When the Web page had a crisp, official look, used the university seal, and bore the name of a fictitious university body, the students were sparing with their admissions.
After he assured Mr. Sloman that the new book would not be set at Rummidge but at the equally fictitious University of Gloucester, this professor agreed to cooperate as his "chief mole in the world of artificial intelligence," Mr. Lodge said.
They created 121 fictitious universities, and produced counterfeit degrees claiming to be from scores of real universities, the court papers say.
Monroe was one of more than 120 fictitious universities operated by Dixie and Steven K. Randock Sr., a couple from Colbert, Wash., who sold diplomas for a price, according to a three-year federal investigation that ended in guilty pleas from the Randocks to mail and wire fraud.
His previous novels about academia took place at the fictitious Rummidge University, a stand-in for Birmingham.
A long passage about the mediocrity of a fictitious regional university has apparently made trouble for Hensher at the University of Exeter, where he teaches creative writing.
"L for Leisure" is about college, too — in particular, a loosely linked circle of graduate students and young instructors at the fictitious Laguna Beach University, perched lusciously on the coast.
So "Greek," about the fraternity scene at the fictitious Cyprus-Rhodes University, depicts a lot of carousing, for example, but is careful to show the heartache that typically results.
"L for Leisure" is about college, too in particular, a loosely linked circle of graduate students and young instructors at the fictitious Laguna Beach University, perched lusciously on the coast.
There's money floating around: these young academics enjoy employment in the sumptuous setting of the fictitious Laguna Beach University, and they spend their vacations in a variety of family houses, including a Texas mini-mansion and a Great Neck spread, as well as at Sugarbush, for skiing, and in Aix-en-Provence, for romance.
Justin Simien's "Dear White People," set at the fictitious Ivy-like Winchester University, is a movie with something — something important — to say: it's hard for black students on a predominantly white campus.
