September SFFCAT: Slipstream and Interstitial

Of all the sub-genres crowded under the broad umbrella of “speculative fiction,” slipstream is probably the trickiest to nail down. Bruce Sterling, who coined the term, called slipstream “…a kind of writing which simply makes you feel very strange; the way that living in the twentieth century makes you feel, if you are a person of a certain sensibility.” (Presumably, his comments extend to the early twenty-first century as well.)

Also referred to as interstitial fiction, slipstream blurs the conventional boundaries of genre (science fiction, fantasy, and horror) and literary fiction, and thus, by its very nature, is difficult to categorize. The end result is often surreal or weird, so slipstream can be called “the fiction of strangeness.”

Franz Kafka might be considered the grandfather of slipstream writing, and its forefathers were unquestionably the classic science fiction authors Philip K. Dick and Kurt Vonnegut. Magical realism was another important influence, including the authors Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende, Jose Saramago, Milan Kundera, and Salman Rushdie.

Recently, slipstream has become more “mainstream” as contemporary literary authors regularly experiment with blurring the genre lines. Notable examples include:

• Margaret Atwood (The Blind Assassin; Oryx and Crake)


• Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay; The Yiddish Policemen’s Union)


• Kazuo Ishiguro (The Unconsoled; Never Let Me Go)


• Jonathan Lethem (Chronic City; As She Climbed Across the Table)


• David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas; The Bone Clocks)


• Haruki Murakami (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle; 1Q84)


• George Saunders (Tenth of December; Civilwarland in Bad Decline)

Examples of slipstream/interstitial fiction that I have read this year and would recommend include A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki; The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber; and the Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer. For more reading suggestions, see this list.

Remember to add your selections to the wiki and tell us what you are reading!

I think my Early Reviewers win, Two Years, Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie will work for this category, so that's what I'm planning to read.

It looks like I should reread Waiting for Godot

Just checked out the reading list in post 1 and am going to read The Gone-Away World.

I have one book from the list in my TBR stash so I think I'll go with it - Winter's Tales by Isak Dinesen.

I'll be reading Annihilation and possibly some others that might fit here.

Yikes! This one sounds tricky... it might take some figuring out...

Hmmm, it's not tagged "slipstream" here, but someone at shelfari has tagged Jumanji as slipstream. Thoughts? Might it work?

I've been meaning to get to Replay so will try to add that to my list for September.

>8 LibraryCin: Jumanji would be my preference if anyone here thinks it might fit, but if it's too much of a stretch, I might give Magic for Beginners a try.

I have a really heavy work & travel schedule in September, so I'm not sure I'll make it; but I'm going to shoot for 'Neverwhere' (by Neil Gaiman.) I'm actually surprised more of Gaiman's works don't appear on the slipstream lists!

>10 LibraryCin: I read the short story "Magic for Beginners" this month as part of an anthology and I really liked it.

I was going to avoid this one but once I saw mention in the OP of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and Cloud Atlas I am feeling better about this one, especially as I really do need some motivation to get around to reading both of those stories. ;-)

The OP also mentions Gabriel Garcia Marquez so I am wondering if One Hundred Years of Solitude would also fit this CAT.

>12 sturlington: Oh, it's a short story! That's even better, if I'm using something not on my tbr. Thank you!

Right now I'm planning on reading The Blind Assassin.

I am unfamiliar with the concept, but on reading the explanation I wonder if Leo Perutz would qualify? He wrote historical fiction which always contains a phantastic or supernatural element crucial to the plot. I just read Der schwedische Reiter where the protagonist strikes a bargain with the devil. Or a ghost? Things are left unsettlingly vague.

>14 LibraryCin: I think it's the title story of a collection.

>13 lkernagh: Anything considered magical realism would definitely fit.

>16 MissWatson: I haven't heard of that author but it sounds like he would qualify.

>17 sturlington: Oh, ok! Thanks for the clarification!

