Her 1937 novel ''Literature/AnInfamousArmy'' was so accurate in its depiction of the Battle of Waterloo that extracts from it were used to teach military strategy. |
| 108 | * One of the strangest examples is Eleanor Hibbert, who wrote historical novels about the crowned heads of Europe under the pen name Jean Plaidy. Her novels are more likely to be historically accurate than those of any other English author of her time. She was the first English-language novelist to portray Lucrezia Borgia as less than a monster -- and the historical record bears her out. |
| 109 | * Creator/TonyHillerman's knowledge of Navajo culture, as seen in his ''Literature/LeaphornAndChee'' series about Navajo Tribal Policemen, is so extensive, detailed, and complex it's hard to believe he's not Navajo himself. |
| 110 | * ''Literature/HoratioHornblower'' also can appear to be a contemporary novel. For example Both this series and Aubrey-Maturin, above, mention how much ''bunk space'' crewmen had. Also, in ''Hotspur'' there's mention of a crewman escaping onto an American ship, the ''Constitution'', when Hornblower's ship stops at Cadiz in advance of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_of_5_October_1804 an attempt to capture Spanish treasure galleons]]. The ''Constitution'' was there during that week--and took on new crewmen. |
| 111 | * ''Literature/HouseholdGods'': Tarr and Turtledove obviously researched life in the 2nd century Roman Empire to the maximum, with many, many details given of daily life then. It's the best feature of the book to some people. |
| 112 | * ''Literature/HowNOTToWriteANovel'' features a chapter about the damage this trope can do when writers devote their time and pages to showing their work. The point is that while obviously you should get your facts straight, you shouldn't substitute recitations of facts for actual plot. The research is there to make a good story, not to be shown off. |
| 113 | * Stephen Hunter, author of the [[Series/{{Shooter}} Bob Lee Swagger series]], is well-known in the firearms community for this, due to the extreme amount of accuracy and detail he puts into his use of firearms. Possibly [[LampshadedTrope lampshaded]] in the novel ''The Third Bullet'', with Swagger mentioning that he always goes "through the guns" when telling a story. |
| 114 | * Robert Graves wrote the novels ''Literature/IClaudius'' and ''Claudius the God'' after translating the works of Horace and Suetonius for Oxford University Press. |
| 115 | ** Robert Graves was a historian. Most if not all of his novels show the theories that he couldn't prove historical, most notably ''King Jesus'', also ''The Golden Fleece''. |
| 116 | * In the short story "Literature/ImpossibleDreams" by Tim Pratt, Pete discovers a video store from an AlternateUniverse called Impossible Dreams Video and becomes fascinated with the [[DifferentWorldDifferentMovies differences that exist between the films made in this universe and his own]]. All of the films mentioned in the story that are not products of Pratt's imagination are either films that were never made as they became stuck in DevelopmentHell or existing films that were originally to have had different stars and/or directors. |
| 117 | * Whatever else might be said about it, Creator/ChristopherPaolini's ''[[Literature/InheritanceCycle Brisingr]]'' has a chapter, ''Mind Over Metal,'' where Eragon forges a magical sword with the help of elven blacksmith Rhünon, where the entire process of forging a sword is shown in a high level of detail, except for the magic-induced modifications to make the whole process faster. |
| 118 | * The ''Literature/JamesBond'' novels are full of this. Bond originally used a Beretta, but one Major Boothroyd (yes, the source of Q's full name) wrote to Creator/IanFleming and advised him to change his weapons. |
| 119 | ** This is referenced in the film ''Film/DrNo'', wherein the quartermaster demands Bond surrender his Beretta in favor of the iconic Walther. |
| 120 | ** This applies ''particularly'' in terms of foodstuff. Fleming ate, drank and smoked a lot of the stuff that Bond does, probably contributing in a major way to his fatal heart attack at 56. |
| 121 | ** ''Casino Royale'', the first Bond novel, included a primer on how to play baccarat. |
| 122 | * ''Literature/TheJenkinsVerse'': The main series, "the Deathworlders," has a lot of information on how ridiculously tough and strong human beings are, and how frail the aliens are in comparison. In fact, the author had to remove some of the precise numbers [[RealityIsUnrealistic because they sounded like an exaggeration]]. |
| 123 | * In ''Literature/JohannesCabalTheDetective'', the narration shows off a lot of correct fencing terms to describe a sword-fight, form Count Marechal boasting that a sabre is a ''real'' man's weapon and the narration also makes light fun of the terms when Cabal is described as ducking, but first in a far more poetic style. Its also not so obtuse as to render the fight narration incomprehensible if one doesn't know the jargon. |
| 124 | * Thriller writer Barry Eisler, creator of the ''Literature/JohnRain'' series, lived for many years in Tokyo while working for the CIA, and is a Black Belt in Judo. Because of this, his novels are full of references to obscure Tokyo locations, as well as relatively realistic martial-arts techniques. |
| 125 | * Richard Bach wrote extensively on the subject of seagull aerodynamics in ''Literature/JonathanLivingstonSeagull''. |
| 126 | * The ''Literature/KayScarpetta'' novels go into a lot of detail about forensic pathology. And psychology. And guns. And motorcycles. And citrus canker. And just about everything else Patricia Cornwell wants to shoehorn in. That's just ''one'' book, by the way (''Predator''). |
| 127 | * Creator/StephenKing certainly seems to do his research when writing a book, to the point that, in the author comments about a short novel, he explains that the way the character starts an excavation machine without the keys (written in detail) is ''not'' going to work. He intentionally wrote it wrong to avoid providing criminal knowledge to readers, though he still alerts the reader that a specific wire can kill you due to high power electricity. |
| 128 | ** Amusingly, King has mentioned before that he actually hates explaining how things work, citing ''Literature/{{Firestarter}}'' as a prime example of how he didn't put much thought or research into genetics -- the psychic powers in that book having been jump-started by doctored LSD and passed on to the child that a couple of characters had. |
| 129 | *** When you think about how the hormone DES, taken by pregnant women, caused fertility problems and reproductive cancers in their daughters, though apparently no problems in their sons, but ''now'' problems are showing up in their ''granddaughters'' by those sons (and by daughters as well, the ones who overcame fertility problems), it seems that chemical alterations are not simple Lamarckian, cutting off rats' tails sorts of changes. Some of it may be related to the fact that DES mothers were women who simply wouldn't have reproduced at all without DES, but the AMA and College of OB and Gynecology generally agree among and between themselves, that the hormone is responsible for the problems into a third generation. Agent Orange caused problems in the children of Vietnam soldiers exposed to it, even though those children were conceived years after their fathers' exposure. While the psychic powers themselves, of the parents in ''Firestarter'' require belief-suspension, the passing-them-on-to-children as a result of drug exposure does not. |
| 130 | ** His novel ''Literature/ElevenTwentyTwoSixtyThree'' is extremely detailed regarding the late 1950s and early 60s, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy as well as Lee Harvey Oswald's life in the months preceding the assassination. |
| 131 | * Ridley Pearson had guides take him through the multiple parks at Disneyworld as well as interviewed the make of VMK and talked to tons of Imagineers for ''Literature/TheKingdomKeepers'' series. It helps that Disney publishes it. |
