In literature, psychological fiction (also psychological realism ) is a narrative genre that emphasizes interior characterization and motivation to explore the spiritual, emotional, and mental lives of its characters . The mode of narration examines the reasons for the behaviours of the character, which propel the plot and explain the story . Psychological realism is achieved with deep explorations and explanations of the mental states of the character's inner person, usually through narrative modes such as stream of consciousness and flashbacks .
22-565: Slipstream genre Mage: The Ascension is a supernatural fiction tabletop role-playing game first published on August 19, 1993, by White Wolf Publishing . It is set in the World of Darkness universe. Following the success of Vampire: The Masquerade , Mage: The Ascension was released as the third of four games within White Wolf's shared universe. The first chapter of the Mage series
44-497: A glimpse into a distorting mirror." In slipstream, characteristics of works of fiction considered under the term include disruption of the principle of realism , avoidance of being a traditional fantasy story, and being a postmodern narrative. As an emerging genre, slipstream has been described as nonrealistic fiction with a postmodern sensibility, exploring an awareness of societal and technological change and psychological breakdown previously shown by science fiction authors during
66-616: Is a term that lumps together metafiction , magical realism , surrealism , experimental fiction [,] counter-realism", and postmodern writing, and/or applies to a story with themes coming from one or more of these literary influences. Psychological fiction The psychological novel has a rich past in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century works of Mme de Lafayette , the Abbé Prévost , Samuel Richardson , Jean-Jacques Rousseau and many others, but it goes on being disinvented by ideologues and reinvented by their opponents because
88-410: Is not so much a genre as a literary effect, like horror or comedy. Similarly, Christopher Priest, in his introduction to Anna Kavan 's genre-defying but arguably slipstream novel Ice , writes "the best way to understand slipstream is to think of it as a state of mind or a particular approach, one that is outside of all categorisation. ... slipstream induces a sense of 'otherness' in the audience, like
110-418: The horror and psychological novel genres that relies on the psychological, emotional and mental states of characters to generate horror. On occasions, it overlaps with the psychological thriller subgenre to enhance the story suspensefully. A subgenre of the drama and psychological novel genres, focuses upon the emotional, mental, and psychological development of characters in a dramatic work. One Flew Over
132-414: The "Hollow Ones", a group of Goth chaos magic practitioners. A key feature of Mage is its unique magic system . A character's magical expertise is described by allocating points to nine different "Spheres" of magical knowledge and influence: Correspondence , Entropy , Forces, Life, Mind, Matter, Prime, Spirit, and Time. Magical effects are largely spontaneously proposed by players and adjudicated by
154-501: The 20th Anniversary Edition of Mage: The Ascension in September 2015, representing the game's fourth iteration. Mage: The Ascension is set in the fictional World of Darkness, a fictional modern Earth wherein supernatural entities clandestinely manipulate everyday life. Players and major characters are " Mages ", normal people who "Awaken" to be able to manipulate reality, usually in an expression of gnosis . The metaplot of Mage:
176-817: The Ascension involves a four-way struggle between an alliance of Mages called the Nine Mystical Traditions; the New World Order of the Technocracy, which relies on its technofantasical "paradigms" versus the Marauders, a disparate group of insane Mages; and the Nephandi, a coalition of Mages serving evil cosmic entities in the pursuit of cosmic oblivion. Later editions of Mage: the Ascension introduce non-aligned Mage factions such as
198-519: The Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and Requiem for a Dream (2000), both based on novels, are notable examples of this subgenre. Psychological science fiction refers to works that focus is on the character's inner struggle dealing with political or technological forces. A Clockwork Orange (1971) is a notable example of this genre. [ The Tale of Genji , as translated by Arthur Waley ,] is written with an almost miraculous naturalness, and what interests us
220-706: The Story of the Grail as early examples of the style of the psychological novel. Stendhal 's The Red and the Black and Madame de La Fayette 's The Princess of Cleves are considered the first precursors of the psychological novel. The modern psychological novel originated, according to The Encyclopedia of the Novel , primarily in the works of Nobel laureate Knut Hamsun – in particular, Hunger (1890), Mysteries (1892), Pan (1894) and Victoria (1898). One of
242-517: The game master, informed by the level of 'expertise' in the relevant Spheres of the effect; this is as opposed to the popular system of magic in Dungeons & Dragons , which relies upon predetermined descriptions of magical spells. Mage: The Ascension, 2nd Edition was given an 8/10 by Arcane 's Adam Tinworth , who called it "good for those who enjoy involved and challenging games." He noted that while it could be difficult for new players to grasp
