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