| 132 | * Creator/RudyardKipling had a lot of knowledge about the cultures and animals he was writing about, often leading to FridgeBrilliance when his young readers grow up. Take, for example, Akela being cast out of the wolf pack when he got too old to hunt effectively in ''Literature/TheJungleBook''. It comes off as him being unable to lead the pack, but this frequently happens in actual wolf packs. And don't even get started with the descriptions of Indian culture in ''Literature/{{Kim}}''. |
| 133 | * Sigrid Undset's ''Literature/KristinLavransdatter''. It was written in the early 1900s, takes place in the 1300s, and it's considered a very accurate portrayal. Among other things the author made sure to get right, we have the diet, farming, use of weapons, religion and morals of the 1300s. |
| 134 | * Yulia Latynina's "economic thrillers" are like this, predictably enough, seeing as she is probably one of the most prominent modern Russian economic journalists. The same goes for economic, social and political details in her sci-fi novels. |
| 135 | * Charles Stross, author of ''Literature/TheLaundryFiles'', spent time working in the tech industry and it shows. Aside from the basic conceit of "if [[FormulaicMagic magic is advanced math]] then computers are the equivalent of Merlin-in-a-box", everything from real-world malware to a universal Turing machine built from a chess set shows up in situations where one would expect them to appear. |
| 136 | ** It can also be fun to follow the action as he writes it through cities like Leeds or Edinburgh on Google Street View (for a given value of "fun", but everything is where he says it is so he at least knows how to use GSV as well). |
| 137 | * Creator/JohnLeCarre is well known for this, and his acknowledgements pages are always entertaining for the presence of journalists, technical experts, diplomats, arms dealers, etc. -- many of which he states he cannot name. He began traveling to the various locations in his novels, beginning with ''The Honourable Schoolboy'', which he set in Southeast Asia when virtually every country there was undergoing some kind of civil war. |
| 138 | ** Le Carre's books often seem prescient because of this. His novel ''Our Game'' involves a civil war breaking out in the Caucusas. Within a few months of him submitting his manuscript, the First Chechen War broke out. An interviewer asked him how he felt being so prophetic. He said, "Vaguely nauseated." |
| 139 | *** The fact he worked for [[Series/{{Spooks}} MI5]] and [[UsefulNotes/SecretIntelligenceService MI6]] helps as well. |
| 140 | * In order to write her [[Literature/TheBible Biblical]] fiction novels, which are very philosophical and deal heavily with speculative AlternateCharacterInterpretation, Tosca Lee draws on hundreds of fairly obscure Biblical details, various commentaries by Abrahamic scholars, ancient Middle Eastern history, and ancient languages including Greek, Aramaic, and particularly Hebrew. She includes a section at the back of each novel that gives a brief overview of her research sources. |
| 141 | * ''Literature/LegendOfTheGalacticHeroes'': |
| 142 | ** The author of the novels shows this through details that emphasize the parallel between the Galactic Empire and the Second Reich/German Empire/Prussia. For example, the Kaiser's palace is Neue Sanssouci, a new version of Sanssouci, the palace belonging to the German Emperors. The animators take it further by including architectural detail such as greatly decorated gazebos, also existing in the actual Sanssouci. |
| 143 | ** Then we have the myriad historical allegories and parallels. The main one is Reinhard von Lohengramm [[spoiler:being a very direct {{expy}} of Frederick the Great, in that not only is he a tactical genius, but he also advocates Enlightened Despotism, i.e. a monarchy informed by enlightenment values of improving society for everyone, not just for the wealthy, encouraging the production of knowledge, fighting unfairly gained privilege and corruption]]. |
| 144 | * In ''Literature/LesMiserables'', Victor Hugo spends ''sixty pages'' (in the 1400-page printing) describing the Battle of Waterloo. Only the last two pages, in which we learn that [[spoiler:Marius's father mistakenly believes Thénardier (far more villainous in the book than in the musical) saved his life there,]] have any relevance to the plot. |
| 145 | ** There's also a history of the building of the Paris sewers and a whole chapter on Parisian underground slang. (The slang chapter is an appendix in at least some copies, presumably because it has no plot whatsoever.) |
| 146 | ** Additionally, there's a set of chapters on the practices, tradition, and history of this ''one convent'' where two characters spend several years, while analyzing the history and purpose of the monastic life in contemporary France. There's also a chapter on the life of prostitutes, which was cut from the original edition, but appears in some versions as an appendix. |
| 147 | ** Hugo justified this by saying that his book chronicled a changing century: what happened at Waterloo affected the entire world and everyone in it. Plus bumping the number of chapters up to 365 is really convenient. |
| 148 | *** Likewise, in ''Literature/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame'', Hugo goes to considerable lengths to describe Parisian architecture, although this too is thematically relevant, especially as he considered Notre Dame the main character. |
| 149 | * C.S. Lewis, in ''Literature/OutOfTheSilentPlanet'', does surprisingly well at depicting realistic interplanetary flight and the effects of Mars' lower gravity: it takes weeks to get from Earth to Mars, even when they're in a favorable planetary alignment, for one example, and for another, the sun constantly lights up the spaceship, averting SpaceIsCold to the point where Ransom lampshades it. The sheer impossibility of leaving the Solar System even comes up at one point, averting SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale. As for Mars' lower gravity: animals, plants, and even waves on the water are much taller than on Earth. Not too shabby for a book written before Britain entered World War 2! |
| 150 | * Cory Doctorow's ''Literature/LittleBrother'' contains research about DRM, computer protocols, historical figures. He's quoted as saying that he wanted people to read the book with Wikipedia open on the computer beside them, researching the various topics he explains. |
| 151 | * ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'': |
| 152 | ** The reason no Tolkien imitator comes close to making constructed languages sound so fluent or so beautiful as those in is because Tolkien was a professional philologist teaching Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University, who had been learning and was playing with a dozen languages since he was old enough to read. Tolkien knew precisely how languages developed, evolved, and worked, what made them sound lyrical or guttural, and pretty much created the languages first, then created an entire, fully-developed mythological landscape just so he could give his made-up tongues a place to live. For example, in creating the Black Speech spoken in Mordor, he combined the harshest sounds from a number of languages to create a tongue that was convincingly evil-sounding, but still able to be spoken. |
| 153 | ** He also made calendars for each race, detailed in the appendices, that dealt with the leap year in different ways. He had to revise passages of the novel because the phases of the moon were wrong, supposedly noticed by his son Christopher. |
| 154 | ** Less obviously, he used a British Army manual on forced marches to make sure that his characters didn't travel further than possible. He exaggerated endurance a bit, to account for how no-one in the Fellowship is an ordinary human being. |
| 155 | ** Tolkien's depictions of armies, battles, sieges, and musters among the armies of men are all surprisingly close to how these things were done in the medieval era. Rohan's military is closely based on that of the pre-Norman Anglo-Saxons, for instance. The blog Blog/ACollectionOfUnmitigatedPedantry has nothing but positive things to say about how Tolkien illustrated these things, even pointing out that some moments seem to be used for characterization--for instance, Saruman's army makes a lot of use of grappling hooks and ladders, which were normally something of a desperation measure, while the Witch-King's army uses heavier equipment and earthenworks and moreover uses them properly, suggesting a greater degree of professionalism. |
