The works of authors, and story-based novels provide world builders and storytellers with inspiration, as the books, and films come to life via setting and story.
Sections
Alternative history - the study of what might have happened, if... Alternate history is a great source of fodder for story plots, and for whole world plotlines.
This book is a novelised historical recount of an invasion that never occurred in our world. It is an alternative history book that looks at the end of world war two?s pacific war. It is 1945, Japan refuses to surrender, the US never developed the Bomb.
The Animatrix is a collection of nine short animations, a mix of CG and hand drawn animation, examining different aspects of the Matrix universe. They tend to be thought provoking, looking at other aspects of VR from philosophical viewpoints, a detective story, what-if scenarios, and even a history of the future of the human race.
Such alternative history samples are outstanding, meaty fodder for world
plotlines based around parallel existences - a world run by Hitler, or a cold
war of the far future. This outstanding collection of essays really encourages
you to think outside the box, and wonder, What might have happened
if....
The British Isles are the source of a great many myths and legends, and of the natural powers that once stalked the lands. The resources within this section deal with the tales, stories and worlds that have been created around these powerful legends.
Set against the backdrop of a receding roman empire and the struggles for power within the newly leaderless British people, the Pendragon cycle paints a vivid picture of a warring nation in which many changes are being wrought.
Set against the backdrop of a receding roman empire and the struggles for power within the newly leaderless British people, the Pendragon cycle paints a vivid picture of a warring nation in which many changes are being wrought.
Set against the backdrop of a receding roman empire and the struggles for power within the newly leaderless British people, the Pendragon cycle paints a vivid picture of a warring nation in which many changes are being wrought.
Set against the backdrop of a receding roman empire and the struggles for power within the newly leaderless British people, the Pendragon cycle paints a vivid picture of a warring nation in which many changes are being wrought.
Set against the backdrop of a receding roman empire and the struggles for power within the newly leaderless British people, the Pendragon cycle paints a vivid picture of a warring nation in which many changes are being wrought.
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Based upon the life of FitzChivalry Farseer, Robin Hobb has created the land of the Six Duchies, a continent constantly beseiged by difficulties. Spanning two trilogies, Fitz’s adventures are included as a resource here to show how fully developed a world can be, as well as providing an example of excellent writing.
Born the bastard son of an abdicated prince, Fitz find himself in a precarious position, made more so by the balancing of his private life and loves against his profession as a royal assassin. Raised by his absent father?s stableman, Fitz lives continually on the outsides of the court, too much of a threat to ignore, but too useful to forget.
Born the bastard son of an abdicated prince, Fitz find himself in a precarious position, made more so by the balancing of his private life and loves against his profession as a royal assassin. Raised by his absent father?s stableman, Fitz lives continually on the outsides of the court, too much of a threat to ignore, but too useful to forget.
The Tawny Man trilogy sees the return of Fitz and his Wit-companion Nighteyes after fifteen years of living in solitude. Once again the fate of the world hangs in the balance, wrapped up in the fate of the Farseer family.
The Red Ship wars are over, but their legacy still lives on in the troubled Outislands, whilst a newer, internal threat is affecting the Six Duchies - the persecution of the Witted having reared its head once again.
The Tawny Man trilogy sees the return of Fitz and his Wit-companion Nighteyes after fifteen years of living in solitude. Once again the fate of the world hangs in the balance, wrapped up in the fate of the Farseer family.
The Red Ship wars are over, but their legacy still lives on in the troubled Outislands, whilst a newer, internal threat is affecting the Six Duchies - the persecution of the Witted having reared its head once again.
The Tawny Man trilogy sees the return of Fitz and his Wit-companion Nighteyes after fifteen years of living in solitude. Once again the fate of the world hangs in the balance, wrapped up in the fate of the Farseer family.
The Red Ship wars are over, but their legacy still lives on in the troubled Outislands, whilst a newer, internal threat is affecting the Six Duchies - the persecution of the Witted having reared its head once again.
Born the bastard son of an abdicated prince, Fitz find himself in a precarious position, made more so by the balancing of his private life and loves against his profession as a royal assassin. Raised by his absent father?s stableman, Fitz lives continually on the outsides of the court, too much of a threat to ignore, but too useful to forget.
