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* [[Literature/SmallWorldDavidLodgeNovel Small World]]: 1984 novel by [[Creator/DavidLodgeWriter David Lodge]].
to:
* [[Literature/SmallWorldDavidLodgeNovel Small World]]: 1984 novel by [[Creator/DavidLodgeWriter David Lodge]].Lodge]].
If a wick has led you here, please correct the link so that it points to the corresponding article.
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* [[Literature/SmallWorldDavidLodgeNovel Small World: An Academic Romance]]: 1984 novel by [[Creator/DavidLodgeWriter David Lodge]].
to:
* [[Literature/SmallWorldDavidLodgeNovel Small World: An Academic Romance]]: World]]: 1984 novel by [[Creator/DavidLodgeWriter David Lodge]].
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Changed line(s) 1,38 (click to see context) from:
'''''Small World''''' is a 1981 horror-thriller, the first published work by Creator/TabithaKing.
Mild-mannered MadScientist [[SignificantName Roger Tinker]] has used some government-funded AppliedPhlebotinum to build a ShrinkRay, which may actually be a portal into a parallel dimension. That was before the government fired him. [[BasementDweller Now living at home in his mom's basement]], he has nothing but time on his hands--time to perfect his invention, time to scheme ways to make money from it, time to dream of other, even more mad inventions. But first he needs a patron.
He finds one in the form of Dorothy "Dolly" Hardesty Douglas, the wealthy, spoiled daughter of [[OurPresidentsAreDifferent a former U.S. President]]. Now middle-aged, bitter, and having either lost or alienated her little remaining family (as well as nearly everyone who's anyone in Washington D.C.), Dolly's sole remaining passion is miniatures, and the jewel of her collection is a carefully restored, meticulously detailed [[TheWhiteHouse Doll's White House]]. But the Doll's White House, while perfect, is empty. What it really needs is an occupant...
!!Tropes:
* AlphaBitch: Dolly, or at least she once was. She'd like to be again, but people are just so uncooperative.
* AssholeVictim: From the little we see of her,[[spoiler: Lenya Shaw]] doesn't seem like a very pleasant person, but we quickly come to sympathize with her situation.
* BrilliantButLazy: Roger, who has discovered a functional key to alternate dimensions, can't think of any better way to make money from it except for what amounts to scalping black-market miniatures.
** Possibly Lucy, although hers is less laziness and more complacency: she doesn't want to design commercial toys or hire a full workshop to produce on a large scale--although she easily could--because she's content with her small house and her small business. Meanwhile the rest of the world counts her amongst the top miniaturists alive and her signature on an item elevates its value tenfold.
* BrokenTreasure: [[spoiler:Leyna destroys the Doll's White House--and herself--as an act of revenge against Dolly.]]
* CuckooNest: Where [[spoiler:Leyna]] believes herself to be after [[spoiler:awaking in the Doll's White House]]. She believes she's suffered a major head injury after being struck by a car.
* DisguisedInDrag: The book opens with Roger in very detailed drag as he attempts to steal the ''Princess Dolly'' painting from a museum.
* DisneyVillainDeath: [[spoiler: Dolly falls from the window of her highrise.]]
* DistractedByTheSexy: Roger overlooks a lot of Dolly's sociopathic bitchiness because he's enraptured by their sexy-times.
* DotingGrandparent: Dolly to Lucy's kids, though it's anyone's guess how much of it is genuine affection, how much of it is an act to goad Lucy, and how much of it is Dolly's need to acquire and possess everything. [[spoiler: We get a pretty definitive answer in the end, when Dolly kidnaps the children, shrinks them, and locks them in the dollhouse.]]
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Lucy's children are shrunk by the minimizer. There is no way to reverse the process, and the only person in the world who understand how the minimizer works--Roger--has also been shrunk. Nick and Lucy volunteer to be shrunk as well in order to care for the children, while Nick's aging father will tend to the tiny family's needs. However, there is a HopeSpot, as Roger is being supplied with the necessary equipment to research and develop a device that might restore them all, and the book's final line implies that either he was successful or at least that the tiny group managed to live a happy life together regardless.]]
* EarthyBarefootCharacter: Lucy, a down-to-earth, motherly artist. We get a lot of descriptions of her bare, dirty toes.
* EccentricArtist: Sartoris, who in this universe is a name alongside Van Gogh or Picasso, becomes so fed up with fame and success that he buys a barren island only accessible by helicopter and lives there with only a housekeeper, painting in private in a tiny bungalow just this side of poverty and refusing to show or sell any of the masterpieces he's created in the past twenty years. (In spite of this, Sartoris is one of the more pleasant characters in the novel so long as people aren't bugging him about the artwork.)
* EmbarrassingNickname: Dolly ''hates'' the name Dolly, to the point that using it functions as a BerserkButton.
