Burning Chrome
By William Gibson
Essay by Ted Gioia
Back in 1982, William Gibson coined the term “cyberspace,” and his first
novel, Neuromancer, published two years later, explored a virtual reality
landscape with a vividness of detail and intensity of conception that
proved remarkably prescient. As a result, Gibson is now heralded as
the great prognosticator. But his accuracy in predicting the future has
led many to forget just how well Gibson writes.
Of course, the received wisdom on genre writers is that they are
sometimes clever in their plots or in their raw ideas, but their prose is
invariably banal and plodding. Certainly, any number of famous science
fiction writers deserve this criticism. Most of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation
trilogy is built out of cardboard prose, but his blazing imagination
redeems the work. Philip K. Dick is the classic case of a writer who
dazzles on a conceptual level, but rarely produces a really good
sentence. Many, many other examples could be cited. But Gibson
defies the conventional wisdom. His writing is breathtakingly good, and if
it fails to match the brilliance of his insights, it is only because the latter
are even more flamboyant.
Burning Chrome, a collection of short stories from the early 1980s,
shows Gibson at his best. The difficult of depicting a realistic future
landscape in any degree of detail forces many otherwise talented writers
to fall back on small-scale effects – isolated vignettes or one-trick pony
tales which seem flat even when they work their magic. Gibson’s
landscapes, in contrast, have depth. We get a flavor of social groups
and demographics, but never in a heavy-handed way. We sense the
sprawling cities – and almost all of Gibson’s story-telling is situated in
densely populated urban areas -- and even grok what may lie on its
outskirts or its hidden recesses. We feel the pulse of society, its
nightlife, its compromises, its vices and blind spots. And all of these
elements feel both familiar and strange -- it is a future that we can
recognize as an outgrowth of our dysfunctional present.
But we also have the heroes of the stories. They hardly qualify as
heroes, even if we root for them, cheer on their successes, and lament
their failures. The human element in a Gibson story can be summed up
succinctly in a phrase – his protagonists are almost always lowlifes with
totally rad technology. Gibson fetishizes technology, especially
dangerous cutting-edge gadgets that his dissipated characters covet.
Often the device plugs into their brain, or some other part of their body.
Or they swallow it hole, or get it surgically implanted. If necessary, they
lug it around in a suitcase. But it is always hot stuff, three years ahead
of what everybody else on the street is using.
I have little patience when Gibson gets into his laundry list of gadgets,
but for him this is foreplay in a highly erotic game. Here is a dose from
“New Rose Hotel” in Burning Chrome: “A freezer. A fermenter. An
incubator. An electrophoresis system with integrated agarose cell and
transilluminator. A tissue embedder. A high-performance liquid
chromatograph. A flow cytometer . . .” You get the idea. These are the
mementos that the narrator's ex-girlfriend left behind – like the old pop
song, “these foolish things remind me of you,” only instead of the
“cigarette that bears the lipstick traces” we get “four gross of borosilicate
scintillation vials.”
But don’t let the jargon and gadgets dissuade you from dipping into
Gibson. Although his stories appear, on a superficial level, to focus on
technology, they are really about the ways that waves of change, the
fast-forward ethos of modern-day life, simultaneously empower and
cripple people and societies. As such, he is neither overly utopian or
dystopian. Indeed, more than any science fiction writer of his
generation, Gibson is comfortable with the equivocal and sometimes
even paradoxical nature of our love affair with the gizmos. The
characters in a Gibson story are like Michael Jackson and plastic
surgery – they can’t get enough of it, even when they sense its
destructive toll. By comparison the apocalyptic writers of yesteryear – or
even last year, if one considers Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize
winning novel The Road – seem heavy handed by comparison. The
future, Gibson seems to tell us, will never be that simple.
And this is the reason, I suspect, that Gibson has been so successful as
a fortune teller, as a futurist charting our rapidly changing social
landscape. Other writers have tried to simplify the story, trace the broad
outlines of a purely linear progression into the future. But Gibson knows
that reality is much more multi-layered, full of unintended consequences
and second-order effects. And this is a sensibility that is rare in any
writer, whether they are looking into the future, or probing past and
present.
