by Ted Gioia
Fantasy and science fiction, marked at their birth
as the most heroic of genres, were destined to flip-
flop and take on a mock heroic stance. Didn't
Hegel tell us all things turn into their opposites?
Yes, we've lived through dialectical times. We now
see Mao smile at us from the currency of the
most capitalist society on the planet. We've watched
democracies elect "Presidents for Life," and no one
even chuckles at the term. We've even seen Madonna
rise to fame through a song extolling virginity. So
we shouldn't be surprised when the fantasy hero
turns into the fantasy failure.
But this was heady stuff when
it first arrived on the scene
—and, no, we're not talking
about Madonna's corset. Kurt
Vonnegut was the first sig-
nificant author to develop this
new approach to genre fiction.
In works such as The Sirens of
Titan and Cat's Cradle, he poked
gentle fun at sci-fi conventions
even as he employed them on
almost every page. But the
anti-golden age of mock space
operas didn't arrive until the late 1970s and early
1980s, when Douglas Adams published The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Terry Pratchett
launched his Discworld series.
These changes in intergalactic entertainments had
more than a little bit in common with terrestrial
fictions of various sorts and stripes. The
postmodernist spirit pervading the literary world
during this same period inspired a whole generation
of highbrow writers to undermine their own
premises. Stories swallowed their own tales,
characters rebelled against their authors, and a
general spirit of revelry, sometimes collapsing into
anarchy, prevailed. The dominant tone of the era
was irony. The most prized pursuits were the most
futile. The butt of the joke was often the reader,
who was expected to laugh along and keep turning
the pages.
And they usually did. Especially when the story-
teller was Terry Pratchett, who still remains the
master of the mock heroic tone in fantasy fiction.
In Pratchett's The Color of Magic—the first book in
his popular Discworld series—he launched a franchise
that would eventually sell more than 70 million
books, and spawn translations into more than three
dozen languages. Until Harry Potter came along,
Pratchett routinely dominated the fantasy series
bestseller charts, and if the truth be told, those
amusing scenes in J.K. Rowling's books when spells
go wrong and wizardry blends seamlessly with
comedy will remind readers of Pratchett's
precedence. For these efforts, our author became
Sir Terry Pratchett in 2009.
Rincewind, the wizard hero of The Color of Magic,
could hardly be more incompetent. He got kicked
out of the Unseen University for wizards (yes, it
was founded before Hogwarts), and only knows
one spell—and that incantation is so dangerous
even he doesn't dare use it. Rincewind encounters
adventures inadvertently—usually while retreating
from the last one. Where other heroes rescue,
Rincewind is invariably rescued.
Rincewind's traveling companion Twoflower is the
wizard's antithesis. He is a tourist in Discworld,
and his insatiable curiosity for new sights and
experiences invariably prods him forward into risky
terrain. He scorns danger, not through bravery but
due to naiveté and an appealing insouciance.
Twoflower makes many bad decisions—first and
foremost, hiring Rincewind as his guide—but
possesses a lucky streak that gets him through the
worst binds unscathed.
Of course, he has a little help. Lady Luck, an
official goddess of Discworld, even pays Twoflower
a visit during the course of these pages. But
Twoflower's greatest resource may be his luggage.
An iron-bound chest constructed of sapient
pearwood, this suitcase has legs and follows
wherever its master goes. Anyone who tries to
steal its contents finds some sharp teeth and a
Rolling Stones-sized tongue inside. In the long
history of magical containers—from Pandora's box
to Felix the Cat's bag of tricks—this loyal luggage is
best equipped to win the popularity contest, and is
awarded with a starring role in Pratchett's novel.
