If you want to read H.P. Lovecraft in the original collections of short stories he
published during his lifetime, you will come up empty-handed. Lovecraft couldn’t
find a commercial publisher willing to issue his stories in book form—the first
widely-available collections were issued posthumously by Lovecraft’s friend August
Derleth. Derleth and his collaborator Donald Wandrei encountered so much
resistance from publishers that they founded their own imprint, Arkham House, to
release these now classic tales. Lovecraft faced the same fate with his short novels.
During his lifetime, At the Mountains of Madness only appeared as a pulp magazine
serial, and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward didn’t get into print in any format
during the author’s lifetime.
H.P. Lovecraft spent his final days in abject poverty. “Outgo persists, income
shrinks to invisibility,” he wrote in dismay in one of his
letters. The author’s newest suit was almost a decade
old, and he still wore the overcoat he had owned as a
teenager. “I have reduced nourishment to $2 and $3
per week, and continue to wear the raiment of yester-
year,” he admitted to Fritz Leiber. Sometime he went
without food to pay for the postage necessary to
maintain his activity as an author. (And he needed
plenty of stamps—he wrote around 100,000 letters
during his comparatively short lifetime, and perhaps
ranks as the most prolific correspondent in the history
of American literature.) Lovecraft lived with an ailing
aunt to save on expenses, and may have delayed seeking
treatment for the cancer that eventually killed him,
because of his financial hardships.
He got little consolation from his literary achievements in his final days, and the
Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi is probably right in claiming that “as he saw death
approaching, Lovecraft envisioned the ultimate oblivion of his work, as he had
never had a true book published in his lifetime.” His oeuvre was scattered in old
pulp magazines, garish periodicals such as Weird Tales and Astounding despised by
the highbrow literary community. Some of his best work simply existed in
typescript in his files.
Fast forward to the present day and marvel over the changed state of affairs.
Lovecraft’s stories are widely read, and available in various editions, including an
impressive 800-page volume from the Library of America, where he can be found
on the shelf between Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and James Madison. His tales
have served as the basis for dozens of film and TV adaptations, with more appearing
every year. A bizarre cottage industry in Lovecraft inspired collectibles—jewelry,
medallions, T-shirts, playing cards, greeting cards, games, key chains, and other
items large and small—testifies to the devotion and creativity of this author’s legion
of fans.
When I visit the gym to workout, I routinely wear a
sweatshirt emblazoned with the insignia of Miskatonic
Univeristy—a non-existent institution (loosely based
on Brown University) that solely exists in the pages
of Lovecraft’s stories. Earlier this week I was confronted
by a barista in a café, who had glimpsed me out of the
corner of his eye. “Does that sweatshirt say ‘Miskatonic
University’?” he asked. “What do you know about
Miskatonic University?” I responded. At that point,
my interlocutor simply rolled up the sleeve of his shirt
and showed me a tattoo that read “H.P. Lovecraft.”
Such is the passion of Lovecraft’s admirers, a passion
that burns brightly almost eighty years after the author's
death. Indeed, his influence shows up in the strangest
places—much of it far afield from Lovecraft’s native soil
in New England. French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari have drawn
on his example in their work A Thousand Plateaus. French novelist Michel
Houellebecq has written a full-length study of Lovecraft’s work. Jorge Luis Borges
dedicated a short story to him. You will find echoes of his work in Japanese manga
and heavy metal music.
But even this impressive list of achievements fails to measure the scope of
Lovecraft’s influence on literature and popular culture. With the exception of
Edgar Allan Poe, no author did more to establish the horror genre and create its
ground rules and formulas, and here his ethos can be traced in virtually every form
of contemporary storytelling, from motion pictures to video games. But when I
consider Lovecraft’s legacy, I marvel first and foremost at his prose style. Virtually
every paragraph in every Lovecraft story is immediately identifiable as his work.
The cadences of his elaborate sentences, the density of his modifiers, the macabre
and melancholy tone of his narratives: these are his trademarks, as essential to the
Lovecraftian universe as his gripping plots or arcane private mythology.
Such dark, demented and dense writing almost demands parody, even as it stirs
admiration. Here is Michael Chabon’s send-off of Lovecraft’s prose:
“This record of sorrow is being penned in human blood on parchment made from
the hides of drowned sailors. Its unhappy author—O pity me, friend, wherever you
lie at your ease!—perches by the high window of a lightning-blasted tower…chained
at the ankle to an iron bedstead, gnawing on the drumstick of a roasted rat….A
prisoner of ill fortune, a toy of destiny, a wretched cat’s-paw for gods of malice who
find sport in plucking the wings from the golden butterfly of human happiness!