* EvilIsPetty: Dolly. [[spoiler:She has Roger murder an elderly woman in a terrible way (death by minimizer isn't pretty) solely to steal the woman's priceless antique necklace, then ''minimizes the necklace'' because it's so distinctive she can't even wear it herself. She then goes on to minimize her own grandchildren (while knowing that the process is irreversible and that it causes major physical and psychological trauma) in order to blackmail their mother into restoring the ruined Doll's White House.]]
* ForScience: In spite of everything, Roger is a bonafide scientific genius who is motivated in large part because he's discovered an incredible new concept of...well, ''everything,'' but lacks the money to pursue it further.
* GrandmaWhatMassiveHotnessYouHave: Though pushing sixty, Dolly is still a looker with a fabulous figure.
* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler: Roger, after realizing that Dolly is about to go too far, warns Lucy about the minimizer and tells her where to find her children. He even takes a shrink-ray bullet for Lucy and Nick.]]
* IncredibleShrinkingMan: Not even really a spoiler, since it becomes inevitable from the premise that this is where this is all headed. The only real question is ''who?''
* LivingDollCollector: [[spoiler: What Dolly inevitably becomes.]]
* AManIsNotAVirgin: Subverted. Dolly quickly takes Roger in hand, though.
* MouseWorld: Played with in surprising ways. [[spoiler:For example, one of the reasons for Leyna's prolonged confusion--and why she believes herself to be insane rather than catching on sooner--is that as a tiny person, her perception is forcibly twisted: the weave of a bedsheet is as large as a web of closely woven ropes to her, and goes on for miles in all directions; landmarks like walls and ceilings are literally too far away for her to focus on them, giving the impression that she is simply standing in a WhiteVoidRoom whenever she is out of the Doll's White House.]]
** Also played with more mundanely by the miniature enthusiasts. Hey, did you know you can make a doll's table lamp from a coffee creamer container? You will after you've done reading this!
* MurderMakesYouCrazy: Implied to be what happens to [[spoiler:Dolly,]] even though [[spoiler:she]] never directly kills anyone.
* NoAnimalsWereHarmed: Horribly subverted. [[spoiler: To see if the minimizer works on living beings, Roger steals neighborhood pets and shrinks them. We learn that after examining them for ill effects, he flushes them--still alive--down the toilet.]]
* OurPresidentsAreDifferent: At some unspecified point in the 1950s or early 1960s, the United States had a President Hardesty. Judging from the timeline, we can deduce Hardesty replaced either Truman or Eisenhower, if only because Presidents Roosevelt and Kennedy are established to have existed in this universe. The current in-universe president (who would have been Reagan in Real Life) is never mentioned by name--not a small feat for a book centered around D.C. gossip and goings-on.
* PublicExposure: One of Dolly's more infamous exploits is a nude portrait she posed for when she was only fifteen and her father was still in office.
* RapeAsDrama: Dolly's torment of [[spoiler: tiny Leyna]] culminates in a humiliating, terrifying sexual assault. Imagine being molested by a giant who can pin you down with one finger.
* StatuesqueStunner: Leyna Shaw, who is well over six feet tall and an object of lust for the entire D.C. media pool.
* TabloidMelodrama: Every major event in the book seems to be ironically chronicled by ''V.I.P.'', an in-universe tabloid covering D.C. gossip and social life. Since Dolly is the daughter of a former President and a major drama queen, ''V.I.P.'' adores her and gleefully covers all her comings-and-goings.
Mild-mannered MadScientist [[SignificantName Roger Tinker]] has used some government-funded AppliedPhlebotinum to build a ShrinkRay, which may actually be a portal into a parallel dimension. That was before the government fired him. [[BasementDweller Now living at home in his mom's basement]], he has nothing but time on his hands--time to perfect his invention, time to scheme ways to make money from it, time to dream of other, even more mad inventions. But first he needs a patron.
He finds one in the form of Dorothy "Dolly" Hardesty Douglas, the wealthy, spoiled daughter of [[OurPresidentsAreDifferent a former U.S. President]]. Now middle-aged, bitter, and having either lost or alienated her little remaining family (as well as nearly everyone who's anyone in Washington D.C.), Dolly's sole remaining passion is miniatures, and the jewel of her collection is a carefully restored, meticulously detailed [[TheWhiteHouse Doll's White House]]. But the Doll's White House, while perfect, is empty. What it really needs is an occupant...
!!Tropes:
* AlphaBitch: Dolly, or at least she once was. She'd like to be again, but people are just so uncooperative.
* AssholeVictim: From the little we see of her,[[spoiler: Lenya Shaw]] doesn't seem like a very pleasant person, but we quickly come to sympathize with her situation.
* BrilliantButLazy: Roger, who has discovered a functional key to alternate dimensions, can't think of any better way to make money from it except for what amounts to scalping black-market miniatures.