Perhaps I should spare a few words on the
cosmogony of Discworld. Pratchett himself,
renouncing the time-honored practice of fantasy
writers, refuses to provide a map. "You can't map
a sense of humor," he explains. "Anyway, what is a
fantasy map but a space beyond which There Be
Dragons?" But he is not telling the whole truth
here. Beyond Discworld, instead of a dragon, one
encounters a giant turtle, the Great A'Tuin, who
slowly trods through outer space. On the turtle's
back stand four very large elephants. And on the
backs of the elephants sits the large plate of
Discworld.
Yes, you can fall off the edge. A nasty experience,
to be sure, but at least you get a good look at the
turtle and elephants as you spin off into outer
space. Indeed, this is one of the terrors that
Rincewind and Twoflower must face in their
travels, but by no means the only one. They are
also pursued by thieves, slated for extermination by
evil rulers, threatened by fire, water, earth and air in
many of their nastiest manifestations. Slave-traders
want to sell them into slavery, and the rescuers
want to offer them as a sacrifices to Fate. As if all
that isn't bad enough, the Grim Reaper shows up
periodically during the course of The Color of Magic.
You can tell when he arrives—he's the dude with
no flesh on his skull, and always speaks in capital
letters. (Typical small talk from Death: THE
WHITE PLAGUE ABIDES EVEN NOW IN
PSEUDOPOLIS AND I AM BOUND THERE
TO RESCUE MANY OF ITS CITIZENS FROM
HIS GRASP.)
How do you wrap up a rambling picaresque parody
such as this one? Pratchett pulls out all the stops
and delivers an edgy—or perhaps 'over the edge' is a
better descriptor—climactic stunt reminiscent of
Slim Pickens' most famous scene in Dr. Strangelove.
And how can you top that? Well, Pratchett rose to
the occasion. He followed up The Color of Magic with
38 additional Discworld novels, an encore in excess of
three million words and spanning almost three
decades.
Ted Gioia writes on music, literature, and popular culture.
His newest book is The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the
Repertoire.
Fantasy and science fiction, marked at their birth
as the most heroic of genres, were destined to flip-
flop and take on a mock heroic stance. Didn't
Hegel tell us all things turn into their opposites?
Yes, we've lived through dialectical times. We now
see Mao smile at us from the currency of the
most capitalist society on the planet. We've watched
democracies elect "Presidents for Life," and no one
even chuckles at the term. We've even seen Madonna
rise to fame through a song extolling virginity. So
we shouldn't be surprised when the fantasy hero
turns into the fantasy failure.
But this was heady stuff when
it first arrived on the scene
—and, no, we're not talking
about Madonna's corset. Kurt
Vonnegut was the first sig-
nificant author to develop this
new approach to genre fiction.
In works such as The Sirens of
Titan and Cat's Cradle, he poked
gentle fun at sci-fi conventions
even as he employed them on
almost every page. But the
anti-golden age of mock space
operas didn't arrive until the late 1970s and early
1980s, when Douglas Adams published The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Terry Pratchett
launched his Discworld series.
These changes in intergalactic entertainments had
more than a little bit in common with terrestrial
fictions of various sorts and stripes. The
postmodernist spirit pervading the literary world
during this same period inspired a whole generation
of highbrow writers to undermine their own
premises. Stories swallowed their own tales,
characters rebelled against their authors, and a
general spirit of revelry, sometimes collapsing into
anarchy, prevailed. The dominant tone of the era
was irony. The most prized pursuits were the most
futile. The butt of the joke was often the reader,
who was expected to laugh along and keep turning
the pages.
And they usually did. Especially when the story-
teller was Terry Pratchett, who still remains the
master of the mock heroic tone in fantasy fiction.
In Pratchett's The Color of Magic—the first book in
his popular Discworld series—he launched a franchise
that would eventually sell more than 70 million
books, and spawn translations into more than three
dozen languages. Until Harry Potter came along,
Pratchett routinely dominated the fantasy series
bestseller charts, and if the truth be told, those
amusing scenes in J.K. Rowling's books when spells
go wrong and wizardry blends seamlessly with
comedy will remind readers of Pratchett's
precedence. For these efforts, our author became
Sir Terry Pratchett in 2009.