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Read this series for the twisting, evolving, many diverse threaded storyline, or read them for the wonderful imagery, and enchanting ideas for VR of the future. Whichever reason makes you pick up one of these, you are in for one hell of a ride!
Read this series for the twisting, evolving, many diverse threaded storyline, or read them for the wonderful imagry, and enchanting ideas for VR of the future. Whichever reason makes you pick up one of these, you are in for one hell of a ride!
Read this series for the twisting, evolving, many diverse threaded storyline, or read them for the wonderful imagry, and enchanting ideas for VR of the future. Whichever reason makes you pick up one of these, you are in for one hell of a ride!
Read this series for the twisting, evolving, many diverse threaded storyline, or read them for the wonderful imagry, and enchanting ideas for VR of the future. Whichever reason makes you pick up one of these, you are in for one hell of a ride!
Back To TopVisions of the Future (7)
Visions of what the future holds for us, whether plausible of histerical, are always good sources of inspiration, giving us limited glimpses of what to possibly expect.
How do you spot a robot mimic of a human? How do you recognise and deactivate a rebellious servant robot? How do you escape a murderous smart home? This dry humoured survival guide, written by a genuine roboticist teaches the worried how to survive a robot mutiny.
Masters of Science Fiction was a hard-core science fiction show created by ABC in 2007. Each episode utilised high quality acting talent, and attempted to discuss a modern-era technology issue from a storyline setting ? short stories of various authors were used as material. Despite the calibre of the recordings, ABC aged the series after just six episodes, and only four were originally shown.
This 1996 movie has a great promise to pose a lot of questions as to the nature of identity. A pity really, that it has a budget of around ?5.99.
The Matrix is one of the most prominent mainstream adaptations of VR. Not necessarily the best, not by a long shot, it is still the one most mainstream individuals bring to mind when VR is mentioned. In this list, we strive to index all Matrix-related resources held upon this site, in order to aid your search for like material.
Total Recall is the film that launched Arnold Schwarzenegger?s career as an action star. It is also one of his best films ever, with a detailed plotline and a lavish attention to detail on AR and VR concepts ? all of which are physically possible, and being actively pursued today.
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Sometimes, all you really require for a setting, is to take the ordinary, the mundane, and twist it with a new perspective into something truly exhilerating.
Antz, made in 1998, was a milestone in CGI. The first film to use actual facial musculature instead of manipulating expressions directly, this is also a thoroughly enjoyable film, and a great way to showcase how the seemingly normal, can make for a wild world ? with only differences of scale.
Book Quotes Index: SnowCrash
 An index resource to all quotes from the VR novel Snowcrash, held across the site. Browse quotes in full or in part, and view further information on and interpretations of each.
Dark City, a detective, conspiracy thriller of a film, twists and winds in a manner not too dissimilar to eXistanZ, and others of that ilk. Not a hit upon initial release in 1998, this film has become a cult classic musing on the nature of reality.
EVE no Jikan (The Time of Eve)
 EVE no Jikan is an anime series based around substrate chauvinism and self identity. It is an anime depicting the use of robots and androids as servants and slaves in a slightly futuristic but still contemporary society. In other words, the near future.
Kid's Story
 The Animatrix short film Kid's Story looks at the last day in the Matrix for a young man who is utterly bewildered at how his dreams seem ever more real than the waking world.
Nightmares is one of those very cheesy made-for-TV movies, that exist on a shoestring budget, a wing, and a prayer. It is horror genre, and it came out in 1983. Consisting of four short stories, each of which possessed an incredible, somewhat unbelievable premise, the film has all but sunk to the bottom of the bargain bin since. However, the second of the four stories, ?the bishop of battle? is a noteworthy 80s attempt at a VR horror story, told in the days before VR was mainstream, so perhaps it does deserve a second look.
Debuting the same year as the Matrix, this gem of a VR film is also, logically enough, a source of good material that can be applied to actual virtual worlds.
Star Trek: The Original Series, & VR ~ Mudd's Women
 The Venus Pill, a metaphor perhaps for virtual reality, wherein even the most unfortunate individual can take a dose, and become as beautiful on the outside as their mind is on the inside. Like the pill, VR used in this manner is compellingly addicting.
