The internet has enabled new forms of literature and challenged older forms to reinvent themselves. Between Novel and Network selects texts that exemplify these digital transformations, arguing that networked communication technologies have fundamentally altered the form and content of contemporary literature. The book begins by exploring digital fanfiction as a site of literary resistance and a form of literature that can only exist in the age of networked communications. Next it examines epistolary fiction, where networked digital literature offers a different mode of subjectivity than that associated with the traditional novel. Finally, the book addresses two novels that incorporate aspects of networked literatures (fanfiction and comic books) to stake a claim for their enduring primacy as a literary form. Between Novel and Network adds to conversations about how networked communication technologies affect literary form, content, metaphors, and reception. Readers will trace how concepts such as authorship, originality, intertextuality, and literary value play out across the digital literary sphere. As well as building upon the place of fanfiction in the literary field, Suzanne R. Black also offers a reappraisal of the place and characteristics of the novel in the twenty-first century as part of a larger literary ecosystem.
Suzanne R. Black is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Edinburgh.
"Suzanne R. Black makes engaging and provocative connections among a variety of networked literatures, moving skillfully between fanfiction, literary fiction, and genre fiction, including comic books, romance novels, and other commercial forms. The broad range of extremely well-chosen texts she discusses in this book makes it practically unique and a must-read for scholars working at the exciting intersection of digital fiction, fanfiction, and experimental fiction. This book feels like a glimpse into the future of literary study." - Francesca Coppa, author of The Fanfiction Reader: Folk Tales for the Digital Age and Vidding: A History "Between Novel and Network is a brilliant exploration of how literature circulates in a world defined by links, logs, and fandoms. Suzanne R. Black brings fresh insight to fanfiction and contemporary fiction alike, extending the concept of 'archontic production' to show how today's narratives emerge from-and build-living, networked archives of cultural memory and creativity." - Abigail De Kosnik, author of Rogue Archives: Digital Cultural Memory and Media Fandom