Rincewind, the wizard hero of The Color of Magic,
could hardly be more incompetent. He got kicked
out of the Unseen University for wizards (yes, it
was founded before Hogwarts), and only knows
one spell—and that incantation is so dangerous
even he doesn't dare use it. Rincewind encounters
adventures inadvertently—usually while retreating
from the last one. Where other heroes rescue,
Rincewind is invariably rescued.
Rincewind's traveling companion Twoflower is the
wizard's antithesis. He is a tourist in Discworld,
and his insatiable curiosity for new sights and
experiences invariably prods him forward into risky
terrain. He scorns danger, not through bravery but
due to naiveté and an appealing insouciance.
Twoflower makes many bad decisions—first and
foremost, hiring Rincewind as his guide—but
possesses a lucky streak that gets him through the
worst binds unscathed.
Of course, he has a little help. Lady Luck, an
official goddess of Discworld, even pays Twoflower
a visit during the course of these pages. But
Twoflower's greatest resource may be his luggage.
An iron-bound chest constructed of sapient
pearwood, this suitcase has legs and follows
wherever its master goes. Anyone who tries to
steal its contents finds some sharp teeth and a
Rolling Stones-sized tongue inside. In the long
history of magical containers—from Pandora's box
to Felix the Cat's bag of tricks—this loyal luggage is
best equipped to win the popularity contest, and is
awarded with a starring role in Pratchett's novel.
Perhaps I should spare a few words on the
cosmogony of Discworld. Pratchett himself,
renouncing the time-honored practice of fantasy
writers, refuses to provide a map. "You can't map
a sense of humor," he explains. "Anyway, what is a
fantasy map but a space beyond which There Be
Dragons?" But he is not telling the whole truth
here. Beyond Discworld, instead of a dragon, one
encounters a giant turtle, the Great A'Tuin, who
slowly trods through outer space. On the turtle's
back stand four very large elephants. And on the
backs of the elephants sits the large plate of
Discworld.
Yes, you can fall off the edge. A nasty experience,
to be sure, but at least you get a good look at the
turtle and elephants as you spin off into outer
space. Indeed, this is one of the terrors that
Rincewind and Twoflower must face in their
travels, but by no means the only one. They are
also pursued by thieves, slated for extermination by
evil rulers, threatened by fire, water, earth and air in
many of their nastiest manifestations. Slave-traders
want to sell them into slavery, and the rescuers
want to offer them as a sacrifices to Fate. As if all
that isn't bad enough, the Grim Reaper shows up
periodically during the course of The Color of Magic.
You can tell when he arrives—he's the dude with
no flesh on his skull, and always speaks in capital
letters. (Typical small talk from Death: THE
WHITE PLAGUE ABIDES EVEN NOW IN
PSEUDOPOLIS AND I AM BOUND THERE
TO RESCUE MANY OF ITS CITIZENS FROM
HIS GRASP.)
How do you wrap up a rambling picaresque parody
such as this one? Pratchett pulls out all the stops
and delivers an edgy—or perhaps 'over the edge' is a
better descriptor—climactic stunt reminiscent of
Slim Pickens' most famous scene in Dr. Strangelove.
And how can you top that? Well, Pratchett rose to
the occasion. He followed up The Color of Magic with
38 additional Discworld novels, an encore in excess of
three million words and spanning almost three
decades.
Ted Gioia writes on music, literature, and popular culture.
His newest book is The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the
Repertoire.
| THE YEAR OF MAGICAL READING The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett |
Click on image to purchase
| The Year of Magical Reading (click here) |
| conceptual fiction Exploring the Non-Realist Tradition in Fiction |
Welcome to my year of magical
reading. Each week during the
course of 2012, I will explore an
important work of fiction that
incorporates elements of magic,
fantasy or the surreal. My choices
will cross conventional boundary
lines of genre, style and historical
period—indeed, one of my intentions
in this project is to show how the
conventional labels applied to these
works have become constraining,
deadening and misleading.
