by Ted Gioia
For most of us, our first introduction to the
concept of magic is through the stories told us by
our elders. As we grow up, we typically leave these
tales behind. Yet even as we congratulate ourselves
for embracing a world of invigorating realism and
stark practicalities, we realize that something is
lost. Our connection to our own
past, to the previous generations,
and to the magic of unconstrained
imagination—these are all linked
together through such narratives.
For this reason the stories of
childhood are often remembered
more vividly than the actual
quotidian events of our earliest
years.
Natalia Stefanovic, the narrator
for much of Téa Obreht's novel The Tiger's Wife, has
been profoundly shaken by news of her
grandfather's death, and finds herself returning to
the fanciful stories he had related to her of his own
past. These accounts seem so true-to-life, despite
their fantastic elements, that Natalia is driven to
probe deeper into her grandfather's personal history
in a quest to uncover the biographical roots of his
improbable narratives. The line between the
imaginative excesses of storytelling and the brutish
facts of modern reality begin to blur almost from
the start of Obreht's novel—and the border
between fact and fiction is still left largely
undefended even at the conclusion of this masterful
work.
The same cannot be said for the other borders dealt
with in The Tiger's Wife. The novel is set against the
backdrop of the Balkan wars that splintered the
former Yugoslavia and devastated the combating
parties. Their conflicts seems both timeless and
endless. "When your fight has purpose—to free
you of something, to interfere on behalf of an
innocent—it has a hope of finality," writes Obreht,
who was born in Belgrade in 1985, but left at age
seven and spent much of her youth in the United
States. "When the fight is about unraveling—when
it is about your name, the places to which your
blood is anchored, the attachment of your name to
some landmark or event—there is nothing but hate,
and the long, slow progression of people who feed
on it and are fed it, meticulously, by the ones who
came before them."
Think of these as narrative and counter-narrative.
On the one hand, we find the fairy tales of youth,
accounts that feed our imagination and broaden our
horizons. Opposed to these are the historic
resentments and antagonisms—also handed down
to us in the form of stories from our elders—which
constrain our world view and disfigure our
emotional attachments. Both kinds of stories play a
role in The Tiger's Wife, one constitutive and
liberating, the other destructive and self-
immolating.
Both Natalia and her grandfather are doctors, and
the constant bloodshed resulting from bombings,
land-mines, and combat, as well as the dislocations
and disease that spread in their aftermath, bring the
medical profession into constant contact with the
turmoil and violence of the era. In this context,
Natalia's grandfather shares with her the story of
his encounters with Gavran Gailé "the deathless
man"—loosely based on Koschei the deathless, a
folktale hero from Eastern Europe—a mysterious
figure who, like the doctors and caregivers, is drawn
to locales where violence is prevalent and lifespans
are short.
The grandfather encounters the deathless man
several times over a period of decades. At the first
meeting, Gailé has literally risen from his coffin—
Twilight fans take note!—and is shot two times in
the head by a mourner who doesn't want to see the
funeral canceled. But even these bullet wounds are
insufficient to lay low the deathless man. Natalia’s
grandfather is stunned by Gailé's unwillingness to
receive medical treatment, and even more amazed
when the risen corpse insists that he cannot die,
although he can predict when others are about to
meet their end.
The story of the deathless man is presented
alongside a tale about the "tiger's wife"—another
dark and fantastic story from the grandfather’s
past. During his childhood years, a tiger escaped
from a distant zoo settles in the outskirts of town.
The residents are fearful, and all their efforts to kill
or capture the tiger are unsuccessful. Yet a deaf-
mute, married to the local butcher, seems to have
some special relationship with the tiger, apparently
meeting up with the wild animal late at night when
the rest of the village is asleep. When the butcher
disappears, and the wife shows signs of pregnancy,
dark tales start to spread, filled with rumor,
superstition and accusation—the woman murdered
her husband….or had the tiger kill him….the child
in her belly is the tiger’s…or the devil's…or
perhaps both.
