Is there any kind of fiction where multiple stories are connected in a recursive loop? The connection could be a character who writes or narrates the story. e.g.

  • story A -> story B
  • story B -> story C
  • story C -> story A

Thanks in advance for any help!

  • Troy
    2·
    2 months ago

    Subtle, but I thought of another one. Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun (five parts) – see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_the_New_Sun

    I’ve seen it described as a “palimpsest” – where a page has been erased to make room for more writing, but if you’re very careful, you can still read the original. At first glance, it appears to be a bog-standard fantasy travelogue, but as you read, you realize this thing is an onion with layers hidden underneath. It becomes a puzzle decoding the whole thing – a fun puzzle mind you, because there is still an entertaining surface level adventure going on – and as you peel back the layers, you realize that time travel is in play and the whole story becomes much more interesting. There’s a bunch of other sources non-linearity in it too, mostly due to memory transference. While you’re reading, you should be asking yourself “who is Severian?”

    You could spend your whole life studying this thing.