Match BookHamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace
Janet H. Murray
1997 · 336 pages · Narrative nonfiction
How it reads
Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace is narrative nonfiction (media theory, specifically), and its dominant mood is adventurous. It's driven by momentum, discovery and getting into trouble. The pace is moderate — neither a page-turner nor a slow burn — so it holds up whether you read it in long sittings or short ones.
It's set in several locations, in the future, told in the third person, staying close to one character. Its central concerns are art and creativity, identity and power and politics. In weight it's heavy and literary — denser, more serious, and more demanding of you.
It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending is left open, for you to argue about. At 336 pages it's an ordinary novel's length. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.
Pick it up if…
- you're in the mood for something adventurous
- you want something to chew on
- you want a complete story in one book
Maybe not if…
- you need something cosy or melancholy
All 15 dimensions
- Genre
- narrative nonfiction
- Author gender
- female
- Author experience
- established
- Setting: place
- multiple locations
- Setting: time
- future
- Mood / feeling
- adventurous
- Pace
- moderate
- Tone / weight
- heavy and literary
- Length
- medium
- Narrative style
- third person, one viewpoint
- Publication era
- modern classic
- Popularity
- well known
- Series vs standalone
- standalone
- Themes
- art and creativity, identity, power and politics
- Ending style
- ambiguous
What these mean: the 15 dimensions of a book.
Books with a similar reading
The closest books in Match Book's catalogue across the same dimensions, and what they share.
- Science Fiction and Philosophy: From Time Travel to SuperintelligenceSusan SchneiderShares: narrative nonfiction, adventurous mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
- The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex LifeNick LaneShares: narrative nonfiction, adventurous mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
- Darwin's Ghosts: The Secret History of EvolutionRebecca StottShares: narrative nonfiction, adventurous mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
- At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance--A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black PowerDanielle L. McGuireShares: narrative nonfiction, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace, set in multiple locations
- Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First CenturyDorothy RobertsShares: narrative nonfiction, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace, set in multiple locations
- Cloud AtlasDavid MitchellShares: adventurous mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace, ambiguous ending
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