** Possibly Lucy, although hers is less laziness and more complacency: she doesn't want to design commercial toys or hire a full workshop to produce on a large scale--although she easily could--because she's content with her small house and her small business. Meanwhile the rest of the world counts her amongst the top miniaturists alive and her signature on an item elevates its value tenfold.
* BrokenTreasure: [[spoiler:Leyna destroys the Doll's White House--and herself--as an act of revenge against Dolly.]]
* CuckooNest: Where [[spoiler:Leyna]] believes herself to be after [[spoiler:awaking in the Doll's White House]]. She believes she's suffered a major head injury after being struck by a car.
* DisguisedInDrag: The book opens with Roger in very detailed drag as he attempts to steal the ''Princess Dolly'' painting from a museum.
* DisneyVillainDeath: [[spoiler: Dolly falls from the window of her highrise.]]
* DistractedByTheSexy: Roger overlooks a lot of Dolly's sociopathic bitchiness because he's enraptured by their sexy-times.
* DotingGrandparent: Dolly to Lucy's kids, though it's anyone's guess how much of it is genuine affection, how much of it is an act to goad Lucy, and how much of it is Dolly's need to acquire and possess everything. [[spoiler: We get a pretty definitive answer in the end, when Dolly kidnaps the children, shrinks them, and locks them in the dollhouse.]]
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Lucy's children are shrunk by the minimizer. There is no way to reverse the process, and the only person in the world who understand how the minimizer works--Roger--has also been shrunk. Nick and Lucy volunteer to be shrunk as well in order to care for the children, while Nick's aging father will tend to the tiny family's needs. However, there is a HopeSpot, as Roger is being supplied with the necessary equipment to research and develop a device that might restore them all, and the book's final line implies that either he was successful or at least that the tiny group managed to live a happy life together regardless.]]
* EarthyBarefootCharacter: Lucy, a down-to-earth, motherly artist. We get a lot of descriptions of her bare, dirty toes.
* EccentricArtist: Sartoris, who in this universe is a name alongside Van Gogh or Picasso, becomes so fed up with fame and success that he buys a barren island only accessible by helicopter and lives there with only a housekeeper, painting in private in a tiny bungalow just this side of poverty and refusing to show or sell any of the masterpieces he's created in the past twenty years. (In spite of this, Sartoris is one of the more pleasant characters in the novel so long as people aren't bugging him about the artwork.)
* EmbarrassingNickname: Dolly ''hates'' the name Dolly, to the point that using it functions as a BerserkButton.
* EvilIsPetty: Dolly. [[spoiler:She has Roger murder an elderly woman in a terrible way (death by minimizer isn't pretty) solely to steal the woman's priceless antique necklace, then ''minimizes the necklace'' because it's so distinctive she can't even wear it herself. She then goes on to minimize her own grandchildren (while knowing that the process is irreversible and that it causes major physical and psychological trauma) in order to blackmail their mother into restoring the ruined Doll's White House.]]
* ForScience: In spite of everything, Roger is a bonafide scientific genius who is motivated in large part because he's discovered an incredible new concept of...well, ''everything,'' but lacks the money to pursue it further.
* GrandmaWhatMassiveHotnessYouHave: Though pushing sixty, Dolly is still a looker with a fabulous figure.
* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler: Roger, after realizing that Dolly is about to go too far, warns Lucy about the minimizer and tells her where to find her children. He even takes a shrink-ray bullet for Lucy and Nick.]]
* IncredibleShrinkingMan: Not even really a spoiler, since it becomes inevitable from the premise that this is where this is all headed. The only real question is ''who?''
* LivingDollCollector: [[spoiler: What Dolly inevitably becomes.]]
* AManIsNotAVirgin: Subverted. Dolly quickly takes Roger in hand, though.
* MouseWorld: Played with in surprising ways. [[spoiler:For example, one of the reasons for Leyna's prolonged confusion--and why she believes herself to be insane rather than catching on sooner--is that as a tiny person, her perception is forcibly twisted: the weave of a bedsheet is as large as a web of closely woven ropes to her, and goes on for miles in all directions; landmarks like walls and ceilings are literally too far away for her to focus on them, giving the impression that she is simply standing in a WhiteVoidRoom whenever she is out of the Doll's White House.]]
** Also played with more mundanely by the miniature enthusiasts. Hey, did you know you can make a doll's table lamp from a coffee creamer container? You will after you've done reading this!
* MurderMakesYouCrazy: Implied to be what happens to [[spoiler:Dolly,]] even though [[spoiler:she]] never directly kills anyone.
* NoAnimalsWereHarmed: Horribly subverted. [[spoiler: To see if the minimizer works on living beings, Roger steals neighborhood pets and shrinks them. We learn that after examining them for ill effects, he flushes them--still alive--down the toilet.]]