By William Gibson
Essay by Ted Gioia
Back in 1982, William Gibson coined the term “cyberspace,” and his first
novel, Neuromancer, published two years later, explored a virtual reality
landscape with a vividness of detail and intensity of conception that
proved remarkably prescient. As a result, Gibson is now heralded as
the great prognosticator. But his accuracy in predicting the future has
led many to forget just how well Gibson writes.
Of course, the received wisdom on genre writers is that they are
sometimes clever in their plots or in their raw ideas, but their prose is
invariably banal and plodding. Certainly, any number of famous science
fiction writers deserve this criticism. Most of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation
trilogy is built out of cardboard prose, but his blazing imagination
redeems the work. Philip K. Dick is the classic case of a writer who
dazzles on a conceptual level, but rarely produces a really good
sentence. Many, many other examples could be cited. But Gibson
defies the conventional wisdom. His writing is breathtakingly good, and if
it fails to match the brilliance of his insights, it is only because the latter
are even more flamboyant.
Burning Chrome, a collection of short stories from the early 1980s,
shows Gibson at his best. The difficult of depicting a realistic future
landscape in any degree of detail forces many otherwise talented writers
to fall back on small-scale effects – isolated vignettes or one-trick pony
tales which seem flat even when they work their magic. Gibson’s
landscapes, in contrast, have depth. We get a flavor of social groups
and demographics, but never in a heavy-handed way. We sense the
sprawling cities – and almost all of Gibson’s story-telling is situated in
densely populated urban areas -- and even grok what may lie on its
outskirts or its hidden recesses. We feel the pulse of society, its
nightlife, its compromises, its vices and blind spots. And all of these
elements feel both familiar and strange -- it is a future that we can
recognize as an outgrowth of our dysfunctional present.
But we also have the heroes of the stories. They hardly qualify as
heroes, even if we root for them, cheer on their successes, and lament
their failures. The human element in a Gibson story can be summed up
succinctly in a phrase – his protagonists are almost always lowlifes with
totally rad technology. Gibson fetishizes technology, especially
dangerous cutting-edge gadgets that his dissipated characters covet.
Often the device plugs into their brain, or some other part of their body.
Or they swallow it hole, or get it surgically implanted. If necessary, they
lug it around in a suitcase. But it is always hot stuff, three years ahead
of what everybody else on the street is using.
I have little patience when Gibson gets into his laundry list of gadgets,
but for him this is foreplay in a highly erotic game. Here is a dose from
“New Rose Hotel” in Burning Chrome: “A freezer. A fermenter. An
incubator. An electrophoresis system with integrated agarose cell and
transilluminator. A tissue embedder. A high-performance liquid
chromatograph. A flow cytometer . . .” You get the idea. These are the
mementos that the narrator's ex-girlfriend left behind – like the old pop
song, “these foolish things remind me of you,” only instead of the
“cigarette that bears the lipstick traces” we get “four gross of borosilicate
scintillation vials.”
But don’t let the jargon and gadgets dissuade you from dipping into
Gibson. Although his stories appear, on a superficial level, to focus on
technology, they are really about the ways that waves of change, the
fast-forward ethos of modern-day life, simultaneously empower and
cripple people and societies. As such, he is neither overly utopian or
dystopian. Indeed, more than any science fiction writer of his
generation, Gibson is comfortable with the equivocal and sometimes
even paradoxical nature of our love affair with the gizmos. The
characters in a Gibson story are like Michael Jackson and plastic
surgery – they can’t get enough of it, even when they sense its
destructive toll. By comparison the apocalyptic writers of yesteryear – or
even last year, if one considers Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize
winning novel The Road – seem heavy handed by comparison. The
future, Gibson seems to tell us, will never be that simple.
And this is the reason, I suspect, that Gibson has been so successful as
a fortune teller, as a futurist charting our rapidly changing social
landscape. Other writers have tried to simplify the story, trace the broad
outlines of a purely linear progression into the future. But Gibson knows
that reality is much more multi-layered, full of unintended consequences
and second-order effects. And this is a sensibility that is rare in any
writer, whether they are looking into the future, or probing past and
present.