Star Trek: The Original Series, & VR ~ What Are Little Girls Made Of?
When the Enterprise goes in search of Dr Roger Korby's long-vanished archaeological expedition, they did not expect to encounter androids so like people. Yet, why are they like people, and not people themselves? Mind uploading and substrate chauvinism, in some of their earliest forms.
Thirteenth Floor: World Building
 What was nice about the world-building method used in floor 13, was it did not cut off suddenly, like many if not most worldlets in modern times do. Usually you have a grid, of a set number of cells arranged into a square or rectangular shape. Up until the edge of that grid, everything seems normal, then suddenly all the trees, rocks, vegetation, man-made objects stop dead.
VR Book Quotes
 A new, large section added to VWN. A repository of quotations concerning VR taken from literature, both fictual and factual, then compared to the state of things today, and the direction to head.
VR Cultural Icons > Joe 90
 Joe 90 was a 1968 Supermarionation creation of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. Basically the same people who made Thunderbirds, using the same puppetry and radio controlled model technology. It was also the last supermarionation production.
VR Cultural Icons: Lightcycles
 Light cycles are an icon of VR, that crop up again and again, in all manner of media. Two-wheeled motorcycles that leave a solid wall of light behind them, as a type of exhaust.
VR Cultural Icons: Rez
 Rez was a video game released by Sega in Japan in 2001. It was a rail shooter with extremely limited interaction, so could not be considered a VR world in any real sense. However, what it did do was express a real depth of cyberpunk themes, and VR subculture that made it an instant hit, and a long lasting meme.
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The dreamscapes series are not based in current tech, instead, they are whimsical flights of fancy, born out of the knowledge that technology is not enough. Hardware and interfaces are not enough.
The human, and post-human aspect must be considered also. What could life be like, living in a world with sufficiently advanced virtual reality?
George
A dreamscapes scenario-story, a whimsical tale of the near future, and George, the new kind of teacher.
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AI: Artificial Intelligence is a film with deep and twisting tendrils exploring the fine line between robotic life and human life. David, the star of the film, is a young robotic boy, an experimental prototype, created as a temporary son for a couple whose biological son has been frozen until his deadly illness can be cured.
Matrix Revolutions picks up right where Matrix Reloaded left off. This is perhaps unsurprising, as the two are essentially one long film, split into two parts. Whilst both lack the raw power of the original, Revolutions is the better film, as it ties things up into logical conclusions, and could stand alone. The same could not be said for Reloaded.
Pixel Perfect is a 2004 Disney Channel Original Movie. It was first shown in January 2004, to 1.58 million viewers. As might be expected from a Disney branded production, Pixel Perfect can be somewhat teenager-orientated, however it is essentially S1m0ne, given a new twist.
Program
 Program is the fifth of the Animatrix animated shorts concerning different interpretations of virtual reality. It opens on a field of blowing reeds, very samuraiesque as a charge of Japanese warriors on horseback ride up from the distance and plough through, flaming arrows mounted in their bows, ready to be loosed at a moment's notice.
Simone, a story ahead of its time of a film producer trying to save his career by employing a virtual actress to star in his films. Unfortunately, the actress is an avatar ? he has to animate her himself, which leads to a whole host of potent issues...
The 'Ultimate Matrix Collection' is actually rather less than ultimate, since it does not include the Matrix philosophy books, and other add-ons. However, what this bumper DVD collection does include, is all three films, and the Animatrix.
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Animatrix: A Detective Story
 A Detective story is unique in the Animatrix set, because it deliberately uses a different colour palette for the world. All characters seem to get on with the changed palette and treat it as normal, a grainy, yellowing film noir look. If that palette and those colours are all you have ever known, you are going to accept them as real.
Dark City, a detective, conspiracy thriller of a film, twists and winds in a manner not too dissimilar to eXistanZ, and others of that ilk. Not a hit upon initial release in 1998, this film has become a cult classic musing on the nature of reality.
This resource list groups together all of our resources centred round the 1998 film 'Dark City' and the application of that film's ideas to modern VR.
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