* OurPresidentsAreDifferent: At some unspecified point in the 1950s or early 1960s, the United States had a President Hardesty. Judging from the timeline, we can deduce Hardesty replaced either Truman or Eisenhower, if only because Presidents Roosevelt and Kennedy are established to have existed in this universe. The current in-universe president (who would have been Reagan in Real Life) is never mentioned by name--not a small feat for a book centered around D.C. gossip and goings-on.
* PublicExposure: One of Dolly's more infamous exploits is a nude portrait she posed for when she was only fifteen and her father was still in office.
* RapeAsDrama: Dolly's torment of [[spoiler: tiny Leyna]] culminates in a humiliating, terrifying sexual assault. Imagine being molested by a giant who can pin you down with one finger.
* StatuesqueStunner: Leyna Shaw, who is well over six feet tall and an object of lust for the entire D.C. media pool.
* TabloidMelodrama: Every major event in the book seems to be ironically chronicled by ''V.I.P.'', an in-universe tabloid covering D.C. gossip and social life. Since Dolly is the daughter of a former President and a major drama queen, ''V.I.P.'' adores her and gleefully covers all her comings-and-goings.
to:
Mild-mannered MadScientist [[SignificantName Roger Tinker]] has used some government-funded AppliedPhlebotinum to build a ShrinkRay, which may actually be a portal into a parallel dimension. That was before the government fired him. [[BasementDweller Now living at home in his mom's basement]], he has nothing but time on his hands--time to perfect his invention, time to scheme ways to make money from it, time to dream of other, even more mad inventions. But first he needs a patron.
He finds one in the form of Dorothy "Dolly" Hardesty Douglas, the wealthy, spoiled daughter of [[OurPresidentsAreDifferent a former U.S. President]]. Now middle-aged, bitter, and having either lost or alienated her little remaining family (as well as nearly everyone who's anyone in Washington D.C.), Dolly's sole remaining passion is miniatures, and the jewel of her collection is a carefully restored, meticulously detailed [[TheWhiteHouse Doll's White House]]. But the Doll's White House, while perfect, is empty. What it really needs is an occupant...
!!Tropes:
* AlphaBitch: Dolly, or at least she once was. She'd like to be again, but people
* AssholeVictim: From the little we see of her,[[spoiler: Lenya Shaw]] doesn't seem like a very pleasant person, but we quickly come to sympathize
* BrilliantButLazy: Roger, who has discovered a functional key to alternate dimensions, can't think of any better way to make money from it except for what amounts to scalping black-market miniatures.
** Possibly Lucy, although hers is less laziness and more complacency: she doesn't want to design commercial toys or hire a full workshop to produce on a large scale--although she easily could--because she's content with her small house and her small business. Meanwhile the rest of the world counts her amongst the top miniaturists alive and her signature on an item elevates its value tenfold.
* BrokenTreasure: [[spoiler:Leyna destroys the Doll's White House--and herself--as an act of revenge against Dolly.]]
* CuckooNest: Where [[spoiler:Leyna]] believes herself to be after [[spoiler:awaking in the Doll's White House]]. She believes she's suffered a major head injury after being struck by a car.
* DisguisedInDrag: The book opens with Roger in very detailed drag as he attempts to steal the ''Princess Dolly'' painting from a museum.
* DisneyVillainDeath: [[spoiler: Dolly falls from the window of her highrise.]]
* DistractedByTheSexy: Roger overlooks a lot of Dolly's sociopathic bitchiness because he's enraptured by
*
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Lucy's children are shrunk by the minimizer. There is no way to reverse the process, and the only person in the world who understand how the minimizer works--Roger--has also been shrunk. Nick and Lucy volunteer to be shrunk as well in order to care for the children, while Nick's aging father will tend to the tiny family's needs. However, there is a HopeSpot, as Roger is being supplied with the necessary equipment to research and develop a device that might restore them all, and the book's final line implies that either he was successful or at least that the tiny group managed to live a happy life together regardless.]]
* EarthyBarefootCharacter: Lucy, a down-to-earth, motherly artist. We get a lot of descriptions of her bare, dirty toes.
* EccentricArtist: Sartoris, who in this universe is a name alongside Van Gogh or Picasso, becomes so fed up with fame and success that he buys a barren island only accessible by helicopter and lives there with only a housekeeper, painting in private in a tiny bungalow just this side of poverty and refusing to show or sell any of the masterpieces he's created in the past twenty years. (In spite of this, Sartoris is one of the more pleasant characters in the
* EmbarrassingNickname: Dolly ''hates'' the name Dolly, to the point that using it functions as a BerserkButton.
* EvilIsPetty: Dolly. [[spoiler:She has Roger murder an elderly woman in a terrible way (death
*
* GrandmaWhatMassiveHotnessYouHave: Though pushing sixty, Dolly is still a looker with a fabulous figure.
* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler: Roger, after realizing that Dolly is about to go too far, warns Lucy about the minimizer and tells her where to find her children. He even takes a shrink-ray bullet for Lucy and Nick.]]
