Compiled by Janet Hamilton
From Douglas Adams's "Mostly Harmless": (ISBN 0-345-37933-0)
She shone the torch on [the black disk].
As she did so, cracks began to appear along its apparently featureless surface. Random backed away nervously, but then saw that the thing, whatever it was, was merely unfolding itself.
The process was wonderfully beautiful. It was extraordinarily elaborate, but also simple and elegant. It was like a piece of self-opening origami, or a rosebud blooming into a rose in just a few seconds.
"The Paper Grail" by James P. Blaylock has various people searching for a piece of paper which seems to have magical powers when folded. Origami is mentioned from time to time, but doesn't form any real part of the story. The magical powers are based on folding a drawing in such a way as to have the lines of the drawing appear to be something else. The book has a drawing of an origami cup on it that does appear to be foldable. Publisher: Ace Fantasy. (ISBN 0441651275)
"The Last Coin" by James Blaylock is about an evil character collecting the 30 pieces of silver that were given to Judas to betray Jesus. A slightly mysterious character folds a piece of newspaper into a fish with spiny fins, probably a blowfish. (ISBN 0441470750)
"Land of Dreams" by James Blaylock uses origami as a container/channel for sympathetic magic. (September 1988, ISBN 0441503470).
Charles De Lint, (New York: Tor, 1994) a writer of urban fantasy, has a collection of stories called "Dreams Underfoot". In one of the shorts, there's an eccentric named "Paperjack". He's a homeless individual who carries bright origami paper with him wherever he goes. He's seemingly mute. Passerbys request an animal, and he makes them one. Sometimes, though, they ask for a fortune, in which case he uses a fortune teller, and his fortunes often have an eerie way of coming true. (ISBN 0812516214)
On page 13 of Harlan Ellison's book "The City on the Edge of Forever" (which goes into enormous detail about Harlan's problems with Gene Roddenberry over the script for one of the most famous/beloved Star Trek episodes, and provides the original script for those interested) the author presents the following line: "Writers, no less than sculptors, ballerinas, workers in origami, have a way of deluding themselves as to the value of their work. To quote John Steinbeck: 'The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold this illusion even when he knows it is not true.'" (ISBN 1565049640)
From of William Gibson's "Grave sur chrome": "La matrice se replie autour de moi comme un pliage japonais" ("The matrix is folding itself around me like a japanese fold"). (ISBN 2290029408)
From William Gibson's "Neuromancer": (ISBN 0441569595)
Beneath a green t-shirt, he discovered a flat, origami-wrapped package, recycled Japanese paper. [chap. 3]
Disk beginning to rotate, faster, becoming a sphere of paler gray. Expanding - And flowed, flowered for him, fluid neon origami trick, the unfolding of his distanceless home, his country, transparent 3D chessboard extending to infinity. [chap.3]
Something white tumbled to the floor; Case stooped and picked it up. An origami crane. [chap. 12]
But the paneled room folded itself through a dozen impossible angles, tumbling away into cyberspace like an origami crane. [chap.14]
From William Gibson's story "The Gernsback Continuum" in the collection "Burning Chrome": "I nearly wrecked the car on a stretch of overpass near Disneyland, when the road fanned out like an origami trick and left me swerving through a dozen minilanes of whizzing chrome teardrops with shark fins.) (ISBN 0441089348)
From William Gibson's "Count Zero", chapter 5: "It was wrapped in a single sheet of handmade paper, dark gray, folded and tucked in that mysterious Japanese way that required neither glue nor string, but she knew that once she'd opened it, she'd never get it folded again." (ISBN 0441117732)
There is a detective in Kathleen Kurtz's SciFi series which she co-authors with Deborah Turner Harris. The series is called "The Adept" and the Scots police detective is always making origami. In one book, someone took a piece of origami he made and utilized it to attract some really negative energy to him, causing him some major problems. He is even attacked at one point by an ensorcelled origami lynx! ("The Adept: The Lodge of the Lynx" ISBN 0441003443). The series is set in England/Ireland/Scotland, current day, and seems to involve interaction with various groups that are "spiritual" offshoots of the Nazi's in their more mystical incarnation.
"He had learned the rudiments of origami technique from a Japanese police colleague, met when they were both participants at the FBI-sponsored National Academy in Quantico, Virginia. Since then, McLeod had gone on to become a skilled practitioner of the art. But tonight, even the challenging intricacies of origami had failed to command his attention. The coffee table was littered with thin, brightly-colored bits of rice paper he had been forced ro abandon only half-finished as his distraction got the better of him."
