Slipstream (genre of literature)

[IdleRich]

I thought we already had a thread on this but I can't find it. If we do feel free to merge...

I guess I like reading a real variety of books, but I do think there is one type that particularly attracts me. Thing is, although I had an an idea in my head I always found it hard to describe it succinctly to other people - basically weird books that aren't quite sci-fi or magic realism or anything else... or so I thought until I read Ice by Anna Kavan a few years back and the blurb described it as "slipstream" which was a term I'd never heard before in that context - and I've never really heard it since either to be honest. However it seemed to describe what I liked.

So, let's have a thread on it. First up, I'd like to know how common the term is and which of you are aware of and use it. And then I'd like a discussion of the genre of the whole and how it differs from adjacent genres, plus of course recommendations for good ones.

This is what Wikipedia says

The slipstream genre is a term denoting forms of speculative fiction that do not remain in conventional boundaries of genre and narrative, directly extending from the experimentation of the New Wave science fiction movement while also borrowing from fantasy, psychological fiction, philosophical fiction and other genres or styles of literature.

To give you an idea, this is the blurb for Ice

In this haunting and surreal novel, the narrator and a man known as the warden search for an elusive girl in a frozen, seemingly post-nuclear, apocalyptic landscape. The country has been invaded and is being governed by a secret organization. There is destruction everywhere; great walls of ice overrun the world. Together with the narrator, the reader is swept into a hallucinatory quest for this strange and fragile creature with albino hair. Acclaimed upon its 1967 publication as the best science fiction book of the year, this extraordinary and innovative novel has subsequently been recognized as a major work of literature in its own right.literature.

Anna Kavan is also known for taking the name of one of the characters from a book that she wrote which seems a really weird and possibly unique (as far as I know) thing to do.

 

[droid]

As Im sure you know, slipstream was an attempt by Bruce Sterling to retroactively curate a new genre of literary sci-fi. I assume you've seen his list?

 

[IdleRich]

I think you posted it last time I asked about it - which I'm sure I did even if without its own thread. When you say attempt is that to imply that it never properly caught on?

 

[droid]

Yeah, I think thats fair to say. It's only really used within sci fi discourse as a kind of academic category. It was essentially an attempt to reaffirm and expand the vision Moorcock and Ballard outlined in their New World editorials in the early-mid 60s.

Literary sci fi and cross pollination is pretty much everywhere now, making the concept redundant, which is a kind of victory I guess - especially as sci-fi in general is so ubiquitous, like IDM; maligned in its day for various reasons but ultimately infecting almost everything in music. Like a cultural microplastic.

 

[IdleRich]

But the thing is I'm also talking about stuff such as Borges or Calvino which isn't any kind of sci-fi but which do have a common thread to Ice in their DNA.

So I'm thinking of a grouping that overlaps scifi but isn't inside it. I found a list here (er, on a scifi books page I think) and I find it quite interesting

19 Best Slipstream Books - The Best Sci Fi Books

Slipstream is an ill-defined subgenre that usually boils down to being some combination of literary, fantastical, illogical, surreal, and jarring.

best-sci-fi-books.com

I suppose that one thing I'm thinking is that... well over Christmas we stayed at a friend's place and their flatmate had what I said at the time was the most dissensus bookshelf ever, and that's part of why I mention this here. I reckon slipstream looks like the dissensus part of sci-fi with the dissensus parts of other genres to bring in Kafka, Cortasar etc

In short slipstream seems to be a good fit to dissensus' tastes so I feel it could be worthwhile to discuss it explicitly.

 

[droid]

Well yeah, but most of Ballard doesn't really fit the standard definition of sci if either whilst Calvino has actually written some unambiguously sci fi work. Slipstream was an expansion of the Venn diagram to try and combine literary sci fi, magical realism, weird fiction and the avant garde.

Heres the list again anyway, its insanely broad.

