Science fiction authors won’t tell you this, but they are lousy at predicting the future. I
love my genre fiction, but learned long ago I get more reliable prognostications from a
daily horoscope or stale fortune cookie.
Maybe we should be glad, given the dystopian flavor of so
many of these genre novels. I really don’t want to live in a
J.G. Ballard or Samuel Delany novel, or find myself trapped
in a Philip K. Dick matrix-like construct. If I have to live inside
an author’s make-believe world, I’d even take gloomy
Dostoevsky over positivist H.G. Wells. I trust Raskolnikov
more than Dr. Moreau.
So when it comes to forecasts, I'll settle for random
passages from Virgil. Or the Edgar Cayce archives.
I'll even opt for Nate Silver. Anything but sci-fi.
But I make an exception for William Gibson, who is a
genuine futurist masquerading as a science fiction writer.
He denies this vehemently. “Only charlatans say they really
know the future,” he declares. But technologists pay close
attention to his stories and utterances, and for good reason.
Gibson has a better forecasting record than any of your Silicon Valley gurus or elite
venture capitalists.
Some thirty-five years ago, Gibson laid out a blueprint for the digital age in his
influential novel Neuromancer. This work is widely credited with introducing the
concept of cyberspace. Some have even suggested that Gibson may have gone
beyond predictions, and actually contributed to the evolution of the Internet: "What if
the act of writing it down,” asks fellow sci-fi writer Jack Womack, “in fact, brought
it about?"
It’s hard to live up to such a reputation. But Gibson has somehow managed to stay
at the forefront of conceptual thinking even as history turns his previous dreams into
banal reality. There’s no glamor in email or social networks nowadays, and Gibson
has been forced to push ahead into the unknown—perhaps his favorite home turf.
In his 2014 futurist thriller The Peripheral, he is still as provocative and edgy as ever.
Even if you come to this book, like me, having read hundreds of other sci-fi stories
set in the future, and think every meme and formula has been fully exploited and
exhausted, Gibson will show you otherwise.
In The Peripheral, Gibson reinvigorates the most tired subgenre of them all, the time
travel story. In fact, I don’t think I would have even considered reading this novel if
someone had warned me it involved time travel. Been there, done that, too many times.
But Gibson is so subtle and slick in this book, that you could read this entire novel
without even grasping that it’s a variant on the time travel tale. Instead, Gibson latches
on to the fascinating notion that the past can be reinterpreted as a kind Third World
culture, lacking our technologies and up-to-date viewpoints. Even garden-variety
historians can be seen as neo-colonialists exploiting previous generations for their
own benefit and advancement.
But Gibson pushes this concept further. What
happens if two rival powers both try to exploit the
past, in a kind of sci-fi imperialist power grab?
Here our author latches on to his next insight:
this rivalry might resemble a kind of video game.
You could even imagine a flippant game player
destroying a whole past world simply out of zeal
to ‘win’ the competition. One society’s recreation
is another’s destruction.
Gibson has many other angles here, but none of them are obvious, even after you
are well beyond the midpoint of his twisted novel. At first glance, Gibson is telling
two different stories that have nothing to do with each other. In one narrative, a
young woman named Flynne gets lured into playing a video game that is too eerily
realistic. Without realizing it, this seemingly innocent pastime leads to an unknown
enemy taking out a contract on her life—but in the real world, not the game. What
did she do to set off this backlash? Even worse, her adversary seems to have
almost unlimited resources and is determined at all costs to kill our protagonist. In
a second narrative, an alcoholic publicist finds that his eccentric client, a performance
artist in a kind of post-Marina Abramović mold, has set off an international incident
after one of her projects goes awry.
I hear readers often complain that they find it difficult to figure out what is happening
in William Gibson’s stories. They have a valid point. The confusion level here is off
the charts, especially in the opening chapters of The Peripheral. But that isn’t a
shortcoming in Gibson’s work, but a carefully calculated gambit. He wants the readers
to experience the strangeness of the worlds he presents. It’s too his credit that, even
after you start feeling some sense of mastery over the storylines and their intersections,
he still has many surprises in store for you.
