# Horizon-expanding fiction **URL:** \ **Category:** The Arts\ **Created:** [July 22, 2026, 12:24am UTC](https://briarfray.org/t/horizon-expanding-fiction/939 "2026-07-22T00:24:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![0CK](https://briarfray.org/user_avatar/briarfray.org/0ck/32/803_2.png) [@0CK](https://briarfray.org/u/0CK)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2026, 12:24am UTC](https://briarfray.org/t/horizon-expanding-fiction/939/1 "2026-07-22T00:24:48Z")
Fiction with broad appeal, that introduce the crowd to fresh flavors. Think literature with the cheap fun parts (like sex, violence, power fantasy) but laced with the acquired taste- characters and cultures that feel real and distinct, mysteries and strategies with outside-the-box thinking, myriad details that cohere. I don’t have much to say about it at the moment, and I won’t pretend my taste is super advanced, but it feels like it should be discussed. ---
**Author:** ![johnnymcivor](https://briarfray.org/user_avatar/briarfray.org/johnnymcivor/32/6_2.png) [@johnnymcivor](https://briarfray.org/u/johnnymcivor)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2026, 1:42am UTC](https://briarfray.org/t/horizon-expanding-fiction/939/2 "2026-07-22T01:42:43Z")
Like A Clockwork Orange? ---
**Author:** ![0CK](https://briarfray.org/user_avatar/briarfray.org/0ck/32/803_2.png) [@0CK](https://briarfray.org/u/0CK)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2026, 3:26pm UTC](https://briarfray.org/t/horizon-expanding-fiction/939/3 "2026-08-01T15:26:42Z")
Haven’t read it. My phrasing might be a bit off, the point isn’t to check off all the fun stuff but to reach a wide audience and expand their tastes. * * * There is a sensation when you require something in your fiction. It’s like when you can’t read science fiction because you’ve just come off a really good book about wizards and magic, or you can’t read anything with a person born and raised in an deeply alien culture because you’ve grown to expect the relatable isekai protagonist, the slight connection to earthly perspective. For example, harem fiction is a recess. Of course a male reader would like to fantasize about having multiple passionate lovers, and impressing them within some kind of power fantasy. The lock-in comes when a book with a singular romance seems bland or impossibly constrained. How could it be worth my time to read a book with only one (1) romantic interest in it? Isn’t it more suspenseful to have multiple possible romantic interests, some of which will succeed? What will all the fame, glory and power be worth, if he only ever uses it to impress and romance one woman? There is also a fantasy element about being around a bunch of women all the time which I am not prepared to address. Lock-in operates off familiarity and boredom. Horizon-expanding fiction is not the best fiction. The best harem fiction isn’t necessarily that which helps the audience of the harem genre detour their neurotic needs. Horizon-expanding fiction provides a illustration of what else can be, without boring the audience. In this case, that could mean making a romance that surpasses the others, and hints at the qualities of romance only plausible when condensed in one focus. The protagonist is fresh off negotiating the bride price for his third princess-wife, when he falls in love with a random village girl. Cue all the melodramatic quirky hi-jinks the harem audience loves, but this next romance dramatically outshines the others in depth, quality and suspense. The audience isn’t being baited- they got their harem, they have their serial courtship- but their appetite can be stimulated. I think fan fiction contains a lot of horizon-expanding fiction, to a degree that sometimes surprises me. Every type of fan-fiction is a custom recess for the people who finished the original media for the Nth time and finally said, “I want to more of this but fresh this time!” That fiction tends to move slightly beyond the appeal of the original. A lot of the time that is just “well I added sex to it” “well I made it less tragic” but no matter what they at least have to give you new perspectives on the characters. When fan-fiction is well executed, it hardly ever keeps the reader in total appetite-stasis. ---
**Author:** ![Slinking\_Agony](https://briarfray.org/user_avatar/briarfray.org/slinking_agony/32/842_2.png) [@Slinking\_Agony](https://briarfray.org/u/Slinking_Agony)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2026, 11:43pm UTC](https://briarfray.org/t/horizon-expanding-fiction/939/4 "2026-08-29T23:43:58Z")
I read A Clockwork Orange this year. I liked it but at the same time, the ending, where this teenaged, murderer rapist looks back at his past, compares himself to a wind-up toy that did not know any better, and presumably “finds the light” seems… It seemed a bit hippy-ish and odd. ---
