By 1974, when M. John Harrison dropped The Centauri Device
on an unsuspecting literary world, nothing in sci-fi smelled worse
than the astronaut adventure. More stale than an old, forgotten box
of Space Food Sticks, these stories seemed trapped in a perpetual
time warp, repeating the tired recipes of the Golden Age of Sci-Fi.
After reading a few pages, I usually feel driven to put down these
formula-driven books and proclaim, to whomever happens to be
close enough to hear: "Houston, we definitely have a problem!"
Meanwhile reality had gone in a different
direction by 1974—if aimlessness counts
as a direction. The Apollo program had
ended two years earlier, successfully
transporting some cool photographs back
to planet Earth, along with 842 pounds of
rocks. Dreams of human exploration of the
rest of the solar system and beyond, which
had fueled thousands of visionary stories
over the years, now seemed just that:
dreams, empty and without substance.
Shortly after Harrison published his novel,
George Lucas would spend millions
reinvigorating the space opera, but any
shrewd observer could see that the sub-
genre had turned into sheer escapism
akin to a thrill park ride in a high tech
amusement park.
Harrison himself had made his name as a
critic of banal, formulaic science fiction, unsparing in his vitriol but
bold enough to try his hand at reinventing the tired space opera.
"No genre is beyond redemption," British sci-fi author Colin
Greenland has noted, not even the astronaut adventure. In this
regard, Greenland held up Harrison's The Centauri Device for
particular praise as the "book I held in highest esteem….It's weird,
it's fun, it's literate, it's humane, it's even political, and it's space
opera." But he adds: "I once made the mistake of telling Mr.
Harrison how much I was inspired by The Centauri Device.
He looked decidedly affronted. ‘Well you shouldn’t be,’ he
said truculently. ‘It’s a very bad book.’”
As I said above, Harrison can be unsparing.
Yet The Centauri Device cannot be dismissed so glibly, even by
its author. He may not have succeeded in revitalizing the space
opera—as the mindless and endless stream of Star Wars books
would soon prove—but he made a valiant effort to blaze a new trail.
Few would imitate Harrison's initiative, but this for the simplest
of reasons: who could?
Related Reading
Light by M. John Harrison (reviewed by Ted Gioia)
To start, Harrison creates a protagonist, John Truck, who is neither
hero nor antihero, but the greatest anomaly of them all, a sci-fi
catalyst whose most salient traits are apathy, listlessness and
passive acceptance of the status quo. Yet Truck somehow
manages to parlay these qualities into galaxy-changing virtues.
No, Harrison hardly invented the notion of the passive hero (see
Hamlet, for the most famous example), but readers of genre
fiction in general and outer space stories in particular, would
rightly wonder whether the Prince of Denmark, or anyone
imitating his indecision, might survive long on an intergalactic
battlefield.
Truck makes his living running a low-level interstellar freight
operation, but suddenly finds himself in the midst of a power
struggle between warring factions. Each wants his cooperation
in securing and activating a weapon invented by the Centaurans,
a now extinct species killed in a genocidal war by human
adversaries. The Centauri device, a mysterious sentient bomb with
unfathomable properties, can only be controlled by someone
with Centauran DNA. Truck is apparently the last person in the
universe with some Centauran blood in his veins. He is, unwittingly,
the indispensable man, and is forced to play a hand in this high
stakes games despite his indifference to politics and military
affairs.
He is, as noted above, an unsuitable hero by the traditional
standards of sci-fi. But Harrison rejects other key aspects of
the space opera tradition he inherited. A pacifist streak
permeates The Centauri Device, and every ideology proffered
as 'worth fighting for' in these pages is questioned and found
wanting. The reader hoping to root for the 'good guys' against
the 'bad guys' will struggle to find a cause worth supporting in
this intergalactic struggle. Harrison provides us with a panoply
of interests—socialist, free market, Israeli, Arab, human, non-
human, religious, opportunist—and finds them all equally
spurious in their claims and untrustworthy in their agendas.
Harrison briefly wavers in his non-aligned status, and allows
his readers to cheer on a group of aesthete anarchists, who
intermittently emerge as combatants, and come as close to
positive role models as you will find in this work. But this
proves an illusory hope. Anarchists once again show that the
only thing they can predictably deliver is….well, anarchy. Few
of them emerge from this novel in one piece, or prove
capable of winning peace.