| 156 | * The ''Literature/LordPeterWimsey'' novel ''Murder Must Advertise'' is not so much a whodunnit set in an advertising firm as a fictionalisation of Creator/DorothyLSayers' own experiences in the ad industry with a murder as justification for Lord Peter getting involved. Despite or because of this, it's a highly entertaining read. |
| 157 | * Creator/HPLovecraft: |
| 158 | ** When writing ''Literature/AtTheMountainsOfMadness'', Lovecraft strove to get as many things correct about Antarctica as possible. Unfortunately, [[ScienceMarchesOn Science Marched On]] and invalidated parts of it, most notably the idea that the Antarctic continent is actually split down the middle. The proof that the Antarctic wasn't split into two parts was found when Lovecraft was finishing writing, so he did hastily correct that fact in the story (the narrator tells how the exploration team at that time thought the continent was split in the middle but it was later proven wrong). And there obviously isn't a mountain taller than Mt. Everest in Antarctica, but removing that would kinda mess up the whole plot. |
| 159 | ** Lovecraft also spent large amounts of time studying the architecture of his home town Providence, which shows in extremely detailed descriptions of colonial houses that often appear in his stories. ''Literature/TheCaseOfCharlesDexterWard'' in particular features a description of Providence which was 100% accurate down to the last detail at the time of its writing. |
| 160 | *** Indeed, [[https://web.archive.org/web/20131030230756/http://s3.amazonaws.com/findagrave/photos/2001/222/lovecrafth.jpg he was Providence.]] |
| 161 | * Some of the material in the ''Literature/MadgieWhatDidYouDo'' series, especially with the stories detailing the aftereffects of a nuclear war on a character's physiology, particularly with symptoms of radiation sickness, the which Madgie and, later, Eglantine died from. Likewise, in ''It looked like falling snow....'', it was mentioned that the heat from the nuke burned the floral pattern of Doki's dress into her skin, [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Hiroshima-nagasaki-atomic-bomb-ww2-incredible-pictures-history-images-photos-001.jpeg something that occurred during the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki]]. |
| 162 | * Literature/TheRailwaySeries: the first few books were light hearted children's stories about talking trains, but when the author Rev. Awdry wrote a story about a race between Thomas and Bertie the Bus his children began questioning him if it was ''fair'' to which he produced a detailed map of the route both characters took. He soon began researching how he could fit his fictional Sodor into real British history with the aid of his brother George a librarian, began volunteering on the Talyllyn Railway to get some hands on railroad experience, and studied geography to enhance his stories. The result was grounding the stories in a much more realistic setting, and eventually he published an extensive source book ''The island of Sodor: Its Peoples, History and Railways'' that explained [[AllThereInTheManual everything in his talking train stories as realistically as possible]]. |
| 163 | * Creator/StevenErikson shows his work in the ''Literature/MalazanBookOfTheFallen'' with regards to how civilizations rise, fall, and eventually pave over the remnants of each other, as well as in some of the tribal and shamanic practices. The guy is a practicing Ph.D in archaeology and it shows -- he knows his civilizations and cultures. The setting co-creator, Ian C. Esslemont, has similar credentials, and it shows in his books as well. |
| 164 | * The ''Literature/MatthewHawkwood'' series does a ton of research into Regency London and the people and workings thereof. For example, the secret compartment in a Runner's tipstaff? It was real. The Thames being filled with so much crap, often literally, that it was nearly solid? Yep, that's real. (Literature/{{Discworld}} is only barely exaggerating when they describe the Ankh.) Abysmal health standards? Real. |
| 165 | * Julian May's ''Literature/SagaOfTheExiles'', ''Literature/{{Intervention}}'', and ''Literature/GalacticMilieu'' are replete with technical knowledge, trade expertise, and personal knowledge. In particular, the field of geology is referred to in some depth, and terms like "diatreme" are used, where many authors would be happy just to say "volcano". One of the ''Exile'' novels has an appendix [[GeniusBonus apologizing for taking some liberties with Pliocene geology]] for the sake of the story, which is another way of Showing Your Work. |
| 166 | * Creator/JamesMichener's books feature this. ''Literature/{{Centennial}}'', for example, includes an appendix at the end of each chapter just to show off some of the research that didn't make it into the main body of the text. |
| 167 | * A.P. Herbert's ''Literature/MisleadingCasesInTheCommonLaw'' may seem to tick most of the boxes in ArtisticLicenseLaw, only getting away with it thanks to the RuleOfFunny. In fact, he was a barrister and MP, and the point of the book is that the cases described, while ludicrous, ''could'' happen under English law. |
| 168 | * ''Literature/MobyDick'' is a great novel if you ignore half of it. It's an encyclopedia of seafaring if you ignore the other half. The longest chapter in the book is an excerpt from a book about whale biology. |
| 169 | * ''Literature/MortalCoils'' by Eric Nylund features an extremely detailed description of how chocolate is made. It includes lavish prose about cocoa butter oozing from roasted beans into crystal dishes and the gorgeous smells of all kinds of ingredients. Barring the partcipation of Satanic monk confectioners and choirboys singing hymns in a desecrated chapel, it's very accurate FoodPorn. This is especially striking considering how relatively little attention is paid to descriptions of women who are supposed to be supernaturally gorgeous. They get a few sentences; the chocolate gets an entire chapter. |
| 170 | * The period details in ''Literature/MurderAtColefaxManor'' are remarkably spot-on, including correct forms of address, the featuring of obscure real books, [[spoiler:the jails featured]], the presence of year-accurate technology, [[spoiler:the sentences handed down to convicted suspects]], and the use of the historic Cornish County Constabulary and related ranks in place of its modern day equivalents. |
| 171 | * Creator/RobertAsprin's ''Literature/MythAdventures'' novels often have a chapter in which a minor character describes his or her mundane job in detail, within the fantasy-world setting but with all the same principles as the real-world version of the job. Sometimes there are details that turn out important to the plot later... usually not so much. Sometimes there's comedy to be found from the job existing at all within the setting...usually not so much. In one case, a character shows up for the sole purpose of delivering a lecture about how hard it is to be a fashion model...to a character from a medieval world who has ''no idea'' what she's talking about. |
| 172 | ** Asprin does so in his non-Myth books, too. In the second ''Literature/PhulesCompany'' book, for example, there's detailed descriptions of Casino security, gambling and common cheating methods (word to the wise: knowing how something is done and being able to do it are two different things. DontTryThisAtHome.) |
| 173 | ** Asprin suffered from bouts of severe writer's block, and would spend months researching topics like fencing, to the point he'd become something of an expert in them. |
| 174 | ** His Literature/TimeScout series demonstrates serious historical knowledge. He didn't get everything right, but he did a much [[Creator/DanBrown better job than some]]. |
| 175 | * ''Literature/{{Neuropath}}'' features extensive sections about psychology and neurology, which goes a long way towards making the villain's MindControl schemes scarily plausible. |
| 176 | * Creator/LarryNiven is so seamless and smooth at Showing His Work that oft-times readers will learn some obscure fact about physics, astronomy, geology, or chemistry and not even realize they've been taught until they reread one of Niven's stories years later. |
