History LampshadeHanging / Literature

* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' has protagonist Harry Dresden hang as many lampshades as he can find. And he can find a heck of a lot, which is kind of odd when you realize [[WalkingTechbane the man can't get near a television or computer.]] [[JustifiedTrope Justified]], in that Harry himself has repeatedly said that he reads a lot of comic books and other novels, including the works of [[Creator/TerryPratchett Terry Pratchett]] and [[Franchise/SpiderMan Spider-Man]], as well as attending Drive-In movies regularly.

** In ''Literature/CarpeJugulum'': Dontgonearthe Castle, complete with signposts saying "Last chance not to go near the castle. "Really Dontgonearthe Castle", and "Last Chance! Dontgonearthe Castle!" leaving Nanny Ogg in stitches at the wonders of ReversePsychology.

---> This whole situation was coming more and more to resemble the plot of a Dale Brown novel. Hell, maybe that's where they'd got the idea!

* The hero of Creator/DaleBrown's military technoporn novel ''Chains of Command'' finds himself sliding along a downward spiral, thinking that:

* The ''Literature/CiaphasCain'' novel ''Duty Calls'' has a ''very'' subtle lampshading of JustBetweenYouAndMe. The villain, a rogue Inquisitor named Ernst Stavros Killian, goes into a prolonged explanation of his plan to Cain toward the end of the book. [[Franchise/JamesBond Doesn't that name sound a little familiar?]]

* Horror author Brian Keene wrote a novel called ''Darkness on the Edge of Town'', which shares a few similarities with the Stephen King novella "The Mist". Keene pre-empted critics claiming that Darkness ripped off "The Mist", by having the characters in his novel outright discuss "The Mist" and actually point out the similarities between the two situations in their dialogue.
* In ''The Deptford Histories 3: Thomas'', Woodget points out that the heroic organisation's plan to defeat Suruth Scarophion was [[GambitRoulette ludicrously complicated]] and resulted in innumerable deaths. Thomas replies with "Well, they couldn't just [[spoiler:give the fragments to the Scale]], could they? Would've been downright suspicious."

* The Literature/LordPeterWimsey series by Creator/DorothyLSayers features Harriet Vane, Lord Peter's love interest and a mystery novelist. Harriet and Peter have a number of conversations about how a given situation would be different if it were in a novel, including one in which Lord Peter remarks that no one complains how unlikely coincidences are when they happen in real life, but that fiction has to be plausible.
** In an earlier Wimsey book, ''Clouds of Witness'', the solution of the mystery depends on the assumption that each one of three major character had his or her reasons -- which had absolutely nothing to do with the other two -- to just have go out at exactly the same late night hour into the garden of a quiet English country house, and to keep very suspiciously quiet about it afterwards. The defense lawyer needing to clear one of these character of the charge of murder explicitly points out that this is a very unlikely coincidence, and still asks the court (and the reader) to believe it. The court, at least, does...
* Joan Hess has fun with this trope in her ''Maggody'' mysteries, such as when police chief Arly Hanks muses on the ludicrous number of murders (and weirdos) that've beset the quiet town since she moved back there. In ''The Merry Wives of Maggody'', the men of Maggody make a bargain that could encourage them to kill each other, prompting another character to mock how much it sounds like a plot-device from a cheesy mystery novel.

* At the hilariously embarrassing climax of the Alice Munro short story "An Ounce of Cure", the main character is left musing on the ridiculousness of her situation:

* In Creator/ArthurCClarke's novel ''The Sands of Mars'' the protagonist (a writer) discovers that [[spoiler: the cabin boy on his spaceship is actually his son from a disastrous college love affair]]. He fumes that this is an outrageous violation of the laws of probability, and would never have happened in one of '''his''' novels.

* In Creator/JackMcDevitt's novel ''Chindi'' in his Priscilla Hutchins series, the characters find an alien site and remark several times on the remarkable coincidence that other aliens had visited the same site just days or weeks before.

* Creator/LouisDeBernieres's ''The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts'' sets its second half firmly in the realms of MagicalRealism (in which there is a plague of cats, a band of 16th century conquistadors is resurrected, and a burro and a woman separately give birth to cats), but furiously lampshades a wholly mundane sequence of outrageous coincidences in which the military chiefs of staff and the President assassinate each other with exploding coffins as "a heroic farce that stretch[es] credence to a limit".

