The familiar knock against science fiction is that it is all escapism, full of thrills like a
theme park ride, but empty of ideas. Yet open-minded readers may puzzle over such
gripes. In the world of highbrow literary fiction, the novel of ideas has virtually
disappeared. Meanwhile contemporary sci-fi writers, such as China Miéville, Liu Cixin,
and Neal Stephenson, stuff their books full of intriguing concepts and philosophical
angles. Have the traditional roles begun to reverse?
Miéville is an especially fascinating case. You can tell that without reading a page of
his fiction—just by looking at his bio. He holds a degree in Social Anthropology from
Cambridge and both a Masters and a Ph.D. in International Relations from the London
School of Economics. He was a candidate for Parliament in Britain, and has published
articles on a number of academic subjects.
That makes for an unusual pedigree for a genre fiction author.
But Miéville defends his embrace of genre fiction in articulate
terms: "The impulse to the fantastic is central to human
consciousness," he told interviewer Joan Gordon in 2003
"in that we can and constantly do imagine things that aren't
really there. More than that (and what distinguishes us from
tool-using animals), we can imagine things that can’t possibly
be there. We can imagine the impossible."
Eight years later, Miéville would take this very theme—the
conceptualization of the impossible—and turn it into the
central premise of his novel Embassytown. Here he
envisions an alien race, the Ariekei, with a peculiar disability
—they are incapable of expressing anything in language that
does not exist in reality. As a result they are unable to tell
lies, or even use the kind of metaphorical language that
humans take for granted.
This might seem a modest foundation on which build a novel,
yet by the time Miéville has worked all his variations on this
theme, he has not only crafted a fast-paced, exciting story filled
with unexpected twists and turns, but also explored a dizzying array of philosophical,
sociological and theological implications of his opening gambit. I’ve read few novels
in recent years—whether sci-fi or mainstream—which invite so many different
interpretive stances.
Embassytown is an outpost of human life at the far end of the known universe. But cities
are never just settings for Miéville, who must have been an urban planner in a previous
life. Back with his novel Perdido Street Station (2000), our author revealed an interest
—indeed, almost an obsession—with the friction and jostling, the conflict in agendas
and architectures of cities. “Transition” was, in his description, “the fundamental
dynamic” of the world, and he reveled in the shifts from “industrial to the residential
to the opulent to the slum to the underground to the airborne to the modern to the
ancient to the colorful to the dram to the fecund to the barren” that constitute urban
reality. The City & the City, the Miéville novel immediately preceding Embassytown,
was built on an even stranger conceit. Here Miéville imagines a grotesque political
dynamic in which two distinct city-states occupy the same territory, each one trying
to pretend that the other does not exist.
The co-existence of two radically different communities returns in Embassytown, where
the terrestrial visitors live in small enclave surrounded by a large city of "host" aliens.
Yet the Ariekei are so different from humans, and rely on such an impenetrable
language, that even the most basic communication is fraught with difficulty and risk
of misunderstanding.
The aliens' inability to lie is interpreted differently by various onlookers. Some idealize
this limitation, and see the Ariekei as akin to angels—their unblemished honesty a
sign of their blessed state. Others treat them as hopelessly naïve, little better than
children (albeit with much more powerful technology). Still others pity their inability
to lie as proof of a chronic lack of imagination, an inability to understand the poetic
and metaphorical aspects of life. From the perspective of the latter group, the aliens
are intellectually crippled by their extreme scrupulousness.
Miéville’s story gets richer and more complex
as it proceeds, but even at an early stage, readers
are left with many questions to contemplate. Is absolute
honesty an advantage from an evolutionary standpoint?
When language stops telling the truth, is it liberated or
debased? Are our moral obligations altered when we are
dealing with creatures—whether aliens from outer space
or animals here on planet Earth—who are incapable of
comprehending right and wrong as we understand it?
It is to Miéville’s credit that he avoids spelling out these
issues, rather leaving them for readers to consider (or not)
as they see fit. "I'm a science fiction and fantasy geek," he has explained. “I love this
stuff. And when I write my novels, I’m not writing them to make political points. I’m
writing them because I passionately love monsters and the weird and horror stories
and strange situations and surrealism, and what I want to do is communicate that.
But, because I come at this with a political perspective, the world that I'm creating
is embedded with many of the concerns that I have. But I never let them get in the way
of the monsters.”
True to his word, Miéville packs this book full of strange creatures and intense conflicts.
His aliens, as it turns out, have other linguistic quirks that the terrestrial visitors in
Embassytown learn about only when it may be too late to head off their disastrous
consequences. Here again, the thematic material at play in the novel—in this
instance, relating to the dangers of making assumptions about cultures you hardly
understand—is not without implications for real world situations outside the pages
of a science fiction book. As a case study in applied anthropology, Embassytown
might serve as a cautionary guide for assigned reading before embarking on
fieldwork.
Perhaps my description above makes Miéville sound like a dry, polemical author.
But that would be a misleading takeaway. Readers who simply want a thrilling fast
paced story filled with surprises will not be disappointed by this novel, which ranks
among the most exhilarating science fiction novels I have read in recent years.
Miéville shows, time and again in the book, how an intelligent, thoughtful novel can
also provide plenty of action and suspense.
“I do retain this hope that you can actually have it both ways,” our author once
explained. “And if you can have it both ways at all, fantasy is a uniquely powerful
arena that would allow you to do that. So my aim would be precisely to write the
ripping yarn that is also sociologically serious and stylistically avant-garde. I mean,
that's the Holy Grail right there.” If that’s the Grail, Miéville has got it in his grasp in
this expansive book. With Embassytown, he has set a standard that even he may
find it hard to match in the future.
Ted Gioia writes on music, literature and popular culture. He is the author of ten books. His most
recent book is How to Listen to Jazz (Basic Books).
Publication date: February 5, 2018
theme park ride, but empty of ideas. Yet open-minded readers may puzzle over such
gripes. In the world of highbrow literary fiction, the novel of ideas has virtually
disappeared. Meanwhile contemporary sci-fi writers, such as China Miéville, Liu Cixin,
and Neal Stephenson, stuff their books full of intriguing concepts and philosophical
angles. Have the traditional roles begun to reverse?
Miéville is an especially fascinating case. You can tell that without reading a page of
his fiction—just by looking at his bio. He holds a degree in Social Anthropology from
Cambridge and both a Masters and a Ph.D. in International Relations from the London
School of Economics. He was a candidate for Parliament in Britain, and has published
articles on a number of academic subjects.
That makes for an unusual pedigree for a genre fiction author.
But Miéville defends his embrace of genre fiction in articulate
terms: "The impulse to the fantastic is central to human
consciousness," he told interviewer Joan Gordon in 2003
"in that we can and constantly do imagine things that aren't
really there. More than that (and what distinguishes us from
tool-using animals), we can imagine things that can’t possibly
be there. We can imagine the impossible."
Eight years later, Miéville would take this very theme—the
conceptualization of the impossible—and turn it into the
central premise of his novel Embassytown. Here he
envisions an alien race, the Ariekei, with a peculiar disability
—they are incapable of expressing anything in language that
does not exist in reality. As a result they are unable to tell
lies, or even use the kind of metaphorical language that
humans take for granted.
This might seem a modest foundation on which build a novel,
yet by the time Miéville has worked all his variations on this
theme, he has not only crafted a fast-paced, exciting story filled
with unexpected twists and turns, but also explored a dizzying array of philosophical,
sociological and theological implications of his opening gambit. I’ve read few novels
in recent years—whether sci-fi or mainstream—which invite so many different
interpretive stances.
Embassytown is an outpost of human life at the far end of the known universe. But cities
are never just settings for Miéville, who must have been an urban planner in a previous
life. Back with his novel Perdido Street Station (2000), our author revealed an interest
—indeed, almost an obsession—with the friction and jostling, the conflict in agendas
and architectures of cities. “Transition” was, in his description, “the fundamental
dynamic” of the world, and he reveled in the shifts from “industrial to the residential
to the opulent to the slum to the underground to the airborne to the modern to the
ancient to the colorful to the dram to the fecund to the barren” that constitute urban
reality. The City & the City, the Miéville novel immediately preceding Embassytown,
was built on an even stranger conceit. Here Miéville imagines a grotesque political
dynamic in which two distinct city-states occupy the same territory, each one trying
to pretend that the other does not exist.
The co-existence of two radically different communities returns in Embassytown, where
the terrestrial visitors live in small enclave surrounded by a large city of "host" aliens.
