Books on immersive experiences

February 24, 2013 11:24 AM

Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus and Robin Sloan's Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore describe immersive artistic experiences that echo Alternate Reality Games or events like the All Worlds Fair. What other books describe events and experiences like these?

I especially appreciated how The Night Circus talks about the creation and development of said Night Circus, not just that the circus exists and plot happens in it. Non-fiction would be awesome but fiction like my examples work too.

posted by divabat to media & arts (8 answers total)

I've read The Night Circus, and for a non-fiction version of the aspect of it you're interested in, I would recommend Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 11:58 AM on February 24

Steven Millhauser's novel Martin Dressler and several of his short stories are about entrepeneurs who build small businesses into obsessive Disneyland-like experiences with electric lights and circuses and jungles in artificial caverns...
posted by moonmilk at 12:05 PM on February 24

Oh, something I really liked about Mary Robinette Kowal's fantasy Regency romances, in which magic is real but only used as a decorative art, is that the plots often turn on problems with creating convincing immersive artworks. They're also just very light, readable books.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 12:55 PM on February 24 [1 favorite]

Ernest Cline's Ready Player One is about a sprawling game, and mostly takes place in virtual worlds.
posted by gnomeloaf at 2:01 PM on February 24 [2 favorites]

You may enjoy Stardust, especially the parts about the Faerie Market.
posted by ChuraChura at 2:52 PM on February 24

Walter Jon Williams' "Dagmar Shaw" series takes part around Alternate Reality games, but it is very much a near-future sci-fi series, with aspects of "techno-triller". Another SF book with some of the same themes (but, in a way set much further into the future) is The Restoration Game by Ken Macleod.
posted by Baron Humbert von Gikkingen at 3:01 PM on February 24

Alif the Unseen reminded me of Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. Definitely immersive combination of programming and magic.
posted by carolr at 3:56 PM on February 24

I loved both of these books enough to give them their own shelf on Goodreads and get recommendations for the shelf. Four of them are: The Rook, Tell the Wolves I'm Home, The Mysterious Howling and The Diviners. The Rook is the only one that is not listed as Young Adult
posted by soelo at 6:29 PM on February 24