Someday, we may be able to categorize books into a list of types. We have TV Tropes¹, for example. Folks surveying a rich field like books could quickly get ori

Someday, we may be able to categorize books into a list of types. We have TV Tropes¹, for example. Folks surveying a rich field like books could quickly get oriented along their interest axis--a literal map of preferences. We also see it in Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop RPGs (TTRPGs), where one or more words make up a phrase summarizing a monster's abilities and describing the subsequent mechanics: Berserker Hunger. Suddenly, the creature can move 1d4 additional feet and grapple target player. Something like that. My wish, though, is we look back on these works and handle stuff through the lens of Dramatica Theory of Story²: characters are "functions" for solving the central problem; each work is a self-contained StoryMind trying to look at the problem in a variety of ways; and there are four Throughlines through the story. All of which is a long way to say, if these works are related to socialism, each presents a menu of ideas in a certain way, and advances a central argument (with certain degrees--or absence of--nuance). ¹ https://tvtropes.org/ https://tvtropes.org/ ² https://dramatica.com/theory https://dramatica.com/theory