Yet the Ariekei are so different from humans, and rely on such an impenetrable
language, that even the most basic communication is fraught with difficulty and risk
of misunderstanding.
The aliens' inability to lie is interpreted differently by various onlookers. Some idealize
this limitation, and see the Ariekei as akin to angels—their unblemished honesty a
sign of their blessed state. Others treat them as hopelessly naïve, little better than
children (albeit with much more powerful technology). Still others pity their inability
to lie as proof of a chronic lack of imagination, an inability to understand the poetic
and metaphorical aspects of life. From the perspective of the latter group, the aliens
are intellectually crippled by their extreme scrupulousness.
Miéville’s story gets richer and more complex
as it proceeds, but even at an early stage, readers
are left with many questions to contemplate. Is absolute
honesty an advantage from an evolutionary standpoint?
When language stops telling the truth, is it liberated or
debased? Are our moral obligations altered when we are
dealing with creatures—whether aliens from outer space
or animals here on planet Earth—who are incapable of
comprehending right and wrong as we understand it?
It is to Miéville’s credit that he avoids spelling out these
issues, rather leaving them for readers to consider (or not)
as they see fit. "I'm a science fiction and fantasy geek," he has explained. “I love this
stuff. And when I write my novels, I’m not writing them to make political points. I’m
writing them because I passionately love monsters and the weird and horror stories
and strange situations and surrealism, and what I want to do is communicate that.
But, because I come at this with a political perspective, the world that I'm creating
is embedded with many of the concerns that I have. But I never let them get in the way
of the monsters.”
True to his word, Miéville packs this book full of strange creatures and intense conflicts.
His aliens, as it turns out, have other linguistic quirks that the terrestrial visitors in
Embassytown learn about only when it may be too late to head off their disastrous
consequences. Here again, the thematic material at play in the novel—in this
instance, relating to the dangers of making assumptions about cultures you hardly
understand—is not without implications for real world situations outside the pages
of a science fiction book. As a case study in applied anthropology, Embassytown
might serve as a cautionary guide for assigned reading before embarking on
fieldwork.
Perhaps my description above makes Miéville sound like a dry, polemical author.
But that would be a misleading takeaway. Readers who simply want a thrilling fast
paced story filled with surprises will not be disappointed by this novel, which ranks
among the most exhilarating science fiction novels I have read in recent years.
Miéville shows, time and again in the book, how an intelligent, thoughtful novel can
also provide plenty of action and suspense.
“I do retain this hope that you can actually have it both ways,” our author once
explained. “And if you can have it both ways at all, fantasy is a uniquely powerful
arena that would allow you to do that. So my aim would be precisely to write the
ripping yarn that is also sociologically serious and stylistically avant-garde. I mean,
that's the Holy Grail right there.” If that’s the Grail, Miéville has got it in his grasp in
this expansive book. With Embassytown, he has set a standard that even he may
find it hard to match in the future.
Ted Gioia writes on music, literature and popular culture. He is the author of ten books. His most
recent book is How to Listen to Jazz (Basic Books).
Publication date: February 5, 2018
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Radical, unconventional and
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Great literary works
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Reviews of current books
Postmodern Mystery
Experimental works of mystery &
suspense
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Radical, unconventional and
experimental fiction
| Embassytown by China Miéville |
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50 favorite works of non-realist fiction
released since 2000. Featured books
will include works of magical realism,
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verisimilitude.
50 favorite works of non-realist fiction
released since 2000. Featured books
will include works of magical realism,
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fiction that pushes boundaries and
challenges conventional notions of
verisimilitude.
| conceptual fiction Exploring the Non-Realist Tradition in Fiction |
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"My aim would be precisely
to write the ripping yarn that
is also sociologically serious
and stylistically avant-garde.
I mean, that's the Holy Grail
right there."
to write the ripping yarn that
is also sociologically serious
and stylistically avant-garde.
I mean, that's the Holy Grail
right there."
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 Blind Assassin
Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid's Tale
Bacigalupi, Paolo
The Windup Girl
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
Barker, Clive
Books of Blood, Vols. 1-3
Barth, John
Giles Goat-Boy
Bester, Alfred
The Demolished Man
Bierce, Ambrose
The Complete Short Stories
Blackwood, Algernon
The Complete John Silence Stories
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
Brooks, Max
World War Z
Bulgakov, Mikhail
The Master and Margarita
Bunch, David R.