The grandfather is drawn both to the woman, and
to the tiger. His prized possession is a copy of
Kipling’s The Jungle Book, and the arrival of the tiger
in the village seems like a story out of the book
come true—again Obreht blurs the line between
fantastic fiction and reality. When a famous hunter
comes to the village, hoping to kill the tiger, the boy
is frantic. He wants to intervene, and save both the
tiger and the "tiger’s wife," but is uncertain how he
can halt the inevitable tragedy he sees looming in
the near future.
Obreht presents these tales from the past against
the context of Natalia's activities in the aftermath of
her grandfather’s death. She is treating orphans
housed at a monastery when she hears the news,
and is determined to make the trek to the place of
his death and retrieve his personal effects. In the
course of this journey, she becomes convinced that
her grandfather, in his final days, had been seeking
out the deathless man. As part of her attempt to
find both solace and closure, she too sets out in
search of Gavran Gailé.
The Tiger's Wife is fanciful and heartrending by
turns, and it reminds me of many of the
masterpieces of magical realism—such as One
Hundred Years of Solitude, Midnight's Children and The
Tin Drum—in its striking juxtaposition of dark
chapters in actual history books with the stuff of
myths and legends. I am especially impressed by
Obreht's ability to hold back at key junctures,
allowing her narrative to advance by means of hints
and silences rather than through detail and
exposition. She shows tremendous restraint for
such a young writer (she was only 25 when this
novel was published), and embraces a pleasing sort
of ambiguity, one that in the hands of a lesser
author would be mere vagueness. At the end of
this book, you will be left with more than a few
unanswered questions, and even the "facts" that
have been presented with reasonable clarity are
susceptible to reinterpretation or a symbolic reading.
But what is irreducible is the allure of the magic
and the power of the human connection, which are
both presented in various forms and guises in The
Tiger's Wife. This is an imaginative book that
expands our sense of the possible, but also a
thought-provoking work about different levels of
responsibility—of child to elder, of doctor to
patient, of people to animals, of races and religions
to each other. This is a novel of caring and
compassion, but not in a sentimental or
stereotypical fashion, rather in a way grounded on
both myth and history. In short, Téa Obreht is a
young woman who has delivered a frighteningly
mature book. The fact that much of it is presented
with overtones of a fairy tale or a story for children
only makes it all the more impressive.
Ted Gioia writes on music, books and popular culture. His most
recent book is The Birth (and Death) of the Cool.
For most of us, our first introduction to the
concept of magic is through the stories told us by
our elders. As we grow up, we typically leave these
tales behind. Yet even as we congratulate ourselves
for embracing a world of invigorating realism and
stark practicalities, we realize that something is
lost. Our connection to our own
past, to the previous generations,
and to the magic of unconstrained
imagination—these are all linked
together through such narratives.
For this reason the stories of
childhood are often remembered
more vividly than the actual
quotidian events of our earliest
years.
Natalia Stefanovic, the narrator
for much of Téa Obreht's novel The Tiger's Wife, has
been profoundly shaken by news of her
grandfather's death, and finds herself returning to
the fanciful stories he had related to her of his own
past. These accounts seem so true-to-life, despite
their fantastic elements, that Natalia is driven to
probe deeper into her grandfather's personal history
in a quest to uncover the biographical roots of his
improbable narratives. The line between the
imaginative excesses of storytelling and the brutish
facts of modern reality begin to blur almost from
the start of Obreht's novel—and the border
between fact and fiction is still left largely
undefended even at the conclusion of this masterful
work.
The same cannot be said for the other borders dealt
with in The Tiger's Wife. The novel is set against the
backdrop of the Balkan wars that splintered the
former Yugoslavia and devastated the combating
parties. Their conflicts seems both timeless and
endless. "When your fight has purpose—to free
you of something, to interfere on behalf of an
innocent—it has a hope of finality," writes Obreht,
who was born in Belgrade in 1985, but left at age
seven and spent much of her youth in the United
States. "When the fight is about unraveling—when
it is about your name, the places to which your
blood is anchored, the attachment of your name to
some landmark or event—there is nothing but hate,
and the long, slow progression of people who feed
on it and are fed it, meticulously, by the ones who
came before them."
Think of these as narrative and counter-narrative.
