Was Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) the first to dismiss
conceptual fiction as a gimmick? The great critic, poet and
lexicographer offered up this pithy assessment of Jonathan
Swift's Gulliver’s Travels (1726). “When once you have
thought of big men and little men, it is very easy to do all the
rest.” Since Johnson's time, similarly curt brush-offs have
been given to countless works of fantasy and science fiction,
these books' grand imaginative leaps offered as the very
reason why we can safely ignore them.
I’ve learned a lot from Samuel Johnson—in fact, he may have
influenced my writing about
art and culture more than
anyone—but he was dead
wrong in this instance.
Perhaps Mr. Johnson never
finished the novel, because
the most incisive and thought-
provoking moments in
Gulliver's Travels arrive not
in the early sections on the
"little men" (the Lilliputians)
and the “big men” (the Brob-
dingnagians), but in the closing
chapters, where Swift's social
satire and political commentary take over a work that started
out as a slightly modernized fairy tale.
(By the way, has anyone else noticed how often books get
remembered for some incident in the opening pages? Don
Quixote lasts a thousand pages, but the titling at windmills
scene, almost at the start, gets all the attention. Proust takes
readers on a two-thousand-page literary journey, but that early
scene with the madeleine has become emblematic of the
whole work. The same is true with Gulliver and his Lilliputian
adversaries. A cynical critic could make a case that literary
history and theory is driven by the first 5% of our classic
works.)
The opening pages of Gulliver's Travels are especially
misleading, presenting a quasi-Dr. Seussian scenario that
has inspired many later commentators to classify this work as
a story for youngsters. And a psychoanalytical interpretation
might well back up this reading, decoding Gulliver's entrap-
ment by the tiny Lilliputians as a kind of wish fulfillment for the
tiniest of readers. Yet the teachings of Dr. Freud notwith-
standing, Dr. Swift (PhD in Divinity, 1702) did not write
a book for adolescents and early teens. Yes, he deserves
ample praise—as I make clear below—for his important
contributions to three different schools of genre fiction: fantasy,
sci-fi and the adventure story. But Swift is also much more
than a spinner of engaging yarns. The non-realistic elements
of his novel are never inserted merely to dazzle or charm
the reader. At every stage of Gulliver's Travels, the fantastic
elements are subservient to Swift’s satire and critical
thinking.
Swift is hardly an exception in this regard. Almost from the
birth of storytelling, works of imaginative fiction have served
as powerful platforms for social commentary. This was true
of Ovid and Homer, Apuleius and Rabelais, H.G. Wells and
Olaf Stapledon, Aldous Huxley and George Orwell, Margaret
Atwood and Robert Heinlein, all the way to the present day,
when science fiction and fantasy themes have taken over a
host of mainstream highbrow literary works, from Infinite Jest
to The Road. Are you surprised? You shouldn't be. Readers
should expect brave new ideas to spring from the same
writers who are the boldest at re-imagining the fabric and
conventions of the mundane world.
Yet Swift stands out, even among this elite company, as the
boldest satirist of them all. In Gulliver’'s Travels, he found a
simple and delightful vehicle for his most pointed barbs—
namely Lemuel Gulliver's attempts to explain his own flawed
civilization to the many new people he meets. Those who
classify Gulliver's Travels as a story for youngsters—one
of most misguided rebranding efforts in literary history (and
not just for the many crude and scatological passages)—or
a bit of escapism or idle entertainment, thus miss the main
point. The freshest and most courageous passages in this
book have nothing to do with Lilliputians or Brobdingnagians,
but with a much different race, known as the British.
Here are some choice passages that are hardly kid’s stuff.
First, Gulliver needs to convey the distinctive characteristics
of the noble class, which his interlocutor assumes must
encompass the must virtuous and praiseworthy individuals
in the realm. Not so, Gulliver explains:
Nobility, among us, was altogether a different thing from the
idea he had of it; that our young noblemen are bred from
their childhood in idleness and luxury; that, as soon as
years will permit, they consume their vigour, and contract
odious diseases among lewd females; and when their
fortunes are almost ruined, they marry some woman of
mean birth, disagreeable person, and unsound constitution
(merely for the sake of money), whom they hate and despise.
That the productions of such marriages are generally
scrofulous, rickety, or deformed children; by which means
the family seldom continues above three generations,
unless the wife takes care to provide a healthy father,
among her neighbours or domestics, in order to improve
and continue the breed….
