Don’t be fooled by the car crashes and explosions in J.G. Ballard’s writings.
Or by the descriptions of flesh wounds and injuries that read like extracts from
a coroner’s report. In particular, don’t pay any attention
to the techno talk that might lull you into thinking that you
are reading a science fiction story.
All that’s just there to distract you.
The really weird stuff in a Ballard book always takes place
inside his characters' heads. At a time when other sci-fi
writers were obsessed with outer space, as Martin Amis
has wisely noted, Ballard was fixated on inner space. And
the psychic space of a Ballard protgaonist is a cabinet of
horrors, filled with neuroses that make Freud’s clinical
studies read like The Boy Scout Handbook by comparison.
See Also
Crash by J.G. Ballard (reviewed by Ted Gioia)
The Atrocity Exhibition by J.G. Ballard (reviewed by Ted Gioia)
The Crystal World by J.G. Ballard (reviewed by Ted Gioia)
The Drowned World is a case in point. At first glance, this book seems
to be one more forerunner of the increasingly popular global warming
novels now lined up on the sci-fi shelves at your local bookstore. Ballard
described many variants on the apocalypse in his early fiction, apparently
believing, along with Robert Frost, that the world might end in fire or ice,
and that various other elemental forces would also suffice. But Ballard
was especially fond of global warming, and covered both the man-made
hypothesis (in his novel The Burning World) and the naturally-caused
alternative (in this volume). Solar activity sends the temperatures rising
in The Drowned World, melting the polar caps and raising midday
temperatures in central Europe up to a toasty 150 degrees Fahrenheit.
But here's where Ballard deviates from the rest of the sci-fi pack. His
main characters love the new inferno. While everyone else is heading
north, where temperatures stay in the cool nineties, these fanatics want
to go south. Towards the equator.
And I thought my wife's sweat yoga class was strange.
But readers familiar with Ballard's oeuvre will not be surprised. We've
seen these creepy masochists in his other works, ready to slice off a
limb or crash their car into a brick wall. Where Ballard usually fails us
is in providing reasons for these obsessions. His characters typically
come across as little more than automatons, following the directions
programmed into their heads by their peculiar author, but never able to
articulate the fascination of, say the “lungs of elderly men punctured by
door-handles.” Yet in The Drowned World, Ballard actually attempts to
offer an explanation for the ever-present 'death wish' in his stories. A
strange explanation, needless to say, but at least our author finally
acknowledges, in The Drowned World, the legitimacy of probing into
the warped reasons for his characters' twisted actions.
Let's allow Dr. Bodkin to explain: "Just as psychoanalysis reconstructs
the original traumatic explanation in order to release the repressed
material, so we are now being plunged back into the into the archaeo-
psychic past, uncovering the ancient taboos and drives that have been
dormant for epochs….You descend back into the neuronic past." In
other words, we all carry within ourselves some Jungian remnants of our
collective past, and when the atmospheric shifts create a new world that
resembles the Triassic age, latent impulses are triggered and we find
ourselves caught up by the irresistible appeal, ecstatic and horrifying at
the same time, of the impending destruction. As it gets hotter and hotter,
we are drawn to the heat. It is like a womb that we crave to return to,
although now historical rather than biological.
Did you get that? When the world starts to burn, we act like moths heading
for the flame.
The Drowned World opens in a flooded, deserted London, where a
small contingent of soldiers and scientists are preparing to retreat to
the relative comfort of the Arctic Circle. But many in the group have
started experiencing nightmares akin to Jurassic Park in the 3D re-
release. At first these dreams are terrifying, but after a while the
nighttime visions exert a strange gravitational pull on a small cadre
of the unit. They are mesmerized by the power unleashed by the
triggering of the "neuronic past." The distinction between dream life
and lived reality begins to blur, and the allure of the visions overwhelms
the rational elements of their day-to-day routine.
One of the soldiers disappears, and a search party eventually finds him
heading south in a makeshift raft, resisting all attempts to 'rescue' him.
Soon our main protagonist, biologist Robert Kerans, begins to feel the
same urge to move toward the equator—as do Beatrice Dahl, the last
lady in London, and Keran’s colleague Dr. Bodkin. But this trio of
renegades are so caught up in their dream-coming-true visions, that
they can hardly manage to complete a conversation, let alone plan an
expedition.