Follow Ted Gioia on Twitter at
www.twitter.com/tedgioia
Conceptual Fiction:
A Reading List
(with links to essays on each work)
Home Page
Abbott, Edwin A.
Flatland
Adams, Douglas
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Aldiss, Brian
Barefoot in the Head
Aldiss, Brian
Hothouse
Aldiss, Brian
Report on Probability A
Allende, Isabel
The House of the Spirits
Amado, Jorge
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands
Amis, Martin
Time's Arrow
Apuleius
The Golden Ass
Asimov, Isaac
The Foundation Trilogy
Asimov, Isaac
I, Robot
Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid's Tale
Banks, Iain M.
The State of the Art
Ballard, J.G.
The Atrocity Exhibition
Ballard, J.G.
Crash
Ballard, J.G.
The Crystal World
Ballard, J.G.
The Drowned World
Barth, John
Giles Goat-Boy
Bester, Alfred
The Demolished Man
Blish, James
A Case of Conscience
Borges, Jorge Luis
Ficciones
Bradbury, Ray
Dandelion Wine
Bradbury, Ray
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
The Illustrated Man
Bradbury, Ray
The Martian Chronicles
Bradbury, Ray
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Brockmeier, Kevin
The View from the Seventh Layer
Bulgakov, Mikhail
The Master and Margarita
Bunch, David R.
Moderan
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Card, Orson Scott
Ender's Game
Carpentier, Alejo
The Kingdom of This World
Carroll, Lewis
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Chabon, Michael
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Chiang, Ted
Stories of Your Life and Others
Clarke, Arthur C.
Childhood's End
Clarke, Arthur C.
A Fall of Moondust
Clarke, Arthur C.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Clarke, Susanna
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Crowley, John
Little, Big
Danielewski, Mark Z.
The Fifty Year Sword
Danielewski, Mark Z.
House of Leaves
Davies, Robertson
Fifth Business
Delany, Samuel R.
Babel-17
Delany, Samuel R.
Dhalgren
Delany, Samuel R.
The Einstein Intersection
Delany, Samuel R.
Nova
Dick, Philip K.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Dick, Philip K.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Dick, Philip K.
The Man in the High Castle
Dick, Philip K.
Ubik
Dick, Philip K.
VALIS
Disch, Thomas M.
Camp Concentration
Disch, Thomas M.
The Genocides
Doctorow, Cory
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Donoso, José
The Obscene Bird of Night
Ellison, Harlan (editor)
Dangerous Visions
Ellison, Harlan
I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream
Esquivel, Laura
Like Water for Chocolate
Farmer, Philip José
To Your Scattered Bodies Go
Fuentes, Carlos
Aura
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
Gaiman, Neil
Neverwhere
Gibson, William
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
Neuromancer
Grass, Günter
The Tin Drum
Greene, Graham
The End of the Affair
Grossman, Lev
The Magicians
Haldeman, Joe
The Forever War
Hall, Steven
The Raw Shark Texts
Harrison, M. John
The Centauri Device
Harrison, M. John
Light
Heinlein, Robert
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein, Robert:
Stranger in a Strange Land
Heinlein, Robert
Time Enough for Love
Helprin, Mark
Winter's Tale
Herbert, Frank
Dune
Hoffman, Alice
Practical Magic
Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Keret, Etgar
Suddenly, A Knock at the Door
Keyes, Daniel
Flowers for Algernon
Kundera, Milan
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Kunzru, Hari
Gods Without Men
Lafferty, R.A.
Nine Hundred Grandmothers
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Dispossessed
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Lathe of Heaven
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Leiber, Fritz
The Big Time
Leiber, Fritz
Conjure Wife
Leiber, Fritz
Swords & Deviltry
Leiber, Fritz
The Wanderer
Lem, Stanislaw
His Master's Voice
Lem, Stanislaw
Solaris
Lethem, Jonathan
The Fortress of Solitude
Lewis, C. S.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Link, Kelly
Magic for Beginners
Malzberg, Barry N.
