I’ve discovered a new genre of literature
It’s slipstream fiction:
Slipstream (literature) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Slipstream is a kind of fantastic or non-realistic fiction that crosses conventional genre boundaries and doesn’t sit comfortably within the confines of either science fiction/fantasy or mainstream literary fiction.
And here is the post that gained my interest (and for the life of me I can’t remember where I found it from, though it was focusing on this years Readercon. Not that I knew about that either).
theinferior4+1 - Slipstream literature
A Working Canon of Slipstream Writings
Readercon 18, July 2007The 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.
<snip>
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.)
I’ve suddenly gained a whole new reading list and the only I have, thanks to ReaditSwapit.co.uk, is Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link.
In days of yore, they simply called that stuff “magic realism”. Still all good, no matter what.
I like your blog!
Cheers!
Thanks :$
“magic realism” sounds easier to understand than “slipstream” - “slipstream” reminds me of cars!