Why shouldn’t monsters get a chance to tell their side of the story?
Well, they finally got an opportunity in the 1960s and 1970s, and I don’t doubt
this had something to do with the tenor of the times. Marginalized groups were
finally shaping their own narratives, from Selma to Stonewall, and power
brokers had no choice but to take notice. So why not other excluded individuals
and communities: the vampire, the monster, the killer, the madwoman in the
attic? We see precisely this turnabout in novels such as
Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), Truman Capote’s
In Cold Blood (1966), John Gardner’s Grendel (1971),
Stephen King’s Carrie (1974), and Anne Rice’s Interview
with the Vampire (1976). These outsiders also had their
stories to tell, and the novelists of the era were determined
to give them a soapbox.
The idea of letting the monster speak was hardly a new
concept. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein monster was a
talkative sort, but in later versions of her story he
grew taciturn. Except for The Bride of Frankenstein, in
which Boris Karloff got quite a few lines, the Universal
horror films were built on the idea that monsters, like
well-behaved children, should be seen and rarely heard.
You could add up all the dialogue from the Mummy, the Wolfman, Dracula
and Creature from the Black Lagoon, starting in the 1930s until the 1960s,
and fit it on a tiny Egyptian papyrus.
But monsters in the 1960s and 1970s played by different rules. In Anne Rice's
Interview with the Vampire, our bloodsucker starts talking…and never stops.
The entire novel, except for a handful of passages of description and
interrogation from the interviewer, is devoted to the first-person narration
of Louis de Pointe du Lac, a two-hundred-year-old vampire. He starts telling
his life story soon after nightfall and is still going strong as we approach dawn
on the following morning. The tape recorder keeps running all night long—
nowadays our garrulous fiend would probably have his own YouTube
channel—and the story never gets dull. Who would have thought a
vampire would make such a fine raconteur?
But let’s also give Anne Rice some credit here. In the spirit of full disclosure, I
must admit that I approached this novel with low expectations. What I knew
of Rice’s personal life and public pronouncements, with their apparent
contradictions and abrupt shifts, led me to anticipate a campy, neo-goth story
filled with outrageous incidents and gratuitous grotesqueries. Before reading
Interview with the Vampire, I didn't know much about the book beyond the
basic premise, and though I hadn't seen the movie, I did know that it starred
Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas and Kirsten Dunst. Nothing here
gave me much confidence in the literary merits of what seemed to be, at first
glance, a trashy supermarket novel.
Ah, how unfair I was! I’m still not nominating Anne Rice for a Nobel Prize
in literature, but Interview with the Vampire, is a nuanced, introspective novel.
I might call it a psychological novel, or even an existential novel. Our
protagonist, as self-reflective as a Dostoevsky hero, could well be branded as a
failure as a vampire! He hardly puts any attention into finding victims, and
instead cogitates on the meaning of his life—or can it even be called life? he
wonders. He agonizes over his ethical choices, and the metaphysical
implications of his betwixt-and-between status. When he finally meets up
with the wisest vampire in Europe, midway through the novel, they don’t
waste time comparing blood sausage recipes. Instead he wants to know
whether vampires are children of Satan. At every juncture in this novel,
questions of conscience and responsibility loom larger than macabre matters.
And if forced to sum up the theme of the book in a sentence, I would suggest
that it revolves around whether vampires can find true love in a hostile world.
I’m hardly surprised that this novel attracted a devoted following in the gay
community, and not just because of the intense relationships between the
male vampires in the story. Actually vampires aren't interested in sex, at
least not in the context of this novel—they go straight for the veins, and
neglect the customary erogenous zones. But from every other perspective,
this work resonates with in-the-closet and out-of-the-closet issues. In
particular, Rice explores with insight and sensitivity the inner workings of a
close-knit subculture operating within mainstream society, and probes the
ways the rules of the two groups both clash and co-exist.
The book opens in late twentieth-century San Francisco, where an unnamed
young man has secured an interview with our vampire hero. This opening feels a
bit rushed—we don’t even get introduced to the interviewer, who is merely
referred to as “the boy”—instead our vampire immediately plunges into the story
of his life. Louis was born in France, but at a young age his family brought him
to a plantation in Louisiana, not far from New Orleans. Here he was seduced by
an older vampire named Lestat, who soon turned Louis into a fellow member of
the undead via a do-it-yourself transfusion. In time, the couple add another
vampire to their alternative family, a young girl named Claudia. But Lestat’s
arrogance and unwillingness to share his arcane knowledge of vampire lore stirs
up discontent on the home front. Claudia eventually kills Lestat—or at least,
believes she has done so—and leaves with Louis on a trip to Europe to discover
their vampire roots. But Transylvania doesn’t work out quite as planned, and
they soon settle down in a luxury hotel in Paris. Here they hobnob with other
fiends of the night, and Louis finds a new BBF, a 500-year-old vampire named
Armand. But Old World and New World bloodsuckers don’t mix well. I won’t go
into detail, but imagine a conflict between rival Mafia gangs, only with vampires
instead of wise guys.