Herovit's World
Mann, Thomas
Doctor Faustus
Márquez, Gabriel García
100 Years of Solitude
Markson, David
Wittgenstein's Mistress
Matheson, Richard
Hell House
Matheson, Richard
What Dreams May Come
McCarthy, Cormac
The Road
Miéville, China
Perdido Street Station
Miller, Jr., Walter M.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Millhauser, Steven
Dangerous Laughter
Mitchell, David
Cloud Atlas
Moorcock, Michael
Behold the Man
Moorcock, Michael
The Final Programme
Morrison, Toni
Beloved
Murakami, Haruki
1Q84
Murakami, Haruki
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the
End of the World
Nabokov, Vladimir
Ada, or Ardor
Niffenegger, Audrey
The Time Traveler's Wife
Niven, Larry
Ringworld
Noon, Jeff
Vurt
Obreht, Téa
The Tiger's Wife
O'Brien, Flann
At Swim-Two-Birds
Okri, Ben
The Famished Road
Percy, Walker
Love in the Ruins
Pohl, Frederik
Gateway
Pratchett, Terry
The Color of Magic
Pynchon, Thomas
Gravity's Rainbow
Rabelais, François
Gargantua and Pantagruel
Robinson, Kim Stanley
Red Mars
Rowling, J.K.
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone
Rushdie, Salman
Midnight's Children
Russ, Joanna
The Female Man
Saramago, José
Blindness
Sheckley, Robert
Dimension of Miracles
Sheckley, Robert
Mindswap
Sheckley, Robert
Store of the Worlds
Shelley, Mary
Frankenstein
Silverberg, Robert
Dying Inside
Silverberg, Robert
Nightwings
Silverberg, Robert
The World Inside
Simak, Clifford
City
Simak, Clifford
The Trouble with Tycho
Smith, Cordwainer
Norstrilia
Smith, Cordwainer
The Rediscovery of Man
Stephenson, Neal
Snow Crash
Spinrad, Norman
Bug Jack Barron
Stross, Charles
Glasshouse
Sturgeon, Theodore
More Than Human
Sturgeon, Theodore
Some of Your Blood
Swift, Jonathan
Gulliver's Travels
Thomas, D.M.
The White Hotel
Tiptree, Jr., James
Warm Worlds and Otherwise
Tolkien, J.R.R.
The Hobbit
Updike, John
The Witches of Eastwick
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Mixed Men
Van Vogt, A.E.
Slan
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Voyage of the Space Beagle
Van Vogt, A.E.
The World of Null A
Vance, Jack
Emphyrio
Verne, Jules
Around the Moon
Verne, Jules
From the Earth to the Moon
Verne, Jules:
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Vonnegut, Kurt
Cat's Cradle
Vonnegut, Kurt
The Sirens of Titan
Vonnegut, Kurt
Slaughterhouse-Five
Wallace, David Foster
Infinite Jest
Walpole, Horace
Hieroglyphic Tales
Wells, H.G.
The First Men in the Moon
Wells, H.G.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
Wilson, Robert Anton & Robert Shea
The Illuminatus! Trilogy
Winton, Tim
Cloudstreet
Woolf, Virginia
Orlando
Zabor, Rafi
The Bear Comes Home
Zelazny, Roger
Lord of Light
Zelazny, Roger
This Immortal
Special Features
Notes on Conceptual Fiction
When Science Fiction Grew Up
Ray Bradbury: A Tribute
The Year of Magical Reading
Remembering Fritz Leiber
A Tribute to Richard Matheson
Samuel Delany's 70th birthday
The Sci-Fi of Kurt Vonnegut
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Robert Heinlein at 100
A.E, van Vogt Tribute
The Puzzling Case of Robert Sheckley
The Avant-Garde Sci-Fi of Brian Aldiss
Science Fiction 1958-1975: A Reading List
Links to related sites
The New Canon
Great Books Guide
Postmodern Mystery
Fractious Fiction
Ted Gioia's web site
Ted Gioia on Twitter
SF Site
io9
Graeme's Fantasy Book Review
Los Angeles Review of Books
The Millions
Big Dumb Object
SF Novelists
More Words, Deeper Hole
The Misread City
Reviews and Responses
SF Signal
True Science Fiction
Tor blog
Disclosure: Conceptual Fiction
and its sister sites may receive review
copies and promotional materials from
publishers, authors, publicists or other
parties.
www.twitter.com/tedgioia
Conceptual Fiction:
A Reading List
(with links to essays on each work)
Home Page
Abbott, Edwin A.
