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| Nine Hundred Grandmothers by R.A. Lafferty Essay by Ted Gioia |
In Nine Hundred Grandmothers, R.A. Lafferty violates the most basic
rule of science fiction. Instead of leaping into the future, he descends
into the past. Where other science fiction authors fret about our final
destiny, Lafferty worries about our ultimate origins. Let Bradbury write
of Martians, Heinlein of Venusians. Lafferty, for his part, turns his
attention to grandmothers…and to the grandmothers of the
grandmothers…and to the grandmothers of the grandmothers
of the grandmothers, etc. etc.
The nine hundred grandmothers appear in
the opening tale of this pleasing collection
of short stories, most of them originally
published in various sci-fi magazines
during the 1960s. The title story takes
place on the asteroid Proavitus, where
a team of astronauts is investigating the
terrain and inhabitants, primarily in
pursuit of lucrative trade deals. But
one of the expedition members, Ceran
Swicegood, is distracted by a peculiar
claim of his local informants. Hard as it
is to believe, the natives assert that they
never die—they only get smaller and
smaller as they age. Their old ancestors,
now very tiny, reportedly live in the
basements of their homes, where these miniature forebears spend
most of their time sleeping.
Any other researcher would be excited about the prospect of discovering
the biological basis for immortality. But Swicegood, like his author
R.A. Lafferty, cares about the past, not the future—and especially the
distant past. He is determined to find the oldest of the immortal
ancestors in order to ask the pressing question: "How did it all begin"
He sneaks unobserved into the basement of the home of his best
informant, and begins descending lower and lower through rooms
populated by smaller and smaller 'grandmothers'. I won’t give away
any spoilers, but merely point out that this outlandish concept—and
the overriding sense that the solutions to the mysteries of science
are buried in the depths of a forgotten history—recur again and again
in the imaginative writing of Mr. Lafferty.
In the second story in this collection, "Land of the Great Horses," a
peculiar series of events around the world—involving migrations,
mirages and miracles—requires some sort of scientific explanation.
True to form, Lafferty serves one up, but requires us to peer a
thousand years back into the past to grasp the implications of
these tumultuous changes. In the third story, "Ginny Wrapped in
the Sun," a different anomaly requires a similar excavation of long
distant events—but in this instance Lafferty takes us back a quarter
of million years to the time of Neanderthals. And just when you think
Lafferty can't sink any deeper into the streams of time, the fourth
story in his collection, "The Six Fingers of Time" even gives us a
glimpse back into the Garden of Eden.
This is science fiction, at least of a sort. But Lafferty's preferred
scientists are geologists, evolutionary biologists, forensic
archaeologists, and others who rarely look up to the stars—more
often they are found digging in the dirt. Even when Lafferty goes to
some trouble to construct a futuristic society, as he does in his story
"Thus We Frustrate Charlemagne," he builds his tale around a
group of scientists obsessed with time travel, and the possibility
of tinkering with events of the Middle Ages. Let other sci-fi authors
journey to the stars, Lafferty is too caught up in the intrigues of the
Carolingian Empire during the ninth century AD.
But even if Lafferty is obsessed with the past, his writing is anything
but old-fashioned. His plots are ingenious, his tales well-told. At
times he seems to waver in his allegiances between the dramatic
and the comic, and for stretches he shows his affinity to Kurt
Vonnegut and Robert Sheckley, the masters of 1960s era sci-fi
satire. In truth, Lafferty could have built a career on humorous
tales of hapless protagonists. But he is more of a formalist than
either of those droll contemporaries. Lafferty would never sacrifice
pacing and structure in exchange for laughs, the way, say, Sheckley
does in Mindswap and Dimension of Miracles. Moreover, he has
too bright a disposition to indulge for long in dark satire. As Neil
Gaiman has aptly put it, Lafferty possessed "gravitas about things
that were light" and "antigravitas about important heavy things." But
I'm hardly surprised by that. Lafferty, after all, was that greatest of
rarities, a Roman Catholic novelist who found that his theological-
philosophical vision was compatible with a career writing genre
stories. In his worldview, even the apparently frivolous incident—
whether past, present or distant future—comes pre-equipped
with metaphysical significance.
