The best science fiction expands our imaginations and makes its mark on our reality. James Wood's new book, 'How Fiction Works,' is as knowing as you'd expect from one of the best critics alivemore knowing than that, in factbut that may not always please writers, since Wood.

Playful and profound, it incisively sums up two decades of bold, often controversial, and now classic critical work, and will be enlightening to writers, readers, and anyone interested in what happens on the page. 10th anniversary revised edition with new Introduction James Woods How Fiction Works is a scintillating study of the magic of fiction-an analysis of its. Science fiction can take us places in time and space where no other form of fiction can - outer space, the far future, alternate universes, unfathomable civilizations. How Fiction Works is also, although more tacitly, a defense of Wood’s most controversial position as a critic. In his first full-length book of criticism, one of the most prominent critics of our time takes the machinery of story-telling apart to ask a series of fundamental questions: What do we mean when we say we ‘know’ a fictional character? What constitutes a ‘telling’ detail? When is a metaphor successful? Is realism realistic? Why do most endings of novels disappoint? Wood ranges widely, from Homer to Beatrix Potter, from the Bible to John Le Carre, and his book is both a study of the techniques of fiction-making and an alternative history of the novel. Playful and profound, How Fiction Works will be enlightening to writers, readers, and anyone else interested in what happens on the page. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel and Milan Kundera’s The Art of the Novel, How Fiction Works is a scintillating and searching study of the main elements of fiction, such as narrative, detail, characterization, dialogue, realism, and style. Reviewer Jeana Jorgensen Interviews Thomas Cirotteau, Coauthor of Lady Sapiens: Breaking Stereotypes about Prehistoric Women The book Lady Sapiens corrects. James Wood ranges widely, from Homer to Make Way for Ducklings, from the Bible to John le Carr, and his book is both a study of the techniques of fiction-making and an alternative history of the novel.

How fiction works