* IncredibleShrinkingMan: Not even really a spoiler, since it becomes inevitable from the premise that this is where this is all headed. The only real question is ''who?''
* LivingDollCollector: [[spoiler: What Dolly inevitably becomes.]]
* AManIsNotAVirgin: Subverted. Dolly quickly takes Roger in hand, though.
* MouseWorld: Played with in surprising ways. [[spoiler:For example, one of the reasons for Leyna's prolonged confusion--and why she believes herself to be insane rather than catching on sooner--is that as a tiny person, her perception is forcibly twisted: the weave of a bedsheet is as large as a web of closely woven ropes to her, and goes on for miles in all directions; landmarks like walls and ceilings are literally too far away for her to focus on them, giving the impression that she is simply standing in a WhiteVoidRoom whenever she is out of the Doll's White House.]]
** Also played with more mundanely
* MurderMakesYouCrazy: Implied to be what happens to [[spoiler:Dolly,]] even though [[spoiler:she]] never directly kills anyone.
* NoAnimalsWereHarmed: Horribly subverted. [[spoiler: To see if the minimizer works on living beings, Roger steals neighborhood pets and shrinks them. We learn that after examining them for ill effects, he flushes them--still alive--down the toilet.]]
* OurPresidentsAreDifferent: At some unspecified point in the 1950s or early 1960s, the United States had a President Hardesty. Judging from the timeline, we can deduce Hardesty replaced either Truman or Eisenhower, if only because Presidents Roosevelt and Kennedy are established to have existed in this universe. The current in-universe president (who would have been Reagan in Real Life) is never mentioned by name--not a small feat for a book centered around D.C. gossip and goings-on.
* PublicExposure: One of Dolly's more infamous exploits is a nude portrait she posed for when she was only fifteen and her father was still in office.
* RapeAsDrama: Dolly's torment of [[spoiler: tiny Leyna]] culminates in a humiliating, terrifying sexual assault. Imagine being molested by a giant who can pin you down with one finger.
* StatuesqueStunner: Leyna Shaw, who is well over six feet tall and an object of lust for the entire D.C. media pool.
* TabloidMelodrama: Every major event in the book seems to be ironically chronicled by ''V.I.P.'', an in-universe tabloid covering D.C. gossip and social life. Since Dolly is the daughter of a former President and a major drama queen, ''V.I.P.'' adores her and gleefully covers all her comings-and-goings.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* DisguisedInDrag: The book opens with Roger in very detailed drag as he attempts to steal the ''Princess Dolly'' painting from a museum.
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None
Added DiffLines:
* PublicExposure: One of Dolly's more infamous exploits is a nude portrait she posed for when she was only fifteen and her father was still in office.
Added DiffLines:
* StatuesqueStunner: Leyna Shaw, who is well over six feet tall and an object of lust for the entire D.C. media pool.
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Changed line(s) 3,6 (click to see context) from:
Mild-mannered MadScientist [[SignificantName Roger Tinker]] has used some government-funded AppliedPhlebotinum to build a ShrinkRay, which may actually be a portal into a parallel dimension. That was before the government fired him. [[BasementDweller Now living at home in his mom's basement]], he has nothing but time on his hand--time to perfect his invention, time to think of ways to make money from it, time to dream of other, even more mad inventions. But first he needs a patron.
He finds one in the form of Dorothy "Dolly" Hardesty Douglas, the wealthy, spoiled daughter of [[OurPresidentsAreDifferent a former U.S. President]]. Now middle-aged, bitter, and having alienated her only living child and his family (as well as nearly everyone who's anyone in Washington D.C.), Dolly's remaining true passion is miniatures, and the jewel of her collection is a carefully restored, meticulously detailed [[TheWhiteHouse Doll's White House]]. But the Doll's White House, while perfect, is empty. What it really needs is an occupant...
He finds one in the form of Dorothy "Dolly" Hardesty Douglas, the wealthy, spoiled daughter of [[OurPresidentsAreDifferent a former U.S. President]]. Now middle-aged, bitter, and having alienated her only living child and his family (as well as nearly everyone who's anyone in Washington D.C.), Dolly's remaining true passion is miniatures, and the jewel of her collection is a carefully restored, meticulously detailed [[TheWhiteHouse Doll's White House]]. But the Doll's White House, while perfect, is empty. What it really needs is an occupant...
to:
Mild-mannered MadScientist [[SignificantName Roger Tinker]] has used some government-funded AppliedPhlebotinum to build a ShrinkRay, which may actually be a portal into a parallel dimension. That was before the government fired him. [[BasementDweller Now living at home in his mom's basement]], he has nothing but time on his hand--time hands--time to perfect his invention, time to think of scheme ways to make money from it, time to dream of other, even more mad inventions. But first he needs a patron.