Anne McCaffrey has a series of science fiction/fantasy books that begins with "The Rowan", followed by "Damia", "Damia's Children", and "Lyon's Pride". The character Afra Lyon is, in addition to being a powerful Psi, an origami Adept (he's makes an "anatomically correct" bull, and later, on request, a matching cow).
In Terry Pratchett's book, "Interesting Times" , there is an evil war-lord called Lord Hong who is good at everything, including origami. He is described as doing everything perfectly: (ISBN 0061056901)
and "when he folded paper every crease was perfect. Imaginative, original, and definitely perfect., Lord Hong had long ago ceased pursuing perfection because he had already nailed it up in a dungeon somewhere."...
While reading a book "Every time he finished a page he ripped it out and, while reading the next page, carefully folded the paper into the shape of a chrysanthemum."...
and while disciplining a subordinate,
Lord Hong smiled.
"Oh yes, I recall I said, did I not say that I would neither say nor write any order for your death? And I must keep my word, otherwise what am I?"
He folded the last crease and opened his hands, putting the little paper decoration on the lacquered table beside him.
Herb and the Guard stared at it.
"Guard... take him away," said Lord Hong.
It was a marvelously constructed paper figure of a man.
But there didn't seem to have been enough paper for a head.
In "Men at Arms" by Terry Pratchett, the night watchman discovered a piece of paper relating to a crime. It went something like: (ISBN 0061092193)
"What can you make of it, Searge?"
"Well I could make a chrysanthemum, or a boat, or maybe a paper hat"
In Terry Pratchett's "The Last Continent": "The Professor of Recondite Architecture and Origami Map Folding had been woken up, (...) and produced a map of the University which would probably be accurate for the next few days and looked rather like a chrysanthemum in the act of exploding." (ISBN 0061059072)
Terry Pratchett has an origami Discworld hanging in his kitchen by Joshua Koppel. It used to hang in his office, and was presented to him just after he talked about not being able to map Ankh-Morpork. His response to seeing the surface of the origami Discworld was, "He bloody well got the map right!"
From Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash": (ISBN 0553562614)
Sometimes, she worries about her mother, then she hardens her heart and thinks maybe the whole thing will be good for her.
Shake her up a little. After Dad left, she just folded up into herself like an origami bird thrown into a fire.
From Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer": (ISBN 0553573314)
"Cover sheet," Hackworth said to the piece of paper, and then it had pictures and writing on it, and the pictures moved -- a schematic of a machine-phase system cycling. …
"Thank you, Demetrius," Hackworth said. "Letter fold," he said to the piece of paper, and it creased itself neatly into thirds. Hackworth put it in the breast pocket of his jacket and walked out of Merkle Hall.
From Bruce Sterling's "Islands in the Net": "Then she saw something opening in the sky, something shredding and popping and, finally, unfolding stiffly like an origami swan." (ISBN 0441374239)
In the cyberpunk science fiction book "Distraction" by Bruce Sterling on page 24: "Oscar was touched. His friend's dark mood was clear to him now, it had opened up before him like an origami trick. 'Where there's life, there's hope, Yosh'". (ISBN: 0553576399)
One of the Trek novels, maybe the Wrath of Khan, has Spock buying a gift for Jim and having it packaged in an origami box.
In "Otherland: River of Blue Fire" by Tad Williams, page 451: "The world had been turned into origami . . . . This time all around her and even inside of her, color, shape, sound, light, folded in on themselves." (ISBN 0886777771)
"Red Planet Run" by Dana Stabenow has Star Svensdotter and her kids Sean and Patty on the planet Mars, and Patty has some reusable washi with her: "One day Sean found a tiny golden crane sitting serenely among the cherry tomatoes, a brown hippopotamus grazing through the hyssop, a silver samurai helmet perched on top of a cucumber. Another morning we woke to a galley ceiling papered with a galaxy of stars- yellow giants, red supergiants, brown dwarfs, silver globular clusters. A rocket ship stood poised to enter this array over the door into the science station. Patty must have used up all her paper, though, for the exhibit remained only a day before vanishing, to reappear on the galley wall ten days later as an intricate, many-towered castle with a blue moat and a dragon breathing fire and smoke over it." (ISBN 0441001351)
Tom Holt is an English author of comic fantasy books with a very creative approach to language. On page 122 of "Wish You Were Here": "He checked himself; his instincts suggested this was no time for playing origami with the truth." (ISBN 1857236874)
Origami appears in the "Wild Cards" series of novels by George R.R. Martin. One of the characters, nicknamed "lazy dragon" creates representations of animals, first out of carved soap but later out of origami. he uses his "ace" to pass out of his own body and into the paper animal, which becomes an actual animal that goes out and does his bidding while he's passed out on the bed. When the animal is killed, or he wills it, he returns to his body and the animal returns to paper.