Next, Gulliver struggles to explain the conflicts of nations to
his host:
He asked me, ‘what were the usual causes or motives that
made one country go to war with another?’ I answered ‘they
were innumerable; but I should only mention a few of the
chief. Sometimes the ambition of princes, who never think
they have land or people enough to govern; sometimes the
corruption of ministers, who engage their master in a war, in
order to stifle or divert the clamour of the subjects against
their evil administration. Difference in opinions has cost
many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread,
or bread be flesh; whether the juice of a certain berry be
blood or wine; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether
it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire; what is the
best colour for a coat, whether black, white, red, or gray; and
whether it should be long or short, narrow or wide, dirty or
clean; with many more. Neither are any wars so furious and
bloody, or of so long a continuance, as those occasioned by
difference in opinion, especially if it be in things indifferent.’
Finally Gulliver takes on the most difficult task of all—namely,
describing the workings of a court of law:
I said there was a society of men among us, bred up from
their youth in the art of proving by words multiplied for the
purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according
as they are paid. To this society all the rest of the people
are slaves. For example, if my neighbour hath a mind to
my cow, he hires a lawyer to prove that he ought to have
my cow from me. I must then hire another to defend my right,
it being against the rules of law that any man should be
allowed to speak for himself. Now in this case, I who am the
true owner lie under two great disadvantages. First; my
lawyer, being practised almost from his cradle in defending
falsehood, is quite out of his element when he would be an
advocate for justice, which as an office unnatural, he always
attempts with great awkwardness, if not with ill-will. The
second disadvantage is, that my lawyer must proceed with
great caution, or else he will be reprimanded by the Judges,
and abhorred by his brethren, as one who would lessen the
practice of the law. And therefore I have but two methods to
preserve my cow. The first is to gain over my adversary's
lawyer with a double fee, who will then betray his client by
insinuating that he hath justice on his side. The second way
is for my lawyer to make my cause appear as unjust as he
can, by allowing the cow to belong to my adversary; and this
if it be skilfully done will certainly bespeak the favour of the
Bench.
Each of these passages comes from the final section of
Gulliver's Travels, which describes that narrator's visit to
the Houyhnhnms—a race of rational horses who live along-
side brutish human beings known as Yahoos (note Swift's
contribution both to our vocabulary and the Internet age). A
modern-day filmmaker would find little sustenance in this part
of Swift's story; the scenes are little more than springboards
for dialogue and discourse, without the striking opportunity
for 'special effects' provided by the 'little people' and 'big
people' in the earlier chapters. But those who are familiar
with the cantankerous spirit of Jonathan Swift know full well
that he was capable of his own kind of 'special effects'—with
no advanced software or stop-motion animation required.
Yet for all the satire, Swift also set the stage for the later
blossoming of genre literature. Gulliver’s Travels is very
much a forerunner of the later adventure stories of H. Rider
Haggard and Rudyard Kipling—and reminds us that travel
literature set the blueprint for many pulp fiction formulas. The
fantasy genre is also very much an extension of such works—
how many of them even come with a map as frontispiece?
Certainly Gulliver's Travels is an important part of that lineage
as well. Still another genre is anticipated in these pages: in
the section on Gulliver’s visit to the flying island of Laputa,
Swift moves clearly on to the terrain of science fiction. His
explanations of the magnetic principles that allow the flying
island to elevate and move may not be scientifically sound,
but the very fact that our author felt compelled to provide
technological descriptions is revealing. The storytellers who
gave us the Arabian Nights or Grimm’s Fairy Tales never felt
the need to bring science to the aid of their fantastic stories,
and Swift’s gesture here, ever so fleeting, points the way
towards the later mindset of a Jules Verne or H.G. Wells.
So we are not wrong to draw a connection all the way from
Gulliver's Travels to modern day fabulists, from J. R. R.
Tolkien to J.K. Rowling. But the fanciful elements in Gulliver's
Travels should never blind us to the acerbic satire that made
this work a masterpiece. Swift’s greatest achievement—and
one can we can still learn from—is to have written a book of
far-flung travels that always hits home the hardest. Indeed,
even Samuel Johnson should have figured out that Swift's
genius came from putting down to size all those 'little people'
who have never been anywhere near Lilliput.
Published: November 5, 2012
Ted Gioia writes on music, literature, and popular culture.