The Drowned World may not be Ballard's most flamboyant or
transgressive book. If you are coming to this author for sheer
shock value (as many do), skip this volume and head straight for
The Atrocity Exhibition….if you can stand it. But The Drowned World
is his best written sci-fi novel, and an excellent entry point into his
worldview for those who care about plot, narrative arc, character
motivation and those other stalwart yeomen who are often missing
in action on other Ballard outings.
But I still have some reservations about this book. The writing may
sometimes be grand, at other times wearingly grandiose. Ballard
can be too heavy-handed with high-falutin’ modifiers. This man loves
adjectives, and especially compound adjectives. The sentences
have weight, but it seems more like flab than muscle Our hero feels
an urge to dive into the water, but isn't just any body of water—it's
a "luminous, dragon-green, serpent-haunted sea." You get the idea.
Yet at his best moments, Ballard shows how these modifiers can work
their magic, especially when he draws on metaphors and images that
deliberately blur external and internal reality. When the first deranged
character heads off for the south, we find him moving toward "the lost
but forever beckoning and unattainable shores of the amnionic paradise."
It's a bulky phrase, and (as often with Ballard) bordering on the rudely
pretentious, but ultimately captivating us with its bravado and poetry.
When the sky clears after a storm, it reveals to Kerans "an impassive
blue, more the interior ceiling of some deep irrevocable psychosis than
the storm-filled celestial sphere he had known during the previous days."
When he spots clock towers in the London sky, Kerans sees them as
"temple spires of some lost jungle religion," and he can't help comparing
their broken-down measurement of scientifically-measured chronology
with the "myriad-handed mandala of cosmic time" embedded in his brain.
This is Ballard at his most lyrical. Still heavy-handed—face it, nothing is
done with a light touch in his books—and in-your-face, but with a mystical
prose-as-poetry ambiguity that gives his books a different ambiance than
you will find in other writers, especially authors of science fiction, where
a slapdash aesthetic often predominates. If Ballard is a master at
presenting nightmare scenarios in his novels, much of the victory is
gained via descriptions of this sort, through his control of phrases and
images that broach the barrier between private delusion and precise data.
It's hard to believe that this book is more than a half-century old. And
I'm not talking about the global warming theme, which gives this book a
superficial resemblance to various current-day volumes, fiction and
non-fiction. It's Ballard writing style and worldview that refuse to mellow
with the passing years. We expect things that are abrasive to soften
over time. But Ballard's books still rub at us, often rubbing the wrong
way, with just as much roughness as ever. The wonder of The Drowned
World, perhaps preeminently among his books, is how beguiling he can
make this journey into the abyss.
Ted Gioia writes on music, literature and popular culture. His next book,
Love Songs: The Hidden History, will be published by Oxford University Press.
This essay was published on June 11, 2014
Or by the descriptions of flesh wounds and injuries that read like extracts from
a coroner’s report. In particular, don’t pay any attention
to the techno talk that might lull you into thinking that you
are reading a science fiction story.
All that’s just there to distract you.
The really weird stuff in a Ballard book always takes place
inside his characters' heads. At a time when other sci-fi
writers were obsessed with outer space, as Martin Amis
has wisely noted, Ballard was fixated on inner space. And
the psychic space of a Ballard protgaonist is a cabinet of
horrors, filled with neuroses that make Freud’s clinical
studies read like The Boy Scout Handbook by comparison.
See Also
Crash by J.G. Ballard (reviewed by Ted Gioia)
The Atrocity Exhibition by J.G. Ballard (reviewed by Ted Gioia)
The Crystal World by J.G. Ballard (reviewed by Ted Gioia)
The Drowned World is a case in point. At first glance, this book seems
to be one more forerunner of the increasingly popular global warming
novels now lined up on the sci-fi shelves at your local bookstore. Ballard
described many variants on the apocalypse in his early fiction, apparently
believing, along with Robert Frost, that the world might end in fire or ice,
and that various other elemental forces would also suffice. But Ballard
was especially fond of global warming, and covered both the man-made
hypothesis (in his novel The Burning World) and the naturally-caused
alternative (in this volume). Solar activity sends the temperatures rising
in The Drowned World, melting the polar caps and raising midday
temperatures in central Europe up to a toasty 150 degrees Fahrenheit.