Moderan
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Butler, Octavia E.
Fledgling
Campbell, Ramsey
Demons by Daylight
Campbell, Ramsey
The Nameless
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
Chambers, Robert W.
The King in Yellow
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
Cline, Ernest
Ready Player One
Crichton, Michael
Jurassic Park
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
Dickens, Charles
A Christmas Carol
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
Egan, Jennifer
A Visit from the Goon Squad
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
Fowles, John
A Maggot
Fuentes, Carlos
Aura
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
Gaiman, Neil
Neverwhere
Gardner, John
Grendel
Gibson, William
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
Neuromancer
Grass, Günter
The Tin Drum
Greene, Graham
The End of the Affair
Grossman, Lev
The Magicians
Haig, Matt
The Humans
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
Hendrix, Grady
Horrorstör
Herbert, Frank
Dune
Joe Hill
Heart-Shaped Box
Hill, Susan
The Woman in Black
Hoffman, Alice
Practical Magic
Houellebecq, Michel
Submission
Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Ishiguro, Kazuo
Never Let Me Go
Jackson, Shirley
The Haunting of Hill House
James, Henry
The Turn of the Screw
James, M.R.
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
Keret, Etgar
Suddenly, A Knock at the Door
Ketchum, Jack
Off Season
Keyes, Daniel
Flowers for Algernon
King, Stephen
Carrie
King, Stephen
Pet Sematary
Koja, Kathe
The Cipher
Krilanovich, Grace
The Orange Eats Creeps
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
Our Lady of Darkness
Leiber, Fritz
Swords & Deviltry
Leiber, Fritz
The Wanderer
Lem, Stanislaw
His Master's Voice
Lem, Stanislaw
Solaris
Lethem, Jonathan
The Fortress of Solitude
Levin, Ira
Rosemary's Baby
Lewis, C. S.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Lindqvist, John Ajvide
Let the Right One In
Link, Kelly
Magic for Beginners
Lovecraft, H.P.
Tales
Machen, Arthur
The Great God Pan
Malzberg, Barry N.
Herovit's World
Mandel, Emily St. John
Station Eleven
Mann, Thomas
Doctor Faustus
Márquez, Gabriel García
100 Years of Solitude
Markson, David
Wittgenstein's Mistress
Matheson, Richard
Hell House
Matheson, Richard
I Am Legend
Matheson, Richard
What Dreams May Come
McCarthy, Cormac
The Road
Miéville, China
Embassytown
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
Morris, Jan
Hav
Morrison, Toni
Beloved
Murakami, Haruki
1Q84
Murakami, Haruki
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the
End of the World
Nabokov, Vladimir
Ada, or Ardor
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Wizard of the Crow
Niffenegger, Audrey
The Time Traveler's Wife
Niven, Larry
Ringworld
Noon, Jeff
Vurt
North, Claire
The First 15 Lives of Harry August
Obreht, Téa
The Tiger's Wife
O'Brien, Flann
At Swim-Two-Birds
Okri, Ben
The Famished Road
Oyeyemi, Helen
White is for Witching
Percy, Walker
Love in the Ruins
Poe, Edgar Allan
Tales of Mystery & Imagination
Pohl, Frederik
Gateway
Pratchett, Terry
The Color of Magic
Pynchon, Thomas
Gravity's Rainbow
Rabelais, François
Gargantua and Pantagruel
Rice, Anne
Interview with the Vampire
Robinson, Kim Stanley
Red Mars
Roth, Philip
The Plot Against America
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, Clark Ashton
The Dark Eidolon
Smith, Cordwainer
Norstrilia
Smith, Cordwainer
The Rediscovery of Man
Stephenson, Neal
Snow Crash
Straub, Peter
Ghost Story
Spinrad, Norman
Bug Jack Barron
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde
Stoker, Bram
Dracula
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
Tryon, Thomas
The Other
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
The Dragon Masters
Vance, Jack
Emphyrio
Vance, Jack
The Languages of Pao
Verne, Jules
Around the Moon
Verne, Jules
From the Earth to the Moon
Verne, Jules:
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Vollmann, William T
Last Stories and Other Stories
Vonnegut, Kurt
Cat's Cradle
Vonnegut, Kurt
The Sirens of Titan
Vonnegut, Kurt
Slaughterhouse-Five
Wallace, David Foster
Infinite Jest
Wallace, Edgar
King Kong
Walpole, Horace
The Castle of Otranto
Walpole, Horace
Hieroglyphic Tales
Weir, Andy
The Martian
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
Wong, David
John Dies at the End
Woolf, Virginia
Orlando
Yamada, Taichi
Strangers
Zabor, Rafi
The Bear Comes Home
Zelazny, Roger
Lord of Light
Zelazny, Roger
This Immortal
Special Features
Notes on Conceptual Fiction
My Year of Horrible Reading
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
The Most Secretive Sci-Fi Author
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
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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
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and its sister sites may receive review
copies and promotional materials from
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parties.