His newest book is The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the
Repertoire.
| THE YEAR OF MAGICAL READING Gulliver's Travels and the Birth of Genre Fiction by Ted Gioia |
Click on image to purchase
| The Year of Magical Reading (click here) |
| conceptual fiction Exploring the Non-Realist Tradition in Fiction |
Welcome to my year of magical
reading. Each week during the
course of 2012, I will explore an
important work of fiction that
incorporates elements of magic,
fantasy or the surreal. My choices
will cross conventional boundary
lines of genre, style and historical
period—indeed, one of my intentions
in this project is to show how the
conventional labels applied to these
works have become constraining,
deadening and misleading.
In its earliest days, storytelling almost
always partook of the magical. Only
in recent years have we segregated
works arising from this venerable
tradition into publishing industry
categories such as "magical realism"
or "paranormal" or "fantasy" or some
other 'genre' pigeonhole. These
labels are not without their value, but
too often they have blinded us to the
rich and multidimensional heritage
beyond category that these works
share.
This larger heritage is mimicked in
our individual lives: most of us first
experienced the joys of narrative
fiction through stories of myth and
magic, the fanciful and
phantasmagorical; but only a very
few retain into adulthood this sense
of the kind of enchantment possible
only through storytelling. As such,
revisiting this stream of fiction from a
mature, literate perspective both
broadens our horizons and allows us
to recapture some of that magic in
our imaginative lives.
The Year of Magical Reading:
Week 1: Midnight's Children by
Salman Rushdie
Week 2: The House of the Spirits by
Isabel Allende
Week 3: The Witches of Eastwick
by John Updike
Week 4: Magic for Beginners by
Kelly Link
Week 5: The Tin Drum by Günter
Grass
Week 6: The Golden Ass by
Apuleius
Week 7: The Tiger's Wife by Téa
Obreht
Week 8: One Hundred Years of
Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
Week 9: The Book of Laughter and
Forgetting by Milan Kundera
Week 10: Gargantua and Pantagruel
by François Rabelais
Week 11: The Famished Road by
Ben Okri
Week 12: Like Water for Chocolate
by Laura Esquivel
Week 13: Winter's Tale by Mark
Helprin
Week 14: Dhalgren by Samuel R.
Delany
Week 15: Johnathan Strange & Mr.
Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Week 16: The Master and
Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Week 17: Dangerous Laughter by
Steven Millhauser
Week 18: Conjure Wife by Fritz
Leiber
Week 19: 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
Week 20: The Hobbit by J.R.R.
Tolkien
Week 21: Aura by Carlos Fuentes
Week 22: Dr. Faustus by Thomas
Mann
Week 23: Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Week 24: Little, Big by John Crowley
Week 25: The White Hotel by D.M.
Thomas
Week 26: Neverwhere by Neil
Gaiman
Week 27: Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Week 28: Fifth Business by
Robertson Davies
Week 29: The Kingdom of This
World by Alejo Carpentier
Week 30: The Bear Comes Home
by Rafi Zabor
Week 31: The Color of Magic by
Terry Pratchett
Week 32: Ficciones by Jorge Luis
Borges
Week 33: Beloved by Toni Morrison
Week 34: Dona Flor and Her Two
Husbands by Jorge Amado
Week 35: Hard-Boiled Wonderland
and the End of the World by Haruki
Murakami
Week 36: What Dreams May Come
by Richard Matheson
Week 37: Practical Magic by Alice
Hoffman
Week 38: Blindess by José
Saramago
Week 39: The Fortress of Solitude
by Jonathan Lethem
Week 40: The Magicians by Lev
Grossman
Week 41: Suddenly, A Knock at the
Door by Etgar Keret
Week 42: Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
Week 43: The Obscene Bird of
NIght by José Donoso
Week 44: The Fifty Year Sword by
Mark Z. Danielewski
Week 45: Gulliver's Travels by
Jonathan Swift
Week 46: Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Week 47: The End of the Affair by
Graham Greene
Week 48: The Chronicles of Narnia
by C.S. Lewis
Week 49: Hieroglyphic Tales by
Horace Walpole
Week 50: The View from the
Seventh Layer by Kevin Brockmeier
Week 51: Gods Without Men by
Hari Kunzru
Week 52: At Swim-Two-Birds by
Flann O'Brien
reading. Each week during the
course of 2012, I will explore an
important work of fiction that
incorporates elements of magic,
fantasy or the surreal. My choices
will cross conventional boundary
lines of genre, style and historical
period—indeed, one of my intentions
in this project is to show how the
conventional labels applied to these
works have become constraining,
deadening and misleading.