Flatland
Adams, Douglas
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Aldiss, Brian
Barefoot in the Head
Aldiss, Brian
Hothouse
Aldiss, Brian
Report on Probability A
Allende, Isabel
The House of the Spirits
Amado, Jorge
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands
Amis, Martin
Time's Arrow
Apuleius
The Golden Ass
Asimov, Isaac
The Foundation Trilogy
Asimov, Isaac
I, Robot
Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid's Tale
Banks, Iain M.
The State of the Art
Ballard, J.G.
The Atrocity Exhibition
Ballard, J.G.
Crash
Ballard, J.G.
The Crystal World
Ballard, J.G.
The Drowned World
Barth, John
Giles Goat-Boy
Bester, Alfred
The Demolished Man
Blish, James
A Case of Conscience
Borges, Jorge Luis
Ficciones
Bradbury, Ray
Dandelion Wine
Bradbury, Ray
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
The Illustrated Man
Bradbury, Ray
The Martian Chronicles
Bradbury, Ray
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Brockmeier, Kevin
The View from the Seventh Layer
Bulgakov, Mikhail
The Master and Margarita
Bunch, David R.
Moderan
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Card, Orson Scott
Ender's Game
Carpentier, Alejo
The Kingdom of This World
Carroll, Lewis
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Chabon, Michael
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Chiang, Ted
Stories of Your Life and Others
Clarke, Arthur C.
Childhood's End
Clarke, Arthur C.
A Fall of Moondust
Clarke, Arthur C.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Clarke, Susanna
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Crowley, John
Little, Big
Danielewski, Mark Z.
The Fifty Year Sword
Danielewski, Mark Z.
House of Leaves
Davies, Robertson
Fifth Business
Delany, Samuel R.
Babel-17
Delany, Samuel R.
Dhalgren
Delany, Samuel R.
The Einstein Intersection
Delany, Samuel R.
Nova
Dick, Philip K.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Dick, Philip K.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Dick, Philip K.
The Man in the High Castle
Dick, Philip K.
Ubik
Dick, Philip K.
VALIS
Disch, Thomas M.
Camp Concentration
Disch, Thomas M.
The Genocides
Doctorow, Cory
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Donoso, José
The Obscene Bird of Night
Ellison, Harlan (editor)
Dangerous Visions
Ellison, Harlan
I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream
Esquivel, Laura
Like Water for Chocolate
Farmer, Philip José
To Your Scattered Bodies Go
Fuentes, Carlos
Aura
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
Gaiman, Neil
Neverwhere
Gibson, William
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
Neuromancer
Grass, Günter
The Tin Drum
Greene, Graham
The End of the Affair
Grossman, Lev
The Magicians
Haldeman, Joe
The Forever War
Hall, Steven
The Raw Shark Texts
Harrison, M. John
The Centauri Device
Harrison, M. John
Light
Heinlein, Robert
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein, Robert:
Stranger in a Strange Land
Heinlein, Robert
Time Enough for Love
Helprin, Mark
Winter's Tale
Herbert, Frank
Dune
Hoffman, Alice
Practical Magic
Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Keret, Etgar
Suddenly, A Knock at the Door
Keyes, Daniel
Flowers for Algernon
Kundera, Milan
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Kunzru, Hari
Gods Without Men
Lafferty, R.A.
Nine Hundred Grandmothers
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Dispossessed
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Lathe of Heaven
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Leiber, Fritz
The Big Time
Leiber, Fritz
Conjure Wife
Leiber, Fritz
Swords & Deviltry
Leiber, Fritz
The Wanderer
Lem, Stanislaw
His Master's Voice
Lem, Stanislaw
Solaris
Lethem, Jonathan
The Fortress of Solitude
Lewis, C. S.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Link, Kelly
Magic for Beginners
Malzberg, Barry N.