* In the ''Literature/{{Xanth}}'' novel ''Currant Events'', an evil clone of Calliope, Muse of the Future, mocks the real Calliope with insults about the stories she transcribes in her history tomes; insults that mirror real-life accusations critics have thrown at Creator/PiersAnthony (who seems to take a "Who cares if '''you''' don't like it" approach to criticisms).
** Well, let's face it. When you can write a HurricaneOfPuns series whose plots make little to no sense and have it sell well, consistently, for several decades, you don't ''have'' to worry what the critics think.

* In the ''Literature/{{Xanth}}'' novel ''Currant Events'', an evil clone of Calliope, Muse of the Future, mocks the real Calliope with insults about the stories she transcribes in her history tomes; insults that mirror real-life accusations critics have thrown at Piers Anthony (who seems to take a "Who cares if '''you''' don't like it" approach to criticisms).

* Creator/GeorgeCarlin mentions Lampshade Hanging in a blink and you'll miss it passage in his autobio ''Last Words''. While lamenting the sitcom creative culture he encountered on The George Carlin Show, he talks about the "secret language" of the writer's room. One of the examples he gives is "let's not hang a lantern on that." Whether Carlin (not understanding the jargon) didn't quite remember it right, is purposefully mangling it (because, well, it's George Carlin), or the person that said it around him originally got it wrong is unclear.

* In ''Literature/{{Gone}}'', Astrid has a habit of pointing out the techniques people use in their speech, e.g. "Rhetorical question" or "Defensive humor."

-->"''What was it that brought me back into the world again? It was the terrible and fascinating reality of my disaster; it was the way things happened...the development of events...that fascinated me; I felt that I had had a glimpse of '''the shameless, marvellous, shattering absurdity with which the plots of life, though not of fiction, are improvised''' I could not take my eyes off it.''"

* In ''Literature/NightWatchSeries'' there is a really nice example of lampshading. In the second act, the main character, Anton Gorodietsky has been framed for the unlawful killings of a series of Dark magicians. At a certain point, he is running away, being hunted relentlessly by his enemies, when suddenly a car stops, the door opens so he can climb inside, and then drives away at speed. Anton thinks: "Things like this just don't happen! Heroes only get rescued by passing cars in cheap action movies."

* In ''Literature/NightWatch'' there is a really nice example of lampshading. In the second act, the main character, Anton Gorodietsky has been framed for the unlawful killings of a series of Dark magicians. At a certain point, he is running away, being hunted relentlessly by his enemies, when suddenly a car stops, the door opens so he can climb inside, and then drives away at speed. Anton thinks: "Things like this just don't happen! Heroes only get rescued by passing cars in cheap action movies."

** This was [[ExaggeratedTrope exaggerated]] in ''Discworld/GuardsGuards'' When they're trying to shoot the dragon in its voonerables, the Night Watch observe that particular point. When Carrot reckons that Fred just aiming and shooting at the voonerables has odds significantly better than million-to-one (thus making it a doomed proposition), he and Nobby add absurdity upon absurdity (like standing on one leg or stuffing a handkerchief in his mouth) to Fred's circumstances in order to engineer million-to-one chances of hitting the dragon in the right spot.

** In ''Discworld/Sourcery'', a genie transports some characters inside his lamp, which he's carrying inside the lamp with them. It works fine till the idiot hero starts to worry about how impossible it is, whereupon they get stranded halfway.
** In Discworld/CarpeJugulum: Dontgonearthe Castle, complete with signposts saying "Last chance not to go near the castle. "Really Dontgonearthe Castle", and "Last Chance! Dontgonearthe Castle!" leaving Nanny Ogg in stitches at the wonders of ReversePsychology.

* The Literature/CiaphasCain novel ''Duty Calls'' has a ''very'' subtle lampshading of JustBetweenYouAndMe. The villain, a rogue Inquisitor named Ernst Stavros Killian, goes into a prolonged explanation of his plan to Cain toward the end of the book. [[Franchise/JamesBond Doesn't that name sound a little familiar?]]

* In the JamesBond novel ''{{Literature/Thunderball}}'',Bond's friend Felix Leiter quickly pieces together the events of the first few chapters: a vengeful Tong seeking revenge on Bond who is assassinated by SPECTRE before he can strike, because the Tong had delayed a major SPECTRE operation. Bond scoffs,leading to this exchange: