Paul Di Filippo ([info]pgdf) wrote in [info]theinferior4,

Slipstream literature

One of the more elaborate and well-buttressed panels I participated in at Readercon this past weekend involved an attempt to create a "canon" of Slipstream literature. The panelists involved, besides myself, Paul DiFi, were John Kessel, Cat Valente, Dora Goss, Brett Cox, Ron Drummond, Victoria McManus, and Graham Sleight. Con organizer Eric Van participated heavily as well.

Here's the document we came up with, after the break.


A Working Canon of Slipstream Writings
Readercon 18, July 2007


"I've felt, more strongly as I've grown older, that reality's always somewhere else. You can't take reality in your hand, it's a perfume and it's everywhere. But I've never been able to find out where it comes from, so I'm left wondering, is it real?"
— Peter Barnes, Introduction to Plays: Two


The following list was created by the Panelists on the “Slipstream / Fabulation / Magic Realism Canon” Panel before we knew that Fabulation and Magic Realism were being added to the list; neither is considered by any of us to be identical generically to one another or to Slipstream, though overlaps do occur.

Nominations for a working Slipstream canon were received from F. Brett Cox, Paul Di Filippo, Ron Drummond, Theodora Goss, John Kessel, Victoria McManus, Graham Sleight, and Catherynne M. Valente, with supplementary titles suggested by John Crowley and Kelly Link. The eight panelists then voted on every title on the resulting list of 264 books (plus four authors whose “complete works” were also nominated), assigning zero, one, two, or three points to each title. The results were tabulated and ranked by vote, and then separated into two lists.

On the primary list, “A Working Canon of Slipstream Writings”, which contains 112 books and three authors’ complete works, only works that received ten or more votes were included. Then, to sharpen the usefulness of the list, the top 27 items, listed in bold type, can be safely considered “The Core Canon of Slipstream”; these works all received 15 or more votes each. Only one work, Borges’s Collected Fictions, received 3 votes from all eight panelists, for 24 votes total (though the top nine titles received 20 or more votes each).

In creating the rankings, works sharing a single vote total are ranked chronologically by publication date, from earliest to latest (though posthumously-published collections and “complete works” are placed based on the year of the given author’s death). So, for example, Dhalgren and Burning Your Boats received 21 votes each, but the Delany is placed first because it’s the earlier work. Yes, the system is somewhat arbitrary, but the whole enterprise is as well: and this is a working list.

A secondary list, of the bottom 152 titles (plus one author’s complete works), is provided as a list of “Other Important Non-Canonical Slipstream or Slipstream-related Writings”.

Two supplementary lists are also appended: A list of women writers of slipstream, compiled by Theodora Goss from suggestions by panelists (see the previous two lists for specific suggested titles); and a list of slipstream-related works by the panelists themselves, compiled by F. Brett Cox.

Panelist Ron Drummond compiled the voting list from panelists’ nominations, tabulated the voting results, researched the titles, compiled the primary and secondary lists and wrote their respective introductions.

The Core Canon of Slipstream

1. Collected Fictions (coll 1998), Jorge Luis Borges
2. Invisible Cities (1972, trans 1974), Italo Calvino
3. Little, Big (1981), John Crowley
4. Magic for Beginners (coll 2005), Kelly Link
5. Dhalgren (1974), Samuel R. Delany
6. Burning Your Boats: Collected Short Fiction (coll, 1995), Angela Carter
7. One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967, trans 1970), Gabriel Garcia Marquez
8. The Ægypt Cycle (1987-2007), John Crowley
9. Feeling Very Strange (anth 2006), John Kessel and James Patrick Kelly (eds.)
10. The Complete Short Stories of J.G. Ballard (coll 2001)
11. Stranger Things Happen (coll 2001), Kelly Link
12. The Lottery and Other Stories (coll 1949), Shirley Jackson
13. Gravity's Rainbow (1973), Thomas Pynchon
14. Conjunctions 39 (anth 2002), Peter Straub (ed.)
15. The Metamorphosis (1915), Franz Kafka
16. The Trial (1925), Franz Kafka
17. Orlando (1928), Virginia Woolf
18. The Castle (1926), Franz Kafka
19. The complete works of Franz Kafka
20. V; (1963), Thomas Pynchon
21. Nights at the Circus (1984), Angela Carter
22. The Best of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet (anth 2007), Kelly Link and Gavin Grant (eds.)
23. The Heat Death of the Universe and Other Stories [UK title Busy About the Tree of Life] (coll 1988), Pamela Zoline
24. Foucault's Pendulum (1988, trans 1989), Umberto Eco
25. Sarah Canary (1991), Karen Joy Fowler
26. City of Saints and Madmen (coll 2002), Jeff VanderMeer
27. Interfictions (anth 2007), Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss (eds.)

A Working Slipstream Canon, continued:

28. His Monkey Wife (1930), John Collier
29. Waiting for Godot (1952), Samuel Beckett
30. The Satanic Verses (1988), Salman Rushdie
31. Carmen Dog (1990), Carol Emshwiller
32. Mason & Dixon (1998), Thomas Pynchon
33. The Fantasy Writer's Assistant and Other Stories (coll 2002), Jeffrey Ford
34. Changing Planes (coll 2003), Ursula K. Le Guin
35. Bibliomancy (coll 2003), Elizabeth Hand
36. Novelties and Souvenirs (coll 2004), John Crowley
37. The complete works of Thomas Pynchon
38. Naked Lunch (1959), William Burroughs
39. Giles Goat-Boy (1966), John Barth
40. Lost in the Funhouse (1968), John Barth
41. Ada (1969), Vladimir Nabokov
42. Love in the Time of Cholera (1987), Gabriel Garcia Marquez
43. Beloved (1987), Toni Morrison
44. Verging on the Pertinent (1989), Carol Emshwiller
45. The Start of the End of It All (coll 1990), Carol Emshwiller
46. Was (1992), Geoff Ryman
47. The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye (coll 1994), A.S. Byatt
48. Black Glass (coll 1997), Karen Joy Fowler
49. Ciphers (1997), Paul Di Filippo
50. Brown Girl in the Ring (1998), Nalo Hopkinson
51. The Vintage Book of Amnesia (anth 2001), Jonathan Lethem (ed.)
52. In the Forest of Forgetting (2007), Theodora Goss
53. The Complete Stories (coll 1971), Franz Kafka
54. Finnegans Wake (1939), James Joyce
55. The Haunting of Hill House (1959), Shirley Jackson
56. Chimera (1972), John Barth
57. The Woman Warrior (1976), Maxine Hong Kingston
58. Slapstick (1976), Kurt Vonnegut
59. Engine Summer (1979), John Crowley
60. Fundamental Disch (coll 1980), Thomas M. Disch
61. Sixty Stories (coll 1981), Donald Barthelme
62. The House of the Sprits (1982), Isabel Allende
63. The complete works of Samuel Beckett
64. Moonwise (1991), Greer Gilman
65. Brittle Innings (1994), Michael Bishop
66. Pussy, King of Pirates (1996), Kathy Acker
67. Humpty Dumpty: An Oval (1996). Damon Knight
68. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (1997), Haruki Murakami
69. A Season in Hell (1873), Arthur Rimbaud
70. Ulysses (1922), James Joyce
71. Lolly Willowes (1926), Sylvia Townsend Warner
72. Steppenwolf (1927), Herman Hesse
73. The Waves (1931), Virginia Woolf
74. The Gormenghast Trilogy (1946-1959), Mervyn Peake
75. Lanark (1981), Alasdair Gray
76. Blood and Guts in High School (1984), Kathy Acker
77. The Bridge (1986), Iain Banks
78. The Hidden Side of the Moon (1987), Joanna Russ
79. Vineland (1990), Thomas Pynchon
80. Adventures in Unhistory (coll 2006), Avram Davidson
81. As She Climbed Across the Table (1997), Jonathan Lethem
82. The Godhead Trilogy (Towing Jehovah, Blameless in Abaddon, The Eternal Footman) (1994-99), James Morrow
83. In the Stone House (coll 2000), Barry Malzberg
84. Perdido Street Station (2000), China Mieville
85. Kappa Child (2001), Hiromi Goto
86. Sister Noon (2001), Karen Joy Fowler
87. Report to the Men's Club and Other Stories (coll 2002), Carol Emshwiller
88. Set This House in Order (2003), Matt Ruff
89. Black Juice (2004), Margo Lanagan
90. The Labyrinth (2004), Catherynne M. Valente
91. Map of Dreams (2006), M. Rickert
92. Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921), Luigi Pirandello
93. The Glass Bead Game (1943), Hermann Hesse
94. Ice (1967), Anna Kavan
95. City Life (coll 1970), Donald Barthelme
96. Grendel (1971), John Gardner
97. Strangeness (anth 1977), Thomas M. Disch and Charles Naylor (eds)
98. The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), Milan Kundera
99. Empire of the Sun (1984), J.G. Ballard
100. Days Between Stations (1985), Steve Erickson
101. Tainaron: Mail From Another City (1985), Leena Krohn
102. Forty Stories (coll 1987), Donald Barthelme
103. Medea: The Sorceress (1991), Diane Wakoski
104. X, Y (1993), Michael Blumlein
105. The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye (coll 1996), Jonathan Lethem
106. Godmother Night (1996), Rachel Pollack
107. Big Fish (1998), Daniel Wallace
108. House of Leaves (2000), Mark Danielewski
109. The Library (2002), Zoran Zivkovic
110. The Impossible Bird (2002), Patrick O'Leary
111. The Lovely Bones (2002), Alice Sebold
112. Pattern Recognition (2003), William Gibson
113. Cloud Atlas (2004), David Mitchell
114. Crossroads: Tales of the Southern Literary Fantastic (2004), F. Brett Cox and Andy Duncan (eds.)
115. The Girl in the Glass (2005), Jeffrey Ford


Alphabetical List of Single-Author Works (* = stories)


Acker, Kathy Blood and Guts in High School 1984
----------- Pussy, King of Pirates 1996
Allende, Isabel The House of the Sprits 1982
Ballard, J. G. Empire of the Sun 1984
----------- *The Complete Short Stories of J. G. Ballard 2001
Banks, Iain The Bridge 1986
Barth, John Giles Goat-Boy 1966
----------- Lost in the Funhouse 1968
----------- Chimera 1972
Barthelme, Donald *City Life 1970
----------- *Sixty Stories 1981
----------- *Forty Stories 1987
Beckett, Samuel (complete works)
----------- Waiting for Godot 1952
Bishop, Michael Brittle Innings 1994
Blumlein, Michael X, Y 1993
Borges, Jorge Luis *Collected Fictions 1998
Burroughs, William Naked Lunch 1959
Byatt, A. S. *The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye 1994
Calvino, Italo Invisible Cities 1972
Carter, Angela *Burning Your Boats: Collected Short Fiction 1995
----------- Nights at the Circus 1984
Collier, John His Monkey Wife 1930
Crowley, John Engine Summer 1979
----------- Little, Big 1981
----------- The Ægypt Cycle
----------- *Novelties and Souvenirs 2004
Danielewski, Mark House of Leaves 2000
Davidson, Avram *Adventures in Unhistory 2006
Delany, Samuel R. Dhalgren 1974
Di Filippo, Paul Ciphers 1997
Disch, Thomas M. *Fundamental Disch 1980
Eco, Umberto Foucault's Pendulum 1988
Emshwiller, Carol Verging on the Pertinent 1989
----------- Carmen Dog 1990
----------- *The Start of the End of It All 1990
----------- *Report to the Men's Club and Other Stories 2002
Erickson, Steve Days Between Stations 1985
Ford, Jeffrey *The Fantasy Writer's Assistant and Other Stories 2002
----------- The Girl in the Glass 2005
Fowler , Karen Joy *Black Glass 1997
----------- Sarah Canary 1991
----------- Sister Noon 2001
Garcia Marquez, Gabriel One Hundred Years of Solitude 1967
----------- Love in the Time of Cholera 1987
Gardner, John Grendel 1971
Gibson, William Pattern Recognition 2003
Gilman, Greer Moonwise 1991
Goss, Theodora In the Forest of Forgetting 2007
Goto, Hiromi Kappa Child 2001
Gray, Alasdair Lanark 1981
Hand, Elizabeth *Bibliomancy 2003
Hesse, Herman Steppenwolf 1927
----------- The Glass Bead Game 1943
Hopkinson, Nalo Brown Girl in the Ring 1998
Jackson, Shirley *The Lottery and Other Stories 1949
----------- The Haunting of Hill House 1959
Joyce, James Ulysses 1922
----------- Finnegans Wake 1939
Kafka, Franz (complete works)
Kafka, Franz The Metamorphosis 1915
----------- The Trial 1925
----------- The Castle 1926
----------- *The Complete Stories 1971
Kavan, Anna Ice 1967
Kingston, Maxine Hong The Woman Warrior 1976
Knight, Damon Humpty Dumpty: An Oval 1996
Krohn, Leena Tainaron: Mail From Another City 1985
Kundera, Milan The Unbearable Lightness of Being 1984
Lanagan, Margo Black Juice 2004
Le Guin, Ursula K. *Changing Planes 2003
Lethem, Jonathan *The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye 1996
----------- As She Climbed Across the Table 1997
Link, Kelly *Stranger Things Happen 2001
----------- *Magic for Beginners 2005
Malzberg, Barry *In the Stone House 2000
Mieville, China Perdido Street Station 2000
Mitchell, David Cloud Atlas 2004
Morrison, Toni Beloved 1987
Morrow, James The Godhead Trilogy
Murakami, Haruki The Wind-up Bird Chronicle 1997
Nabokov, Vladimir Ada 1969
O'Leary, Patrick The Impossible Bird 2002
Peake, Mervyn The Gormenghast Trilogy 1946
Pirandello, Luigi Six Characters in Search of an Author 1921
Pollack, Rachel Godmother Night 1996
Pynchon, Thomas (complete works)
----------- V; 1963
----------- Gravity's Rainbow 1973
----------- Vineland 1990
----------- Mason & Dixon 1998
Rickert, M. Map of Dreams 2006
Rimbaud, Arthur A Season in Hell 1873
Ruff, Matt Set This House in Order 2003
Rushdie, Salman The Satanic Verses 1988
Russ, Joanna The Hidden Side of the Moon 1987
Ryman, Geoff Was 1992
Sebold, Alice The Lovely Bones 2002
Valente, Catherynne M. The Labyrinth 2004
VanderMeer, Jeff *City of Saints and Madmen 2002
Vonnegut, Kurt Slapstick 1976
Wakoski, Diane Medea: The Sorceress 1991
Wallace, Daniel Big Fish 1998
Warner, Sylvia Townsend Lolly Willowes 1926
Woolf, Virginia Orlando 1928
----------- The Waves 1931
Zivkovic, Zoran The Library 2002
Zoline, Pamela *The Heat Death of the Universe and O.S. 1988


Other Important Slipstream Writings

Here follows the secondary list of the further 152 titles (plus one author’s complete works), i.e., those titles from the original list of 264 (+ 4) that received nine or fewer votes each. Works are listed alphabetically, with the vote tally for each title given In the rightmost column.

The panelists’ consensus, represented by the top ranked titles on the primary list, has long since unraveled by the time we get to the items on the secondary list. Because a large majority of the works on this secondary list received only single nominations (though far more often than not each of those works received votes from more than one panelist), it seemed important to identify the nominators; the nominators’ initials are therefore listed following each title.

I think this secondary list is very important, because it contains many relatively obscure titles that are of high quality and deserving of attention but failed to rank higher due to their very unfamiliarity. (For example, I personally feel that Steve Erickson's work is quintessentially Slipstream, that he is the most characteristically Slipstream author—yet only one of his books made it onto the top-115, and that near the bottom.) Every member of this panel has nominated works of high quality but low visibility, works that deserve to be more widely read and discussed. Our hope is that this list will help to bring these neglected works to a wider audience.
– Ron Drummond

In the spirit of this enterprise and as progenitor of this project, I’ve added four more titles. No doubt the list would be different if you’d been involved.
- Eric M. Van

The Nominators: F. Brett Cox (BC), Paul Di Filippo (PD), Ron Drummond (RD), Theodora Goss (TG), John Kessel (JK), Victoria McManus (VM), Graham Sleight (GS), Catherynne M. Valente (CV); John Crowley (JC), Kelly Link (KL), Eric M. Van (EV)

Agee, Joel In the House of My Fear RD 5
Aldiss, Brian Report on Probability A PD 8
Amis, Martin London Fields GS 6
Atwood, Margaret The Blind Assasin TG 5
----------- The Handmaid's Tale TG 7
Auster, Paul New York Trilogy GS 7
Aylett, Steve Lint PD 6
Baker, Nicholson The Fermata JC 5
----------- The Mezzanine PD 5
Ballard, J. G. The Kindness of Women RD 5
Banks, Iain Walking on Glass GS 3
Bantock, Nick The Museum at Purgatory CV 4
Barnes, Peter Red Noses (play) BC 4
Barrett, Jr., Neal The Hereafter Gang GS 9
Barry, Lynda Cruddy KL 5
Barry, Max Company PD 4
Barthelme, Donald Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts JK 7
Blumlein, Michael The Brains of Rats (coll) GS 9
Bowman, David Bunny Modern PD 4
----------- Let the Dog Drive PD 6
Bradfield, Scott The Secret Life of Houses GS 4
Brockmeier, Kevin A Brief History of the Dead JK 7
Buzzati, Dino The Tartar Steppe PD, RD 2
Cantor, Jay Krazy Kat: A Novel in Five Panels EV --
Carey, Edward Observatory Mansions PD 5
Carroll, Jonathan Bones of the Moon GS 7
----------- The Land of Laughs GS 6
Chesteron, G. K. The Man Who Was Thursday PD 7
Childress, Mark Gone for Good BC 4
----------- Tender BC 3
Christopher, Nicholas Franklin Flyer PD 5
----------- Trip to the Stars PD 4
Cixous, Helene Le Livre de Promethea CV 9
Clarke, Susanna Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell TG 6
Coover, Robert Pricksongs and Descants BC, JK 6
----------- The Universal Baseball Assoc. EV --
De Niro, Alan Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead BC 9
Delany, Samuel R. The Mad Man RD 6
----------- The Tale of Plagues and Carnivals RD 9
DeLillo, Don Mao II RD 7
----------- The Names RD 5
----------- White Noise BC, GS 9
Dinesen, Isak Seven Gothic Tales TG 8
----------- Winter’s Tales KL 8
Duncan, Hal Vellum CV 6
Durrell, Lawrence The Alexandria Quartet GS 8
Erickson, Steve The complete works of Steve Erickson RD, GS 8
----------- Amnesiascope RD 7
----------- Arc d'X RD 7
----------- Leap Year GS 7
----------- Our Ecstatic Days RD 7
----------- Rubicon Beach RD 8
----------- The Sea Came In At Midnight RD 8
----------- Tours of the Black Clock RD, GS 9
Evenson, Brian Father of Lies PD 3
Faber, Michel Under the Skin PD 2
Fowles, John A Maggot BC 6
----------- The Magus BC, GS 8
Gaddis, William The Recognitions GS 7
Garner, Alan Red Shift EV --
Geary, Patricia Strange Toys KL, GS 5
Gloss, Molly Wild Life VM 8
Goldstein, Lisa Tourists JK 8
Grant, Richard Views from the Oldest House GS 7
Hansen, Brooks The Chess Garden CV 4
Harrison, M. John The Course of the Heart GS 9
----------- Things That Never Happen GS 9
Horsley, Kate Confessions of a Pagan Nun RD 7
Houellebecq, Michel The Possibility of an Island PD, RD 4
Ingall, Rachel Times Like These KL 3
Ionesco, Eugene Les Rhinoceros TG 4
Jackson, Shelley Half Life KL 8
Joyce, Graham The Facts of Life GS 5
Kingston, Maxine Hong Tripmaster Monkey VM 6
Knox, Elizabeth Black Oxen KL 5
Koja, Kathe Kink PD 5
Kundera, Milan The Book of Laughter and Forgetting TG 9
----------- Immortality TG 6
Kushner, Tony Angels in America GS 3
LaFarge, Paul An Artist of the Missing PD 4
Landolfi, Tommaso An Autumn Story PD, RD 3
Laxness, Halldor Independent People RD 5
----------- World Light RD 6
Le Guin, Ursula K. Unlocking the Air KL 9
Leiber, Fritz The Leiber Chronicles GS 9
Leven, Jeremy Satan: His Psychoanalysis and Cure . . . EV --
Lispector, Clarice The Stream of Life (1973 CV 6
Mamet, David The Cryptogram (play) BC 7
----------- The Water Engine (play) BC 5
Mann, Thomas Doctor Faustus TG 9
McAllister, Bruce Dream Baby GS 4
McCarthy, Cormac The Road BC 5
McDonagh, Martin The Pillowman GS 4
McEwan, Ian The Child in Time GS 7
McGuane, Thomas Ninety-Two in the Shade GS 4
Metzger, Thom Big Gurl PD 4
Mieville, China The Tain GS 9
Mitchell, David Ghostwritten PD, GS, CV 9
----------- Number 9 Dream GS 6
Mooney, Ted Easy Travel to Other Planets GS 8
Moorcock, Michael Mother London GS 6
Morris, Jan Hav GS 5
Morrison, Toni Sula TG 4
Morrow, James Only Begotten Daughter BC, JK 8
Nin, Anais House of Incest CV 7
O'Brien, Flann The Third Policeman GS 8
Palmer, Thomas Dream Science GS 4
Park, Paul Three Marys RD 6
Pavic, Milorad Landscape Painted with Tea CV 8
Percy, Walker Love in the Ruins BC 3
----------- The Thanatos Syndrome BC 4
Phillips, Holly In the Palace of Repose TG 9
Pollack, Rachel Unquenchable Fire GS 5
Powers, Tim Last Call GS 9
Priest, Christopher The Affirmation GS 7
----------- The Glamour GS 9
Roberts, Keith Grainne BC 5
Rogers, Bruce Holland The Keyhole Opera GS 6
Rucker, Rudy The 57th Franz Kafka (coll) JK 7
----------- Saucer Wisdom PD 7
Russ, Joanna The Two of Them RD 6
----------- The Zanzibar Cat KL 6
Russo, Richard Paul Terminal Visions GS 3
Ryman, Geoff The Child Garden RD 9
----------- Lust GS 9
----------- The Unconquered Country RD 9
Saramago, Jose Blindness PD, RD, GS 6
----------- The Double RD 8
Saunders, George In Persuasion Nation BC, JK 9
----------- Pastoralia JK, GS 8
Shepard, Lucius Valentine GS 8
Shonagon, Sei The Pillow Book CV 5
Sinisalo, Johanna Troll: A Love Story (aka "Not Before Sundown") GS 9
Sladek, John Bugs GS 7
Smith, Ali The Accidental GS 4
Stephenson, Neal The Diamond Age CV 6
Stewart, Sean Galveston GS 8
----------- Mockingbird VM 7
Straub, Peter lost boy lost girl BC, GS 7
Thomas, D.M. The White Hotel BC 7
Thomas, Dylan Under Milk Wood: A Play for Voices CV 7
Thomson, David Suspects GS 4
Tuttle, Lisa The Pillow Friend VM 6
Ventura, Michael The Death of Frank Sinatra RD 4
----------- Night Time Losing Time RD 5
----------- The Zoo Where You’re Fed to God RD 4
Verhelst, Peter Tonguecat (2003) CV 7
Wallace, Daniel Ray in Reverse BC 6
Welty, Eudora The Robber Bridegroom KL 8
Wilson, Robert Anton The Illuminatus Trilogy PD 6
Windling, Terri The Wood Wife TG 9
Winterson, Jeanette Gut Symmetries CV 8
Wolfe, Gene Free Live Free GS 6
----------- Peace JK, GS 9
Woolf, Virginia A Haunted House and Other Stories TG 9
Wright, Grahame Jog Rummage PD 5
Wright, Stephen M31: A Family Romance GS 7


Women Writers of Slipstream (See Above Lists for Titles)


Kathy Acker
Isabel Allende
Margaret Atwood
Lynda Barry
A. S.Byatt
Angela Carter
Helene Cixous
Susanna Clarke
Isak Dinesen
Carol Emshwiller
Karen Joy Fowler
Patricia Geary
Greer Gilman
Molly Gloss
Lisa Goldstein
Theodora Goss
Hiromi Goto
Elizabeth Hand

Nalo Hopkinson
Kate Horsley
Keri Hulme
Rachel Ingalls
Shelley Jackson
Shirley Jackson
Anna Kavan
Maxine Hong Kingston
Elizabeth Knox
Kathe Koja
Leena Krohn
Margo Lanagan
Ursula K. Le Guin
Kelly Link
Clarice Lispector
Valerie Martin
Toni Morrison
Anais Nin

Holly Phillips
Rachel Pollack
M. Rickert
Joanna Russ
Alice Sebold
Sei Shonagon
Johanna Sinisalo
Ali Smith
Lisa Tuttle
Catherynne M. Valente
Diane Wakoski
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Eudora Welty
Terri Windling
Jeanette Winterson
Virginia Woolf
Pamela Zoline




A List of Slipstream Works by Some of Your Humble Panelists, Suggested by Themselves

F. Brett Cox: “Flannery on Stage” (Indigenous Fiction, June 2001); “When John Moore Shot Carl Bell” (Carriage House Review, Winter 2001); “My Whole World Lies Waiting” (Rabid Transit: Long Voyages, Great Lies, 2006)

Ron Drummond: “The Frequency of Liberation” (Science Fiction Eye #12, Summer 1993; available at http://www.studiolarz.com/erickson/articles/frequencyofliberation.html

Paul Di Filippo: Ciphers (Permeable Press, 1997, novel)

Theodora Goss: In the Forest of Forgetting (Prime Books, 2006, collection)

John Kessel: "Herman Melville: Space Opera Virtuoso" (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1980), reprinted in the author’s collection The Pure Product (Tor, 1997); "Another Orphan" (F&SF, September 1982), reprinted in the author’s collection Meeting in Infinity (Arkham House, 1992); "The Lecturer" (Light Years and Dark, ed. Michael Bishop, Berkley, 1984), Meeting in Infinity; "Man" (Isaac Asimov’s SF Magazine, May 1992), Meeting in Infinity; "The Family Vacation" (Infinite Matrix, September 2002); "The Baum Plan for Financial Independence" (SciFiction, March 2004); "The Red Phone" (Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, July 2005); "Downtown"

Catheryne M. Valente: The Labyrinth (Prime Books, 2004, novel); Yume no Hon: The Book of Dreams (Prime Books, 2005, novel)

  • Post a new comment

    Error

    Your IP address will be recorded 

  • 81 comments

[info]nihilistic_kid

July 12 2007, 15:24:36 UTC 4 years ago

What an embarrassing list. How on Earth can a book that isn't even published yet be part of the canon? (That's leaving aside the inherently dubious nature of the exercise of building a slipstream canon in the first place.)