Thus shorn of liberty and burdened with the doubtful gift of time do I propose to
ease the leaden hours in setting down this faithful record, the memoir of a king in
ruins.”
Long before the “unreliable narrator” became fashionable in literary fiction,
Lovecraft mastered his own distinctive variant, namely the terror-stricken narrator
who questions his own sanity, perhaps even craves the disclosure that he has lost
his marbles, because this would allow him to doubt the reality of the fearful and
loathsome story he is recounting. (A typical Lovecraft line: “I am writing this under
an appreciable mental strain, since by tonight I shall be no more….”) Again and
again, we encounter this troubled character in the Lovecraft oeuvre. Some hapless
soul, due to excessive curiosity, scientific pride or just sheer bad luck, gets a glimpse
of a horror best left unseen, and usually with cataclysmic implications for the
human race. In “The Colour Out of Space,” one of my favorite Lovecraft stories, the
danger arrives via a meteorite from the sky. In another much cherished tale, “The
Shadow Over Innsmouth,” it crawls out of the sea. In At the Mountains of
Madness, it emerges from the frozen wastelands of Antarctica.
Beyond these many variants, Lovecraft maintained a surprisingly coherent vision in
story after story, drawing on a recurring mythology of his own invention. Derleth
coined the term “Cthulhu Mythos” to describe the lore, bestiary and alternative
history constructed by Lovecraft during the several decades of his writing career,
refined over the course of dozens of works, and later drawn on and expanded by
other storytellers. In time, the Mythos encompassed not only the supernatural
threats faced by Lovecraft’s haunted protagonists, but also a species of intelligent
life that inhabited the earth before the rise of human society, and a successor race
(of intelligent beetles) that will eventually succeed us. He brought in some
elements of preexisting myth, such as the story of Atlantis, with the addition of new
twists of his own devising. But most of this material came only from the fevered
inspiration of his seemingly inexhaustible imagination. Eventually, as Lovecraft
aimed to branch out from pure horror to science fiction, he drew on elements of
quantum physics and Einsteinian space-time jargon to buttress his mthology with a
thin veneer of technological plausibility. These theoretical elements added little to
stories that relied on suspense, not futuristic science for their appeal, and in some
instances undermined perhaps the key allure of Lovecraft’s work, namely the
reader’s instinctive repulsion at the inexplicable and unmentionable. But they
testify to the author’s obsession with expanding the scope and rigor of his
homegrown system, his unified theory of horror.
When Lovecraft gets too caught up in science,
I lose interest. The long drawn-out opening of
At the Mountains of Madness, filled with techno
-speak and musings on geological matters, will
exasperate all but the most patient readers.
Lovecraft is at his best, in my opinion, when he
leaves the horror unexplained, and all the more
ominous for its amorphous qualities. The same
is true of this author’s prose, which at first glance
appears obsessed with explaining everything in
the most intricate detail. Indeed, few writers
have used adjectives and subsidiary clauses
with more abandon than H.P. Lovecraft. But,
in his most inspired moments, Lovecraft find a
ways of explaining very little even while he
appears to try to convey every detail. The web of description proves as fragile as a
spider’s web, and much of it is simply an enumeration of different gradations of
shadow, mist and darkness. We hear the screams, we feel the chill wind, and
vaguely make out, through the suffocating smoke and fog, the dim outlines of a
present menace.
My favorite Lovecraft work, his novel The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, displays a
casual mastery that may surprise those who see this author as limited to short
works, long on mood and light on structure. Here Lovecraft presents an expansive
work, covering several generations and a wide range of narrative stances. This
ambitious story spans two continents and hundreds of years, incorporates a
considerable amount of historical detail, and involves a shifting array of characters
and protagonists. Lovecraft is so bold as to telegraph his ending in the very first
sentence of the novel, yet manages to withhold various key details until the proper
moment when they can strike the reader with the greatest amount of shock and
awe. Judging by this work, Lovecraft had all the skill required to flourish as a
novelist or screenplay writer. How strange that he put such little effort into
marketing this manuscript, which didn’t appear in print until after his death.
But Lovecraft didn’t need a hundred pages to pull off his well-honed effects. Like
Poe, he could construct terrifying vignettes that cut to the quick in just a few pages.