But here's where Ballard deviates from the rest of the sci-fi pack. His
main characters love the new inferno. While everyone else is heading
north, where temperatures stay in the cool nineties, these fanatics want
to go south. Towards the equator.
And I thought my wife's sweat yoga class was strange.
But readers familiar with Ballard's oeuvre will not be surprised. We've
seen these creepy masochists in his other works, ready to slice off a
limb or crash their car into a brick wall. Where Ballard usually fails us
is in providing reasons for these obsessions. His characters typically
come across as little more than automatons, following the directions
programmed into their heads by their peculiar author, but never able to
articulate the fascination of, say the “lungs of elderly men punctured by
door-handles.” Yet in The Drowned World, Ballard actually attempts to
offer an explanation for the ever-present 'death wish' in his stories. A
strange explanation, needless to say, but at least our author finally
acknowledges, in The Drowned World, the legitimacy of probing into
the warped reasons for his characters' twisted actions.
Let's allow Dr. Bodkin to explain: "Just as psychoanalysis reconstructs
the original traumatic explanation in order to release the repressed
material, so we are now being plunged back into the into the archaeo-
psychic past, uncovering the ancient taboos and drives that have been
dormant for epochs….You descend back into the neuronic past." In
other words, we all carry within ourselves some Jungian remnants of our
collective past, and when the atmospheric shifts create a new world that
resembles the Triassic age, latent impulses are triggered and we find
ourselves caught up by the irresistible appeal, ecstatic and horrifying at
the same time, of the impending destruction. As it gets hotter and hotter,
we are drawn to the heat. It is like a womb that we crave to return to,
although now historical rather than biological.
Did you get that? When the world starts to burn, we act like moths heading
for the flame.
The Drowned World opens in a flooded, deserted London, where a
small contingent of soldiers and scientists are preparing to retreat to
the relative comfort of the Arctic Circle. But many in the group have
started experiencing nightmares akin to Jurassic Park in the 3D re-
release. At first these dreams are terrifying, but after a while the
nighttime visions exert a strange gravitational pull on a small cadre
of the unit. They are mesmerized by the power unleashed by the
triggering of the "neuronic past." The distinction between dream life
and lived reality begins to blur, and the allure of the visions overwhelms
the rational elements of their day-to-day routine.
One of the soldiers disappears, and a search party eventually finds him
heading south in a makeshift raft, resisting all attempts to 'rescue' him.
Soon our main protagonist, biologist Robert Kerans, begins to feel the
same urge to move toward the equator—as do Beatrice Dahl, the last
lady in London, and Keran’s colleague Dr. Bodkin. But this trio of
renegades are so caught up in their dream-coming-true visions, that
they can hardly manage to complete a conversation, let alone plan an
expedition.
The Drowned World may not be Ballard's most flamboyant or
transgressive book. If you are coming to this author for sheer
shock value (as many do), skip this volume and head straight for
The Atrocity Exhibition….if you can stand it. But The Drowned World
is his best written sci-fi novel, and an excellent entry point into his
worldview for those who care about plot, narrative arc, character
motivation and those other stalwart yeomen who are often missing
in action on other Ballard outings.
But I still have some reservations about this book. The writing may
sometimes be grand, at other times wearingly grandiose. Ballard
can be too heavy-handed with high-falutin’ modifiers. This man loves
adjectives, and especially compound adjectives. The sentences
have weight, but it seems more like flab than muscle Our hero feels
an urge to dive into the water, but isn't just any body of water—it's
a "luminous, dragon-green, serpent-haunted sea." You get the idea.
Yet at his best moments, Ballard shows how these modifiers can work
their magic, especially when he draws on metaphors and images that
deliberately blur external and internal reality. When the first deranged
character heads off for the south, we find him moving toward "the lost
but forever beckoning and unattainable shores of the amnionic paradise."
It's a bulky phrase, and (as often with Ballard) bordering on the rudely
pretentious, but ultimately captivating us with its bravado and poetry.
When the sky clears after a storm, it reveals to Kerans "an impassive
blue, more the interior ceiling of some deep irrevocable psychosis than
the storm-filled celestial sphere he had known during the previous days."