| 177 | ** At conventions, Niven sometimes tells the story of his first professional sale as a science fiction author, to ''Magazine/AmazingStories'' magazine. Between the time the editor accepted his story, ''The Coldest Place'', and the time it was published, the science behind Niven's story was proven to be false. Niven was so bothered by getting the science wrong that he tried to send the check he was paid back to the magazine. ''Amazing Stories'' ended up publishing anyway, because ''at the time the story was written and the story sold'', the science behind the story was spot-on. |
| 178 | ** On the other hand, he as been known to get the direction of the Earth's rotation wrong on occasion, such as in ''Literature/{{Ringworld}}''. This was fixed in later editions. And indeed the Ringworld itself had a design flaw -- unlike a planet, it would not be in a stable self-correcting orbit: the moment the sun is off-centre, the world begins to fall into the sun, and gets there startlingly quickly. In the sequel, Niven had to introduce a mechanism to deal with this. |
| 179 | ** The Langston Field, the shielding device used on many of Niven's ships (and ships of fellow writer Jerry Pournelle's ''Literature/CoDominium'' series) was "invented" by real-world physicist Dan Alderson who worked with Niven on many of his novels. The Alderson Drive which propels most ships in the Niven/Pournelle universe is named after him. |
| 180 | ** Though when it comes to anything biology related, Niven's books tend to become a painful stream of critical research failures. Having humans (but no other Earth life) be descended from aliens makes it pretty much impossible for biologists (and people who know at least a bit about biology) to suspend disbelief. |
| 181 | * ''Literature/OrphansOfTheSky'': The finale takes a few pages to emphasize the sheer, actual scale of cosmic systems, in order to point out the immense distances between stellar and planetary bodies, the effective impossibility of telling planets and stars apart from each other with the naked eye unless one has considerable prior knowledge, and the extreme rarity of habitable worlds, in order to point out that it was only by sheer, literally astronomically good luck Hugh and his group were able to leave the Ship while it was close enough to a planet to actually see it, with just enough fuel to land on one of its moons instead of the gas giant itself, and closest to a habitable moon. |
| 182 | * Creator/ChuckPalahniuk often goes to great lengths to research his facts and factoids, often with little to actually show for it. |
| 183 | ** ''Literature/{{Lullaby}}'' involved him basically researching an entire encyclopedia of {{serial killer}}s, for killers who had worked in pairs, and the resultant narrative barely made over an actual page in the novel. |
| 184 | ** He also sat in on actual sex addict meetings for research for his book ''Literature/{{Choke}}''. He also met the man who became the inspiration for "Guts", a short story from ''Literature/Haunted2005''. [[spoiler:So yes, that means it's entirely possible for your stomach to be sucked out from your anus thanks to a pool filteration system.]] |
| 185 | * It's pointed out in Chapter 8 of Grady Hendrix' ''Literature/PaperbacksFromHell'' that Jaron Summers' ''Literature/BelowTheLine'' "spends enough of its time laying out film financing and tax shelters in enough detail for any wannabe [[Creator/JerryBruckheimer Bruckheimer]] to follow." |
| 186 | * Hideaki Sena's horror novel ''Literature/ParasiteEve'' has extensive detail to the point of description porn for surgical procedures, pharmacology, microbiology, chemistry, and cell cultivation. Given that Sena studied pharmacology and biology, it is a case of writing what you know. |
| 187 | * Each of Creator/KJParker's novels is replete with technical information. This could be quite irritating if the reader is not interested, but several reviewers have noted the skill with which is integrated with the story. Parker makes things in RealLife and this comes through: for example while writing ''Literature/TheScavengerTrilogy'' Parker worked in a smithy. From a tongue-in-cheek [[http://www.sffworld.com/interview/85p0.html interview]] about the ''Fencer Trilogy'': |
| 188 | -->Q: If you could write your own quote for the front cover of your novel, what would it be? |
| 189 | -->A: "Technically accurate" -- Siege-Engine Builder's Monthly |
| 190 | * Creator/WilliamGibson's ''Literature/PatternRecognition'' has a plot involving mysterious videos released anonymously on the web, and the fandom thereof. Anyone familiar with any fandom and ViralMarketing, at all, will find the lengths people go to over the footage eerily familiar. |
| 191 | * The historical novels by Arturo Pérez-Reverte are unanimously considered in Spain as extremely well documented. ''Cape Trafalgar'' (about the Battle of Trafalgar from the point of view of the Spaniards) and ''Un día de cólera'' ('a day of fury', the revolt against the Napoleonic troops in Madrid) are the most impressive examples. The last one is a real compendium of names and stories of hundreds of actual people who lived and died at that day. Also ''Comanche Territory'' (about the life of war correspondents) is considered extremely realistic. Not surprising, the man was one for 21 years. |
| 192 | * The ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'' books may be written for kids, but Creator/RickRiordan obviously put a ton of effort into the mythology behind it. |
| 193 | ** It helps that IRL the author teaches history and English--two things that get you a lot of mythology info. |
| 194 | ** They also show accurate depictions of ADHD and Dyslexia, having been written for his son, who has both. |
| 195 | ** Averted with the battle in [[ArtisticLicenseGeography Walnut Creek, California and the description of Mt. Diablo]]. Firstly Walnut Creek has no Eucalyptus trees anywhere; two, Mt. Diablo has no serious cliffsides; three, the top of Mt. Diablo has a visitor's center, not a depression with eucalyptus trees. Also, eucalyptus trees' scent is not as strong as the series implies. |
| 196 | ** Also averted when he mixes up Phryxus and Helle with Cadmus and Europa when describing the story of the Golden Fleece. In reality, it was Phryxus and Helle, not Cadmus and Europa (who feature in an entirely different myth where Zeus kidnaps Europa and Cadmus gives chase), who escaped on the ram to Colchis while fleeing from their stepmother, Ino. Also, the ram was sent by Hermes, not Zeus (although Phryxus did sacrifice it to Zeus later), and neither Phryxus, Helle, Cadmus, nor Europa were children of Zeus in the first place. |
| 197 | ** For ''Literature/TheHeroesOfOlympus'', he subverts many of the tropes about Classical Mythtology by showing how the mythological figures were actually treated in Greek and Roman times, such as how Thanatos is ''actually'' Death itself, and that Pluto was not ''just'' the lord of the underworld but ''also'' the god of wealth and the earth. |
| 198 | *** Its sequel series, ''Literature/TheTrialsOfApollo'' depicts Apollo as bisexual. Which, in myth, he actually is -- the Greeks and Romans didn't look down on it as much. Additionally, the presence of the Triumvirate as minor divinities in the book seems a bit like an AssPull, but the Imperial Cult ''was'' a real thing that voted worthy "Caesars" into divinity. |
| 199 | ** Riordan in general tends to show his work when it comes to mythology -- even in his ''Literature/TheKaneChronicles'' series, where as anyone can tell you, Myth/EgyptianMythology is a rather hard thing to get "right" as there is a ''lot'' of conflicting reports about the Egyptians. He also does this in the sequel series Magnus Chase, which features Myth/NorseMythology as the basis and depicts the nine worlds true. |
| 200 | * A good deal of the book version of ''Film/ThePerfectStorm'' is spent detailing the history and mechanics of Gloucester's fishing industry. It's not a novel, but a {{Dramatization}} of a true story -- most of which took place on a fishing boat where we don't know much about what [[IncrediblyLamePun went down.]] Establishing the context of the fishery, and then filling in the events speculatively from that, was the best the reporter could do. |