In its earliest days, storytelling almost
always partook of the magical. Only
in recent years have we segregated
works arising from this venerable
tradition into publishing industry
categories such as "magical realism"
or "paranormal" or "fantasy" or some
other 'genre' pigeonhole. These
labels are not without their value, but
too often they have blinded us to the
rich and multidimensional heritage
beyond category that these works
share.
This larger heritage is mimicked in
our individual lives: most of us first
experienced the joys of narrative
fiction through stories of myth and
magic, the fanciful and
phantasmagorical; but only a very
few retain into adulthood this sense
of the kind of enchantment possible
only through storytelling. As such,
revisiting this stream of fiction from a
mature, literate perspective both
broadens our horizons and allows us
to recapture some of that magic in
our imaginative lives.
The Year of Magical Reading:
Week 1: Midnight's Children by
Salman Rushdie
Week 2: The House of the Spirits by
Isabel Allende
Week 3: The Witches of Eastwick
by John Updike
Week 4: Magic for Beginners by
Kelly Link
Week 5: The Tin Drum by Günter
Grass
Week 6: The Golden Ass by
Apuleius
Week 7: The Tiger's Wife by Téa
Obreht
Week 8: One Hundred Years of
Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
Week 9: The Book of Laughter and
Forgetting by Milan Kundera
Week 10: Gargantua and Pantagruel
by François Rabelais
Week 11: The Famished Road by
Ben Okri
Week 12: Like Water for Chocolate
by Laura Esquivel
Week 13: Winter's Tale by Mark
Helprin
Week 14: Dhalgren by Samuel R.
Delany
Week 15: Johnathan Strange & Mr.
Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Week 16: The Master and
Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Week 17: Dangerous Laughter by
Steven Millhauser
Week 18: Conjure Wife by Fritz
Leiber
Week 19: 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
Week 20: The Hobbit by J.R.R.
Tolkien
Week 21: Aura by Carlos Fuentes
Week 22: Dr. Faustus by Thomas
Mann
Week 23: Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Week 24: Little, Big by John Crowley
Week 25: The White Hotel by D.M.
Thomas
Week 26: Neverwhere by Neil
Gaiman
Week 27: Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Week 28: Fifth Business by
Robertson Davies
Week 29: The Kingdom of This
World by Alejo Carpentier
Week 30: The Bear Comes Home
by Rafi Zabor
Week 31: The Color of Magic by
Terry Pratchett
Week 32: Ficciones by Jorge Luis
Borges
Week 33: Beloved by Toni Morrison
Week 34: Dona Flor and Her Two
Husbands by Jorge Amado
Week 35: Hard-Boiled Wonderland
and the End of the World by Haruki
Murakami
Week 36: What Dreams May Come
by Richard Matheson
Week 37: Practical Magic by Alice
Hoffman
Week 38: Blindess by José
Saramago
Week 39: The Fortress of Solitude
by Jonathan Lethem
Week 40: The Magicians by Lev
Grossman
Week 41: Suddenly, A Knock at the
Door by Etgar Keret
Week 42: Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
Week 43: The Obscene Bird of
NIght by José Donoso
Week 44: The Fifty Year Sword by
Mark Z. Danielewski
Week 45: Gulliver's Travels by
Jonathan Swift
Week 46: Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Week 47: The End of the Affair by
Graham Greene
Week 48: The Chronicles of Narnia
by C.S. Lewis
Week 49: Hieroglyphic Tales by
Horace Walpole
Week 50: The View from the
Seventh Layer by Kevin Brockmeier
Week 51: Gods Without Men by
Hari Kunzru
Week 52: At Swim-Two-Birds by
Flann O'Brien
Follow Ted Gioia on Twitter at
www.twitter.com/tedgioia
Conceptual Fiction:
A Reading List
(with links to essays on each work)
Home Page
Abbott, Edwin A.
Flatland
Adams, Douglas
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Aldiss, Brian
Barefoot in the Head
Aldiss, Brian
Hothouse
Aldiss, Brian
Report on Probability A
Allende, Isabel
The House of the Spirits
Amado, Jorge
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands
Amis, Martin
Time's Arrow
Apuleius
The Golden Ass
Asimov, Isaac
The Foundation Trilogy
Asimov, Isaac
I, Robot
Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid's Tale
Banks, Iain M.
The State of the Art
Ballard, J.G.
The Atrocity Exhibition
Ballard, J.G.
Crash
Ballard, J.G.
The Crystal World
Ballard, J.G.