Presented in this rapid-fire manner, the plot is unpromising. But Rice never gets
bogged down in the gore. Her vampire protagonists are melancholy aesthetes,
and this puts a distinctive and unconventional stamp on Interview with the
Vampire. When Louis faces a personal crisis, he heads to an art museum to
contemplate the paintings. Even the crude Lestat spends spare time at the opera
house, or attending productions of Shakespeare. Rice comes up with a clever
plot angle to justify this unusual approach to a horror novel. According to her
taxonomy of monsterdom, vampires possess uncanny sensibilities—this makes
them acutely aware of smells, sounds, colors, and shapes. Hence, even the
lowliest vampire has all the makings of an art connoisseur, and the best put
John Ruskin and Bernard Berenson to shame. As a result, Rice has an excuse to
dwell on the sights and sounds of her settings, and adorn her narrative with a
rich tapestry of detail. This, obviously, puts a burden on her own pen. More
description is not always better description. But Rice succeeds, for the most part.
Her vampires are observant participants, not just heedless killers, and this
combination of blood lust and rich empirical insight imparts a peculiar, yet
appealing ambiance to the novel.
But Interview with the Vampire is not without its flaws. The plot has enough
holes to fill the Albert Hall. How can a vampire kill and drain the blood of a
victim every day, over the course of centuries, and never excite the interest of
the police? How do vampires set up shop in various luxury hotels, and never
have a maid or servant notice the coffins? I realize that fantasy is built on the
willing suspension of disbelief, but Rice just asks for too much from the reader.
Yet the biggest shortcoming here arises from the central premise of the novel:
the notion that this narrative is part of an interview is not adequately supported
by the author. The interviewer makes a few token appearances early in the
book, and then disappears for the entire second half of the novel, only returning
briefly at the book’s conclusion. At times, Rice even seems ready to shift over to
a third-person narrative. We aren't told the name of the questioner, or even the
profession, for that matter. I assume that the interviewer is a journalist, but that
is simply a guess on my part. As a result, the framing story never captures the
reader’s interest. Rice tries to take it somewhere in the last paragraphs of the
book, but by then it is too late. It’s hard for us to care about an interlocutor we
never got a chance to know.
But these problems won’t hinder your enjoyment of the novel. Interview
with the Vampire could have succeeded even without the extravagant notion
of a taped interview between mortal and monster. Rice writes with more
literary flair than you will typically encounter in a genre novel, and never
resorts to the tawdry tricks of the Twilight teen tomes. Frankly I am
surprised that a psychological novel of this sort, leisurely paced and often
understated, would find such a large audience. But this bestseller kicked
off a mini-industry, with Rice writing more than a dozen other vampire
books, not to mention various spin-offs and imitations.
In many ways, this author laid the foundation for the vampire mania of the
new millennium. When I go into my local bookstore, I see a whole section of
vampire books. So many, that I would like to put a stake in their heart, and
sprinkle garlic around the shelves. Maybe if we got rid of these, we could make
room for some highbrow volumes, no? But, yes, I’d make an exception for this
tale, which deserves a much better fate than its anemic shelf mates.
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: March 20, 2016
Well, they finally got an opportunity in the 1960s and 1970s, and I don’t doubt
this had something to do with the tenor of the times. Marginalized groups were
finally shaping their own narratives, from Selma to Stonewall, and power
brokers had no choice but to take notice. So why not other excluded individuals
and communities: the vampire, the monster, the killer, the madwoman in the
attic? We see precisely this turnabout in novels such as
Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), Truman Capote’s
In Cold Blood (1966), John Gardner’s Grendel (1971),
Stephen King’s Carrie (1974), and Anne Rice’s Interview
with the Vampire (1976). These outsiders also had their
stories to tell, and the novelists of the era were determined
to give them a soapbox.
The idea of letting the monster speak was hardly a new
concept. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein monster was a
talkative sort, but in later versions of her story he
grew taciturn. Except for The Bride of Frankenstein, in
which Boris Karloff got quite a few lines, the Universal
horror films were built on the idea that monsters, like
well-behaved children, should be seen and rarely heard.