And the careful student of H.P. Lovecraft will dissect this author further, exploring
how paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence, phrase by phrase, he draws the
unsuspecting reader into his elaborate alternative universe of the macabre. I’m
reminded of a comment from a character in one of Lovecraft's early works:
"Memories and possibilities are even more hideous than realities." That’s Lovecraft
in a nutshell: a peering into a future that always echoes with the past, a gauging of
the real that tells us as much about the possible as the actual, and the ever-present
suspicion that these shadows from afar, the horrible flickerings on the wall of a
demented Plato’s cave, are a burden beyond enduring. If horror is more than a kind
of entertainment, but actually a type of metaphysics or aesthetic, this is its essence—
one that, nowadays, we often simply call ‘Lovecraftian’.
Ted Gioia writes about music, literature and popular culture. His most recent book, Love Songs:
The Hidden History, is published by Oxford University Press.
Publication Date: February 8, 2016
published during his lifetime, you will come up empty-handed. Lovecraft couldn’t
find a commercial publisher willing to issue his stories in book form—the first
widely-available collections were issued posthumously by Lovecraft’s friend August
Derleth. Derleth and his collaborator Donald Wandrei encountered so much
resistance from publishers that they founded their own imprint, Arkham House, to
release these now classic tales. Lovecraft faced the same fate with his short novels.
During his lifetime, At the Mountains of Madness only appeared as a pulp magazine
serial, and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward didn’t get into print in any format
during the author’s lifetime.
H.P. Lovecraft spent his final days in abject poverty. “Outgo persists, income
shrinks to invisibility,” he wrote in dismay in one of his
letters. The author’s newest suit was almost a decade
old, and he still wore the overcoat he had owned as a
teenager. “I have reduced nourishment to $2 and $3
per week, and continue to wear the raiment of yester-
year,” he admitted to Fritz Leiber. Sometime he went
without food to pay for the postage necessary to
maintain his activity as an author. (And he needed
plenty of stamps—he wrote around 100,000 letters
during his comparatively short lifetime, and perhaps
ranks as the most prolific correspondent in the history
of American literature.) Lovecraft lived with an ailing
aunt to save on expenses, and may have delayed seeking
treatment for the cancer that eventually killed him,
because of his financial hardships.
He got little consolation from his literary achievements in his final days, and the
Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi is probably right in claiming that “as he saw death
approaching, Lovecraft envisioned the ultimate oblivion of his work, as he had
never had a true book published in his lifetime.” His oeuvre was scattered in old
pulp magazines, garish periodicals such as Weird Tales and Astounding despised by
the highbrow literary community. Some of his best work simply existed in
typescript in his files.
Fast forward to the present day and marvel over the changed state of affairs.
Lovecraft’s stories are widely read, and available in various editions, including an
impressive 800-page volume from the Library of America, where he can be found
on the shelf between Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and James Madison. His tales
have served as the basis for dozens of film and TV adaptations, with more appearing
every year. A bizarre cottage industry in Lovecraft inspired collectibles—jewelry,
medallions, T-shirts, playing cards, greeting cards, games, key chains, and other
items large and small—testifies to the devotion and creativity of this author’s legion
of fans.
When I visit the gym to workout, I routinely wear a
sweatshirt emblazoned with the insignia of Miskatonic
Univeristy—a non-existent institution (loosely based
on Brown University) that solely exists in the pages
of Lovecraft’s stories. Earlier this week I was confronted
by a barista in a café, who had glimpsed me out of the
corner of his eye. “Does that sweatshirt say ‘Miskatonic
University’?” he asked. “What do you know about
Miskatonic University?” I responded. At that point,
my interlocutor simply rolled up the sleeve of his shirt
and showed me a tattoo that read “H.P. Lovecraft.”
Such is the passion of Lovecraft’s admirers, a passion
that burns brightly almost eighty years after the author's
death. Indeed, his influence shows up in the strangest
places—much of it far afield from Lovecraft’s native soil
in New England. French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari have drawn
on his example in their work A Thousand Plateaus. French novelist Michel
Houellebecq has written a full-length study of Lovecraft’s work. Jorge Luis Borges
dedicated a short story to him. You will find echoes of his work in Japanese manga
and heavy metal music.
But even this impressive list of achievements fails to measure the scope of
Lovecraft’s influence on literature and popular culture. With the exception of
Edgar Allan Poe, no author did more to establish the horror genre and create its
ground rules and formulas, and here his ethos can be traced in virtually every form
of contemporary storytelling, from motion pictures to video games. But when I
consider Lovecraft’s legacy, I marvel first and foremost at his prose style. Virtually
every paragraph in every Lovecraft story is immediately identifiable as his work.