I have suggested elsewhere that too much emphasis in literary studies is placed
on experimentation with language, and not enough attention is given to innovations
with concepts. Reading William Gibson is the perfect corrective to this bias. But it’s
worth noting how slow the literary world has been to take notice. The New York Times
never even mentioned his pathbreaking novel Neuromancer until the book had been
out for a full ten years! Yet with the benefit of hindsight, Gibson’s breakout book may
have been the most conceptually advanced work of fiction of the 1980s.
Yet I must give Gibson credit for his writing too. Many sci-fi writers with great
conceptual skills are second-rate stylists. As much as I admire Isaac Asimov and
Philip K. Dick, I would never recommend their books as role models for aspiring
authors. Gibson, in contrast, is a poised writer with great control over his sentences
and paragraphs. He would have never been crowned the king of cyberpunk if he
hadn’t been able to capture the whole ethos of that movement in his artfully-
constructed texts.
But in The Peripheral he shows, against all odds, that punks can keep their edge
even in their late sixties. That’s an achievement in its own right. I’m not sure how
many more great novels William Gibson has in him—unlike our esteemed author,
I’m no futurist and don’t give out forecasts—but if this book is any indicator, he is
still at the top of his very difficult game.
Ted Gioia writes on music, literature and popular culture. He is the author of ten books. His
most recent book is How to Listen to Jazz (Basic Books).
Publication date: March 21, 2018
love my genre fiction, but learned long ago I get more reliable prognostications from a
daily horoscope or stale fortune cookie.
Maybe we should be glad, given the dystopian flavor of so
many of these genre novels. I really don’t want to live in a
J.G. Ballard or Samuel Delany novel, or find myself trapped
in a Philip K. Dick matrix-like construct. If I have to live inside
an author’s make-believe world, I’d even take gloomy
Dostoevsky over positivist H.G. Wells. I trust Raskolnikov
more than Dr. Moreau.
So when it comes to forecasts, I'll settle for random
passages from Virgil. Or the Edgar Cayce archives.
I'll even opt for Nate Silver. Anything but sci-fi.
But I make an exception for William Gibson, who is a
genuine futurist masquerading as a science fiction writer.
He denies this vehemently. “Only charlatans say they really
know the future,” he declares. But technologists pay close
attention to his stories and utterances, and for good reason.
Gibson has a better forecasting record than any of your Silicon Valley gurus or elite
venture capitalists.
Some thirty-five years ago, Gibson laid out a blueprint for the digital age in his
influential novel Neuromancer. This work is widely credited with introducing the
concept of cyberspace. Some have even suggested that Gibson may have gone
beyond predictions, and actually contributed to the evolution of the Internet: "What if
the act of writing it down,” asks fellow sci-fi writer Jack Womack, “in fact, brought
it about?"
It’s hard to live up to such a reputation. But Gibson has somehow managed to stay
at the forefront of conceptual thinking even as history turns his previous dreams into
banal reality. There’s no glamor in email or social networks nowadays, and Gibson
has been forced to push ahead into the unknown—perhaps his favorite home turf.
In his 2014 futurist thriller The Peripheral, he is still as provocative and edgy as ever.
Even if you come to this book, like me, having read hundreds of other sci-fi stories
set in the future, and think every meme and formula has been fully exploited and
exhausted, Gibson will show you otherwise.
In The Peripheral, Gibson reinvigorates the most tired subgenre of them all, the time
travel story. In fact, I don’t think I would have even considered reading this novel if
someone had warned me it involved time travel. Been there, done that, too many times.
But Gibson is so subtle and slick in this book, that you could read this entire novel
without even grasping that it’s a variant on the time travel tale. Instead, Gibson latches
on to the fascinating notion that the past can be reinterpreted as a kind Third World
culture, lacking our technologies and up-to-date viewpoints. Even garden-variety
historians can be seen as neo-colonialists exploiting previous generations for their
own benefit and advancement.
But Gibson pushes this concept further. What
happens if two rival powers both try to exploit the
past, in a kind of sci-fi imperialist power grab?
Here our author latches on to his next insight:
this rivalry might resemble a kind of video game.
You could even imagine a flippant game player
destroying a whole past world simply out of zeal
to ‘win’ the competition. One society’s recreation
is another’s destruction.
