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Great literary works published
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Experimental works of mystery
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Fractious Fiction
Radical and unconventional
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Robert Sheckley is a maddening author to read. He could have been a famous
crossover talent, breaking out of the sci-fi ghetto into the literary mainstream, a
master of the profound and the absurd attuned to the emerging counterculture
of the 1960s. Certainly Sheckley possessed all the ingredients for greatness:
unfettered imagination, a deft prose style, a wild sense of humor, a philosophical
bent, and an acute eye for the fashions and foibles of his fellow earthlings.
Yet Sheckley's longer works suffer from a slapdash
sensibility. The plots wander, characters are hastily
constructed without drive or focus, incidents are
strung together without rhyme or reason, and dropped
as soon as Sheckley loses interest with them—which
is usually sooner rather than later. Even Vonnegut
seems like a tight formalist by comparison. Sheckley's
extended efforts are marketed as novels, but they remind
me more of those old Broadway revues from the Jazz
Age, in which a series of set pieces and routines are
presented for the entertainment of the audience, with
only the most cursory attempt at linking them together
into a narrative.
Yet the miracle in this novel about miracles is that
Sheckley can achieve so much despite these shortcomings.
The man was brilliant, make no mistake about it. Dimension of Miracles has no
structure, no narrative arc, but almost every page offers something pleasingly zany
or piquant or provocative for your enjoyment. The characters may be made of
cardboard, but they are colorfully decked out. The dialogue can seem aimless, yet
somehow manages to address deep issues amidst all the superficial chatter. Put
simply, the book is a mess, but still only a few steps away from earning accolades
as a masterpiece.
When tackling longer forms, Sheckley typically returned to the earliest origins of
science fiction as speculative travel literature—we see the roots of this in the sci-fi
interlude in Gulliver’s Travels, and Jules Verne later established it as a powerful
formula for the genre. In truth, we can trace this loose travel-oriented structure for
an adventure narrative back to Homer's Odyssey, or even more distantly to various
myths and legends, which rely on a hero’s journey into the unknown as a entry point
into conflicts, discoveries and awe-inspiring sightseeing.
Alas, Sheckley wants to write sci-fi travel narratives, but he has no patience with any
journey that takes more than a fraction of a second, let alone time-consuming space
flights into distant galaxies. So in Dimension of Miracles, as with his other leading
novels Mindswap and Immortality, Inc., the story begins with his unwitting protagonist
getting transported, almost magically, into the first of a series of anxiety-provoking
incidents. When the first adventure loses steam, the hero gets transported to another,
typically unrelated, situation, which serves as the setting for the next crisis. And so on
and so forth.
In Dimension of Miracles, the hero is Tom Carmody, a hapless New Yorker
('hapless' is almost always the right word to describe a Sheckley protagonist).
A messenger arrives in Carmody's living room, amidst a bolt of lightning and
clap of thunder, and tells him that has won the Galactic Lottery. Carmody is
ushered off to the Galactic Center to claim his prize, a trip that proves to be
"brief, lasting no more than Instantaneity plus one microsecond squared."
Readers are never quite clear what the prize is—it starts out as a "small,
brightly-wrapped parcel" but changes shape and nature several times during
the course of the book. Yet whatever its form, it can speak, and turns into an
amiable, but occasionally petulant, sidekick for the resulting adventures.
Carmody now wants to return home, but the bureaucrats at the Galactic Center
prove even more incompetent than their counterparts on planet Earth. They aren't
sure how to get the prize-winner back to New York, or even to the right solar system
and correct universe. He must travel around, checking in with various local deities
in the galaxy, until he finds the god-like force that can bring him back to Manhattan.
This is not a promising beginning, but Sheckley doesn’t need much to work his
wonders. Carmody gets to interrogate some quasi-deities during his travels, and
these scenes are so smartly written that you could even assign them as required
reading for theology students, and stir up a devilish debate. God should never appear
as a character in your novel, Philip K. Dick once warned, but Sheckley shows that
you can safely ignore this advice—at least if you are as clever as him in constructing
dialogues between a wandering New Yorker and an omnipotent being.