And magical realism fits. Hmmmm, maybe I can still find something from my tbr. I was looking for books tagged either "slipstream" or "interstitial" (neither of which I really understand).

I also don't really understand what is meant by this whole category.

Judging by the Magical Realism tag, I could reread some Roald Dahl instead of Godot.

My real problem is that I look at the books I have read on these lists, and generally they are ones I hated.

>18 LibraryCin: and >19 MarthaJeanne: Yes, this is a pretty hard category to define. Other tags you might look for are "strange" or "new weird," as well as magical realism. I hope you both do try something in this category!

I just received an Early Reviewers book by Gregory Maguire: After Alice. I'm not sure if it will fit, but it looks weird enough, so I'll probably read that one as well.

Back somewhere in the initial discussions for this Cat, when magical realism was mentioned, I had penciled in Sarah Addison Allen and her new book First Frost. I'm hoping that still fits.

I should try to get to Garden Spells. For some reason I've been avoiding it.

Ok, "magical realism" really opens things up for me! I don't see as much using "new weird" or "strange", but with magical realism, I have options!

So, the weirder sounding ones to me :-) include:
- The Underwater Welder / Jeff Lemire
- Coroner's Lunch / Colin Cotterill

(Though I'll have to see if my library has these...)

Also, Doctor Sleep is tagged magical realism. I had originally hoped to get to it in August, but I had to put a hold on it at the library. I doubt it will come in for me in August, but it might in September.

The discussion on next year's CATs has opened. Please stop by and share your experiences!

http://www.librarything.com/topic/194682#

>23 LibraryCin: And if it doesn't come in September, you can read it in October for the supernatural theme!

Thanks for the description of slipstream, Shannon. I've got a few possibilities from Cloud Atlas to Never Let Me Go. I may also just try something by China Mieville, as I've been interested in reading something by him for some time and it seems he might fit the bill.

Since magical realism would fit, would Haroun and the Sea of Stories work. I plan to read it in September for the British Authors challenge.

I still haven't really grasped what slipstream is, so I'll just read along in case something on my real or virtual TBR shelves looks as if it might fit.

>25 sturlington: Nice! And thank you! I don't usually look that far ahead... though when I stop to think for a minute, I'm hosting so it's one I should know!!!

Thanks for the link from August :)

I will try to read Never Let Me Go and probably something by Charles de Lint. I am still uncertain what slipstream is but when reading the description, de Lint's books (like Trader) leap into mind.

To everyone who feels they still do not understand what slipstream is exactly, don't feel alone. When I was doing my research for the intro, it came clear that no one knows what slipstream is really, not even the people writing it. It's a way of labeling those books that you don't know how to label. If you read something that you think qualifies, then it does, so please tell us about it.

Going with the Magical Realism tag, I came up with a couple of books that I will plan for this Cat. Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey and Do The Creepy Thing by Graham Joyce.

Ooh, someone upthread mentioned China Miéville, and I've been meaning to read Embassytown. Would that qualify? I can definitely see how some of his other books would fit, like The City and the City or Un Lun Dun.

>33 christina_reads: I've read Embassytown and I think it would. There's a lot of stuff about language and aliens that makes it pretty strange.

>34 sturlington: Thanks! As you mentioned and others have noted, this genre seems to be notoriously hard to pin down. But I'm excited to read Embassytown, especially because it will also count for the "book about language" square on my Bingo card!

I finished Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, the new novel by Salman Rushdie, which was definitely magical realism. Loosely based on the Arabian nights, it's about the jinn invading our world and bringing about 1,001 nights of "strangenesses." I had mixed feelings about the book.

I have completed my first read for this month's theme. I absolutely loved The Snow Child, a hauntingly melancholy story that grabbed me from the first page.

Since we are including "magical realism", that's where this fits.

The Coroner's Lunch / Colin Cotterill
3 stars

It is the 1970s in Laos. The country has recently become communist and many people have fled. Siri is one of the few doctors left and at 72 years old would really like to retire. However, he is still able to contribute, so despite not having any experience, he is appointed as a coroner. Usually it's pretty quiet, but when a woman comes in, he and his team (a female nurse and an assistant with Down's syndrome) must investigate. Not only that, more bodies come in that seem suspicious. As he figures out more and more, his own life seems to be in danger.