The cadences of his elaborate sentences, the density of his modifiers, the macabre
and melancholy tone of his narratives: these are his trademarks, as essential to the
Lovecraftian universe as his gripping plots or arcane private mythology.
Such dark, demented and dense writing almost demands parody, even as it stirs
admiration. Here is Michael Chabon’s send-off of Lovecraft’s prose:
“This record of sorrow is being penned in human blood on parchment made from
the hides of drowned sailors. Its unhappy author—O pity me, friend, wherever you
lie at your ease!—perches by the high window of a lightning-blasted tower…chained
at the ankle to an iron bedstead, gnawing on the drumstick of a roasted rat….A
prisoner of ill fortune, a toy of destiny, a wretched cat’s-paw for gods of malice who
find sport in plucking the wings from the golden butterfly of human happiness!
Thus shorn of liberty and burdened with the doubtful gift of time do I propose to
ease the leaden hours in setting down this faithful record, the memoir of a king in
ruins.”
Long before the “unreliable narrator” became fashionable in literary fiction,
Lovecraft mastered his own distinctive variant, namely the terror-stricken narrator
who questions his own sanity, perhaps even craves the disclosure that he has lost
his marbles, because this would allow him to doubt the reality of the fearful and
loathsome story he is recounting. (A typical Lovecraft line: “I am writing this under
an appreciable mental strain, since by tonight I shall be no more….”) Again and
again, we encounter this troubled character in the Lovecraft oeuvre. Some hapless
soul, due to excessive curiosity, scientific pride or just sheer bad luck, gets a glimpse
of a horror best left unseen, and usually with cataclysmic implications for the
human race. In “The Colour Out of Space,” one of my favorite Lovecraft stories, the
danger arrives via a meteorite from the sky. In another much cherished tale, “The
Shadow Over Innsmouth,” it crawls out of the sea. In At the Mountains of
Madness, it emerges from the frozen wastelands of Antarctica.
Beyond these many variants, Lovecraft maintained a surprisingly coherent vision in
story after story, drawing on a recurring mythology of his own invention. Derleth
coined the term “Cthulhu Mythos” to describe the lore, bestiary and alternative
history constructed by Lovecraft during the several decades of his writing career,
refined over the course of dozens of works, and later drawn on and expanded by
other storytellers. In time, the Mythos encompassed not only the supernatural
threats faced by Lovecraft’s haunted protagonists, but also a species of intelligent
life that inhabited the earth before the rise of human society, and a successor race
(of intelligent beetles) that will eventually succeed us. He brought in some
elements of preexisting myth, such as the story of Atlantis, with the addition of new
twists of his own devising. But most of this material came only from the fevered
inspiration of his seemingly inexhaustible imagination. Eventually, as Lovecraft
aimed to branch out from pure horror to science fiction, he drew on elements of
quantum physics and Einsteinian space-time jargon to buttress his mthology with a
thin veneer of technological plausibility. These theoretical elements added little to
stories that relied on suspense, not futuristic science for their appeal, and in some
instances undermined perhaps the key allure of Lovecraft’s work, namely the
reader’s instinctive repulsion at the inexplicable and unmentionable. But they
testify to the author’s obsession with expanding the scope and rigor of his
homegrown system, his unified theory of horror.
When Lovecraft gets too caught up in science,
I lose interest. The long drawn-out opening of
At the Mountains of Madness, filled with techno
-speak and musings on geological matters, will
exasperate all but the most patient readers.
Lovecraft is at his best, in my opinion, when he
leaves the horror unexplained, and all the more
ominous for its amorphous qualities. The same
is true of this author’s prose, which at first glance
appears obsessed with explaining everything in
the most intricate detail. Indeed, few writers
have used adjectives and subsidiary clauses
with more abandon than H.P. Lovecraft. But,
in his most inspired moments, Lovecraft find a
ways of explaining very little even while he
appears to try to convey every detail. The web of description proves as fragile as a
spider’s web, and much of it is simply an enumeration of different gradations of
shadow, mist and darkness. We hear the screams, we feel the chill wind, and
vaguely make out, through the suffocating smoke and fog, the dim outlines of a
present menace.