Gibson has many other angles here, but none of them are obvious, even after you
are well beyond the midpoint of his twisted novel. At first glance, Gibson is telling
two different stories that have nothing to do with each other. In one narrative, a
young woman named Flynne gets lured into playing a video game that is too eerily
realistic. Without realizing it, this seemingly innocent pastime leads to an unknown
enemy taking out a contract on her life—but in the real world, not the game. What
did she do to set off this backlash? Even worse, her adversary seems to have
almost unlimited resources and is determined at all costs to kill our protagonist. In
a second narrative, an alcoholic publicist finds that his eccentric client, a performance
artist in a kind of post-Marina Abramović mold, has set off an international incident
after one of her projects goes awry.
I hear readers often complain that they find it difficult to figure out what is happening
in William Gibson’s stories. They have a valid point. The confusion level here is off
the charts, especially in the opening chapters of The Peripheral. But that isn’t a
shortcoming in Gibson’s work, but a carefully calculated gambit. He wants the readers
to experience the strangeness of the worlds he presents. It’s too his credit that, even
after you start feeling some sense of mastery over the storylines and their intersections,
he still has many surprises in store for you.
I have suggested elsewhere that too much emphasis in literary studies is placed
on experimentation with language, and not enough attention is given to innovations
with concepts. Reading William Gibson is the perfect corrective to this bias. But it’s
worth noting how slow the literary world has been to take notice. The New York Times
never even mentioned his pathbreaking novel Neuromancer until the book had been
out for a full ten years! Yet with the benefit of hindsight, Gibson’s breakout book may
have been the most conceptually advanced work of fiction of the 1980s.
Yet I must give Gibson credit for his writing too. Many sci-fi writers with great
conceptual skills are second-rate stylists. As much as I admire Isaac Asimov and
Philip K. Dick, I would never recommend their books as role models for aspiring
authors. Gibson, in contrast, is a poised writer with great control over his sentences
and paragraphs. He would have never been crowned the king of cyberpunk if he
hadn’t been able to capture the whole ethos of that movement in his artfully-
constructed texts.
But in The Peripheral he shows, against all odds, that punks can keep their edge
even in their late sixties. That’s an achievement in its own right. I’m not sure how
many more great novels William Gibson has in him—unlike our esteemed author,
I’m no futurist and don’t give out forecasts—but if this book is any indicator, he is
still at the top of his very difficult game.
Ted Gioia writes on music, literature and popular culture. He is the author of ten books. His
most recent book is How to Listen to Jazz (Basic Books).
Publication date: March 21, 2018
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published since 1985
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Experimental works of mystery &
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Radical, unconventional and
experimental fiction
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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
| The Peripheral by William Gibson |
Essay by Ted Gioia
Ted Gioia is publishing essays on his
50 favorite works of non-realist fiction
released since 2000. Featured books
will include works of magical realism,
alternative history, sci-fi, horror, and
fantasy, as well as mainstream literary
fiction that pushes boundaries and
challenges conventional notions of
verisimilitude.
Click here for the other titles
50 favorite works of non-realist fiction
released since 2000. Featured books
will include works of magical realism,
alternative history, sci-fi, horror, and
fantasy, as well as mainstream literary
fiction that pushes boundaries and
challenges conventional notions of
verisimilitude.
Click here for the other titles
| conceptual fiction Exploring the Non-Realist Tradition in Fiction |
To purchase, click on image
Gibson latches on to the
fascinating notion that the
past can be reinterpreted
as a kind Third World culture,
lacking our technologies and
up-to-date viewpoints.
fascinating notion that the
past can be reinterpreted
as a kind Third World culture,
lacking our technologies and
up-to-date viewpoints.
Follow Ted Gioia on Twitter at
www.twitter.com/tedgioia
Conceptual Fiction:
A Reading List
(with links to essays on each work)
Home Page
Abbott, Edwin A.
Flatland
Adams, Douglas
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Aldiss, Brian
Barefoot in the Head
Aldiss, Brian
Hothouse
Aldiss, Brian
Report on Probability A
Allende, Isabel
The House of the Spirits
Amado, Jorge
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands
Amis, Martin
Time's Arrow
Apuleius
The Golden Ass
Asimov, Isaac
The Foundation Trilogy
Asimov, Isaac
I, Robot
Atwood, Margaret
The Blind Assassin
Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid's Tale
Bacigalupi, Paolo
The Windup Girl
Banks, Iain M.
The State of the Art
Ballard, J.G.
The Atrocity Exhibition
Ballard, J.G.
Crash
Ballard, J.G.
The Crystal World
Ballard, J.G.