You could add up all the dialogue from the Mummy, the Wolfman, Dracula
and Creature from the Black Lagoon, starting in the 1930s until the 1960s,
and fit it on a tiny Egyptian papyrus.
But monsters in the 1960s and 1970s played by different rules. In Anne Rice's
Interview with the Vampire, our bloodsucker starts talking…and never stops.
The entire novel, except for a handful of passages of description and
interrogation from the interviewer, is devoted to the first-person narration
of Louis de Pointe du Lac, a two-hundred-year-old vampire. He starts telling
his life story soon after nightfall and is still going strong as we approach dawn
on the following morning. The tape recorder keeps running all night long—
nowadays our garrulous fiend would probably have his own YouTube
channel—and the story never gets dull. Who would have thought a
vampire would make such a fine raconteur?
But let’s also give Anne Rice some credit here. In the spirit of full disclosure, I
must admit that I approached this novel with low expectations. What I knew
of Rice’s personal life and public pronouncements, with their apparent
contradictions and abrupt shifts, led me to anticipate a campy, neo-goth story
filled with outrageous incidents and gratuitous grotesqueries. Before reading
Interview with the Vampire, I didn't know much about the book beyond the
basic premise, and though I hadn't seen the movie, I did know that it starred
Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas and Kirsten Dunst. Nothing here
gave me much confidence in the literary merits of what seemed to be, at first
glance, a trashy supermarket novel.
Ah, how unfair I was! I’m still not nominating Anne Rice for a Nobel Prize
in literature, but Interview with the Vampire, is a nuanced, introspective novel.
I might call it a psychological novel, or even an existential novel. Our
protagonist, as self-reflective as a Dostoevsky hero, could well be branded as a
failure as a vampire! He hardly puts any attention into finding victims, and
instead cogitates on the meaning of his life—or can it even be called life? he
wonders. He agonizes over his ethical choices, and the metaphysical
implications of his betwixt-and-between status. When he finally meets up
with the wisest vampire in Europe, midway through the novel, they don’t
waste time comparing blood sausage recipes. Instead he wants to know
whether vampires are children of Satan. At every juncture in this novel,
questions of conscience and responsibility loom larger than macabre matters.
And if forced to sum up the theme of the book in a sentence, I would suggest
that it revolves around whether vampires can find true love in a hostile world.
I’m hardly surprised that this novel attracted a devoted following in the gay
community, and not just because of the intense relationships between the
male vampires in the story. Actually vampires aren't interested in sex, at
least not in the context of this novel—they go straight for the veins, and
neglect the customary erogenous zones. But from every other perspective,
this work resonates with in-the-closet and out-of-the-closet issues. In
particular, Rice explores with insight and sensitivity the inner workings of a
close-knit subculture operating within mainstream society, and probes the
ways the rules of the two groups both clash and co-exist.
The book opens in late twentieth-century San Francisco, where an unnamed
young man has secured an interview with our vampire hero. This opening feels a
bit rushed—we don’t even get introduced to the interviewer, who is merely
referred to as “the boy”—instead our vampire immediately plunges into the story
of his life. Louis was born in France, but at a young age his family brought him
to a plantation in Louisiana, not far from New Orleans. Here he was seduced by
an older vampire named Lestat, who soon turned Louis into a fellow member of
the undead via a do-it-yourself transfusion. In time, the couple add another
vampire to their alternative family, a young girl named Claudia. But Lestat’s
arrogance and unwillingness to share his arcane knowledge of vampire lore stirs
up discontent on the home front. Claudia eventually kills Lestat—or at least,
believes she has done so—and leaves with Louis on a trip to Europe to discover
their vampire roots. But Transylvania doesn’t work out quite as planned, and
they soon settle down in a luxury hotel in Paris. Here they hobnob with other
fiends of the night, and Louis finds a new BBF, a 500-year-old vampire named
Armand. But Old World and New World bloodsuckers don’t mix well. I won’t go
into detail, but imagine a conflict between rival Mafia gangs, only with vampires
instead of wise guys.