Herovit's World
Mann, Thomas
Doctor Faustus
Márquez, Gabriel García
100 Years of Solitude
Markson, David
Wittgenstein's Mistress
Matheson, Richard
Hell House
Matheson, Richard
What Dreams May Come
McCarthy, Cormac
The Road
Miéville, China
Perdido Street Station
Miller, Jr., Walter M.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Millhauser, Steven
Dangerous Laughter
Mitchell, David
Cloud Atlas
Moorcock, Michael
Behold the Man
Moorcock, Michael
The Final Programme
Morrison, Toni
Beloved
Murakami, Haruki
1Q84
Murakami, Haruki
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the
End of the World
Nabokov, Vladimir
Ada, or Ardor
Niffenegger, Audrey
The Time Traveler's Wife
Niven, Larry
Ringworld
Noon, Jeff
Vurt
Obreht, Téa
The Tiger's Wife
O'Brien, Flann
At Swim-Two-Birds
Okri, Ben
The Famished Road
Percy, Walker
Love in the Ruins
Pohl, Frederik
Gateway
Pratchett, Terry
The Color of Magic
Pynchon, Thomas
Gravity's Rainbow
Rabelais, François
Gargantua and Pantagruel
Robinson, Kim Stanley
Red Mars
Rowling, J.K.
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone
Rushdie, Salman
Midnight's Children
Russ, Joanna
The Female Man
Saramago, José
Blindness
Sheckley, Robert
Dimension of Miracles
Sheckley, Robert
Mindswap
Sheckley, Robert
Store of the Worlds
Shelley, Mary
Frankenstein
Silverberg, Robert
Dying Inside
Silverberg, Robert
Nightwings
Silverberg, Robert
The World Inside
Simak, Clifford
City
Simak, Clifford
The Trouble with Tycho
Smith, Cordwainer
Norstrilia
Smith, Cordwainer
The Rediscovery of Man
Stephenson, Neal
Snow Crash
Spinrad, Norman
Bug Jack Barron
Stross, Charles
Glasshouse
Sturgeon, Theodore
More Than Human
Sturgeon, Theodore
Some of Your Blood
Swift, Jonathan
Gulliver's Travels
Thomas, D.M.
The White Hotel
Tiptree, Jr., James
Warm Worlds and Otherwise
Tolkien, J.R.R.
The Hobbit
Updike, John
The Witches of Eastwick
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Mixed Men
Van Vogt, A.E.
Slan
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Voyage of the Space Beagle
Van Vogt, A.E.
The World of Null A
Vance, Jack
Emphyrio
Verne, Jules
Around the Moon
Verne, Jules
From the Earth to the Moon
Verne, Jules:
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Vonnegut, Kurt
Cat's Cradle
Vonnegut, Kurt
The Sirens of Titan
Vonnegut, Kurt
Slaughterhouse-Five
Wallace, David Foster
Infinite Jest
Walpole, Horace
Hieroglyphic Tales
Wells, H.G.
The First Men in the Moon
Wells, H.G.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
Wilson, Robert Anton & Robert Shea
The Illuminatus! Trilogy
Winton, Tim
Cloudstreet
Woolf, Virginia
Orlando
Zabor, Rafi
The Bear Comes Home
Zelazny, Roger
Lord of Light
Zelazny, Roger
This Immortal
Special Features
Notes on Conceptual Fiction
When Science Fiction Grew Up
Ray Bradbury: A Tribute
The Year of Magical Reading
Remembering Fritz Leiber
A Tribute to Richard Matheson
Samuel Delany's 70th birthday
The Sci-Fi of Kurt Vonnegut
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Robert Heinlein at 100
A.E, van Vogt Tribute
The Puzzling Case of Robert Sheckley
The Avant-Garde Sci-Fi of Brian Aldiss
Science Fiction 1958-1975: A Reading List
Links to related sites
The New Canon
Great Books Guide
Postmodern Mystery
Fractious Fiction
Ted Gioia's web site
Ted Gioia on Twitter
SF Site
io9
Graeme's Fantasy Book Review
Los Angeles Review of Books
The Millions
Big Dumb Object
SF Novelists
More Words, Deeper Hole
The Misread City
Reviews and Responses
SF Signal
True Science Fiction
Tor blog
Disclosure: Conceptual Fiction
and its sister sites may receive review
copies and promotional materials from
publishers, authors, publicists or other
parties.