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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1375 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 26, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Fiction books written in textbook style:

Adding A Disturbance of Fate. Warning: heavy doses of Kennedy idolatry and boomer leftist althist wank to be expected.

edit: Also A Short History of the Future and the classic After Man and the somewhat lackluster follow-up Man After Man.

Very interesting. Thank you.

Is there a specific term for this type of literary style?

Unfortunately, I don't think there is. The closest tropes seem to be Scrapbook Story (the story is composed of in-universe documents, which may or may not be textbooks) and Encyclopedia Exposita (the story uses excerpts from an in-universe textbook as chapter epigraphs, but is not itself an in-universe textbook).

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A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

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