The Drowned World
Barker, Clive
Books of Blood, Vols. 1-3
Barth, John
Giles Goat-Boy
Bester, Alfred
The Demolished Man
Bierce, Ambrose
The Complete Short Stories
Blackwood, Algernon
The Complete John Silence Stories
Blish, James
A Case of Conscience
Borges, Jorge Luis
Ficciones
Bradbury, Ray
Dandelion Wine
Bradbury, Ray
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
The Illustrated Man
Bradbury, Ray
The Martian Chronicles
Bradbury, Ray
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Brockmeier, Kevin
The View from the Seventh Layer
Brooks, Max
World War Z
Bulgakov, Mikhail
The Master and Margarita
Bunch, David R.
Moderan
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Butler, Octavia E.
Fledgling
Campbell, Ramsey
Demons by Daylight
Campbell, Ramsey
The Nameless
Card, Orson Scott
Ender's Game
Carpentier, Alejo
The Kingdom of This World
Carroll, Lewis
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Chabon, Michael
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Chambers, Robert W.
The King in Yellow
Chiang, Ted
Stories of Your Life and Others
Clarke, Arthur C.
Childhood's End
Clarke, Arthur C.
A Fall of Moondust
Clarke, Arthur C.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Clarke, Susanna
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Cline, Ernest
Ready Player One
Crichton, Michael
Jurassic Park
Crowley, John
Little, Big
Danielewski, Mark Z.
The Fifty Year Sword
Danielewski, Mark Z.
House of Leaves
Davies, Robertson
Fifth Business
Delany, Samuel R.
Babel-17
Delany, Samuel R.
Dhalgren
Delany, Samuel R.
The Einstein Intersection
Delany, Samuel R.
Nova
Dick, Philip K.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Dick, Philip K.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Dick, Philip K.
The Man in the High Castle
Dick, Philip K.
Ubik
Dick, Philip K.
VALIS
Dickens, Charles
A Christmas Carol
Disch, Thomas M.
Camp Concentration
Disch, Thomas M.
The Genocides
Doctorow, Cory
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Donoso, José
The Obscene Bird of Night
Egan, Jennifer
A Visit from the Goon Squad
Ellison, Harlan (editor)
Dangerous Visions
Ellison, Harlan
I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream
Esquivel, Laura
Like Water for Chocolate
Farmer, Philip José
To Your Scattered Bodies Go
Fowles, John
A Maggot
Fuentes, Carlos
Aura
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
Gaiman, Neil
Neverwhere
Gardner, John
Grendel
Gibson, William
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
Neuromancer
Grass, Günter
The Tin Drum
Greene, Graham
The End of the Affair
Grossman, Lev
The Magicians
Haig, Matt
The Humans
Haldeman, Joe
The Forever War
Hall, Steven
The Raw Shark Texts
Harrison, M. John
The Centauri Device
Harrison, M. John
Light
Heinlein, Robert
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein, Robert:
Stranger in a Strange Land
Heinlein, Robert
Time Enough for Love
Helprin, Mark
Winter's Tale
Hendrix, Grady
Horrorstör
Herbert, Frank
Dune
Joe Hill
Heart-Shaped Box
Hill, Susan
The Woman in Black
Hoffman, Alice
Practical Magic
Houellebecq, Michel
Submission
Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Ishiguro, Kazuo
Never Let Me Go
Jackson, Shirley
The Haunting of Hill House
James, Henry
The Turn of the Screw
James, M.R.
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
Keret, Etgar
Suddenly, A Knock at the Door
Ketchum, Jack
Off Season
Keyes, Daniel
Flowers for Algernon
King, Stephen
Carrie
King, Stephen
Pet Sematary
Koja, Kathe
The Cipher
Krilanovich, Grace
The Orange Eats Creeps
Kundera, Milan
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Kunzru, Hari
Gods Without Men
Lafferty, R.A.
Nine Hundred Grandmothers
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Dispossessed
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Lathe of Heaven
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Leiber, Fritz
The Big Time
Leiber, Fritz
Conjure Wife
Leiber, Fritz
Our Lady of Darkness
Leiber, Fritz
Swords & Deviltry
Leiber, Fritz
The Wanderer
Lem, Stanislaw
His Master's Voice
Lem, Stanislaw
Solaris
Lethem, Jonathan
The Fortress of Solitude
Levin, Ira
Rosemary's Baby
Lewis, C. S.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Lindqvist, John Ajvide
Let the Right One In
Link, Kelly
Magic for Beginners
Lovecraft, H.P.