On the one hand, we find the fairy tales of youth,
accounts that feed our imagination and broaden our
horizons. Opposed to these are the historic
resentments and antagonisms—also handed down
to us in the form of stories from our elders—which
constrain our world view and disfigure our
emotional attachments. Both kinds of stories play a
role in The Tiger's Wife, one constitutive and
liberating, the other destructive and self-
immolating.
Both Natalia and her grandfather are doctors, and
the constant bloodshed resulting from bombings,
land-mines, and combat, as well as the dislocations
and disease that spread in their aftermath, bring the
medical profession into constant contact with the
turmoil and violence of the era. In this context,
Natalia's grandfather shares with her the story of
his encounters with Gavran Gailé "the deathless
man"—loosely based on Koschei the deathless, a
folktale hero from Eastern Europe—a mysterious
figure who, like the doctors and caregivers, is drawn
to locales where violence is prevalent and lifespans
are short.
The grandfather encounters the deathless man
several times over a period of decades. At the first
meeting, Gailé has literally risen from his coffin—
Twilight fans take note!—and is shot two times in
the head by a mourner who doesn't want to see the
funeral canceled. But even these bullet wounds are
insufficient to lay low the deathless man. Natalia’s
grandfather is stunned by Gailé's unwillingness to
receive medical treatment, and even more amazed
when the risen corpse insists that he cannot die,
although he can predict when others are about to
meet their end.
The story of the deathless man is presented
alongside a tale about the "tiger's wife"—another
dark and fantastic story from the grandfather’s
past. During his childhood years, a tiger escaped
from a distant zoo settles in the outskirts of town.
The residents are fearful, and all their efforts to kill
or capture the tiger are unsuccessful. Yet a deaf-
mute, married to the local butcher, seems to have
some special relationship with the tiger, apparently
meeting up with the wild animal late at night when
the rest of the village is asleep. When the butcher
disappears, and the wife shows signs of pregnancy,
dark tales start to spread, filled with rumor,
superstition and accusation—the woman murdered
her husband….or had the tiger kill him….the child
in her belly is the tiger’s…or the devil's…or
perhaps both.
The grandfather is drawn both to the woman, and
to the tiger. His prized possession is a copy of
Kipling’s The Jungle Book, and the arrival of the tiger
in the village seems like a story out of the book
come true—again Obreht blurs the line between
fantastic fiction and reality. When a famous hunter
comes to the village, hoping to kill the tiger, the boy
is frantic. He wants to intervene, and save both the
tiger and the "tiger’s wife," but is uncertain how he
can halt the inevitable tragedy he sees looming in
the near future.
Obreht presents these tales from the past against
the context of Natalia's activities in the aftermath of
her grandfather’s death. She is treating orphans
housed at a monastery when she hears the news,
and is determined to make the trek to the place of
his death and retrieve his personal effects. In the
course of this journey, she becomes convinced that
her grandfather, in his final days, had been seeking
out the deathless man. As part of her attempt to
find both solace and closure, she too sets out in
search of Gavran Gailé.
The Tiger's Wife is fanciful and heartrending by
turns, and it reminds me of many of the
masterpieces of magical realism—such as One
Hundred Years of Solitude, Midnight's Children and The
Tin Drum—in its striking juxtaposition of dark
chapters in actual history books with the stuff of
myths and legends. I am especially impressed by
Obreht's ability to hold back at key junctures,
allowing her narrative to advance by means of hints
and silences rather than through detail and
exposition. She shows tremendous restraint for
such a young writer (she was only 25 when this
novel was published), and embraces a pleasing sort
of ambiguity, one that in the hands of a lesser
author would be mere vagueness. At the end of
this book, you will be left with more than a few
unanswered questions, and even the "facts" that
have been presented with reasonable clarity are
susceptible to reinterpretation or a symbolic reading.
But what is irreducible is the allure of the magic
and the power of the human connection, which are
both presented in various forms and guises in The
Tiger's Wife. This is an imaginative book that
expands our sense of the possible, but also a
thought-provoking work about different levels of
responsibility—of child to elder, of doctor to
patient, of people to animals, of races and religions
to each other. This is a novel of caring and
compassion, but not in a sentimental or
stereotypical fashion, rather in a way grounded on
both myth and history. In short, Téa Obreht is a
young woman who has delivered a frighteningly
mature book. The fact that much of it is presented
with overtones of a fairy tale or a story for children
only makes it all the more impressive.