| 201 | * Creator/TamoraPierce does a lot of research for most of her books. Some parts of the ''Literature/CircleOfMagic'' series have two pages of thanks and citations. Gangs being TrueCompanions? Accurate. Psychology of kids going through traumatic experiences? Accurate. All the crafting? Accurate. Psychology of serial killers? Accurate. How lightning works? Accurate. ''Und so weiter''. |
| 202 | ** One notable exception is that her knights never seem to have more than two mounts -- one riding mount and one battle steed -- while knights would most likely have four or more, because horses tire out too easily. However, this makes sense as ArtisticLicense since naming and/or describing four horses for every knight in the series would be a ''serious'' pain. The mere fact that her knights ''have'' two horses puts her leagues ahead of many other fantasy authors. |
| 203 | ** When writing the character Keladry who uses a spear, Tamora Pierce took naginata lessons herself. |
| 204 | *** She also learned how to spin using a drop spindle and had Sandry make some of the same mistakes she did. |
| 205 | * Ken Follet put a lot of research into the cathedral architecture that defines ''Literature/ThePillarsOfTheEarth'', and he wants you to know it. |
| 206 | * Creator/TimPowers definitely shows his history knowledge in his various BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy novels, and it's also clear that he researches period-relevant skills, such as tall-ship sailing techniques and marionettes for ''Literature/OnStrangerTides''. |
| 207 | * Creator/TerryPratchett was known to read extremely in-depth factual books on, as he puts it, "subjects like The History of Ear Wax Through the Ages" or the like. His research never shows through in a clumsy way, but he does sometimes go into detailed descriptions of how things function. These things, such as the semaphore lines in ''Literature/TheTruth'', the practical daily workings of the city in ''Literature/NightWatchDiscworld'', and a million other little descriptions are all based on historical fact. He's also been known to do things like actually go and shoot different kinds of guns into water with a firearms expert to determine how fast certain bullets would reach a certain point in the water (this was done for ''Literature/{{Nation}}''). In ''Literature/LordsAndLadies'' there's a beekeeper character and a significant bee motif throughout the story. Terry Pratchett actually kept bees, as well as doing research on them for a non-fiction book. |
| 208 | * Creator/PhilipPullman took a lot of ArtisticLicense in his portrayal of an alternate Christianity in ''Literature/HisDarkMaterials'', but there's no doubt that he did considerable research on philosophy, language, and physics. For instance, the concept of humans having a dæmon, ghost and body is derived from several actual philosophies, most notably the classical Greek concept of the division of the human being into [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the exact same things]]. References to Quantum Mysticism, a rather overlooked verse in the Bible and Buddhist terminology all stem from Dust, the cloud fortress of the angels is based on a physics principle, and then there's the whole lot of places and objects named in Greek, Icelandic and Italian. Then there's also the description of the appearance of the [[GiantFlyer cliffghasts]]; while most likely coincidental, it is quite similar to that of the anurognathid pterosaurs. |
| 209 | * ''Literature/QualiaThePurple'' has some good use and explanation of scientific concepts. For example, Chapter 7 has Tenjou and Manabu talk at length about how Marii's powers work, and mention UsefulNotes/SchrodingersCat in the middle. Manabu thinks that the "1/2 alive, 1/2 dead" misconception is bogus, and in a rare moment of fictional coversations about it Tenjou ''agrees'' that it sounds preposterous--because it is and always was. |
| 210 | * Dudley Pope's ''Literature/{{Ramage}}'' series also appears as if it was written at the time. It helps that there's at least one young midshipman around, eager for instruction in the art of seamanship, and so exposition can be disguised as lessons and/or important instructions given in the heat of battle. |
| 211 | * Creator/AynRand reportedly worked in an architect's office for some time before writing ''Literature/TheFountainhead''. For the movie adaptation of ''The Fountainhead'' Rand insisted on getting properly avant-garde designs by commissioning Frank Lloyd Wright for the design work. This plan fell through when the studio saw Wright's proposed fee. He was America's Greatest Architect at the time and would have charged appropriately (given Rand wrote ''Literature/AtlasShrugged'', the irony is thick). |
| 212 | * Creator/MatthewReilly has military advisers to make sure he gets things right. Although sometimes he ignores them because of plot requirements or RuleOfCool. |
| 213 | ** ''Literature/ContestMatthewReilly'' takes place in the New York Public Library, and even includes a map of it at the beginning of the book. |
| 214 | *** Though the original edition made a few errors as Reilly was largely guessing at the library's layout (officially it was set in a FictionalCounterpart called the New York State Library). Under the circumstances he got it remarkably close, and the updated edition currently out fixes any mistakes (mostly inserting hallways between rooms). On the other hand, all Australian editions retain the original layout, with recent printings including a note from the author about the changes in the American edition. |
| 215 | ** In ''Literature/{{Temple}}'', he manages to cram a surprising amount of Inca factoids into an intense action novel. ''Real'' Inca too, not {{Mayincatec}}. |
| 216 | ** In ''Literature/SixSacredStones'', he includes a bibliography. |
| 217 | * Kim Stanley Robinson's ''Literature/RedMarsTrilogy'' is a smörgåsbord of Done Research, sometimes to the detriment of the story's pacing. Among other things, he even traveled to UsefulNotes/{{Antarctica}} to research how people lived in cold environments -- research he also showed off in his later novel, ''Antarctica''. |
| 218 | * Creator/MaryRenault's novels about Ancient Greece. You don't even notice that you're learning a huge amount of factual historical information. |
| 219 | ** This didn't stop critics from claiming that her novels were "bad history" because [[RealityIsUnrealistic she didn't adhere to the tropes of her time]]. She had to add author's notes to the second editions of so many of her early novels that eventually she gave up and began adding author's notes to her first editions as well to forestall the critics. One example is in ''Literature/FuneralGames'', where she was attacked for showing Alexander the Great's body not decomposing for 48 hours after his supposed death, despite the fact that the incident is part of the historical record (and surprisingly plausible, given the circumstances). |
| 220 | ** Renault finally wrote a non-fiction book, ''The Nature of Alexander'', essentially an expanded version of her notes in the back of the three Alexander novels. |
| 221 | * Creator/RobertLForward's ''Literature/{{Rocheworld}}'', a.k.a. ''Flight of the Dragonfly'', is built on a rock-solid foundation of plausible details about space travel and physics -- since Forward is a physicist and aerospace engineer, he probably ''wrote'' most of the research. [[{{Sequelitis}} The sequels, however...]] |
| 222 | * Watching Creator/EdwardRutherfurd Show His Work is half the ''point'' of his multi-generational history novels, as he describes in lavish detail how various breakthroughs in architecture, craftsmanship, agriculture and economics have transformed Britain and other nations. He's not bad on political, military, and theological innovations, either. |