Tales
Machen, Arthur
The Great God Pan
Malzberg, Barry N.
Herovit's World
Mandel, Emily St. John
Station Eleven
Mann, Thomas
Doctor Faustus
Márquez, Gabriel García
100 Years of Solitude
Markson, David
Wittgenstein's Mistress
Matheson, Richard
Hell House
Matheson, Richard
I Am Legend
Matheson, Richard
What Dreams May Come
McCarthy, Cormac
The Road
Miéville, China
Embassytown
Miéville, China
Perdido Street Station
Miller, Jr., Walter M.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Millhauser, Steven
Dangerous Laughter
Mitchell, David
Cloud Atlas
Moorcock, Michael
Behold the Man
Moorcock, Michael
The Final Programme
Morris, Jan
Hav
Morrison, Toni
Beloved
Murakami, Haruki
1Q84
Murakami, Haruki
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the
End of the World
Nabokov, Vladimir
Ada, or Ardor
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Wizard of the Crow
Niffenegger, Audrey
The Time Traveler's Wife
Niven, Larry
Ringworld
Noon, Jeff
Vurt
North, Claire
The First 15 Lives of Harry August
Obreht, Téa
The Tiger's Wife
O'Brien, Flann
At Swim-Two-Birds
Okri, Ben
The Famished Road
Oyeyemi, Helen
White is for Witching
Percy, Walker
Love in the Ruins
Poe, Edgar Allan
Tales of Mystery & Imagination
Pohl, Frederik
Gateway
Pratchett, Terry
The Color of Magic
Pynchon, Thomas
Gravity's Rainbow
Rabelais, François
Gargantua and Pantagruel
Rice, Anne
Interview with the Vampire
Robinson, Kim Stanley
Red Mars
Roth, Philip
The Plot Against America
Rowling, J.K.
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone
Rushdie, Salman
Midnight's Children
Russ, Joanna
The Female Man
Saramago, José
Blindness
Sheckley, Robert
Dimension of Miracles
Sheckley, Robert
Mindswap
Sheckley, Robert
Store of the Worlds
Shelley, Mary
Frankenstein
Silverberg, Robert
Dying Inside
Silverberg, Robert
Nightwings
Silverberg, Robert
The World Inside
Simak, Clifford
City
Simak, Clifford
The Trouble with Tycho
Smith, Clark Ashton
The Dark Eidolon
Smith, Cordwainer
Norstrilia
Smith, Cordwainer
The Rediscovery of Man
Stephenson, Neal
Snow Crash
Straub, Peter
Ghost Story
Spinrad, Norman
Bug Jack Barron
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde
Stoker, Bram
Dracula
Stross, Charles
Glasshouse
Sturgeon, Theodore
More Than Human
Sturgeon, Theodore
Some of Your Blood
Swift, Jonathan
Gulliver's Travels
Thomas, D.M.
The White Hotel
Tiptree, Jr., James
Warm Worlds and Otherwise
Tolkien, J.R.R.
The Hobbit
Tryon, Thomas
The Other
Updike, John
The Witches of Eastwick
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Mixed Men
Van Vogt, A.E.
Slan
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Voyage of the Space Beagle
Van Vogt, A.E.
The World of Null A
Vance, Jack
The Dragon Masters
Vance, Jack
Emphyrio
Vance, Jack
The Languages of Pao
Verne, Jules
Around the Moon
Verne, Jules
From the Earth to the Moon
Verne, Jules:
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Vollmann, William T
Last Stories and Other Stories
Vonnegut, Kurt
Cat's Cradle
Vonnegut, Kurt
The Sirens of Titan
Vonnegut, Kurt
Slaughterhouse-Five
Wallace, David Foster
Infinite Jest
Wallace, Edgar
King Kong
Walpole, Horace
The Castle of Otranto
Walpole, Horace
Hieroglyphic Tales
Weir, Andy
The Martian
Wells, H.G.