He finds one in the form of Dorothy "Dolly" Hardesty Douglas, the wealthy, spoiled daughter of [[OurPresidentsAreDifferent a former U.S. President]]. Now middle-aged, bitter, and having either lost or alienated heronly living child and his little remaining family (as well as nearly everyone who's anyone in Washington D.C.), Dolly's sole remaining true passion is miniatures, and the jewel of her collection is a carefully restored, meticulously detailed [[TheWhiteHouse Doll's White House]]. But the Doll's White House, while perfect, is empty. What it really needs is an occupant...
He finds one in the form of Dorothy "Dolly" Hardesty Douglas, the wealthy, spoiled daughter of [[OurPresidentsAreDifferent a former U.S. President]]. Now middle-aged, bitter, and having either lost or alienated her
Added DiffLines:
* DisneyVillainDeath: [[spoiler: Dolly falls from the window of her highrise.]]
Added DiffLines:
* MurderMakesYouCrazy: Implied to be what happens to [[spoiler:Dolly,]] even though [[spoiler:she]] never directly kills anyone.
Added DiffLines:
* RapeAsDrama: Dolly's torment of [[spoiler: tiny Leyna]] culminates in a humiliating, terrifying sexual assault. Imagine being molested by a giant who can pin you down with one finger.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* OurPresidentsAreDifferent: At some unspecified point in the 1950s or early 1960s, the United States had a President Hardesty. Judging from the timeline, we can deduce Hardesty replaced either Truman or Eisenhower, if only because Presidents Roosevelt and Kennedy are established to have existed in this universe. The current in-universe president (who would have been Reagan in Real Life) is never mentioned by name--not a small feat for a book centered around D.C. gossip and goings-on.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 30 (click to see context) from:
* NoAnimalsWereHarmed: Horribly subverted. [[spoiler: To see if the minimizer works on living beings, he steals neighborhood pets and shrinks them. We learn that after examining them for ill effects, he flushes them--still alive--down the toilet.]]
to:
* NoAnimalsWereHarmed: Horribly subverted. [[spoiler: To see if the minimizer works on living beings, he Roger steals neighborhood pets and shrinks them. We learn that after examining them for ill effects, he flushes them--still alive--down the toilet.]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* NoAnimalsWereHarmed: Horribly subverted. [[spoiler: To see if the minimizer works on living beings, he steals neighborhood pets and shrinks them. We learn that after examining them for ill effects, he flushes them--still alive--down the toilet.]]
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Changed line(s) 1,2 (click to see context) from:
'''''Small World'''' is a 1981 horror-thriller, the first published work by Creator/TabithaKing.
to:
'''''Small World'''' World''''' is a 1981 horror-thriller, the first published work by Creator/TabithaKing.
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Added DiffLines:
'''''Small World'''' is a 1981 horror-thriller, the first published work by Creator/TabithaKing.
Mild-mannered MadScientist [[SignificantName Roger Tinker]] has used some government-funded AppliedPhlebotinum to build a ShrinkRay, which may actually be a portal into a parallel dimension. That was before the government fired him. [[BasementDweller Now living at home in his mom's basement]], he has nothing but time on his hand--time to perfect his invention, time to think of ways to make money from it, time to dream of other, even more mad inventions. But first he needs a patron.
He finds one in the form of Dorothy "Dolly" Hardesty Douglas, the wealthy, spoiled daughter of [[OurPresidentsAreDifferent a former U.S. President]]. Now middle-aged, bitter, and having alienated her only living child and his family (as well as nearly everyone who's anyone in Washington D.C.), Dolly's remaining true passion is miniatures, and the jewel of her collection is a carefully restored, meticulously detailed [[TheWhiteHouse Doll's White House]]. But the Doll's White House, while perfect, is empty. What it really needs is an occupant...
!!Tropes:
* AlphaBitch: Dolly, or at least she once was. She'd like to be again, but people are just so uncooperative.
* AssholeVictim: From the little we see of her,[[spoiler: Lenya Shaw]] doesn't seem like a very pleasant person, but we quickly come to sympathize with her situation.
* BrilliantButLazy: Roger, who has discovered a functional key to alternate dimensions, can't think of any better way to make money from it except for what amounts to scalping black-market miniatures.
** Possibly Lucy, although hers is less laziness and more complacency: she doesn't want to design commercial toys or hire a full workshop to produce on a large scale--although she easily could--because she's content with her small house and her small business. Meanwhile the rest of the world counts her amongst the top miniaturists alive and her signature on an item elevates its value tenfold.
* BrokenTreasure: [[spoiler:Leyna destroys the Doll's White House--and herself--as an act of revenge against Dolly.]]
* CuckooNest: Where [[spoiler:Leyna]] believes herself to be after [[spoiler:awaking in the Doll's White House]]. She believes she's suffered a major head injury after being struck by a car.