[info]pgdf

July 12 2007, 15:31:30 UTC 4 years ago

We needed you in the audinece, Nick!

Believe me, some doubts were raised.

[info]fringefaan

July 12 2007, 15:25:09 UTC 4 years ago

I find it remarkable that, unless I missed it, there's no reference in all this to Bruce Sterling's original article, "Slipstream", first published in SF Eye, in which the slipstream concept was coined (at least as far as I know). It includes its own list, of course.

[info]pgdf

July 12 2007, 15:32:50 UTC 4 years ago

We started by taking for granted Bruce's coinage and all his nominations. Sorry that wasn't made clear in the document.

[info]fringefaan

4 years ago

[info]fringefaan

4 years ago

[info]snej

4 years ago

[info]snurri

July 12 2007, 15:32:10 UTC 4 years ago

On behalf of those of us unable to make it to Readercon, thanks very much for posting this!

[info]pgdf

July 12 2007, 15:40:27 UTC 4 years ago

Just part of the full line of services here at the Inferior 4 + 1!

Deleted comment

[info]grahamsleight

July 12 2007, 15:50:31 UTC 4 years ago

There were a couple of anomalies on the list - the overlap between individual works and collected works being another - which I'm sure we'd have ironed out if we'd had more time. At least one book I nominated and which I know got votes from others didn't show up on any of the lists. But we put this together in a hell of a rush (over about a fortnight, entirely by email) and so such glitches are probably a regrettable fact of life.

[info]pgdf

4 years ago

[info]ninebelow

4 years ago

[info]ninebelow

4 years ago

[info]pgdf

4 years ago

[info]oldcharliebrown

July 12 2007, 15:52:30 UTC 4 years ago

I also note the exclusion of both the Leviathan and Polyphony anthology series . . .

[info]pgdf

July 12 2007, 15:58:13 UTC 4 years ago

We wanted short fiction, not just novels. But I know that including entire series ran the risk of nominating some works thus contained that might not be slipstream.

[info]pgdf

4 years ago

[info]pgdf

4 years ago

[info]sunpony

July 12 2007, 16:08:37 UTC 4 years ago

This is quite a list! I never knew how much I liked (and might be influenced by) slipstream until I read this document. I have not read Sterling's book, but now I am curious about how this all started. I can see some merry, vigorous debates about the idea and the list (from the rationale of the "core canon" to the question of inclusion/exclusion into "slipstream" itself), but I found it very informative and intriguing to review.

We just got a copy of Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle in, the Harvill edition. I'll have to snag it and give it a read, seeing as he is on the list and all. . . . I am curious to see how he fulfills the criteria for inclusion. . . .

[info]pgdf

July 12 2007, 16:28:41 UTC 4 years ago

Visit here for more info on bruce's original list:


http://home.austin.rr.com/lperson/slip.html

[info]sunpony

4 years ago

[info]pgdf

4 years ago

[info]ninebelow

4 years ago

[info]pgdf

4 years ago

[info]thinking_lotus

July 12 2007, 17:17:36 UTC 4 years ago

I've never even heard of slipstream, and yet I have read at least half of the books on this list. Thanks for the link, I guess I'll go find out what I'm missing.

[info]pgdf

July 12 2007, 17:24:35 UTC 4 years ago

Ah, a natural-born slipstreamer at heart!

[info]pgdf

4 years ago

[info]panghule

July 12 2007, 18:27:29 UTC 4 years ago

Lanark didn't make the core canon? No Bruno Schulz or Isak Dinesen in either of the lists? And why Ballard's Empire of the Sun instead of Crash? (Beyond that, it's not a bad list, though I'm still not sure that Slipstream actually means anything.)

[info]pgdf

July 12 2007, 18:33:58 UTC 4 years ago

The main reason to make any lists is to elicit great contributions like these!

[info]panghule

4 years ago

[info]ninebelow

4 years ago

Anonymous

4 years ago

[info]apostle_of_eris

July 12 2007, 18:40:39 UTC 4 years ago

J*O*H*N H*E*R*S*E*Y

White Lotus
The Child Buyer
Too Far to Walk

[info]pgdf

July 12 2007, 18:42:42 UTC 4 years ago

Re: J*O*H*N H*E*R*S*E*Y

Haven't read Hersey in too long, but he could be a prime candidate. Thanks!

[info]pigeonhed

July 12 2007, 18:43:04 UTC 4 years ago

No Carter Scholz or Jim Dodge? Two quintessentially slipstream authors in my eyes. And yes, Ciphers ought to be considered.

Leigh Kennedy's Journal Of Nicholas The American and the collection Faces would make my list too. As would Lew Shiner's Deserted Cities Of The Heart and maybe Glimpses.