| 223 | * One of the ''Series/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch'' novels, "Harvest Moon" involved Sabrina and the titular dance. [[spoiler:At the climax, she accidentally teleports the dance to one of the Moons of Jupiter due to someone wishing it would be "out of this world", with working air, lights, etc. Zelda explains that the TV cameras at the dance are still transmitting in real-time back home to Westbridge, MA and back to the dance [[AWizardDidIt because magic]]. The TV they're watching also receives regular radio waves from Earth -- that is, limited by the speed of light -- and they can flip to a time-lagged news channel to learn NASA has noted the signals coming from the dance's new location several light-minutes away and is going to reposition one of their satellites to take a look. That leaves Sabrina a few minutes to break the spell so Zelda can transport the dance back to Earth, which adds additional urgency to the plot on top of the usual need to keep magic secret. Once they do, the satellite finds nothing, and with NASA concluding the TV signal must've bounced off the moon somehow or gotten mixed up with the satellite's.]] |
| 224 | * Almost all of L.E. Modesitt, Jr.'s ''Literature/SagaOfRecluce'' novels feature a main mage character who also essentially has a 'day job' that is pretty well researched, be it woodcraft, scrivening (book-copying), blacksmithing, barrel-making, or sewer maintenance (quite essential to any city life). He tends to describe the activities involved in these occupations in extensive and minute detail. He puts as much detail into the system of magic used as well, which he describes in similarly exhaustive detail. |
| 225 | * Italian {{Dime Novel}}ist Emilio Salgari (best known for the ''Literature/{{Sandokan}}'' novels was almost obsessively accurate, something even more notable for him being an overworked writer who never left Italy writing of distant places in pre-internet days. There are only two inaccuracies in his novels, namely accidentally making Mompracem and Keraman two different islands ([[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield leading to most wondering where Mompracem is supposed to be]]) and declaring the existance of a lake near Mount Kinabalu. In his defence, the former was caused by a misprinted map and the latter was a common belief at the time... And [[HilariousInHindsight the British actually created the lake]]. |
| 226 | * Bernard Cornwell's ''Literature/{{Sharpe}}'' novels, which follow a fictional British soldier through the Napoleonic Wars, offer extremely accurate depictions of life in the army, 19th century warfare, historic battles and events, and the [[HistoricalDomainCharacter important people involved in all three]] (particularly UsefulNotes/TheDukeOfWellington, since the novels are loosely structured around his campaigns). Individual novels are often built around a specific battle, such as the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Talavera Battle of Talavera]] in ''Sharpe's Eagle'', and they are described in great detail. Each novel ends with a Historic Note, which Cornwell uses to throw in extra info about the period and point out the few places where he's taken dramatic license with history, as well as what actually occurred. |
| 227 | * Creator/NevilShute had a successful career as an aeronautical engineer and was also a model engineer in his spare time. His novels all contain detailed descriptions of mechanical processes. In ''Literature/TrusteeFromTheToolroom'' the process of engineering is almost as much the hero of the book as is the quietly competent trustee of the title. |
| 228 | * Creator/ManlyWadeWellman regularly displayed his knowledge of Appalachian folklore and music in his "Literature/SilverJohn" stories. |
| 229 | * ''Literature/TheSixthBattle'' is pretty much one of the only techno-thrillers to incorporate air-launched missile failure rates into the plot. That's not missiles missing the target- that's missiles dropping off the hardpoint and just falling into the sea. He also made a very accurate guess on the P-700/SS-N-19 "Shipwreck"'s co-operative guiding capability. |
| 230 | * Canadian horror author Creator/MichaelSlade's novels offer a great deal of insight into the workings of the Mounted Police. They should; Slade is the pen name for a group of three lawyers specializing in criminal insanity. And the novels contain bibliographies. |
| 231 | * The author of ''Literature/SmallAsAnElephant'' traveled around Maine to work out exactly where Jack goes on his journey. Every location he visits is a place that really exists. |
| 232 | * Mara of ''Literature/SmallGame'' is happy to expound on the basics of foraging, including that experienced survivalists still study field guides to memorize local flora. The author is an experienced survivalist herself. |
| 233 | * The novel ''Literature/SophiesWorld'' by Jostein Gaarder was written to double as a textbook on the history of philosophy. [[spoiler:The author even has one character [[NoFourthWall explicitly state]] this at one point in the book, as part of what ''definitely'' qualifies as a [[WhamEpisode Wham Chapter.]]]] Thus, chapters advancing the plot are alternated with texts (and later lectures) from the mysterious correspondence course in philosophy that Sophie is receiving. For readers who have an interest in philosophy or who are interested in a comprehensive and readable introduction to the subject, ''Sophie's World'' makes a fascinating and thought-provoking read. Unfortunately, readers who are expecting a simple novel tend to feel that the sections on philosophy (which make up fully half of the book) slow the plot down too much, even if the plot itself was designed largely to illustrate and dramatize the philosophy. |
| 234 | * In Diane Carey's ''Franchise/StarTrek'' novel ''Ship of the Line'', she makes ''sure'' you know by the end that she knows a lot about sailing. If you thought [[SpaceIsAnOcean Space Was An Ocean]] in the ''series'', you ain't seen nothing yet. This is also a case of AuthorAppeal -- Carey sails in real life. This also comes up in her other Trek: TOS novels ''Battlestations!'' and ''The Great Starship Race''. In at least "Ship of the Line", the first one, it can really get in the way -- when most writers do this, it'd be "On the planet of the week, they've gotta catch up with pirates without breaking the PrimeDirective. Good thing so-and-so knows how to sail!", but instead, smack in the middle of a story about keeping bad guys from stealing the shiny new ''Enterprise''-E before it debuts in ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact,'' we interrupt your regularly scheduled SpaceOpera to spend ''multiple long chapters'' in a boat on the holodeck, with nothing to do with the plot. It was abundantly and painfully clear which plot Carey was more concerned with, and it ''wasn't'' the ''Enterprise''-E. |
| 235 | ** Also, in two different Romulan-related novels by Andy Mangels and Michael Martin, it's very, very clear that all the finer details of Romulan measurements of time, distance, etc., are worked out. With this much made-up alien jargon clogging the works, what's not ''remotely'' clear is about how long, far, etc. something is expected to be -- or even [[UnitConfusion what they're referring to.]] |
| 236 | *** [[OlderThanTheyThink Older Than You Think:]] they based a lot of their work on Diane Duane's TOS Romulan and Vulcan-centered novels, which are brilliant, if slightly bewildering. |
| 237 | *** Duane's ''The Wounded Sky'', a novel about what happens when entropy stops, time no longer exists, and a gash is torn in the fabric of the universe. On top of that, be prepared for philosophizing about the true nature of different people, cycles of life and death, and the birth of Creation (and a God, on top of that). And the rules of physics. And how to make them up. Just... if you want to really comprehend the novel, get several graduate degrees in theoretical physics, philosophy, psychology, and religion. |
| 238 | * Greg Cox put authors notes in the back of ''Literature/StarTrekTheEugenicsWars'' explaining how what happened fits in with the real life events of that time. |
| 239 | * In a minor example, The ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' gets the genetics of twins right by having Leia, who was a twin with Luke, have twin children Jaina and Jacen. Lots of people know that "twins run in families", but fewer know that ''only'' fraternal twins run in families, and ''only'' on the mother's side. (Although, it should be obvious when you think about it. Non-identical twins come when a woman ovulates more than one egg at once.) |
| 240 | * ''Literature/TheStormSwimmer'': An author's note describes many aspects of sea people physiology that didn't make it into the novel, showing the research the author did on marine life and her efforts to make the sea people biologically plausible. |