Presented in this rapid-fire manner, the plot is unpromising. But Rice never gets
bogged down in the gore. Her vampire protagonists are melancholy aesthetes,
and this puts a distinctive and unconventional stamp on Interview with the
Vampire. When Louis faces a personal crisis, he heads to an art museum to
contemplate the paintings. Even the crude Lestat spends spare time at the opera
house, or attending productions of Shakespeare. Rice comes up with a clever
plot angle to justify this unusual approach to a horror novel. According to her
taxonomy of monsterdom, vampires possess uncanny sensibilities—this makes
them acutely aware of smells, sounds, colors, and shapes. Hence, even the
lowliest vampire has all the makings of an art connoisseur, and the best put
John Ruskin and Bernard Berenson to shame. As a result, Rice has an excuse to
dwell on the sights and sounds of her settings, and adorn her narrative with a
rich tapestry of detail. This, obviously, puts a burden on her own pen. More
description is not always better description. But Rice succeeds, for the most part.
Her vampires are observant participants, not just heedless killers, and this
combination of blood lust and rich empirical insight imparts a peculiar, yet
appealing ambiance to the novel.
But Interview with the Vampire is not without its flaws. The plot has enough
holes to fill the Albert Hall. How can a vampire kill and drain the blood of a
victim every day, over the course of centuries, and never excite the interest of
the police? How do vampires set up shop in various luxury hotels, and never
have a maid or servant notice the coffins? I realize that fantasy is built on the
willing suspension of disbelief, but Rice just asks for too much from the reader.
Yet the biggest shortcoming here arises from the central premise of the novel:
the notion that this narrative is part of an interview is not adequately supported
by the author. The interviewer makes a few token appearances early in the
book, and then disappears for the entire second half of the novel, only returning
briefly at the book’s conclusion. At times, Rice even seems ready to shift over to
a third-person narrative. We aren't told the name of the questioner, or even the
profession, for that matter. I assume that the interviewer is a journalist, but that
is simply a guess on my part. As a result, the framing story never captures the
reader’s interest. Rice tries to take it somewhere in the last paragraphs of the
book, but by then it is too late. It’s hard for us to care about an interlocutor we
never got a chance to know.
But these problems won’t hinder your enjoyment of the novel. Interview
with the Vampire could have succeeded even without the extravagant notion
of a taped interview between mortal and monster. Rice writes with more
literary flair than you will typically encounter in a genre novel, and never
resorts to the tawdry tricks of the Twilight teen tomes. Frankly I am
surprised that a psychological novel of this sort, leisurely paced and often
understated, would find such a large audience. But this bestseller kicked
off a mini-industry, with Rice writing more than a dozen other vampire
books, not to mention various spin-offs and imitations.
In many ways, this author laid the foundation for the vampire mania of the
new millennium. When I go into my local bookstore, I see a whole section of
vampire books. So many, that I would like to put a stake in their heart, and
sprinkle garlic around the shelves. Maybe if we got rid of these, we could make
room for some highbrow volumes, no? But, yes, I’d make an exception for this
tale, which deserves a much better fate than its anemic shelf mates.
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: March 20, 2016
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice |
Essay by Ted Gioia
| conceptual fiction Exploring the Non-Realist Tradition in 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. Ted Gioia
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. Ted Gioia
| Check out our sister sites: The New Canon Great literary works published since 1985 Great Books Guide Reviews of current books Postmodern Mystery Experimental works of mystery & suspense Fractious Fiction Radical, unconventional and experimental fiction |
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 7:
The Exorcist
By William Peter Blatty
Week 8:
The Woman in Black
By Susan Hill
Week 9:
Nausea
By Jean-Paul Sartre
Week 10:
I Am Legend
By Richard Matheson
Week 11:
Ghost Stories of Henry James
By Henry James
Week 12:
Interview with the Vampire
By Anne Rice
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 7:
The Exorcist
By William Peter Blatty
Week 8:
The Woman in Black
By Susan Hill
Week 9:
Nausea
By Jean-Paul Sartre
Week 10:
I Am Legend
By Richard Matheson
Week 11:
Ghost Stories of Henry James
By Henry James
Week 12:
Interview with the Vampire
By Anne Rice
| To purchase, click on image |
Follow Ted Gioia on Twitter at
www.twitter.com/tedgioia
Conceptual Fiction:
A Reading List
(with links to essays on each work)
Home Page
Abbott, Edwin A.
Flatland
Adams, Douglas
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Aldiss, Brian
Barefoot in the Head
Aldiss, Brian
Hothouse
Aldiss, Brian
Report on Probability A
Allende, Isabel
The House of the Spirits
Amado, Jorge
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands
Amis, Martin
Time's Arrow
Apuleius
The Golden Ass
Asimov, Isaac
The Foundation Trilogy
Asimov, Isaac
I, Robot
Atwood, Margaret
The 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