Harrison seems on the brink of embracing nihilism as the central
value of The Centauri Device. But gradually the reader
comprehends a different agenda at work here, and it is neither
left nor right, anarchic or nihilistic. Harrison actually takes on
the most radical value of them all, namely anointing losers as
winners. As the reader comes to learn, the Centaurans represent
more than a historical lesson or technological McGuffin-makers
in this book. They are patron saints of all the outcasts, drifters
and victims in the universe. If Donald Fagen were around, he
would call them Deacon Blues. But though they may have lost
the war, and their very lives, perhaps they left something behind
that will tip the balance of power.
Harrison has bit off more than a mouthful in undertaking such a
self-cancelling adventure story. He struggles again and again to
find ways of energizing the plot, and can hardly rely on his
protagonist, who is a captive pawn and spectator throughout most
of the novel. As a storyteller, Harrison will never put Heinlein,
Asimov or Clarke out of business. But he compensates through
the power of his prose and the zany qualities of his characters.
Judged on a sentence by sentence basis, The Centauri Device
ranks among the best written sci-fi books of its era. And a handful
of secondary personages here—Dr. Grishkin the Opener and
Himation, the conjurer-astronaut-anarchist—are as intriguing
and provocative as anything you will find in genre fiction.
Despite these virtues, The Centauri Device often feels like a
novella stretched out beyond its author's ability to support it.
Harrison continually places his non-hero as a captive in the hands
of incompetent wardens, who allow him to escape, only to be
seized by another party. After the fifth or sixth time this happens,
readers justifiably grow impatient with their passive protagonist,
and even the juiciest metaphors and modifying clauses can't
prevent a sense of ennui settling in over the story.
But the author—and perhaps the Centauri bomb itself—does
hold some explosive power in reserve for the ending. Yes, our
indifferent astronaut does finally make a bold move…and perhaps
not the one we expected. Readers can decide for themselves
whether this conclusion reinforces the themes of passivity
and pacification that permeate the book, or simply shows them
up as one more failed ideology.
Ted Gioia writes on music, literature and pop culture. His next book, a history
of love songs, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.
Publication date August 10, 2014
on an unsuspecting literary world, nothing in sci-fi smelled worse
than the astronaut adventure. More stale than an old, forgotten box
of Space Food Sticks, these stories seemed trapped in a perpetual
time warp, repeating the tired recipes of the Golden Age of Sci-Fi.
After reading a few pages, I usually feel driven to put down these
formula-driven books and proclaim, to whomever happens to be
close enough to hear: "Houston, we definitely have a problem!"
Meanwhile reality had gone in a different
direction by 1974—if aimlessness counts
as a direction. The Apollo program had
ended two years earlier, successfully
transporting some cool photographs back
to planet Earth, along with 842 pounds of
rocks. Dreams of human exploration of the
rest of the solar system and beyond, which
had fueled thousands of visionary stories
over the years, now seemed just that:
dreams, empty and without substance.
Shortly after Harrison published his novel,
George Lucas would spend millions
reinvigorating the space opera, but any
shrewd observer could see that the sub-
genre had turned into sheer escapism
akin to a thrill park ride in a high tech
amusement park.
Harrison himself had made his name as a
critic of banal, formulaic science fiction, unsparing in his vitriol but
bold enough to try his hand at reinventing the tired space opera.
"No genre is beyond redemption," British sci-fi author Colin
Greenland has noted, not even the astronaut adventure. In this
regard, Greenland held up Harrison's The Centauri Device for
particular praise as the "book I held in highest esteem….It's weird,
it's fun, it's literate, it's humane, it's even political, and it's space
opera." But he adds: "I once made the mistake of telling Mr.
Harrison how much I was inspired by The Centauri Device.
He looked decidedly affronted. ‘Well you shouldn’t be,’ he
said truculently. ‘It’s a very bad book.’”
As I said above, Harrison can be unsparing.
Yet The Centauri Device cannot be dismissed so glibly, even by
its author. He may not have succeeded in revitalizing the space
opera—as the mindless and endless stream of Star Wars books
would soon prove—but he made a valiant effort to blaze a new trail.
Few would imitate Harrison's initiative, but this for the simplest
of reasons: who could?
Related Reading
Light by M. John Harrison (reviewed by Ted Gioia)
To start, Harrison creates a protagonist, John Truck, who is neither
hero nor antihero, but the greatest anomaly of them all, a sci-fi
catalyst whose most salient traits are apathy, listlessness and
passive acceptance of the status quo. Yet Truck somehow
manages to parlay these qualities into galaxy-changing virtues.