Acker, Kathy - Empire of the Senseless Ackroyd, Peter - Hawksmoor; Chatterton Aldiss, Brian - Life in the West Allende, Isabel - Of Love and Shadows; House of Spirits Amis, Kingsley - The Alienation; The Green Man Amis, Martin - Other People; Einstein's Monsters Apple, Max - Zap; The Oranging of America Atwood, Margaret - The Handmaid's Tale Auster, Paul - City of Glass; In the Country of Last Things Ballard, J.G. - Day of Creation; Empire of the Sun Banks, Iain - The Wasp Factory; The Bridge Banville, John - Kepler; Dr. Copernicus Barnes, Julian - Staring at the Sun Barth, John - Giles Goat-Boy; Chimera Barthelme, Donald - The Dead Father Batchelor, John Calvin - Birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica Bell, Madison Smartt - Waiting for the End of the World Berger, Thomas - Arthur Rex Bontly, Thomas - Celestial Chess Boyle, T. Coraghessan - Worlds End; Water Music Brandao, Ignacio - And Still the Earth Burroughs, William S. - Place of Dead Roads; Naked Lunch; Soft Machine Carroll, Jonathan - Bones of the Moon; Land of Laughs Carter, Angela - Nights at the Circus; Heroes and Villains Cary, Peter - Illywhacker; Oscar and Lucinda Chesbro, George M. - An Affair of Sorcerers Coetzee, J.M. - Life and Rimes of Michael K. Coover, Robert - The Public Burning; Pricksongs & Descants Crace, Jim - Continent Crowley, John - Little, Big; Aegypt Davenport, Guy - Da Vinci's Bicycle; The Jules Verne Steam Balloon Disch, Thomas M. - On Wings of Song Dodge, Jim - Not Fade Away Durrell, Lawrence - Tunc; Nunquam Ely, David - Seconds Erickson, Steve - Days Between Stations; Rubicon Beach Federman, Raymond - The Twofold Variations Fowles, John - A Maggot Franzen, Jonathan - The Twenty-Seventh City Frisch, Max - Homo Faber; Man in the Holocene Fuentes, Carlos - Terra Nostra Gaddis, William - JR; Carpenter's Gothic Gardner, John - Grendel; Freddy's Book Geary, Patricia - Strange Toys; Living in Ether Goldman, William - The Princess Bride; The Color of Light Grass, Gunter - The Tin Drum Gray, Alasdair - Lanark Grimwood, Ken - Replay Harbinson, W.A. - Genesis; Revelation; Otherworld Hill, Carolyn - The Eleven Million Mile High Dancer Hjvrtsberg, William - Gray Matters; Falling Angel Hoban, Russell - Riddley Walker Hoyt, Richard - The Manna Enzyme Irwin, Robert - The Arabian Nightmares Iskander, Fazil - Sandro of Chegam; The Gospel According to Sandro Johnson, Denis - Fiskadoro Jones, Robert F. - Blood Sport; The Diamond Bogo

Kinsella, W.P. - Shoeless Joe Koster, R.M. - The Dissertation; Mandragon Kotzwinkle, William - Elephant Bangs Train; Doctor Rat, Fata Morgana Kramer, Kathryn - A Handbook for Visitors From Outer Space Lange, Oliver - Vandenberg Leonard, Elmore - Touch Lessing, Doris - The Four-Gated City; The Fifth Child of Satan Leven, Jeremy - Satan Mailer, Norman - Ancient Evenings Marinis, Rick - A Lovely Monster Marquez, Gabriel Garcia - Autumn of the Patriarch; One Hundred Years of Solitude Mathews, Harry - The Sinking of the Odradek Stadium McEwan, Ian - The Comfort of Strangers; The Child in Time McMahon, Thomas - Loving Little Egypt Millar, Martin - Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation Mooney, Ted - Easy Travel to Other Planets Moorcock, Michael - Laughter of Carthage; Byzantium Endures; Mother London Moore, Brian - Cold Heaven Morrell, David - The Totem Morrison, Toni - Beloved; The Song of Solomon Nunn, Ken - Tapping the Source; Unassigned Territory Percy, Walker - Love in the Ruins; The Thanatos Syndrome Piercy, Marge - Woman on the Edge of Time Portis, Charles - Masters of Atlantis Priest, Christopher - The Glamour; The Affirmation Prose, Francine - Bigfoot Dreams, Marie Laveau Pynchon, Thomas - Gravity's Rainbow; V; The Crying of Lot 49 Reed, Ishmael - Mumbo Jumbo; The Terrible Twos Rice, Anne - The Vampire Lestat; Queen of the Damned Robbins, Tom - Jitterbug Perfume; Another Roadside Attraction Roth, Philip - The Counterlife Rushdie, Salmon - Midnight's Children; Grimus; The Satanic Verses Saint, H.F. - Memoirs of an Invisible Man Scholz, Carter & Harcourt Glenn - Palimpsests Shepard, Lucius - Life During Wartime Siddons, Anne Rivers - The House Next Door Spark, Muriel - The Hothouse by the East River Spencer, Scott - Last Night at the Brain Thieves Ball Sukenick, Ronald - Up; Down; Out Suskind, Patrick - Perfume Theroux, Paul - O-Zone Thomas, D.M. - The White Hotel Thompson, Joyce - The Blue Chair; Conscience Place Thomson, Rupert - Dreams of Leaving Thornberg, Newton - Valhalla Thornton, Lawrence - Imagining Argentina Updike, John - Witches of Eastwick; Rogers Version Vliet, R.G. - Scorpio Rising Vollman, William T. - You Bright and Risen Angels Vonnegut, Kurt - Galapagos; Slaughterhouse-Five Wallace, David Foster - The Broom of the System Webb, Don - Uncle Ovid's Exercise Book Whittmore, Edward - Nile Shadows; Jerusalem Poker; Sinai Tapestry Willard, Nancy - Things Invisible to See Womack, Jack - Ambient; Terraplane Wood, Bari - The Killing Gift Wright, Stephen - M31: A Family Romance