* DistractedByTheSexy: Roger overlooks a lot of Dolly's sociopathic bitchiness because he's enraptured by their sexy-times.
* DotingGrandparent: Dolly to Lucy's kids, though it's anyone's guess how much of it is genuine affection, how much of it is an act to goad Lucy, and how much of it is Dolly's need to acquire and possess everything. [[spoiler: We get a pretty definitive answer in the end, when Dolly kidnaps the children, shrinks them, and locks them in the dollhouse.]]
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Lucy's children are shrunk by the minimizer. There is no way to reverse the process, and the only person in the world who understand how the minimizer works--Roger--has also been shrunk. Nick and Lucy volunteer to be shrunk as well in order to care for the children, while Nick's aging father will tend to the tiny family's needs. However, there is a HopeSpot, as Roger is being supplied with the necessary equipment to research and develop a device that might restore them all, and the book's final line implies that either he was successful or at least that the tiny group managed to live a happy life together regardless.]]
* EarthyBarefootCharacter: Lucy, a down-to-earth, motherly artist. We get a lot of descriptions of her bare, dirty toes.
* EccentricArtist: Sartoris, who in this universe is a name alongside Van Gogh or Picasso, becomes so fed up with fame and success that he buys a barren island only accessible by helicopter and lives there with only a housekeeper, painting in private in a tiny bungalow just this side of poverty and refusing to show or sell any of the masterpieces he's created in the past twenty years. (In spite of this, Sartoris is one of the more pleasant characters in the novel so long as people aren't bugging him about the artwork.)
* EmbarrassingNickname: Dolly ''hates'' the name Dolly, to the point that using it functions as a BerserkButton.
* EvilIsPetty: Dolly. [[spoiler:She has Roger murder an elderly woman in a terrible way (death by minimizer isn't pretty) solely to steal the woman's priceless antique necklace, then ''minimizes the necklace'' because it's so distinctive she can't even wear it herself. She then goes on to minimize her own grandchildren (while knowing that the process is irreversible and that it causes major physical and psychological trauma) in order to blackmail their mother into restoring the ruined Doll's White House.]]
* ForScience: In spite of everything, Roger is a bonafide scientific genius who is motivated in large part because he's discovered an incredible new concept of...well, ''everything,'' but lacks the money to pursue it further.
* GrandmaWhatMassiveHotnessYouHave: Though pushing sixty, Dolly is still a looker with a fabulous figure.
* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler: Roger, after realizing that Dolly is about to go too far, warns Lucy about the minimizer and tells her where to find her children. He even takes a shrink-ray bullet for Lucy and Nick.]]
* IncredibleShrinkingMan: Not even really a spoiler, since it becomes inevitable from the premise that this is where this is all headed. The only real question is ''who?''
* LivingDollCollector: [[spoiler: What Dolly inevitably becomes.]]
* AManIsNotAVirgin: Subverted. Dolly quickly takes Roger in hand, though.
* MouseWorld: Played with in surprising ways. [[spoiler:For example, one of the reasons for Leyna's prolonged confusion--and why she believes herself to be insane rather than catching on sooner--is that as a tiny person, her perception is forcibly twisted: the weave of a bedsheet is as large as a web of closely woven ropes to her, and goes on for miles in all directions; landmarks like walls and ceilings are literally too far away for her to focus on them, giving the impression that she is simply standing in a WhiteVoidRoom whenever she is out of the Doll's White House.]]
** Also played with more mundanely by the miniature enthusiasts. Hey, did you know you can make a doll's table lamp from a coffee creamer container? You will after you've done reading this!
* TabloidMelodrama: Every major event in the book seems to be ironically chronicled by ''V.I.P.'', an in-universe tabloid covering D.C. gossip and social life. Since Dolly is the daughter of a former President and a major drama queen, ''V.I.P.'' adores her and gleefully covers all her comings-and-goings.
Mild-mannered MadScientist [[SignificantName Roger Tinker]] has used some government-funded AppliedPhlebotinum to build a ShrinkRay, which may actually be a portal into a parallel dimension. That was before the government fired him. [[BasementDweller Now living at home in his mom's basement]], he has nothing but time on his hand--time to perfect his invention, time to think of ways to make money from it, time to dream of other, even more mad inventions. But first he needs a patron.
He finds one in the form of Dorothy "Dolly" Hardesty Douglas, the wealthy, spoiled daughter of [[OurPresidentsAreDifferent a former U.S. President]]. Now middle-aged, bitter, and having alienated her only living child and his family (as well as nearly everyone who's anyone in Washington D.C.), Dolly's remaining true passion is miniatures, and the jewel of her collection is a carefully restored, meticulously detailed [[TheWhiteHouse Doll's White House]]. But the Doll's White House, while perfect, is empty. What it really needs is an occupant...
!!Tropes:
* AlphaBitch: Dolly, or at least she once was. She'd like to be again, but people are just so uncooperative.
