This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.
Intending to establish a canon for the controversial slipstream science-fiction subgenre, the editors of this anthology have brought together a group of convention-defying tales set in vivid and disorienting dreamscapes that offer no distinction between reality and hallucination. A cross between the literary surrealism of Franz Kafka and escapist-popular-fiction, this ambitious new species--sometimes also called interstitial fiction--is exemplified here in stories by Carol Emshwiller, Karen Joy Fowler, Jonathan Lethem, and George Saunders.… (more)
When I discovered slipstream it sounded like it's going to be a mix of sci-fi and Borges. Not so. It's more like if Borges was boring or just didn't finish his short stories. There is one brilliant short story and a few I liked in here, and they were worth reading the whole book for, but most feel like half-baked experiments in literature, some are okay, some are just frustratingly empty. The lengthy introduction and the four internet forum conversations scattered through the short stories deliberating whether slipstream is even a thing or not, and introducing some of the worst short stories as the ones that are too good to be slipstream doesn't help. It feels forced as fuck. The one I think is brilliant is "Hell is the Absence of God" by Ted Chiang. I will try not to spoil because everyone should read it, but the world we find ourselves in is a brilliant idea, which could be summarized in just one sentence, but Ted Chiang delivers on that idea all the way through, we see all the things that are different there from our world and it's fascinating. If you have any interest in theology or christianity more generally, you must read this short story and think about it. ( )
This anthology isn't really a cohesive whole, and that's a good thing. The stories contained within are supposedly from a newish genre called slipstream. According to Bruce Sterling, slipstream's unifying force is cognitive dissonance. What this anthology demonstrated is that Slipstream isn't a genre at all, and that's there nothing new about it. It is, in fact, anti-genre, and a demonstration of how some our great young writers don't give a damn about genre boundaries. Much of the fiction here felt influenced by Borges and Kafka, with a hint of Calvino.
I was familiar with many of the stories here, but it was nice to see such a broad variety of stories in one Anthology. There are other names for the type of fiction contained in this book: interstitial arts seems to be the latest term. Don't be fooled: these stories are fiction without genre, and it works best when the authors aren't trying too hard. Highly recommended. ( )
Intending to establish a canon for the controversial slipstream science-fiction subgenre, the editors of this anthology have brought together a group of convention-defying tales set in vivid and disorienting dreamscapes that offer no distinction between reality and hallucination. A cross between the literary surrealism of Franz Kafka and escapist-popular-fiction, this ambitious new species--sometimes also called interstitial fiction--is exemplified here in stories by Carol Emshwiller, Karen Joy Fowler, Jonathan Lethem, and George Saunders.
▾Library descriptions
No library descriptions found.
▾LibraryThing members' description
Book description
Contains:
I Want My 20th Century Schizoid Art, Parts I-IV / Barth Anderson, Christopher Barzak, Hannah Wolf Bowen, Hal Duncan, Jon Hansen, Jed Hartman, Meghan McCarron, David Moles, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Christopher Rowe, David J. Schwartz, and Bruce Sterling
Slipstream, the Genre That Isn't / James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel
AI / Carol Emshwiller
The Little Magic Shop / Bruce Sterling
The Healer / Aimee Bender
The Specialist's Hat / Kelly Link
Light and the Sufferer / Jonathan Lethem
Sea Oak / George Saunders
Exhibit H: Torn Pages Discovered in the Vest Pocket of an Unidentified Tourist / Jeff VanderMeer
Hell is the Absence of God / Ted Chiang
Lieserl / Karen Joy Fowler
Bright Morning / Jeffrey Ford
Biographical Notes to "A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with Air-Planes," by Benjamin Rosenbaum / Benjamin Rosenbaum
)
Google Books — Loading...
(3.56)
Wikipedia in English (1)
1
The one I think is brilliant is "Hell is the Absence of God" by Ted Chiang. I will try not to spoil because everyone should read it, but the world we find ourselves in is a brilliant idea, which could be summarized in just one sentence, but Ted Chiang delivers on that idea all the way through, we see all the things that are different there from our world and it's fascinating. If you have any interest in theology or christianity more generally, you must read this short story and think about it. (