The Drowned World
Barth, John
Giles Goat-Boy
Bester, Alfred
The Demolished Man
Blish, James
A Case of Conscience
Borges, Jorge Luis
Ficciones
Bradbury, Ray
Dandelion Wine
Bradbury, Ray
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
The Illustrated Man
Bradbury, Ray
The Martian Chronicles
Bradbury, Ray
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Brockmeier, Kevin
The View from the Seventh Layer
Bulgakov, Mikhail
The Master and Margarita
Bunch, David R.
Moderan
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Card, Orson Scott
Ender's Game
Carpentier, Alejo
The Kingdom of This World
Carroll, Lewis
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Chabon, Michael
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Chiang, Ted
Stories of Your Life and Others
Clarke, Arthur C.
Childhood's End
Clarke, Arthur C.
A Fall of Moondust
Clarke, Arthur C.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Clarke, Susanna
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Crowley, John
Little, Big
Danielewski, Mark Z.
The Fifty Year Sword
Danielewski, Mark Z.
House of Leaves
Davies, Robertson
Fifth Business
Delany, Samuel R.
Babel-17
Delany, Samuel R.
Dhalgren
Delany, Samuel R.
The Einstein Intersection
Delany, Samuel R.
Nova
Dick, Philip K.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Dick, Philip K.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Dick, Philip K.
The Man in the High Castle
Dick, Philip K.
Ubik
Dick, Philip K.
VALIS
Disch, Thomas M.
Camp Concentration
Disch, Thomas M.
The Genocides
Doctorow, Cory
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Donoso, José
The Obscene Bird of Night
Ellison, Harlan (editor)
Dangerous Visions
Ellison, Harlan
I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream
Esquivel, Laura
Like Water for Chocolate
Farmer, Philip José
To Your Scattered Bodies Go
Fuentes, Carlos
Aura
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
Gaiman, Neil
Neverwhere
Gibson, William
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
Neuromancer
Grass, Günter
The Tin Drum
Greene, Graham
The End of the Affair
Grossman, Lev
The Magicians
Haldeman, Joe
The Forever War
Hall, Steven
The Raw Shark Texts
Harrison, M. John
The Centauri Device
Harrison, M. John
Light
Heinlein, Robert
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein, Robert:
Stranger in a Strange Land
Heinlein, Robert
Time Enough for Love
Helprin, Mark
Winter's Tale
Herbert, Frank
Dune
Hoffman, Alice
Practical Magic
Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Keret, Etgar
Suddenly, A Knock at the Door
Keyes, Daniel
Flowers for Algernon
Kundera, Milan
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Kunzru, Hari
Gods Without Men
Lafferty, R.A.
Nine Hundred Grandmothers
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Dispossessed
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Lathe of Heaven
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Leiber, Fritz
The Big Time
Leiber, Fritz
Conjure Wife
Leiber, Fritz
Swords & Deviltry
Leiber, Fritz
The Wanderer
Lem, Stanislaw
His Master's Voice
Lem, Stanislaw
Solaris
Lethem, Jonathan
The Fortress of Solitude
Lewis, C. S.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Link, Kelly
Magic for Beginners
Malzberg, Barry N.
Herovit's World
Mann, Thomas
Doctor Faustus
Márquez, Gabriel García
100 Years of Solitude
Markson, David
Wittgenstein's Mistress
Matheson, Richard
Hell House
Matheson, Richard
What Dreams May Come
McCarthy, Cormac
The Road
Miéville, China
Perdido Street Station
Miller, Jr., Walter M.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Millhauser, Steven
Dangerous Laughter
Mitchell, David
Cloud Atlas
Moorcock, Michael
Behold the Man
Moorcock, Michael
The Final Programme
Morrison, Toni
Beloved
Murakami, Haruki
1Q84
Murakami, Haruki
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the
End of the World
Nabokov, Vladimir
Ada, or Ardor
Niffenegger, Audrey
The Time Traveler's Wife
Niven, Larry
Ringworld
Noon, Jeff
Vurt
Obreht, Téa
The Tiger's Wife
O'Brien, Flann
At Swim-Two-Birds
Okri, Ben
The Famished Road
Percy, Walker
Love in the Ruins
Pohl, Frederik
Gateway
Pratchett, Terry
The Color of Magic
Pynchon, Thomas
Gravity's Rainbow
Rabelais, François
Gargantua and Pantagruel
Robinson, Kim Stanley
Red Mars
Rowling, J.K.