[info]pgdf

July 12 2007, 18:48:14 UTC 4 years ago

I think some of these might be on Bruce's original list.

[info]pigeonhed

4 years ago

[info]pgdf

4 years ago

[info]ninebelow

4 years ago

[info]pgdf

4 years ago

Anonymous

July 12 2007, 20:24:39 UTC 4 years ago

The Nova Express Slipstream List

Some may find this Nova Express Slipstream List (compiled for the Slipstream issue) of use:

http://home.austin.rr.com/lperson/slip.html (http://home.austin.rr.com/lperson/slip.html)

Lawrence Person

Anonymous

July 12 2007, 20:50:54 UTC 4 years ago

The sad state of Literature Today

I'm getting a tattoo that says I beat out the Collected Works of Thomas Pynchon.

[info]pgdf

July 13 2007, 13:48:24 UTC 4 years ago

Re: The sad state of Literature Today

"Born to raise slipstream!"

Anonymous

July 12 2007, 21:36:17 UTC 4 years ago

I like the list compiled by these folks at Readercon very much, and have lifted it so I can consult it and check out the stuff that's new to me. It's not surprising that a bunch of writers would come up with a very inclusive list. However, I think a lot of what's included might be better described simply as modern fantastic literature rather than 'slipstream.'

It seems to me that the term 'slipstream' is most useful as a description of, on the one hand, works that are not 'hardcore' SF, are not published as SF and don't come out of the whole longstanding and highly-developed SF publishing-and-readership milieu, but that show the direct influence of works from that milieu, essentially in their focus on the effects of technology on society, in the present or the future; and on the other hand, works published as SF which resemble those 'slipstreamers' from outside the field.

However, in these times when SF's themes and concerns have risen to general prominence and familiarity, it's not so easy to sort out direct influence from SF and influences from elsewhere, anyway.

Sterling's original essay, in which he pitched the term, starts out by quoting a piece by Carter Scholz, in which Scholz argues that the best 'SF' works of recent years have not been Hugo and Nebula winners but works published outside the field entirely, by 'mainstream' writers. Jonathan Lethem wrote an essay a few years later, I think, first published in the Village Voice, in which he said that Pynchon's 'Gravity's Rainbow' and DeLillo's 'Ratner's Star' should have won the Nebula for the years in which they were published back in the '70's. The essay by Paul Kincaid for Bookslut, mentioned and linked here the other day, is largely about the prospect of the Clarke Award going to mainstream writers. Hmmm, all this focus on SF awards! Well, I guess that's what we think of when we think of the SF field.

It seems to me that Jonathan Lethem's piece is mirrored in some ways by fairly recent arguments made by another Jonathan, Franzen, in which he pretty much disses 'difficult' or experimental fiction. I don't mean to put down these fine writers, but to be a little cynical about it, both could be seen as taking a rather self-serving line, given the directions of their own careers toward mainstream success at the time they were making these points.

Yet the argument Lethem makes, in a sense, is in favor of that very experimental fiction which Franzen is striding away from. Indeed, the era and strain of SF which Lethem (and Scholz) lionize is the 'New Wave' of the '60's and early '70's, that produced works with a lot in common with the experimental writing of the time. It's not hard to see works like Effinger's 'What Entropy Means to Me' or maybe Russ's 'And Chaos Died' coming from the Fiction Collective Press in those days, I don't think. But they didn't, they came from regular SF publishers. What I don't know, and what may be key here, is how well those publications sold.

- pete r.

[info]pgdf

July 13 2007, 14:03:03 UTC 4 years ago

Some wonderfully thoughtful analyses there, Pete. Thanks so much!

[info]paulwitcover

July 12 2007, 22:26:36 UTC 4 years ago

Core

Okay, what is meant by "core" here? It seems absurd to have works published since 2000, or maybe even earlier, regardless of their undisputed quality, listed as part of a "core canon." Does anybody really believe that recent works by Link, Vandermeer, Goss, and others can be judged with the same distance and objectivity of works published decades ago? What else, if not critical reception and reaction over time, as well as continued influence on other writers, and readers, can be the basis for judging inclusion in a canon?

There is a lot of wishful thinking, it seems to me, in this list.

[info]pgdf

July 13 2007, 14:06:34 UTC 4 years ago

Re: Core

Wishful thinking is the speciality of fantasists!

[info]freecarl

July 13 2007, 00:33:39 UTC 4 years ago

The Curse of Lists

I think it was a fun little exercise and I certainly found it very informative. I'm curious if the name Edward Whittemore ever came up? Doubtful, I'm sure. Old CIA agents who write crazy little obscure books of an almost prophetic nature (when read under a certain influence of perspective) don't die so much as they just end up forgotten even by the most well-read of people.

And I apologize if I missed it while skimming the comments.

A list can only be finite. There's no room for everyone.

Still ... it makes me sad to think of old Ed still so unknown and far too dead to speak up for himself.

[info]ninebelow

July 13 2007, 13:01:21 UTC 4 years ago

Re: The Curse of Lists

I don't think Whittemore appears here but he was part of Sterling's original list.

[info]freecarl

4 years ago

[info]pgdf

4 years ago

Anonymous

4 years ago

[info]tristantzara

July 13 2007, 07:47:51 UTC 4 years ago

Glad to see that Kevin Brockmeier's wonderful book, A Brief History of the Dead made it to the extended list. What a great novel by a really promising writer.