In its earliest days, storytelling almost
always partook of the magical. Only
in recent years have we segregated
works arising from this venerable
tradition into publishing industry
categories such as "magical realism"
or "paranormal" or "fantasy" or some
other 'genre' pigeonhole. These
labels are not without their value, but
too often they have blinded us to the
rich and multidimensional heritage
beyond category that these works
share.
This larger heritage is mimicked in
our individual lives: most of us first
experienced the joys of narrative
fiction through stories of myth and
magic, the fanciful and
phantasmagorical; but only a very
few retain into adulthood this sense
of the kind of enchantment possible
only through storytelling. As such,
revisiting this stream of fiction from a
mature, literate perspective both
broadens our horizons and allows us
to recapture some of that magic in
our imaginative lives.
The Year of Magical Reading:
Week 1: Midnight's Children by
Salman Rushdie
Week 2: The House of the Spirits by
Isabel Allende
Week 3: The Witches of Eastwick
by John Updike
Week 4: Magic for Beginners by
Kelly Link
Week 5: The Tin Drum by Günter
Grass
Week 6: The Golden Ass by
Apuleius
Week 7: The Tiger's Wife by Téa
Obreht
Week 8: One Hundred Years of
Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
Week 9: The Book of Laughter and
Forgetting by Milan Kundera
Week 10: Gargantua and Pantagruel
by François Rabelais
Week 11: The Famished Road by
Ben Okri
Week 12: Like Water for Chocolate
by Laura Esquivel
Week 13: Winter's Tale by Mark
Helprin
Week 14: Dhalgren by Samuel R.
Delany
Week 15: Johnathan Strange & Mr.
Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Week 16: The Master and
Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Week 17: Dangerous Laughter by
Steven Millhauser
Week 18: Conjure Wife by Fritz
Leiber
Week 19: 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
Week 20: The Hobbit by J.R.R.
Tolkien
Week 21: Aura by Carlos Fuentes
Week 22: Dr. Faustus by Thomas
Mann
Week 23: Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Week 24: Little, Big by John Crowley
Week 25: The White Hotel by D.M.
Thomas
Week 26: Neverwhere by Neil
Gaiman
Week 27: Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Week 28: Fifth Business by
Robertson Davies
Week 29: The Kingdom of This
World by Alejo Carpentier
Week 30: The Bear Comes Home
by Rafi Zabor
Week 31: The Color of Magic by
Terry Pratchett
Week 32: Ficciones by Jorge Luis
Borges
Week 33: Beloved by Toni Morrison
Week 34: Dona Flor and Her Two
Husbands by Jorge Amado
Week 35: Hard-Boiled Wonderland
and the End of the World by Haruki
Murakami
Week 36: What Dreams May Come
by Richard Matheson
Week 37: Practical Magic by Alice
Hoffman
Week 38: Blindess by José
Saramago
Week 39: The Fortress of Solitude
by Jonathan Lethem
Week 40: The Magicians by Lev
Grossman
Week 41: Suddenly, A Knock at the
Door by Etgar Keret
Week 42: Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
Week 43: The Obscene Bird of
NIght by José Donoso
Week 44: The Fifty Year Sword by
Mark Z. Danielewski
Week 45: Gulliver's Travels by
Jonathan Swift
Week 46: Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Week 47: The End of the Affair by
Graham Greene
Week 48: The Chronicles of Narnia
by C.S. Lewis
Week 49: Hieroglyphic Tales by
Horace Walpole
Week 50: The View from the
Seventh Layer by Kevin Brockmeier
Week 51: Gods Without Men by
Hari Kunzru
Week 52: At Swim-Two-Birds by
Flann O'Brien
reading. Each week during the
course of 2012, I will explore an
important work of fiction that
incorporates elements of magic,
fantasy or the surreal. My choices
will cross conventional boundary
lines of genre, style and historical
period—indeed, one of my intentions
in this project is to show how the
conventional labels applied to these
works have become constraining,
deadening and misleading.