My favorite Lovecraft work, his novel The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, displays a
casual mastery that may surprise those who see this author as limited to short
works, long on mood and light on structure. Here Lovecraft presents an expansive
work, covering several generations and a wide range of narrative stances. This
ambitious story spans two continents and hundreds of years, incorporates a
considerable amount of historical detail, and involves a shifting array of characters
and protagonists. Lovecraft is so bold as to telegraph his ending in the very first
sentence of the novel, yet manages to withhold various key details until the proper
moment when they can strike the reader with the greatest amount of shock and
awe. Judging by this work, Lovecraft had all the skill required to flourish as a
novelist or screenplay writer. How strange that he put such little effort into
marketing this manuscript, which didn’t appear in print until after his death.
But Lovecraft didn’t need a hundred pages to pull off his well-honed effects. Like
Poe, he could construct terrifying vignettes that cut to the quick in just a few pages.
And the careful student of H.P. Lovecraft will dissect this author further, exploring
how paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence, phrase by phrase, he draws the
unsuspecting reader into his elaborate alternative universe of the macabre. I’m
reminded of a comment from a character in one of Lovecraft's early works:
"Memories and possibilities are even more hideous than realities." That’s Lovecraft
in a nutshell: a peering into a future that always echoes with the past, a gauging of
the real that tells us as much about the possible as the actual, and the ever-present
suspicion that these shadows from afar, the horrible flickerings on the wall of a
demented Plato’s cave, are a burden beyond enduring. If horror is more than a kind
of entertainment, but actually a type of metaphysics or aesthetic, this is its essence—
one that, nowadays, we often simply call ‘Lovecraftian’.
Ted Gioia writes about music, literature and popular culture. His most recent book, Love Songs:
The Hidden History, is published by Oxford University Press.
Publication Date: February 8, 2016
| The Weird Tales of H.P. Lovecraft |
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The New Canon
Great literary works
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Great Books Guide
Reviews of current books
Postmodern Mystery
Experimental works of mystery &
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Fractious Fiction
Radical, unconventional and
experimental fiction
This is my year of horrible reading. I am
reading the classics of horror fiction during the
course of 2016, and each week will write about
a significant work in the genre. You are invited
to join me in my annus horribilis. During the
course of the year—if we survive—we will
have tackled zombies, serial killers, ghosts,
demons, vampires, and monsters of all
denominations. Check back each week for a
new title...but remember to bring along garlic,
silver bullets and a protective amulet. T.G.
reading the classics of horror fiction during the
course of 2016, and each week will write about
a significant work in the genre. You are invited
to join me in my annus horribilis. During the
course of the year—if we survive—we will
have tackled zombies, serial killers, ghosts,
demons, vampires, and monsters of all
denominations. Check back each week for a
new title...but remember to bring along garlic,
silver bullets and a protective amulet. T.G.
Essay by Ted Gioia
| conceptual fiction Exploring the Non-Realist Tradition in Fiction |
| To purchase, click on image |
My Year of Horrible Reading
Week 1:
Dracula
By Bram Stoker
Week 2:
The Haunting of Hill House
By Shirley Jackson
Week 3:
Tales of Mystery & Imagination
By Edgar Allan Poe
Week 4:
Carrie
By Stephen King
Week 5:
The Passion According to G.H.
By Clarice Lispector
Week 6:
Tales
By H.P. Lovecraft
Week 1:
Dracula
By Bram Stoker
Week 2:
The Haunting of Hill House
By Shirley Jackson
Week 3:
Tales of Mystery & Imagination
By Edgar Allan Poe
Week 4:
Carrie
By Stephen King
Week 5:
The Passion According to G.H.
By Clarice Lispector
Week 6:
Tales
By H.P. Lovecraft
| If horror is more than a kind of entertainment, but actually a type of metaphysics or aesthetic, this is its essence—one that, nowadays, we often simply call ‘Lovecraftian’. |
| H.P. Lovecraft |
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
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
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
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Wizard of the Crow
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
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
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
_____
SF Site
io9
Graeme's Fantasy Book Review
Los Angeles Review of Books
The Millions
Big Dumb Object
SF Novelists
More Words, Deeper Hole
The Misread City
Reviews and Responses
SF Signal
True Science Fiction
Tor blog
Disclosure: Conceptual Fiction
and its sister sites may receive review
copies and promotional materials
from publishers, authors, publicists
or other parties.
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
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
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
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
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Wizard of the Crow
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
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
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
_____
SF Site
io9
Graeme's Fantasy Book Review
Los Angeles Review of Books
The Millions
Big Dumb Object
SF Novelists
More Words, Deeper Hole
The Misread City
Reviews and Responses
SF Signal
True Science Fiction
Tor blog
Disclosure: Conceptual Fiction
and its sister sites may receive review
copies and promotional materials
from publishers, authors, publicists
or other parties.
All rights reserved