When he spots clock towers in the London sky, Kerans sees them as
"temple spires of some lost jungle religion," and he can't help comparing
their broken-down measurement of scientifically-measured chronology
with the "myriad-handed mandala of cosmic time" embedded in his brain.
This is Ballard at his most lyrical. Still heavy-handed—face it, nothing is
done with a light touch in his books—and in-your-face, but with a mystical
prose-as-poetry ambiguity that gives his books a different ambiance than
you will find in other writers, especially authors of science fiction, where
a slapdash aesthetic often predominates. If Ballard is a master at
presenting nightmare scenarios in his novels, much of the victory is
gained via descriptions of this sort, through his control of phrases and
images that broach the barrier between private delusion and precise data.
It's hard to believe that this book is more than a half-century old. And
I'm not talking about the global warming theme, which gives this book a
superficial resemblance to various current-day volumes, fiction and
non-fiction. It's Ballard writing style and worldview that refuse to mellow
with the passing years. We expect things that are abrasive to soften
over time. But Ballard's books still rub at us, often rubbing the wrong
way, with just as much roughness as ever. The wonder of The Drowned
World, perhaps preeminently among his books, is how beguiling he can
make this journey into the abyss.
Ted Gioia writes on music, literature and popular culture. His next book,
Love Songs: The Hidden History, will be published by Oxford University Press.
This essay was published on June 11, 2014
Revisiting J.G. Ballard's
1962 Global Warming Novel
A look back at The Drowned World
By Ted Gioia
1962 Global Warming Novel
A look back at The Drowned World
By Ted Gioia
| 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
Bunch, David R.
Moderan
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Card, Orson Scott
Ender's Game
Carpentier, Alejo
The Kingdom of This World
Carroll, Lewis
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Chabon, Michael
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Chiang, Ted
Stories of Your Life and Others
Clarke, Arthur C.
Childhood's End
Clarke, Arthur C.
A Fall of Moondust
Clarke, Arthur C.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Clarke, Susanna
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Crowley, John
Little, Big
Danielewski, Mark Z.
The Fifty Year Sword
Danielewski, Mark Z.
House of Leaves
Davies, Robertson
Fifth Business
Delany, Samuel R.
Babel-17
Delany, Samuel R.
Dhalgren
Delany, Samuel R.
The Einstein Intersection
Delany, Samuel R.
Nova
Dick, Philip K.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Dick, Philip K.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Dick, Philip K.
The Man in the High Castle
Dick, Philip K.
Ubik
Dick, Philip K.
VALIS
Disch, Thomas M.
Camp Concentration
Disch, Thomas M.
The Genocides
Doctorow, Cory
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Donoso, José
The Obscene Bird of Night
Ellison, Harlan (editor)
Dangerous Visions
Ellison, Harlan
I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream
Esquivel, Laura
Like Water for Chocolate
Farmer, Philip José
To Your Scattered Bodies Go
Fuentes, Carlos
Aura
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
Gaiman, Neil
Neverwhere
Gibson, William
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
Neuromancer
Grass, Günter
The Tin Drum
Greene, Graham
The End of the Affair
Grossman, Lev
The Magicians
Haldeman, Joe
The Forever War
Hall, Steven
The Raw Shark Texts
Harrison, M. John
The Centauri Device
Harrison, M. John
Light
Heinlein, Robert
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein, Robert:
Stranger in a Strange Land
Heinlein, Robert
Time Enough for Love
Helprin, Mark
Winter's Tale
Herbert, Frank
Dune
Hoffman, Alice
Practical Magic
Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Keret, Etgar
Suddenly, A Knock at the Door
Keyes, Daniel
Flowers for Algernon
Kundera, Milan
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Kunzru, Hari
Gods Without Men
Lafferty, R.A.
Nine Hundred Grandmothers
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Dispossessed
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Lathe of Heaven
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Leiber, Fritz
The Big Time
Leiber, Fritz
Conjure Wife
Leiber, Fritz
Swords & Deviltry
Leiber, Fritz
The Wanderer
Lem, Stanislaw
His Master's Voice
Lem, Stanislaw
Solaris
Lethem, Jonathan
The Fortress of Solitude
Lewis, C. S.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Link, Kelly
Magic for Beginners
Malzberg, Barry N.