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#1732801921158264-593: The game's background, develop their style of magic, or figure out how the magic worked; the gameplay system itself would be easy to understand. Mage: The Ascension was ranked 16th out of 50 in Arcane magazine's 1996 reader poll of the most popular role-playing games of all time. The magazine's editor, Paul Pettengale, commented: "Mage is perfect for those of a philosophical bent. It's a hard game to get right, requiring much thought from players and referees alike, but its underlying theme—the nature of reality – makes it one of
286-636: The genre were partially codified in Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology , while contemporary examples include Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi , The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enríquez , and The Butterfly Lampshade by Aimee Bender . The term was invented by Richard Dorsett according to an interview with renowned cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling in Mythaxis Review . He said: It
308-491: The greatest writers of the genre was Fyodor Dostoyevsky . His novels deal strongly with ideas, and characters who embody these ideas, how they play out in real world circumstances, and the value of them, most notably The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment . In the literature of the United States, Henry James , Patrick McGrath , Arthur Miller , and Edith Wharton are considered "major contributor[s] to
330-602: The most interesting and mature role-playing games available." Slipstream genre Slipstream is a literary genre or category of speculative fiction that blends together science fiction , fantasy , and literary fiction or does not remain in conventional boundaries of genre and narrative. It directly extends from the experimentation of the New Wave science fiction movement while also borrowing from fantasy, psychological fiction , philosophical fiction and other genres or styles of literature. Historical examples of
352-475: The practice of psychological realism." A subgenre of the thriller and psychological novel genres, emphasizing the inner mind and mentality of characters in a creative work. Because of its complexity, the genre often overlaps and/or incorporates elements of mystery, drama, action, slasher, and horror — often psychological horror. It bears similarities to the Gothic and detective fiction genres. A subgenre of
374-405: The strange familiar" through skepticism about elements of reality. Illustrating this, prototypes of the style of slipstream are considered to exist in the stories of Franz Kafka and Jorge Luis Borges . Science fiction authors James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel , editors of Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology , argued cognitive dissonance is at the heart of slipstream, and it
396-503: The subtleties of psychology defy most ideologies. The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki , written in 11th-century Japan, was considered by Jorge Luis Borges to be a psychological novel. French theorists Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari , in A Thousand Plateaus , evaluated the 12th-century Arthurian author Chrétien de Troyes ' Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart and Perceval,
418-564: The time of postmodernism , as well as poets and experimental authors in modernism . In her 2012 volume Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction , Grace Dillon identified a current of Native American Slipstream that predates and anticipates the timeframe for slipstream, notably including Gerald Vizenor 's 1978 short story "Custer on the Slipstream". Other SF authors and fans claim "that slipstream
440-416: The way that living in the twentieth century makes you feel, if you are a person of a certain sensibility." The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction credits Sterling with inventing the related term of "slipstream sf" for works that "make use of sf devices but which are not Genre SF". Slipstream fiction has been described as "the fiction of strangeness", or a form of writing that makes "the familiar strange or
462-540: Was invented by my friend the late Richard Dorsett while the two of us were discussing a category of non-genre fantasy books that we had no name for. "They're certainly not mainstream ," I said, and "Why not slipstream?" he suggested, and I thought it was a pretty good coinage. Sterling later described it in an article originally published in SF Eye #5, in July 1989, as "a kind of writing which simply makes you feel very strange;
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#1732801921158484-678: Was launched by White Wolf Publishing at the Gen Con gaming convention on August 19, 1993. A second edition followed in December 1995, with a revised edition released in March 2000. In 2005, White Wolf Publishing merged with CCP Games . Following company layoffs in October 2011, White Wolf's Creative Director, Richard Thomas, founded Onyx Path Publishing to continue publishing Tabletop role-playing games . Onyx Path Publishing later introduced
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