This orientation may help explain why an author might aim to
unlock the meaning of future events by looking back a couple
thousand years, give or take a few millennia. Religion rarely
figures in Lafferty's plots—at least not overtly—and is hardly
even mentioned in passing by his characters. But his overriding
notion that human destiny can be grasped by searching for a historic
revealed truth…well, let’s just say that science fiction authors hardly
invented that idea.
Lafferty's reputation, for its part, is enjoying a kind of posthumous
resurrection. David Barnett recently announced in The Guardian
that Lafferty, who died in 2002 at age 87, "might just be the most
important science-fiction writer you've never heard of." But many
are hearing about him, nonetheless, if we can judge by the return
to print of his works. A few months back, a publisher released a
limited edition collection of Lafferty's stories, which sold out
almost immediately. The bottleneck seems to be copyrights and
permissions rather than lack of demand. In Japan, where Lafferty's
works have been more easily available, his books are still popular,
even more than a decade after the author's death.
Alas, Nine Hundred Grandmoters is still out print, but perhaps it
too will soon be available. "I'd love to see a Complete Lafferty in
print," Gaiman recently commented. "I used to give people his short
story collection Nine Hundred Grandmothers, until one day it was
out of print and gone." My advice is: don’t wait for a reprint.
Second-hand copies can still be found, although at a sizable
mark-up from their cover price. Yes, perhaps you need to be a
bit of a persistent antiquarian someone with a pressing curiosity
and willing to dig around into the past, if you want to understand
the legacy (or just find copies of the books) of this author. But I
suspect R.A. Lafferty would have quite a bit of sympathy with
precisely that kind of reader.
Ted Gioia writes about music, literature and pop culture. His next book,
a history of love songs, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.
Publication Date: September 14, 2014
rule of science fiction. Instead of leaping into the future, he descends
into the past. Where other science fiction authors fret about our final
destiny, Lafferty worries about our ultimate origins. Let Bradbury write
of Martians, Heinlein of Venusians. Lafferty, for his part, turns his
attention to grandmothers…and to the grandmothers of the
grandmothers…and to the grandmothers of the grandmothers
of the grandmothers, etc. etc.
The nine hundred grandmothers appear in
the opening tale of this pleasing collection
of short stories, most of them originally
published in various sci-fi magazines
during the 1960s. The title story takes
place on the asteroid Proavitus, where
a team of astronauts is investigating the
terrain and inhabitants, primarily in
pursuit of lucrative trade deals. But
one of the expedition members, Ceran
Swicegood, is distracted by a peculiar
claim of his local informants. Hard as it
is to believe, the natives assert that they
never die—they only get smaller and
smaller as they age. Their old ancestors,
now very tiny, reportedly live in the
basements of their homes, where these miniature forebears spend
most of their time sleeping.
Any other researcher would be excited about the prospect of discovering
the biological basis for immortality. But Swicegood, like his author
R.A. Lafferty, cares about the past, not the future—and especially the
distant past. He is determined to find the oldest of the immortal
ancestors in order to ask the pressing question: "How did it all begin"
He sneaks unobserved into the basement of the home of his best
informant, and begins descending lower and lower through rooms
populated by smaller and smaller 'grandmothers'. I won’t give away
any spoilers, but merely point out that this outlandish concept—and
the overriding sense that the solutions to the mysteries of science
are buried in the depths of a forgotten history—recur again and again
in the imaginative writing of Mr. Lafferty.
In the second story in this collection, "Land of the Great Horses," a
peculiar series of events around the world—involving migrations,
mirages and miracles—requires some sort of scientific explanation.