**Author:** ![IndigoWizard](https://briarfray.org/user_avatar/briarfray.org/indigowizard/32/367_2.png) [@IndigoWizard](https://briarfray.org/u/IndigoWizard)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2026, 11:48pm UTC](https://briarfray.org/t/horizon-expanding-fiction/939/5 "2026-08-29T23:48:04Z")
Homestuck ---
**Author:** ![johnnymcivor](https://briarfray.org/user_avatar/briarfray.org/johnnymcivor/32/6_2.png) [@johnnymcivor](https://briarfray.org/u/johnnymcivor)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2026, 12:22am UTC](https://briarfray.org/t/horizon-expanding-fiction/939/6 "2026-08-30T00:22:19Z")
The ending was very controversial, and the publisher wanted to cut off the bit where he changes his ways. ---
**Author:** ![0CK](https://briarfray.org/user_avatar/briarfray.org/0ck/32/803_2.png) [@0CK](https://briarfray.org/u/0CK)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2026, 8:14pm UTC](https://briarfray.org/t/horizon-expanding-fiction/939/7 "2026-08-31T20:14:47Z")
Homestuck shocked me with it’s small caste. In a bit of fiction I wrote, I imitated the troll world setting (as I misinterpreted it, I think?) and wrote about an alien species where there were so few individuals that they were referred to by their roles or profession. There is one explorer, one archivist, etc. The people ate it up, which might be the biggest reaction to anything creative I’ve ever made? I feel like that has to be an overstatement, but nothing else is coming to mind. I don’t think there was anything else about what I wrote that could appeal to them. I think it was sort of like a hybrid between the way people fantasize about fame and the way people need to feel like they’re contributing something distinct to a group. Was this part of why you liked homestuck? It seems along the line of other things you’ve posted about your need to have a role in a group or your role on this forum. The trolls also are what people now call “OC bait” because it’s so tempting to customize them, it’s like their species is a creative framework. ---
**Author:** ![IndigoWizard](https://briarfray.org/user_avatar/briarfray.org/indigowizard/32/367_2.png) [@IndigoWizard](https://briarfray.org/u/IndigoWizard)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2026, 8:34pm UTC](https://briarfray.org/t/horizon-expanding-fiction/939/8 "2026-08-31T20:34:14Z")
> [@0CK](#): > > I think it was sort of like a hybrid between the way people fantasize about fame and the way people need to feel like they’re contributing something distinct to a group. > > Was this part of why you liked homestuck? Definitely part of it, and I do like how you put it. I tried conveying that to my friend Mecrishio once, but I didn’t even understand that my inspiration was coming from Homestuck, because Homestuck is so deeply baked into my personal inspiration I assume you’re referencing the Ancestors? Like how they’re the Condesce, the (Psi)ionic, the Dolorosa, etc? ---
**Author:** ![0CK](https://briarfray.org/user_avatar/briarfray.org/0ck/32/803_2.png) [@0CK](https://briarfray.org/u/0CK)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2026, 9:09pm UTC](https://briarfray.org/t/horizon-expanding-fiction/939/9 "2026-08-31T21:09:14Z")
Yeah, that sounds right. ---
**Author:** ![DDuqueA4](https://briarfray.org/user_avatar/briarfray.org/dduquea4/32/850_2.png) [@DDuqueA4](https://briarfray.org/u/DDuqueA4)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2026, 10:36pm UTC](https://briarfray.org/t/horizon-expanding-fiction/939/10 "2026-09-04T22:36:06Z")
Like Dune? Its kinda a power fantasy ---
**Author:** ![johnnymcivor](https://briarfray.org/user_avatar/briarfray.org/johnnymcivor/32/6_2.png) [@johnnymcivor](https://briarfray.org/u/johnnymcivor)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2026, 3:48pm UTC](https://briarfray.org/t/horizon-expanding-fiction/939/11 "2026-09-05T15:48:20Z")
Hi there, welcome to the forum! 😊🐬🌊✨ ---
**Author:** ![DDuqueA4](https://briarfray.org/user_avatar/briarfray.org/dduquea4/32/850_2.png) [@DDuqueA4](https://briarfray.org/u/DDuqueA4)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2026, 1:20am UTC](https://briarfray.org/t/horizon-expanding-fiction/939/12 "2026-09-06T01:20:22Z")
thx 👽 ---
**Author:** ![Tony](https://briarfray.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/394053/32.png) [@Tony](https://briarfray.org/u/Tony)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2026, 9:35pm UTC](https://briarfray.org/t/horizon-expanding-fiction/939/13 "2026-09-06T21:35:32Z")
The Darkness that Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker is the first book in the Prince of Nothing trilogy, which makes up the first three books of the seven-book Second Apocalypse series. Got me back into fiction after years of only nonfiction. ---
**Author:** ![johnnymcivor](https://briarfray.org/user_avatar/briarfray.org/johnnymcivor/32/6_2.png) [@johnnymcivor](https://briarfray.org/u/johnnymcivor)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2026, 9:40pm UTC](https://briarfray.org/t/horizon-expanding-fiction/939/14 "2026-09-06T21:40:33Z")
Hi Tony, welcome to Briar Fray