Herovit's World
Mann, Thomas
Doctor Faustus
Márquez, Gabriel García
100 Years of Solitude
Markson, David
Wittgenstein's Mistress
Matheson, Richard
Hell House
Matheson, Richard
What Dreams May Come
McCarthy, Cormac
The Road
Miéville, China
Perdido Street Station
Miller, Jr., Walter M.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Millhauser, Steven
Dangerous Laughter
Mitchell, David
Cloud Atlas
Moorcock, Michael
Behold the Man
Moorcock, Michael
The Final Programme
Morrison, Toni
Beloved
Murakami, Haruki
1Q84
Murakami, Haruki
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the
End of the World
Nabokov, Vladimir
Ada, or Ardor
Niffenegger, Audrey
The Time Traveler's Wife
Niven, Larry
Ringworld
Noon, Jeff
Vurt
Obreht, Téa
The Tiger's Wife
O'Brien, Flann
At Swim-Two-Birds
Okri, Ben
The Famished Road
Percy, Walker
Love in the Ruins
Pohl, Frederik
Gateway
Pratchett, Terry
The Color of Magic
Pynchon, Thomas
Gravity's Rainbow
Rabelais, François
Gargantua and Pantagruel
Robinson, Kim Stanley
Red Mars
Rowling, J.K.
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone
Rushdie, Salman
Midnight's Children
Russ, Joanna
The Female Man
Saramago, José
Blindness
Sheckley, Robert
Dimension of Miracles
Sheckley, Robert
Mindswap
Sheckley, Robert
Store of the Worlds
Shelley, Mary
Frankenstein
Silverberg, Robert
Dying Inside
Silverberg, Robert
Nightwings
Silverberg, Robert
The World Inside
Simak, Clifford
City
Simak, Clifford
The Trouble with Tycho
Smith, Cordwainer
Norstrilia
Smith, Cordwainer
The Rediscovery of Man
Stephenson, Neal
Snow Crash
Spinrad, Norman
Bug Jack Barron
Stross, Charles
Glasshouse
Sturgeon, Theodore
More Than Human
Sturgeon, Theodore
Some of Your Blood
Swift, Jonathan
Gulliver's Travels
Thomas, D.M.
The White Hotel
Tiptree, Jr., James
Warm Worlds and Otherwise
Tolkien, J.R.R.
The Hobbit
Updike, John
The Witches of Eastwick
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Mixed Men
Van Vogt, A.E.
Slan
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Voyage of the Space Beagle
Van Vogt, A.E.
The World of Null A
Vance, Jack
Emphyrio
Verne, Jules
Around the Moon
Verne, Jules
From the Earth to the Moon
Verne, Jules:
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Vonnegut, Kurt
Cat's Cradle
Vonnegut, Kurt
The Sirens of Titan
Vonnegut, Kurt
Slaughterhouse-Five
Wallace, David Foster
Infinite Jest
Walpole, Horace
Hieroglyphic Tales
Wells, H.G.
The First Men in the Moon
Wells, H.G.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
Wilson, Robert Anton & Robert Shea
The Illuminatus! Trilogy
Winton, Tim
Cloudstreet
Woolf, Virginia
Orlando
Zabor, Rafi
The Bear Comes Home
Zelazny, Roger
Lord of Light
Zelazny, Roger
This Immortal
Special Features
Notes on Conceptual Fiction
When Science Fiction Grew Up
Ray Bradbury: A Tribute
The Year of Magical Reading
Remembering Fritz Leiber
A Tribute to Richard Matheson
Samuel Delany's 70th birthday
The Sci-Fi of Kurt Vonnegut
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Robert Heinlein at 100
A.E, van Vogt Tribute
The Puzzling Case of Robert Sheckley
The Avant-Garde Sci-Fi of Brian Aldiss
Science Fiction 1958-1975: A Reading List
Links to related sites
The New Canon
Great Books Guide
Postmodern Mystery
Fractious Fiction
Ted Gioia's web site
Ted Gioia on Twitter
SF Site
io9
Graeme's Fantasy Book Review
Los Angeles Review of Books
The Millions
Big Dumb Object
SF Novelists
More Words, Deeper Hole
The Misread City
Reviews and Responses
SF Signal
True Science Fiction
Tor blog
Disclosure: Conceptual Fiction
and its sister sites may receive review
copies and promotional materials from
publishers, authors, publicists or other
parties.
www.twitter.com/tedgioia
Conceptual Fiction:
A Reading List
(with links to essays on each work)
Home Page
Abbott, Edwin A.