All rights reserved.
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 Blind Assassin
Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid's Tale
Bacigalupi, Paolo
The Windup Girl
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
Barker, Clive
Books of Blood, Vols. 1-3
Barth, John
Giles Goat-Boy
Bester, Alfred
The Demolished Man
Bierce, Ambrose
The Complete Short Stories
Blackwood, Algernon
The Complete John Silence Stories
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
Brooks, Max
World War Z
Bulgakov, Mikhail
The Master and Margarita
Bunch, David R.
Moderan
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Butler, Octavia E.
Fledgling
Campbell, Ramsey
Demons by Daylight
Campbell, Ramsey
The Nameless
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
Chambers, Robert W.
The King in Yellow
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
Cline, Ernest
Ready Player One
Crichton, Michael
Jurassic Park
Crowley, John
Little, Big
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The Fifty Year Sword
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House of Leaves
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Fifth Business
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Babel-17
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Dhalgren
Delany, Samuel R.
The Einstein Intersection
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Nova
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Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
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Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
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Ubik
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VALIS
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A Christmas Carol
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Camp Concentration
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The Genocides
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Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
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The Obscene Bird of Night
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A Visit from the Goon Squad
Ellison, Harlan (editor)
Dangerous Visions
Ellison, Harlan
I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream
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Like Water for Chocolate
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To Your Scattered Bodies Go
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A Maggot
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Aura
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American Gods
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Neverwhere
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Grendel
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Burning Chrome
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Neuromancer
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The Tin Drum
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The Humans
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Light
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Time Enough for Love
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Winter's Tale
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Horrorstör
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Dune
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Never Let Me Go
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Off Season
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Flowers for Algernon
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Carrie
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Pet Sematary
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The Cipher
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The Orange Eats Creeps
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The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
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Gods Without Men
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Nine Hundred Grandmothers
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The Big Time
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Conjure Wife
Leiber, Fritz
Our Lady of Darkness
Leiber, Fritz
Swords & Deviltry
Leiber, Fritz
The Wanderer
Lem, Stanislaw
His Master's Voice
Lem, Stanislaw
Solaris
Lethem, Jonathan
The Fortress of Solitude
Levin, Ira
Rosemary's Baby
Lewis, C. S.
The Chronicles of Narnia
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Let the Right One In
Link, Kelly
Magic for Beginners
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Tales
Machen, Arthur
The Great God Pan
Malzberg, Barry N.
Herovit's World
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Station Eleven
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Doctor Faustus
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100 Years of Solitude
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Wittgenstein's Mistress
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Hell House
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I Am Legend
Matheson, Richard
What Dreams May Come
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The Road
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Miéville, China
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A Canticle for Leibowitz
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Dangerous Laughter
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Cloud Atlas
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Behold the Man
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The Final Programme
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Hav
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Beloved
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1Q84
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Ada, or Ardor
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Wizard of the Crow
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The Time Traveler's Wife
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Ringworld
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Vurt
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At Swim-Two-Birds
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White is for Witching
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Love in the Ruins
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Tales of Mystery & Imagination
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Gateway
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Gravity's Rainbow
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Interview with the Vampire
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Red Mars
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The Plot Against America
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Midnight's Children
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The Female Man
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Blindness
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Dimension of Miracles
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Mindswap
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Frankenstein
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Dying Inside
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City
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Snow Crash
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Dracula
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More Than Human
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Some of Your Blood
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Around the Moon
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Cat's Cradle
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Cloudstreet
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John Dies at the End
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The Bear Comes Home
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Lord of Light
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This Immortal
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The Most Secretive Sci-Fi Author
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
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