No, Harrison hardly invented the notion of the passive hero (see
Hamlet, for the most famous example), but readers of genre
fiction in general and outer space stories in particular, would
rightly wonder whether the Prince of Denmark, or anyone
imitating his indecision, might survive long on an intergalactic
battlefield.
Truck makes his living running a low-level interstellar freight
operation, but suddenly finds himself in the midst of a power
struggle between warring factions. Each wants his cooperation
in securing and activating a weapon invented by the Centaurans,
a now extinct species killed in a genocidal war by human
adversaries. The Centauri device, a mysterious sentient bomb with
unfathomable properties, can only be controlled by someone
with Centauran DNA. Truck is apparently the last person in the
universe with some Centauran blood in his veins. He is, unwittingly,
the indispensable man, and is forced to play a hand in this high
stakes games despite his indifference to politics and military
affairs.
He is, as noted above, an unsuitable hero by the traditional
standards of sci-fi. But Harrison rejects other key aspects of
the space opera tradition he inherited. A pacifist streak
permeates The Centauri Device, and every ideology proffered
as 'worth fighting for' in these pages is questioned and found
wanting. The reader hoping to root for the 'good guys' against
the 'bad guys' will struggle to find a cause worth supporting in
this intergalactic struggle. Harrison provides us with a panoply
of interests—socialist, free market, Israeli, Arab, human, non-
human, religious, opportunist—and finds them all equally
spurious in their claims and untrustworthy in their agendas.
Harrison briefly wavers in his non-aligned status, and allows
his readers to cheer on a group of aesthete anarchists, who
intermittently emerge as combatants, and come as close to
positive role models as you will find in this work. But this
proves an illusory hope. Anarchists once again show that the
only thing they can predictably deliver is….well, anarchy. Few
of them emerge from this novel in one piece, or prove
capable of winning peace.
Harrison seems on the brink of embracing nihilism as the central
value of The Centauri Device. But gradually the reader
comprehends a different agenda at work here, and it is neither
left nor right, anarchic or nihilistic. Harrison actually takes on
the most radical value of them all, namely anointing losers as
winners. As the reader comes to learn, the Centaurans represent
more than a historical lesson or technological McGuffin-makers
in this book. They are patron saints of all the outcasts, drifters
and victims in the universe. If Donald Fagen were around, he
would call them Deacon Blues. But though they may have lost
the war, and their very lives, perhaps they left something behind
that will tip the balance of power.
Harrison has bit off more than a mouthful in undertaking such a
self-cancelling adventure story. He struggles again and again to
find ways of energizing the plot, and can hardly rely on his
protagonist, who is a captive pawn and spectator throughout most
of the novel. As a storyteller, Harrison will never put Heinlein,
Asimov or Clarke out of business. But he compensates through
the power of his prose and the zany qualities of his characters.
Judged on a sentence by sentence basis, The Centauri Device
ranks among the best written sci-fi books of its era. And a handful
of secondary personages here—Dr. Grishkin the Opener and
Himation, the conjurer-astronaut-anarchist—are as intriguing
and provocative as anything you will find in genre fiction.
Despite these virtues, The Centauri Device often feels like a
novella stretched out beyond its author's ability to support it.
Harrison continually places his non-hero as a captive in the hands
of incompetent wardens, who allow him to escape, only to be
seized by another party. After the fifth or sixth time this happens,
readers justifiably grow impatient with their passive protagonist,
and even the juiciest metaphors and modifying clauses can't
prevent a sense of ennui settling in over the story.
But the author—and perhaps the Centauri bomb itself—does
hold some explosive power in reserve for the ending. Yes, our
indifferent astronaut does finally make a bold move…and perhaps
not the one we expected. Readers can decide for themselves
whether this conclusion reinforces the themes of passivity
and pacification that permeate the book, or simply shows them
up as one more failed ideology.
Ted Gioia writes on music, literature and pop culture. His next book, a history
of love songs, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.
Publication date August 10, 2014
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published since 1985
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Great literary works
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Postmodern Mystery
Experimental works of mystery &
suspense
Fractious Fiction
Radical, unconventional and
experimental fiction
| conceptual fiction Exploring the Non-Realist Tradition in Fiction |
| The Centauri Device by M. John Harrison |
| Essay by Ted Gioia |
To purchase, click on image.
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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
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
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