 

[droid]

If this had been collated a few years earlier I imagine it would have included the likes of Iain Sinclair and Murakami

Incidentally, have you read Primo Levi's sci fi stories?

 

[IdleRich]

Well yeah, but most of Ballard doesn't really fit the standard definition of sci if either whilst Calvino has actually written some unambiguously sci fi work.

Ha, I knew I should have specifically made it clear that I was saying that those authors have written some none-scifi stuff, not that they have never written scifi.

 

[IdleRich]

If this had been collated a few years earlier I imagine it would have included the likes of Iain Sinclair and Murakami

Incidentally, have you read Primo Levi's sci fi stories?

I've read Levi's work in a few genres but not scifi.

 

[jenks]

I’m confused

 

[droid]

Slipstream

 

[version]

A genre that sticks together Anne Rice, William Gaddis, Brian Aldiss and Elmore Leonard seems too broad to be useful.

 

[Mr. Tea]

A genre that sticks together Anne Rice, William Gaddis, Brian Aldiss and Elmore Leonard seems too broad to be useful.

I haven't heard of most of the writers on that big list, but most of those that I have heard of are more or less adequately described as magic realist, I think.

 

[Slothrop]

A genre that sticks together Anne Rice, William Gaddis, Brian Aldiss and Elmore Leonard seems too broad to be useful.

There's a bit of a conflation of "genre writers who reject some genre-based expectations" and "literary writers who adopt some genre-specific tropes", right? Or to put it another way, it's Sterling criticizing a genre that he sees as having calcified by pointing to a load of adjacent stuff that he finds more interesting.

 

[IdleRich]

Not a well-received thread

 

[Slothrop]

It's a good thread - I don't think anyone's panning the books involved or some of the tendancies that they embody, just Sterling's attempt to extrapolate a coherent genre out of them.

 

[IdleRich]

The thing is, spurious or not, I tend to like the books.
As an aside, despite what everyone is saying, I don't think Bruce Sterling coined the phrase, I think he maybe popularised it though.

 

[you]

I'm sure there was a thread on this. If not a thread then a sustained discussion perhaps in the sci-fi thread? I recall posting a quote from Feeling Very Strange: A Slipstream Anthology
Sterling's list has been posted before: https://www.dissensus.com/threads/13816/page-4#post-336593

Maybe I dreamt the conversation, maybe I was too grumpy to share.

Either way, that list is nigh on useless. Like describing a friend's character by listing the elements and minerals that make up their body. I always felt it was better as a question, not a genre with attributes. It's an anti-genre in many ways. And yes, as sci-fi has moved on and there's been such osmosis between the literary worlds, it does feel, even as a question, redundant now.

 

[IdleRich]

I think slipstream as a name is supposed to be some sort of alternative to mainstream but that doesn't work for me - I mean I didn't realise that the "stream" part came from mainstream.

 

[Timewriter]

Isn't it just what used to be called 'speculative' fiction? Not 'realism', but without the common sci-fi ingredients? Calvino's Cosmicomics are very good, by the way.