The First Men in the Moon
Wells, H.G.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
Wilson, Robert Anton & Robert Shea
The Illuminatus! Trilogy
Winton, Tim
Cloudstreet
Wong, David
John Dies at the End
Woolf, Virginia
Orlando
Yamada, Taichi
Strangers
Zabor, Rafi
The Bear Comes Home
Zelazny, Roger
Lord of Light
Zelazny, Roger
This Immortal
Special Features
Notes on Conceptual Fiction
My Year of Horrible Reading
When Science Fiction Grew Up
Ray Bradbury: A Tribute
The Year of Magical Reading
Remembering Fritz Leiber
A Tribute to Richard Matheson
Samuel Delany's 70th birthday
The Sci-Fi of Kurt Vonnegut
The Most Secretive Sci-Fi Author
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Robert Heinlein at 100
A.E, van Vogt Tribute
The Puzzling Case of Robert Sheckley
The Avant-Garde Sci-Fi of Brian Aldiss
Science Fiction 1958-1975: A Reading List
Links to related sites
The New Canon
Great Books Guide
Postmodern Mystery
Fractious Fiction
Ted Gioia's web site
Ted Gioia on Twitter
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SF Site
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Graeme's Fantasy Book Review
Los Angeles Review of Books
The Millions
Big Dumb Object
SF Novelists
More Words, Deeper Hole
The Misread City
Reviews and Responses
SF Signal
True Science Fiction
Tor blog
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and its sister sites may receive review
copies and promotional materials from
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parties.
All rights reserved.
www.twitter.com/tedgioia
Conceptual Fiction:
A Reading List
(with links to essays on each work)
Home Page
Abbott, Edwin A.
Flatland
Adams, Douglas
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Aldiss, Brian
Barefoot in the Head
Aldiss, Brian
Hothouse
Aldiss, Brian
Report on Probability A
Allende, Isabel
The House of the Spirits
Amado, Jorge
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands
Amis, Martin
Time's Arrow
Apuleius
The Golden Ass
Asimov, Isaac
The Foundation Trilogy
Asimov, Isaac
I, Robot
Atwood, Margaret
The Blind Assassin
Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid's Tale
Bacigalupi, Paolo
The Windup Girl
Banks, Iain M.
The State of the Art
Ballard, J.G.
The Atrocity Exhibition
Ballard, J.G.
Crash
Ballard, J.G.
The Crystal World
Ballard, J.G.
The Drowned World
Barker, Clive
Books of Blood, Vols. 1-3
Barth, John
Giles Goat-Boy
Bester, Alfred
The Demolished Man
Bierce, Ambrose
The Complete Short Stories
Blackwood, Algernon
The Complete John Silence Stories
Blish, James
A Case of Conscience
Borges, Jorge Luis
Ficciones
Bradbury, Ray
Dandelion Wine
Bradbury, Ray
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
The Illustrated Man
Bradbury, Ray
The Martian Chronicles
Bradbury, Ray
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Brockmeier, Kevin
The View from the Seventh Layer
Brooks, Max
World War Z
Bulgakov, Mikhail
The Master and Margarita
Bunch, David R.
Moderan
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Butler, Octavia E.
Fledgling
Campbell, Ramsey
Demons by Daylight
Campbell, Ramsey
The Nameless
Card, Orson Scott
Ender's Game
Carpentier, Alejo
The Kingdom of This World
Carroll, Lewis
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Chabon, Michael
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Chambers, Robert W.
The King in Yellow
Chiang, Ted
Stories of Your Life and Others
Clarke, Arthur C.
Childhood's End
Clarke, Arthur C.
A Fall of Moondust
Clarke, Arthur C.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Clarke, Susanna
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Cline, Ernest
Ready Player One
Crichton, Michael
Jurassic Park
Crowley, John
Little, Big
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
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The Obscene Bird of Night
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A Visit from the Goon Squad
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Dangerous Visions
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I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream
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Like Water for Chocolate
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To Your Scattered Bodies Go
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A Maggot
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American Gods
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Neverwhere
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Grendel
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Burning Chrome
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Neuromancer
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Time Enough for Love
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Flowers for Algernon
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Carrie
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The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
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Gods Without Men
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The Wanderer
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The Fortress of Solitude
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Rosemary's Baby
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Magic for Beginners
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Station Eleven
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Doctor Faustus
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100 Years of Solitude
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Wittgenstein's Mistress
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Hell House
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I Am Legend
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What Dreams May Come
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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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Love in the Ruins
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Interview with the Vampire
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Around the Moon
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John Dies at the End
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Lord of Light
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