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone
Rushdie, Salman
Midnight's Children
Russ, Joanna
The Female Man
Saramago, José
Blindness
Sheckley, Robert
Dimension of Miracles
Sheckley, Robert
Mindswap
Sheckley, Robert
Store of the Worlds
Shelley, Mary
Frankenstein
Silverberg, Robert
Dying Inside
Silverberg, Robert
Nightwings
Silverberg, Robert
The World Inside
Simak, Clifford
City
Simak, Clifford
The Trouble with Tycho
Smith, Cordwainer
Norstrilia
Smith, Cordwainer
The Rediscovery of Man
Stephenson, Neal
Snow Crash
Spinrad, Norman
Bug Jack Barron
Stross, Charles
Glasshouse
Sturgeon, Theodore
More Than Human
Sturgeon, Theodore
Some of Your Blood
Swift, Jonathan
Gulliver's Travels
Thomas, D.M.
The White Hotel
Tiptree, Jr., James
Warm Worlds and Otherwise
Tolkien, J.R.R.
The Hobbit
Updike, John
The Witches of Eastwick
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Mixed Men
Van Vogt, A.E.
Slan
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Voyage of the Space Beagle
Van Vogt, A.E.
The World of Null A
Vance, Jack
Emphyrio
Verne, Jules
Around the Moon
Verne, Jules
From the Earth to the Moon
Verne, Jules:
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Vonnegut, Kurt
Cat's Cradle
Vonnegut, Kurt
The Sirens of Titan
Vonnegut, Kurt
Slaughterhouse-Five
Wallace, David Foster
Infinite Jest
Walpole, Horace
Hieroglyphic Tales
Wells, H.G.
The First Men in the Moon
Wells, H.G.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
Wilson, Robert Anton & Robert Shea
The Illuminatus! Trilogy
Winton, Tim
Cloudstreet
Woolf, Virginia
Orlando
Zabor, Rafi
The Bear Comes Home
Zelazny, Roger
Lord of Light
Zelazny, Roger
This Immortal
Special Features
Notes on Conceptual Fiction
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
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
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
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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
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Giles Goat-Boy
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The Demolished Man
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A Case of Conscience
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Dandelion Wine
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Fahrenheit 451
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The Illustrated Man
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The Martian Chronicles
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Something Wicked This Way Comes
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The View from the Seventh Layer
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The Master and Margarita
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Moderan
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A Clockwork Orange
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Ender's Game
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The Kingdom of This World
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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
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The Yiddish Policemen's Union
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Stories of Your Life and Others
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Childhood's End
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A Fall of Moondust
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2001: A Space Odyssey
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Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
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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
Delany, Samuel R.
Dhalgren
Delany, Samuel R.
The Einstein Intersection
Delany, Samuel R.
Nova
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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
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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
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The Big Time
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Conjure Wife
Leiber, Fritz
Swords & Deviltry
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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
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Herovit's World
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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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What Dreams May Come
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The Road
Miéville, China
Perdido Street Station
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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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Beloved
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1Q84
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Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the
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Ada, or Ardor
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The Time Traveler's Wife
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Ringworld
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Vurt
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The Tiger's Wife
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At Swim-Two-Birds
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The Famished Road
Percy, Walker
Love in the Ruins
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Gateway
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The Color of Magic
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Gravity's Rainbow
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Gargantua and Pantagruel
Robinson, Kim Stanley
Red Mars
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Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone
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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
Sheckley, Robert
Mindswap
Sheckley, Robert
Store of the Worlds
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Frankenstein
Silverberg, Robert
Dying Inside
Silverberg, Robert
Nightwings
Silverberg, Robert
The World Inside
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City
Simak, Clifford
The Trouble with Tycho
Smith, Cordwainer
Norstrilia
Smith, Cordwainer
The Rediscovery of Man
Stephenson, Neal
Snow Crash
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Bug Jack Barron
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Glasshouse
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More Than Human
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Some of Your Blood
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Gulliver's Travels
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The White Hotel
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Warm Worlds and Otherwise
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Slan
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The World of Null A
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Emphyrio
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Around the Moon
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From the Earth to the Moon
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Journey to the Center of the Earth
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Cat's Cradle
Vonnegut, Kurt
The Sirens of Titan
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Slaughterhouse-Five
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Infinite Jest
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Hieroglyphic Tales
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The First Men in the Moon
Wells, H.G.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
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The Illuminatus! Trilogy
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Cloudstreet
Woolf, Virginia
Orlando
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The Bear Comes Home
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Lord of Light
Zelazny, Roger
This Immortal
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