Also, I'm surprised at how many usually-regarded-as sci-fi authors made the list, such as yourself and Damon Knight. It'll be interesting to see how the category develops out.

[info]freecarl

July 13 2007, 14:01:28 UTC 4 years ago

And I rather liked your review of the book which I will embarrass you by providing a link for here.

A Brief History of the Dead

Gotta support them Arky boys. Even up here from MA.

Keep your nose clean.

[info]pgdf

4 years ago

[info]coalescent

4 years ago

Anonymous

July 13 2007, 16:14:26 UTC 4 years ago

Aren't you forgetting something?

Either you're trying way too hard, putting in all sorts of barely relevant stuff because you think it looks classy in the slip-ghetto, or not nearly hard enough. Where's Jim Crace (all of his books--he's way further out than Erikson); Barry Unsworth (a couple); Ian McEwan (Black Dogs too), Doris Lessing (several that count, not the space trilogy); Margaret Atwood (Oryx & Crake, and Lady Oracle might count too); P.D. James (The Children of Men); Denis Johnson (Fiskadoro); John Updike (Witches of Eastwick, Toward the End of Time, others); Cormac McCarthy (The Road); Will Self (certainly The Book of Dave, but arguably others); Matthew Sharpe (Jamestown); Thomas Berger (just about everything), Alice Sebold (Lovely Bones, not in the list proper); Alice Hoffman (everything--arguably); Donald Barthelme. I'm not even trying, guys--c'mon, giddyup

Cheers,
Alastor
(does Shelley count too?)

[info]brendanconnell.wordpress.com

July 15 2007, 07:23:02 UTC 4 years ago

Personally, this list makes me think: Well, then basically anything is slipstream. Because Rimbaud and James Joyce and Kafka et al, have nothing whatsoever in common with either each other or the other writers on the list. Aside from that they put words on paper. It just seems that by putting so much stuff together the term "Slipstream" just becomes an arbitrary way of saying "quirky stuff that I like to read".

[info]pgdf

July 15 2007, 14:40:48 UTC 4 years ago

Admittedly a danger, yes. Too inclusive = no value as a category.

[info]timcasewalker

July 16 2007, 14:12:36 UTC 4 years ago

Group closed to new members

As an old SF Eye contributor and a student of slipstream, I'd love to join this group, but I find it closed to new members? Any chance of allowing one more to squeeze in?

Tim

[info]pgdf

July 16 2007, 15:16:57 UTC 4 years ago

Re: Group closed to new members

Tim--good to hear from you, and thanks so much for your interest. At the moment, we're sticking to the structure of four core members with the occasional guest blogger, just to keep things simple. Let's see how things go from there!

Anonymous

July 17 2007, 21:24:25 UTC 4 years ago

Jesse Walker

No Philip K. Dick? Surely VALIS deserves a place in the canon.

Anonymous

July 17 2007, 21:26:00 UTC 4 years ago

Re: Jesse Walker

Arrg. Damn these impenetrable symbols. "Jesse Walker" was supposed to be listed as my name, not the title of the post...

Anonymous

July 18 2007, 04:15:22 UTC 4 years ago

The Usefulness of Lists...

...is that they give us all new stuff to read.

When I did a fantasy list of top stuff, though, I tried to leave everything from the last decade off because Paul's right--no way can you judge this stuff objectively being that close to it. It leads to a kind of self-congratulatory aspect as well--"look at us, we're as good as Kafka." Blah.

As a PR thing to help something like the interfictions antho, that's fine, but although I'm not insulted Leviathan or Polyphony isn't on it (although of course I think Leviathan should be on it; it's just not for me to *put it there* because of conflict of interest; which brings up an implied more general point, I think), I'd like to see something like Interfictions have a decade to marinate before it makes the top list of anything. It's not prove-able at this point that it's a classic. Or even of equal quality with something like Trampoline, which would be a much more legitimate choice And, like Nick notes, Best of LCRW is just out. So I begin to read the list as half PR rather than anything close to objective.

So, in terms of anthos, it seems like a list with a very, very short memory. Like, back to last year.

Otherwise, it's quite interesting and diverse.

JeffV

[info]pgdf

July 18 2007, 14:30:32 UTC 4 years ago

Re: The Usefulness of Lists...

All salient points, Jeff! Thanks for your understanding of our limitations--and the list's!

Anonymous

July 23 2007, 01:12:56 UTC 4 years ago

oe

I'm not familiar with Slipstream, but having read many of the books on this list I would also suggest Gass' Omensetter's Luck as well as some Gene Wolfe, maybe Peace and The Book of the New Sun, I haven't read Latro in the Mist. Orhan Pamuk? I've only read The White Castle.

Oh and Stanislaw Lem for sure! Any of the Ijon Tichy books would seem to qualify, from my limited understanding of Slipstream...

Oscar and Lucinda? Maybe that's pushing it.

Anyway, thanks for the list, I'm definitely going to explore some of the many authors unfamiliar to me.

[info]pgdf

July 23 2007, 13:53:29 UTC 4 years ago

Re: oe

Great suggestions! Thanks! Hope you have fun exploring these other writers--the main purpose of compiling such a list.....

Anonymous

July 23 2007, 01:19:32 UTC 4 years ago

oe



and some Bulgakov! Master and Margarita, Heart of a Dog, The Fatal Eggs...
Create an Account
Forgot your login or password?
Facebook Twitter More login options
English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…