But Sheckley, true to form, quickly loses interest in everything, even the process of
divine creation. After interviews with two deities—the fickle Melichrone and the
cost-cutting Maudsley—Carmody is transported (again instantaneously) into a
series of probable Earths in possible Universes. The science here is vague and
fuzzy, and the metaphysics even less solid, but Sheckley only wants a pretext for
various skits and satire. He sends Carmody to a city so perfectly constructed that
all of the inhabitants have abandoned it. Then Carmody travels to another universe
in which everyone speaks in Mad Men-era advertising copy. And then Carmody
must deal with a dangerous predator who can take on the appearance of a space
ship, a subway station, or whatever else it needs to camouflage its intention of
swallowing up our hapless hero. (Yes, 'hapless' is the right word again.)
The book fizzles out at the end. Sheckley isn't very good at tying together loose
ends. Let's be honest, he hardly even makes an effort here. Many have seen
Dimension of Miracles as a precursor to Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy—Adams, who didn’t know about Sheckley’s work when he
wrote his bestseller, was later struck by the similarities. But even the rambling
Adams offers more closure than Sheckley, who seems to stop worrying about
his characters' problems after a few hours of writing (or perhaps when he reaches
the requisite daily word count).
Yes, this is maddening. With a little more attention to the nuts and bolts of writing,
Sheckley might have delivered one of the great counterculture classics. Instead,
Dimension of Miracles is not only mostly forgotten, but even unavailable in print.
If you want a hardcover copy, be prepared to shell out more than five hundred
dollars. Yet this is Sheckley's strongest novel, and even with its flaws, well worth
reading.
Ted Gioia writes on music, literature and popular culture. His next book, a history of
love songs, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.
Publication date: July 21, 2014
crossover talent, breaking out of the sci-fi ghetto into the literary mainstream, a
master of the profound and the absurd attuned to the emerging counterculture
of the 1960s. Certainly Sheckley possessed all the ingredients for greatness:
unfettered imagination, a deft prose style, a wild sense of humor, a philosophical
bent, and an acute eye for the fashions and foibles of his fellow earthlings.
Yet Sheckley's longer works suffer from a slapdash
sensibility. The plots wander, characters are hastily
constructed without drive or focus, incidents are
strung together without rhyme or reason, and dropped
as soon as Sheckley loses interest with them—which
is usually sooner rather than later. Even Vonnegut
seems like a tight formalist by comparison. Sheckley's
extended efforts are marketed as novels, but they remind
me more of those old Broadway revues from the Jazz
Age, in which a series of set pieces and routines are
presented for the entertainment of the audience, with
only the most cursory attempt at linking them together
into a narrative.
Yet the miracle in this novel about miracles is that
Sheckley can achieve so much despite these shortcomings.
The man was brilliant, make no mistake about it. Dimension of Miracles has no
structure, no narrative arc, but almost every page offers something pleasingly zany
or piquant or provocative for your enjoyment. The characters may be made of
cardboard, but they are colorfully decked out. The dialogue can seem aimless, yet
somehow manages to address deep issues amidst all the superficial chatter. Put
simply, the book is a mess, but still only a few steps away from earning accolades
as a masterpiece.
When tackling longer forms, Sheckley typically returned to the earliest origins of
science fiction as speculative travel literature—we see the roots of this in the sci-fi
interlude in Gulliver’s Travels, and Jules Verne later established it as a powerful
formula for the genre. In truth, we can trace this loose travel-oriented structure for
an adventure narrative back to Homer's Odyssey, or even more distantly to various
myths and legends, which rely on a hero’s journey into the unknown as a entry point
into conflicts, discoveries and awe-inspiring sightseeing.