Flatland
Adams, Douglas
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Aldiss, Brian
Barefoot in the Head
Aldiss, Brian
Hothouse
Aldiss, Brian
Report on Probability A
Allende, Isabel
The House of the Spirits
Amado, Jorge
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands
Amis, Martin
Time's Arrow
Apuleius
The Golden Ass
Asimov, Isaac
The Foundation Trilogy
Asimov, Isaac
I, Robot
Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid's Tale
Banks, Iain M.
The State of the Art
Ballard, J.G.
The Atrocity Exhibition
Ballard, J.G.
Crash
Ballard, J.G.
The Crystal World
Ballard, J.G.
The Drowned World
Barth, John
Giles Goat-Boy
Bester, Alfred
The Demolished Man
Blish, James
A Case of Conscience
Borges, Jorge Luis
Ficciones
Bradbury, Ray
Dandelion Wine
Bradbury, Ray
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
The Illustrated Man
Bradbury, Ray
The Martian Chronicles
Bradbury, Ray
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Brockmeier, Kevin
The View from the Seventh Layer
Bulgakov, Mikhail
The Master and Margarita
Bunch, David R.
Moderan
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Card, Orson Scott
Ender's Game
Carpentier, Alejo
The Kingdom of This World
Carroll, Lewis
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Chabon, Michael
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Chiang, Ted
Stories of Your Life and Others
Clarke, Arthur C.
Childhood's End
Clarke, Arthur C.
A Fall of Moondust
Clarke, Arthur C.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Clarke, Susanna
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Crowley, John
Little, Big
Danielewski, Mark Z.
The Fifty Year Sword
Danielewski, Mark Z.
House of Leaves
Davies, Robertson
Fifth Business
Delany, Samuel R.
Babel-17
Delany, Samuel R.
Dhalgren
Delany, Samuel R.
The Einstein Intersection
Delany, Samuel R.
Nova
Dick, Philip K.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Dick, Philip K.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Dick, Philip K.
The Man in the High Castle
Dick, Philip K.
Ubik
Dick, Philip K.
VALIS
Disch, Thomas M.
Camp Concentration
Disch, Thomas M.
The Genocides
Doctorow, Cory
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Donoso, José
The Obscene Bird of Night
Ellison, Harlan (editor)
Dangerous Visions
Ellison, Harlan
I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream
Esquivel, Laura
Like Water for Chocolate
Farmer, Philip José
To Your Scattered Bodies Go
Fuentes, Carlos
Aura
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
Gaiman, Neil
Neverwhere
Gibson, William
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
Neuromancer
Grass, Günter
The Tin Drum
Greene, Graham
The End of the Affair
Grossman, Lev
The Magicians
Haldeman, Joe
The Forever War
Hall, Steven
The Raw Shark Texts
Harrison, M. John
The Centauri Device
Harrison, M. John
Light
Heinlein, Robert
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein, Robert:
Stranger in a Strange Land
Heinlein, Robert
Time Enough for Love
Helprin, Mark
Winter's Tale
Herbert, Frank
Dune
Hoffman, Alice
Practical Magic
Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Keret, Etgar
Suddenly, A Knock at the Door
Keyes, Daniel
Flowers for Algernon
Kundera, Milan
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Kunzru, Hari
Gods Without Men
Lafferty, R.A.
Nine Hundred Grandmothers
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Dispossessed
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Lathe of Heaven
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Leiber, Fritz
The Big Time
Leiber, Fritz
Conjure Wife
Leiber, Fritz
Swords & Deviltry
Leiber, Fritz
The Wanderer
Lem, Stanislaw
His Master's Voice
Lem, Stanislaw
Solaris
Lethem, Jonathan
The Fortress of Solitude
Lewis, C. S.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Link, Kelly
Magic for Beginners
Malzberg, Barry N.