| 241 | * ''Literature/{{Stranger}}'' heavily features [[ShellshockedVeteran PTSD and realistic reactions to trauma]] amongst the characters. One of the writers is a therapist specializing in PTSD. |
| 242 | * Creator/NealStephenson is pretty infamous for this in general, often taking the form of an InfoDump. He's completely unafraid to take a page or five to explain whatever's on his mind at the time, whether it be physics, chemistry, computer science, economics, religion, linguistics, or the proper way to eat cereal. |
| 243 | ** ''Literature/SnowCrash'' has rather a lot of detail about ancient Sumerian laws and writing systems. Might not have been so bad if not for the colossal {{infodump}} they arrive in... |
| 244 | ** ''Literature/{{Cryptonomicon}}'' works a cipher specially designed for the book by crypto expert (and MemeticBadass) Bruce Schneier into the plot, and includes a working Perl script implementing the cipher. Which was unfortunately broken by the typesetters in some editions, who presumably didn't expect to have to print a Perl listing that day. Elsewhere, under the guise of trying out Van Eck Phreaking, he delivers an ''entire essay'' on weird fetishes. |
| 245 | ** ''Literature/TheBaroqueCycle'' is usable for studying for a European History test. |
| 246 | ** ''Literature/{{Anathem}}'' is even more so, you could use it as a textbook on math, with (in the advanced reader's edition at least) several appendices of math problems and a note saying the full book will be launched with a website for more information about all the "mathic concepts" in it. |
| 247 | ** ''Literature/{{Seveneves}}'' has accurate orbital mechanics and a {{Steampunk}} space engine that could (theoretically) work. |
| 248 | * German author Frank Schätzing did so much research into marine life for his best-selling thriller ''Literature/DerSchwarm'' (''The Swarm'') that beyond merely showing his work in the novel, he released a full door-stopper supplementary book about history, nature and possible future of marine biology. In his own words, he only got to show off 20% of his research in the novel and did not want to leave the remaining 80% unused. |
| 249 | * Daniel Suarez is a successful network and systems security consultant and engineer, and it shows in his books ''Literature/{{Daemon}}'' and ''Freedom™''. |
| 250 | * Creator/RosemarySutcliff did this in ''Literature/SwordAtSunset'', a {{demythifi|cation}}ed {{deconstruction}} of Myth/ArthurianLegend. Among other things, it realistically describes the hardships of surviving winter in Post-Roman Britain, the rarity of even chainmail armor, the problems of finding enough horses of riding size and quality and of gathering even a small fighting force under a single warlord, and the available weapons technology and fortifications. As she says in the foreword, however, sometimes reality takes a backseat to RuleOfCool... but you wouldn't know it from this story, unless you were a historian. |
| 251 | * Terry Goodkind might not have had as much actual experience with horses as others, but his writing about them in his ''Literature/SwordOfTruth'' novels shows he at least did his homework. He also goes into great detail on the preparation of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lardo herb-cured pork fatback called lardo]] (an actual Italian delicacy from Colonnata in northern Italy, and yes, they really do cure it in basins made of marble). |
| 252 | * Creator/TadWilliams did extensive research on cats, cat behavior, and cat biology while writing ''Literature/TailchasersSong''. ''Cat Fanciers'' magazine even praised the book for its accuracy. |
| 253 | * Creator/HarryTurtledove's ''Literature/TalesOfTheFox'' series incorporates descriptions of chariot combat, feudal societies, god myths and social customs ranging from the Bronze age to Greco-Roman to early Medieval, etc. Since Gerin the Fox is said to be a former scholar and a bit of a pedant, it doesn't even slow the story too much when certain details are elaborated on. It helps a lot that Turtledove has a [=PhD=] in history. Turtledove's Ph.D. focused on Byzantine history, which he used to his advantage in creating a series of novels set in Literature/{{Videssos}}, a FantasyCounterpartCulture of the Byzantine Empire. |
| 254 | * Lawrence Block's Literature/EvanTanner series had a fair bit of information on everything from a particular Lithuanian ruler to UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler's distaste for ''Theatre/TheThreepennyOpera''. |
| 255 | * Creator/TravisSTaylor does this sort of thing fairly often, sometimes putting portions or explanations of the formulas in the book, but mostly leaving them for the afterword. He gets away with it on the rare occasions where it takes over the plot because he happens to have a Ph.D. in the physics involved. There's at least a few things he's gotten wrong, because his work deals with astrophysics rather than nanoscience. He gets rather upset when you bring them up. Specifically ''Literature/VonNeumansWar'' has him handwaving the effect of an {{EMP}} on the [[RecursiveCreators Von Neuman Machines]] by saying they are hardened for space and are thus immune. For the sake of tropers outside the field, if something can send and receive signals on a specific wavelength, it will absorb energy on that wavelength. So if you use Wi-Fi frequencies to send your commands, an electronic bomb that disables Wi-Fi will at the very least disrupt the Von Neuman machines communications on the same frequencies. |
| 256 | * In ''Literature/TheseWordsAreTrueAndFaithful'', Creator/EugeneGalt works in details about the lives of both police officers in general and gay police officers, including the attitude that the latter have toward cop fetishists. Also, in depicting the debate in the LGBT community between the L and the T, he correctly states arguments used by both sides, rather than using [[TheWarOnStraw straw-man versions]]. |
| 257 | * Miles Cameron, the author of ''Literature/TheTraitorSonCycle'', is apparently an avid medieval reenactor, so you can bet that every book of the series will go into great detail when it comes to weapons, armour and fighting styles used, and you'll see some things that rarely make their way into fiction, like poleaxes or coats of plates. |
| 258 | * Creator/JoeHaldeman in the introduction to one of his short stories "Tricentenial" in an anthology, commented that at the speed the spaceship in the picture traveled "a ping pong ball would destroy it". He then put two lines of equations in the footnotes to prove it. |
| 259 | * William Luther Pierce's ''Literature/TheTurnerDiaries'' contains a [[FridgeHorror horrifying]] example of this trope. Several times, the characters are shown engaging in bomb-making, trap-setting, and other paramilitary activities, and everything is described in a very detailed, instructional manner. In other words, the book is a domestic terrorism manual for {{Right Wing Militia Fanatic}}s disguised as a novel. Considering that several real-life domestic terrorists and white supremacists (including the Oklahoma City bomber) used the book as inspiration for their activities, it worked. It's not for nothing that this book is almost impossible to buy in the US outside the internet or from "that" stand at gun shows (you know, the one that's also hawking [[ThoseWackyNazis "patriotic" German paraphernalia]]), and even then, many editions of the book carry warnings on the cover. |
| 260 | * There's an interesting in-story example in Creator/HBeamPiper's ''Literature/UllerUprising'' -- the heroes are able to build an atomic bomb using a well-supplied nuclear facility for parts and tools, and a trashy historical romance set at Los Alamos as their textbook. Fortunately the romance author was a demon for [[ShownTheirWork showing her work]]. |
| 261 | * Philip K. Dick's ''Literature/{{VALIS}}'' would regularly discuss and quote Taoism, Mircea Eliade and various Greek philosophers and would go into long Gnostic ramblings about the nature of the universe. |