The book "Servant of the Empire" by Richard Feist and Janny Wurts does not use the term origami (being set in another world from ours, you see), but the culture has oriental/samurai parallels. At the wedding of the main character, paper decorations are mentioned as being good luck charms, including the burning of said good luck charms to, supposedly, let the ancestors' spirits know about them. (ISBN 0553292455)
"Glory Lane" by Alan Dean Foster has a character in the story trying to explain their method of instantaneous transport. "Well, it's not difficult if you know what you're doing. On your world you have developed an artform called origami. It involves folding pieces of paper into interesting shapes. We Halet practice a kind of origami, only we use the fabric of space instead of paper.We just sort of folded things until the point where you were coincided with the point where we wanted to be, and here we are." (ISBN 0441516645)
A recently published book, "Flatterland" by Ian Stewart (an update of Edwin Abbott's "Flatland") has two pictures on the cover, a picture of a waterbomb made from a copy of the cover, and the crease pattern for the model.
Origami is briefly mentioned in "Hellraiser" by Clive Barker.
In "Gremlins Go Home", Gordon Dickson and Ben Bova introduce us to the alien master of the art of origami. In the story, the alien is the one who originally introduced origami to humans. (ISBN 031235035X)
"Paper Mage" by Leah R. Cutter is about a
young woman during the Tang Dynasty in China. She studies to become a paper mage, one who works magic by folding paper. Of
course, her abilities lead to adventures in a story that utilizes elements of
traditional Chinese adventure tales. The cover shows the woman holding what
appears to be a glowing paper dragon. (ISBN 0451459172)
The anime series "Read Or Die" takes place in an alternate universe where some people have "super powers" and the libraries appear to be part of some ultra-powerful government organization. The heroine (Yoshiko) is a book nerd/library operative whose super power is that she can take control of anything made of paper. She can stop bullets with slips of paper, deliver deadly rains of paper-cuts, or combine lots of sheets into one sheet which she folds into a paper airplane to pursue the bad guys. At the very end, she visits her partner operative, who has sustained brain damage from her last mission, at a hospital. She's trying to fold pieces of origami paper and has a pile of crumpled paper next to her. Yoshiko borrows the paper and it folds itself into a butterfly, which flaps around the lawn to the great delight of her ex-partner. http://www.animeacademy.com/library/rod/rod.html and http://verthandi.net/rod/
"The Gambler's Fortune: the Third Tale of Einarinn" by Juliet McKenna, has a poem at the beginning of one chapter that speaks of how the world (in which the book is set) was created. The poem explains that one of the gods took the clouds and "folded birds" to live in the skies. (ISBN 0380819023)
The second novel in Douglas Adam's "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series is "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe". It has the following passage describing a spaceship: "The craft they were looking at was in fact pretty small but extraordinary, and very much a rich kid's toy. It was not much to look at. It resembled nothing so much as a paper dart about twenty feet long made of thin but tough metal foil." (ISBN 0345391810)
A review of the book "Alabaster" by Caitlin R. Kiernan in the Realms of Fantasy magazine (August 2006), reviewers Gahan Wilson and Paul Witcover write "There's no one quite like her in folding and unfolding characters in a sort of origami fashion so that they surprise you again and again... "
Sept. 24, 2006 - a short animation on the scifi channel
shows an origami crane turn into real crane and flies away. Go to scifi.com and
click on downloads from the bottom nav bar to view it. http://www.scifi.com/downloads/
April 2008 - "Enterprise", a spin off of the 1960's Star Trek series that airs on the Sci-Fi Channel, had an episode called "A Night in Sickbay." Captain Archer's dog is being treated in sickbay when a bat-like creature from the Dr. Phlox's menagerie gets loose. He tries to recapture it using a flapping bird on a stick, apparently trying to use the folded "predator" to corral the bat. Phlox says he folded it right, but maybe he had the predator's call incorrect.
"The Kobayashi Maru" by Julia Ecklar is based on the original Star Trek series. Kirk, Chekov, Scotty, and Sulu tell their stories of the Kobayashi Maru training exercise from their days as Starfleet Cadets. Sulu also talks about his 103 year old great grandfather, who told Sulu that he would get posted to a great ship because he had folded a thousand cranes for him. (Pocket Books, 1989, ISBN 978-9994859139)