True to form, Lafferty serves one up, but requires us to peer a
thousand years back into the past to grasp the implications of
these tumultuous changes. In the third story, "Ginny Wrapped in
the Sun," a different anomaly requires a similar excavation of long
distant events—but in this instance Lafferty takes us back a quarter
of million years to the time of Neanderthals. And just when you think
Lafferty can't sink any deeper into the streams of time, the fourth
story in his collection, "The Six Fingers of Time" even gives us a
glimpse back into the Garden of Eden.
This is science fiction, at least of a sort. But Lafferty's preferred
scientists are geologists, evolutionary biologists, forensic
archaeologists, and others who rarely look up to the stars—more
often they are found digging in the dirt. Even when Lafferty goes to
some trouble to construct a futuristic society, as he does in his story
"Thus We Frustrate Charlemagne," he builds his tale around a
group of scientists obsessed with time travel, and the possibility
of tinkering with events of the Middle Ages. Let other sci-fi authors
journey to the stars, Lafferty is too caught up in the intrigues of the
Carolingian Empire during the ninth century AD.
But even if Lafferty is obsessed with the past, his writing is anything
but old-fashioned. His plots are ingenious, his tales well-told. At
times he seems to waver in his allegiances between the dramatic
and the comic, and for stretches he shows his affinity to Kurt
Vonnegut and Robert Sheckley, the masters of 1960s era sci-fi
satire. In truth, Lafferty could have built a career on humorous
tales of hapless protagonists. But he is more of a formalist than
either of those droll contemporaries. Lafferty would never sacrifice
pacing and structure in exchange for laughs, the way, say, Sheckley
does in Mindswap and Dimension of Miracles. Moreover, he has
too bright a disposition to indulge for long in dark satire. As Neil
Gaiman has aptly put it, Lafferty possessed "gravitas about things
that were light" and "antigravitas about important heavy things." But
I'm hardly surprised by that. Lafferty, after all, was that greatest of
rarities, a Roman Catholic novelist who found that his theological-
philosophical vision was compatible with a career writing genre
stories. In his worldview, even the apparently frivolous incident—
whether past, present or distant future—comes pre-equipped
with metaphysical significance.
This orientation may help explain why an author might aim to
unlock the meaning of future events by looking back a couple
thousand years, give or take a few millennia. Religion rarely
figures in Lafferty's plots—at least not overtly—and is hardly
even mentioned in passing by his characters. But his overriding
notion that human destiny can be grasped by searching for a historic
revealed truth…well, let’s just say that science fiction authors hardly
invented that idea.
Lafferty's reputation, for its part, is enjoying a kind of posthumous
resurrection. David Barnett recently announced in The Guardian
that Lafferty, who died in 2002 at age 87, "might just be the most
important science-fiction writer you've never heard of." But many
are hearing about him, nonetheless, if we can judge by the return
to print of his works. A few months back, a publisher released a
limited edition collection of Lafferty's stories, which sold out
almost immediately. The bottleneck seems to be copyrights and
permissions rather than lack of demand. In Japan, where Lafferty's
works have been more easily available, his books are still popular,
even more than a decade after the author's death.
Alas, Nine Hundred Grandmoters is still out print, but perhaps it
too will soon be available. "I'd love to see a Complete Lafferty in
print," Gaiman recently commented. "I used to give people his short
story collection Nine Hundred Grandmothers, until one day it was
out of print and gone." My advice is: don’t wait for a reprint.
Second-hand copies can still be found, although at a sizable
mark-up from their cover price. Yes, perhaps you need to be a
bit of a persistent antiquarian someone with a pressing curiosity
and willing to dig around into the past, if you want to understand
the legacy (or just find copies of the books) of this author. But I
suspect R.A. Lafferty would have quite a bit of sympathy with
precisely that kind of reader.
Ted Gioia writes about music, literature and pop culture. His next book,
a history of love songs, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.
Publication Date: September 14, 2014
| To purchase, click on image |
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Special Features
Notes on Conceptual Fiction
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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Around the Moon
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Cat's Cradle
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The Sirens of Titan
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Hieroglyphic Tales
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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
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Cloudstreet
Woolf, Virginia
Orlando
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The Bear Comes Home
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Lord of Light
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