| 262 | * Creator/JulesVerne would include physics formulas in his science fiction to demonstrate their general plausibility, as in ''Literature/FromTheEarthToTheMoon'', which only ignored the limits to the thrust a living human can withstand. This created problems when translating his work into English back in the day, as Verne used the metric system, which few English-speaking readers were familiar with at the time. Many just replaced "kilometers" with "miles", etc., rendering the numbers nonsensical. |
| 263 | * The rail timetables are accurate, the botany is correct, and the names on the village war memorials are local in the ''Literature/VillageTales'' series … and that's just the start. History, archaeology, old manor court rolls, heraldry and blazonry, ancient charters, pitch-perfect [[FictionalDocument fictional documents]]; how to run a real-ale brewery, a bakery, a farm, or a steam railway; memorial brasses in C of E churches, church bell inscriptions, domestic architecture … it's pretty obvious Creator/GMWWemyss is a critic and historian when he's not being a novelist. |
| 264 | * Richard Adams' extensive research into the most intimate details of lapine (rabbit) biology and sociology in ''Literature/WatershipDown'' enabled him to create a fantasy milieu more detailed -- yet less pedantic -- than many similar worlds involving "higher" life-forms. Result: a book about rabbits that's become an undisputed classic of human literature. |
| 265 | * Creator/DavidWeber deserves a mention here. Although much of the [[Literature/HonorHarrington Honorverse's]] AppliedPhlebotinum is well into the "fiction" side of science-fiction, his distance, momentum, and velocity calculations are obsessively accurate, making this a slightly more literal instance of showing his work. |
| 266 | ** Though he often gives numbers with ridiculous levels of precision, and regularly has characters giving the answers to simple questions like "How long 'til we get there?" with long explanations involving base velocities, accelerations, and distances, and by the time they've rung off all that, they've forgotten the original question, and never answer it. |
| 267 | ** The one case where he conspicuously ''failed'' to do the math (at first) was on the size and mass of starships. Several books into the series, somebody [[http://hell.pl/szymon/Baen/Hell%20Hath%20No%20Fury/GreatResizing.htm crunched the numbers]] and noticed that his huge, deadly, spacefaring [[CoolSpaceship superdreadnoughts]] were about as dense as cigar smoke. Weber promptly turned around and revised the size figures. |
| 268 | ** His new series, ''Literature/{{Safehold}}'', is an egregious example of the trope. For those who haven't read it, humanity has regressed to technology level about the same as 1500 CE, and then goes on an accelerated progression from there. Since Weber is a military historian by trade, expect ridiculously detailed analysis of logistics, minute details of sailing equipment (he specifies both the circumference and diameter of a rope on multiple occasions, though anyone with grade school geometry can get one from the other, usually in their head. Hint: the circumference is a little more than three times the diameter.), and whole chapters with characters discussing the exact origins and mechanisms of the newest inventions. Also worth noting are the long, ponderous internal monologues he is famous for, even when it seems like [[TalkingIsAFreeAction a page-long or longer monologue is crammed into a split second of time.]] |
| 269 | * Robert Jordan was (in)famous for this. In the ''[[Literature/TheWheelOfTime Wheel of Time,]]'' you would get realistic military uses, you would hear Mat talk about how to use Light Cavalry to chase retreating opponents, you would see realistic effects of crossbows, and you would see plausible military campaigns. Not all of this was to the story's benefit. Jordan could go on for many paragraphs about the clothing of the 17th through 19th centuries, which, even as long-winded as it is, created distinctive features for the massive cast. |
| 270 | ** Jordan actually went so far as to accumulate a huge collection of antique weapons from different cultures mainly for research purposes. When he wanted to write about a weapon, he would buy one, go to the backyard, and get a feel for it. |
| 271 | ** He also did a quite accurate description of Perrin's work as a blacksmith. |
| 272 | * Creator/ConnieWillis books are almost invariably filled with random facts about specific subjects ranging from fads in ''Literature/{{Bellweather}}'' to early mystery novels and turning points in history in ''Literature/ToSayNothingOfTheDog.'' |
| 273 | ** Willis' ''characters'' attempt to do this in ''Literature/DoomsdayBook'', when they prepare the main character for a [[TimeTravel venture into medieval England]] by giving her period-appropriate dress, language training, and backstory. When she arrives, her clothing is made too well, her middle English is at significant variance with what the locals speak, and her backstory worse than meaningless. |
| 274 | ** Unfortunately, Willis' lack of research about Oxford shows a few too many times. |
| 275 | *** Details? The parts of the Oxford Time Travel Books that aren't set in the past are set at least several decades in the future, so it would make perfect sense for some things to have changed. |
| 276 | *** The geography of (Victorian) Oxford is well-documented, and even time travel can't make an impossible journey possible -- the roads given don't work for the journeys described, one road name is just plain wrong, and at one point a character stands at a particular spot and can see... things he has no business seeing because there should be a large church in his way! |
| 277 | * The ''Literature/WitchesChillers'' series by Silver [=RavenWolf=] replaces OminousLatinChanting with the kind of spells she and her coven would use in real life. The books even go so far as to include a short passage at the end where AuthorAvatar Ramona teaches a spell to the readers. |
| 278 | * Hilary Mantel's ''Literature/WolfHall'' and ''Literature/BringUpTheBodies'' are overflowing with precise historical details about Tudor buildings, clothing, trade, religion etc. |
| 279 | * Tony Rothman took the Clement approach in his novel ''Literature/TheWorldIsRound'', with an extensive appendix giving the equations he used to work out how energy could be extracted from the central black hole and a graph showing the height of the sun above the horizon as a function of time (this was important because the world rotated so slowly that it made humans effectively crepuscular, spending most of the season-long "day" and "night" in underground caverns). |
| 280 | * Max Brooks did an extensive amount of research for his Zombie Apocalypse novel ''Literature/WorldWarZ'', interviewing police officers, Federal agents, and FEMA personnel. Amusingly, he remarked that everyone he interviewed had put at least SOME thought into what would happen or what they would do in the event of a Zombie Apocalypse. This is in part because a lot of real-world agencies use the concept as a theoretical example of an OutsideContextProblem, to ensure they can deal with unexpected emergencies. |
| 281 | * An interviewer once asked Creator/AaronAllston how much research he did for his first novel in the Literature/XWingSeries. He's actually pretty good about only showing it obliquely -- the details are definitely there, but they're just part of the narrative. |
| 282 | -->A lot. I wish I'd had time to do more. I read every Star Wars [[AllThereInTheManual technical manual]] I could get my hands on, plus Stackpole's novels, [[Creator/TimothyZahn Zahn's novels]], other novels in which Wedge Antilles and Rogue Squadron make appearances, comic books, and several of West End's Star Wars game supplements. I watched the movie trilogy repeatedly. I played the ''VideoGame/XWing'' computer game. I bought eight of the Action Fleet toys and used them for measurements and estimations of their performance in atmosphere. [[SerialEscalation I read books on aircraft carrier life and pilot survival]]. |
| 283 | -->And all that I consider a bare minimum of necessary research -- it was all the research I had time to do as my deadline came bounding toward me. I'll do an equal amount before I'm done with the second book, and even more before the third book is done. |
| 284 | -->Fortunately, I like to do research. |
| 285 |
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