Herovit's World
Mann, Thomas
Doctor Faustus
Márquez, Gabriel García
100 Years of Solitude
Markson, David
Wittgenstein's Mistress
Matheson, Richard
Hell House
Matheson, Richard
What Dreams May Come
McCarthy, Cormac
The Road
Miéville, China
Perdido Street Station
Miller, Jr., Walter M.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Millhauser, Steven
Dangerous Laughter
Mitchell, David
Cloud Atlas
Moorcock, Michael
Behold the Man
Moorcock, Michael
The Final Programme
Morrison, Toni
Beloved
Murakami, Haruki
1Q84
Murakami, Haruki
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the
End of the World
Nabokov, Vladimir
Ada, or Ardor
Niffenegger, Audrey
The Time Traveler's Wife
Niven, Larry
Ringworld
Noon, Jeff
Vurt
Obreht, Téa
The Tiger's Wife
O'Brien, Flann
At Swim-Two-Birds
Okri, Ben
The Famished Road
Percy, Walker
Love in the Ruins
Pohl, Frederik
Gateway
Pratchett, Terry
The Color of Magic
Pynchon, Thomas
Gravity's Rainbow
Rabelais, François
Gargantua and Pantagruel
Robinson, Kim Stanley
Red Mars
Rowling, J.K.
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone
Rushdie, Salman
Midnight's Children
Russ, Joanna
The Female Man
Saramago, José
Blindness
Sheckley, Robert
Dimension of Miracles
Sheckley, Robert
Mindswap
Sheckley, Robert
Store of the Worlds
Shelley, Mary
Frankenstein
Silverberg, Robert
Dying Inside
Silverberg, Robert
Nightwings
Silverberg, Robert
The World Inside
Simak, Clifford
City
Simak, Clifford
The Trouble with Tycho
Smith, Cordwainer
Norstrilia
Smith, Cordwainer
The Rediscovery of Man
Stephenson, Neal
Snow Crash
Spinrad, Norman
Bug Jack Barron
Stross, Charles
Glasshouse
Sturgeon, Theodore
More Than Human
Sturgeon, Theodore
Some of Your Blood
Swift, Jonathan
Gulliver's Travels
Thomas, D.M.
The White Hotel
Tiptree, Jr., James
Warm Worlds and Otherwise
Tolkien, J.R.R.
The Hobbit
Updike, John
The Witches of Eastwick
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Mixed Men
Van Vogt, A.E.
Slan
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Voyage of the Space Beagle
Van Vogt, A.E.
The World of Null A
Vance, Jack
Emphyrio
Verne, Jules
Around the Moon
Verne, Jules
From the Earth to the Moon
Verne, Jules:
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Vonnegut, Kurt
Cat's Cradle
Vonnegut, Kurt
The Sirens of Titan
Vonnegut, Kurt
Slaughterhouse-Five
Wallace, David Foster
Infinite Jest
Walpole, Horace
Hieroglyphic Tales
Wells, H.G.
The First Men in the Moon
Wells, H.G.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
Wilson, Robert Anton & Robert Shea
The Illuminatus! Trilogy
Winton, Tim
Cloudstreet
Woolf, Virginia
Orlando
Zabor, Rafi
The Bear Comes Home
Zelazny, Roger
Lord of Light
Zelazny, Roger
This Immortal
Special Features
Notes on Conceptual Fiction
When Science Fiction Grew Up
Ray Bradbury: A Tribute
The Year of Magical Reading
Remembering Fritz Leiber
A Tribute to Richard Matheson
Samuel Delany's 70th birthday
The Sci-Fi of Kurt Vonnegut
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Robert Heinlein at 100
A.E, van Vogt Tribute
The Puzzling Case of Robert Sheckley
The Avant-Garde Sci-Fi of Brian Aldiss
Science Fiction 1958-1975: A Reading List
Links to related sites
The New Canon
Great Books Guide
Postmodern Mystery
Fractious Fiction
Ted Gioia's web site
Ted Gioia on Twitter
SF Site
io9
Graeme's Fantasy Book Review
Los Angeles Review of Books
The Millions
Big Dumb Object
SF Novelists
More Words, Deeper Hole
The Misread City
Reviews and Responses
SF Signal
True Science Fiction
Tor blog
Disclosure: Conceptual Fiction
and its sister sites may receive review
copies and promotional materials from
publishers, authors, publicists or other
parties.