* AssholeVictim: From the little we see of her,[[spoiler: Lenya Shaw]] doesn't seem like a very pleasant person, but we quickly come to sympathize with her situation.
* BrilliantButLazy: Roger, who has discovered a functional key to alternate dimensions, can't think of any better way to make money from it except for what amounts to scalping black-market miniatures.
** Possibly Lucy, although hers is less laziness and more complacency: she doesn't want to design commercial toys or hire a full workshop to produce on a large scale--although she easily could--because she's content with her small house and her small business. Meanwhile the rest of the world counts her amongst the top miniaturists alive and her signature on an item elevates its value tenfold.
* BrokenTreasure: [[spoiler:Leyna destroys the Doll's White House--and herself--as an act of revenge against Dolly.]]
* CuckooNest: Where [[spoiler:Leyna]] believes herself to be after [[spoiler:awaking in the Doll's White House]]. She believes she's suffered a major head injury after being struck by a car.
* DistractedByTheSexy: Roger overlooks a lot of Dolly's sociopathic bitchiness because he's enraptured by their sexy-times.
* DotingGrandparent: Dolly to Lucy's kids, though it's anyone's guess how much of it is genuine affection, how much of it is an act to goad Lucy, and how much of it is Dolly's need to acquire and possess everything. [[spoiler: We get a pretty definitive answer in the end, when Dolly kidnaps the children, shrinks them, and locks them in the dollhouse.]]
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Lucy's children are shrunk by the minimizer. There is no way to reverse the process, and the only person in the world who understand how the minimizer works--Roger--has also been shrunk. Nick and Lucy volunteer to be shrunk as well in order to care for the children, while Nick's aging father will tend to the tiny family's needs. However, there is a HopeSpot, as Roger is being supplied with the necessary equipment to research and develop a device that might restore them all, and the book's final line implies that either he was successful or at least that the tiny group managed to live a happy life together regardless.]]
* EarthyBarefootCharacter: Lucy, a down-to-earth, motherly artist. We get a lot of descriptions of her bare, dirty toes.
* EccentricArtist: Sartoris, who in this universe is a name alongside Van Gogh or Picasso, becomes so fed up with fame and success that he buys a barren island only accessible by helicopter and lives there with only a housekeeper, painting in private in a tiny bungalow just this side of poverty and refusing to show or sell any of the masterpieces he's created in the past twenty years. (In spite of this, Sartoris is one of the more pleasant characters in the novel so long as people aren't bugging him about the artwork.)
* EmbarrassingNickname: Dolly ''hates'' the name Dolly, to the point that using it functions as a BerserkButton.
* EvilIsPetty: Dolly. [[spoiler:She has Roger murder an elderly woman in a terrible way (death by minimizer isn't pretty) solely to steal the woman's priceless antique necklace, then ''minimizes the necklace'' because it's so distinctive she can't even wear it herself. She then goes on to minimize her own grandchildren (while knowing that the process is irreversible and that it causes major physical and psychological trauma) in order to blackmail their mother into restoring the ruined Doll's White House.]]
* ForScience: In spite of everything, Roger is a bonafide scientific genius who is motivated in large part because he's discovered an incredible new concept of...well, ''everything,'' but lacks the money to pursue it further.
* GrandmaWhatMassiveHotnessYouHave: Though pushing sixty, Dolly is still a looker with a fabulous figure.
* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler: Roger, after realizing that Dolly is about to go too far, warns Lucy about the minimizer and tells her where to find her children. He even takes a shrink-ray bullet for Lucy and Nick.]]
* IncredibleShrinkingMan: Not even really a spoiler, since it becomes inevitable from the premise that this is where this is all headed. The only real question is ''who?''
* LivingDollCollector: [[spoiler: What Dolly inevitably becomes.]]
* AManIsNotAVirgin: Subverted. Dolly quickly takes Roger in hand, though.
* MouseWorld: Played with in surprising ways. [[spoiler:For example, one of the reasons for Leyna's prolonged confusion--and why she believes herself to be insane rather than catching on sooner--is that as a tiny person, her perception is forcibly twisted: the weave of a bedsheet is as large as a web of closely woven ropes to her, and goes on for miles in all directions; landmarks like walls and ceilings are literally too far away for her to focus on them, giving the impression that she is simply standing in a WhiteVoidRoom whenever she is out of the Doll's White House.]]
** Also played with more mundanely by the miniature enthusiasts. Hey, did you know you can make a doll's table lamp from a coffee creamer container? You will after you've done reading this!
* TabloidMelodrama: Every major event in the book seems to be ironically chronicled by ''V.I.P.'', an in-universe tabloid covering D.C. gossip and social life. Since Dolly is the daughter of a former President and a major drama queen, ''V.I.P.'' adores her and gleefully covers all her comings-and-goings.