Alas, Sheckley wants to write sci-fi travel narratives, but he has no patience with any
journey that takes more than a fraction of a second, let alone time-consuming space
flights into distant galaxies. So in Dimension of Miracles, as with his other leading
novels Mindswap and Immortality, Inc., the story begins with his unwitting protagonist
getting transported, almost magically, into the first of a series of anxiety-provoking
incidents. When the first adventure loses steam, the hero gets transported to another,
typically unrelated, situation, which serves as the setting for the next crisis. And so on
and so forth.
In Dimension of Miracles, the hero is Tom Carmody, a hapless New Yorker
('hapless' is almost always the right word to describe a Sheckley protagonist).
A messenger arrives in Carmody's living room, amidst a bolt of lightning and
clap of thunder, and tells him that has won the Galactic Lottery. Carmody is
ushered off to the Galactic Center to claim his prize, a trip that proves to be
"brief, lasting no more than Instantaneity plus one microsecond squared."
Readers are never quite clear what the prize is—it starts out as a "small,
brightly-wrapped parcel" but changes shape and nature several times during
the course of the book. Yet whatever its form, it can speak, and turns into an
amiable, but occasionally petulant, sidekick for the resulting adventures.
Carmody now wants to return home, but the bureaucrats at the Galactic Center
prove even more incompetent than their counterparts on planet Earth. They aren't
sure how to get the prize-winner back to New York, or even to the right solar system
and correct universe. He must travel around, checking in with various local deities
in the galaxy, until he finds the god-like force that can bring him back to Manhattan.
This is not a promising beginning, but Sheckley doesn’t need much to work his
wonders. Carmody gets to interrogate some quasi-deities during his travels, and
these scenes are so smartly written that you could even assign them as required
reading for theology students, and stir up a devilish debate. God should never appear
as a character in your novel, Philip K. Dick once warned, but Sheckley shows that
you can safely ignore this advice—at least if you are as clever as him in constructing
dialogues between a wandering New Yorker and an omnipotent being.
But Sheckley, true to form, quickly loses interest in everything, even the process of
divine creation. After interviews with two deities—the fickle Melichrone and the
cost-cutting Maudsley—Carmody is transported (again instantaneously) into a
series of probable Earths in possible Universes. The science here is vague and
fuzzy, and the metaphysics even less solid, but Sheckley only wants a pretext for
various skits and satire. He sends Carmody to a city so perfectly constructed that
all of the inhabitants have abandoned it. Then Carmody travels to another universe
in which everyone speaks in Mad Men-era advertising copy. And then Carmody
must deal with a dangerous predator who can take on the appearance of a space
ship, a subway station, or whatever else it needs to camouflage its intention of
swallowing up our hapless hero. (Yes, 'hapless' is the right word again.)
The book fizzles out at the end. Sheckley isn't very good at tying together loose
ends. Let's be honest, he hardly even makes an effort here. Many have seen
Dimension of Miracles as a precursor to Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy—Adams, who didn’t know about Sheckley’s work when he
wrote his bestseller, was later struck by the similarities. But even the rambling
Adams offers more closure than Sheckley, who seems to stop worrying about
his characters' problems after a few hours of writing (or perhaps when he reaches
the requisite daily word count).
Yes, this is maddening. With a little more attention to the nuts and bolts of writing,
Sheckley might have delivered one of the great counterculture classics. Instead,
Dimension of Miracles is not only mostly forgotten, but even unavailable in print.
If you want a hardcover copy, be prepared to shell out more than five hundred
dollars. Yet this is Sheckley's strongest novel, and even with its flaws, well worth
reading.
Ted Gioia writes on music, literature and popular culture. His next book, a history of
love songs, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.
Publication date: July 21, 2014
Dimension of Miracles
by Robert Sheckley
Essay by Ted Gioia
by Robert Sheckley
Essay by Ted Gioia
| Click on image to purchase |
| conceptual fiction Exploring the Non-Realist Tradition in Fiction |
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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
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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
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Cloudstreet
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The Bear Comes Home
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Lord of Light
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This Immortal
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