Ted Gioia writes on music, books and popular culture. His most
recent book is The Birth (and Death) of the Cool.
| THE YEAR OF MAGICAL READING The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht |
Click on image to purchase
| The Year of Magical Reading (click here) |
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
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
Follow Ted Gioia on Twitter at
www.twitter.com/tedgioia
Conceptual Fiction:
A Reading List
(with links to reviews)
Home Page
Abbott, Edwin A.
Flatland
Adams, Douglas
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Allende, Isabel
The House of the Spirits
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.
Crash
Ballard, J.G.
The Crystal World
Bester, Alfred
The Demolished Man
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
Bulgakov, Mikhail
The Master and Margarita
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Card, Orson Scott
Ender's Game
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
Danielewski, Mark Z.
House of Leaves
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
Doctorow, Cory
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Esquivel, Laura
Like Water for Chocolate
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
Gibson, William
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
Neuromancer
Grass, Günter
The Tin Drum
Haldeman, Joe
The Forever War
Hall, Steven
The Raw Shark Texts
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
Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Kundera, Milan
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
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
Márquez, Gabriel García
100 Years of Solitude
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
Murakami, Haruki
1Q84
Niffenegger, Audrey
The Time Traveler's Wife
Niven, Larry
Ringworld
Noon, Jeff
Vurt
Obreht, Téa
The Tiger's Wife
Okri, Ben
The Famished Road
Pohl, Frederik
Gateway
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
Saramago, José
Blindness
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
Stross, Charles
Glasshouse
Sturgeon, Theodore
More Than Human
Sturgeon, Theodore
Some of Your Blood
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
Wells, H.G.
The First Men in the Moon
Wells, H.G.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
Zelazny, Roger
Lord of Light
Special Features
Notes on Conceptual Fiction
Ray Bradbury: A Tribute
The Year of Magical Reading
Remembering Fritz Leiber
Samuel Delany's 70th birthday
The Sci-Fi of Kurt Vonnegut
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Robert Heinlein at 100
A.E, van Vogt Tribute
Links to related sites
The New Canon
Great Books Guide
Postmodern Mystery
Ted Gioia's web site
SF Site
io9
Graeme's Fantasy Book Review
Los Angeles Review of Books
Big Dumb Object
Jospeh Peschel
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 reviews)
Home Page
Abbott, Edwin A.
Flatland
Adams, Douglas
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Allende, Isabel
The House of the Spirits
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.
Crash
Ballard, J.G.
The Crystal World
Bester, Alfred
The Demolished Man
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
Bulgakov, Mikhail
The Master and Margarita
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Card, Orson Scott
Ender's Game
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
Danielewski, Mark Z.
House of Leaves
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
Doctorow, Cory
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Esquivel, Laura
Like Water for Chocolate
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
Gibson, William
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
Neuromancer
Grass, Günter
The Tin Drum
Haldeman, Joe
The Forever War
Hall, Steven
The Raw Shark Texts
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
Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Kundera, Milan
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
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
Márquez, Gabriel García
100 Years of Solitude
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
Murakami, Haruki
1Q84
Niffenegger, Audrey
The Time Traveler's Wife
Niven, Larry
Ringworld
Noon, Jeff
Vurt
Obreht, Téa
The Tiger's Wife
Okri, Ben
The Famished Road
Pohl, Frederik
Gateway
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
Saramago, José
Blindness
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
Stross, Charles
Glasshouse
Sturgeon, Theodore
More Than Human
Sturgeon, Theodore
Some of Your Blood
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
Wells, H.G.
The First Men in the Moon
Wells, H.G.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
Zelazny, Roger
Lord of Light
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Notes on Conceptual Fiction
Ray Bradbury: A Tribute
The Year of Magical Reading
Remembering Fritz Leiber
Samuel Delany's 70th birthday
The Sci-Fi of Kurt Vonnegut
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Robert Heinlein at 100
A.E, van Vogt Tribute
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