In its earliest days, storytelling almost
always partook of the magical. Only
in recent years have we segregated
works arising from this venerable
tradition into publishing industry
categories such as "magical realism"
or "paranormal" or "fantasy" or some
other 'genre' pigeonhole. These
labels are not without their value, but
too often they have blinded us to the
rich and multidimensional heritage
beyond category that these works
share.
This larger heritage is mimicked in
our individual lives: most of us first
experienced the joys of narrative
fiction through stories of myth and
magic, the fanciful and
phantasmagorical; but only a very
few retain into adulthood this sense
of the kind of enchantment possible
only through storytelling. As such,
revisiting this stream of fiction from a
mature, literate perspective both
broadens our horizons and allows us
to recapture some of that magic in
our imaginative lives.
The Year of Magical Reading:
Week 1: Midnight's Children by
Salman Rushdie
Week 2: The House of the Spirits by
Isabel Allende
Week 3: The Witches of Eastwick
by John Updike
Week 4: Magic for Beginners by
Kelly Link
Week 5: The Tin Drum by Günter
Grass
Week 6: The Golden Ass by
Apuleius
Week 7: The Tiger's Wife by Téa
Obreht
Week 8: One Hundred Years of
Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
Week 9: The Book of Laughter and
Forgetting by Milan Kundera
Week 10: Gargantua and Pantagruel
by François Rabelais
Week 11: The Famished Road by
Ben Okri
Week 12: Like Water for Chocolate
by Laura Esquivel
Week 13: Winter's Tale by Mark
Helprin
Week 14: Dhalgren by Samuel R.
Delany
Week 15: Johnathan Strange & Mr.
Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Week 16: The Master and
Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Week 17: Dangerous Laughter by
Steven Millhauser
Week 18: Conjure Wife by Fritz
Leiber
Week 19: 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
Week 20: The Hobbit by J.R.R.
Tolkien
Week 21: Aura by Carlos Fuentes
Week 22: Dr. Faustus by Thomas
Mann
Week 23: Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Week 24: Little, Big by John Crowley
Week 25: The White Hotel by D.M.
Thomas
Week 26: Neverwhere by Neil
Gaiman
Week 27: Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Week 28: Fifth Business by
Robertson Davies
Week 29: The Kingdom of This
World by Alejo Carpentier
Week 30: The Bear Comes Home
by Rafi Zabor
Week 31: The Color of Magic by
Terry Pratchett
Week 32: Ficciones by Jorge Luis
Borges
Week 33: Beloved by Toni Morrison
Week 34: Dona Flor and Her Two
Husbands by Jorge Amado
Week 35: Hard-Boiled Wonderland
and the End of the World by Haruki
Murakami
Week 36: What Dreams May Come
by Richard Matheson
Week 37: Practical Magic by Alice
Hoffman
Week 38: Blindess by José
Saramago
Week 39: The Fortress of Solitude
by Jonathan Lethem
Week 40: The Magicians by Lev
Grossman
Week 41: Suddenly, A Knock at the
Door by Etgar Keret
Week 42: Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
Week 43: The Obscene Bird of
NIght by José Donoso
Week 44: The Fifty Year Sword by
Mark Z. Danielewski
Week 45: Gulliver's Travels by
Jonathan Swift
Week 46: Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Week 47: The End of the Affair by
Graham Greene
Week 48: The Chronicles of Narnia
by C.S. Lewis
Week 49: Hieroglyphic Tales by
Horace Walpole
Week 50: The View from the
Seventh Layer by Kevin Brockmeier
Week 51: Gods Without Men by
Hari Kunzru
Week 52: At Swim-Two-Birds by
Flann O'Brien
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.
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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.