It was ok. I listened to the audio, so I did miss parts here and there. I did like the occasional humourous one-liners that popped up here and there and I did like Siri and his team and their relationship. Overall, though, the story just didn't pull me in. It is the first in a series, but I am not planning to continue.

I'm reading my current ER book Apex book of World SF 4, and I think many of the stories fit. I'm a lot more comfortable reading weird things when they are short. Then I can finish quickly and move on to the next, which may still be weird, but at least different weird.

>39 MarthaJeanne: Good idea. I won that ER book too and will be starting it shortly. I also have Mark Z. Danielewski's The Familiar on my shelves.

I read The House of The Spirits by Isabel Allende for this Cat. Very good book, the magical realism really is not distracting from the story of a family and the history of Chile.

I finished After Alice by Gregory Maguire. It is an alternative version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and since several characters travel to Wonderland and encounter a lot of nonsense, I'd characterize it as slipstream. Interesting read, it took me a while to get into it but I ended up quite enjoying it. Charles Darwin is a character. Still mulling over the ending, though.

I finished The Onion Girl by Charles de Lint. I have been slowly making my way through the Newford series, which I would classify as fantasy. I don't tend to break down my classifications further than that but I guess magical realism would be the term -- a blending of an alternate reality, magical creatures and contemporary Canadian city life. This book definitely seemed to fit the term "slipstream" as several of the characters slip from one reality to another (some on purpose, some while dreaming). A word of warning though -- the book deals with issues of child abuse so if that topic is hard to stomach for you, this might not be a good book to read.

>39 MarthaJeanne: Finished it.

>16 MissWatson: Well, Der Meister des Jüngsten Tages by Leo Perutz certainly qualifies as "slightly out of whack". It starts out as a mystery with a doubtful suicide, but then things become weird...and Perutz can write. Beautiful prose and masterful construction. A very satisfying read.

I just finished and loved Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami. Best read of the year for me so far, I think.

>46 staci426:, liked this one, too.

I've just started Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman, which I see someone has tagged as slipstream.

Read Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood - What a fantastic book! Really enjoyed the switch from the narrator in the present day reminiscing on her past, to the unnamed couple from the past, and the science fiction story. Very creative and hard to pull off but Atwood does a good job of balancing everything overall. My main quibble would be with the character development of Iris as I never got a good sense of how she became a stronger more assertive person. Really enjoyed this story though.

When I heard that magical realism is part of this group of books, I read First Frost by Sarah Addison Allen, the sequel to Garden Spells about the Waverly women of Bascom, NC and the magical apple tree.

>50 dudes22: One of these years I'll read Garden Spells. For some reason I've been putting it off.

The Underwater Welder / Jeff Lemire
3.5 stars

Jack is an underwater welder who works on an oil rig off the shore of Nova Scotia. His wife is 9 months pregnant. His father died when he was only 10 years old, doing a dive while drunk. While diving for work one day, something odd happens, and Jack is then distracted from anything and everyone else.

At first, I was a little confused and it seemed a little odd. Some of the illustrations were a bit tricky to figure out, as well, which didn't help. The illustrations got easier to read as I went, however. And I did end up liking the book. As mentioned in the introduction (by one of the producers of the tv show, Lost), it was Twilight Zone-esque, so that was kind of appealing, as well.

COMPLETED Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. I'm not sure I'm any nearer to understanding what slipstream is but here's my review:

After his father's death, Fat Charlie Nancy finds out that he was actually an African spider god who plays the trickster role in many folk tales and that he, Charlie, has a brother called Spider who has inherited their father's powers.

I wasn't sure what to expect going in to this book, but it was funny with all sorts of sly references for the reader to pick up. I will be looking out for the author's other books.

>53 Robertgreaves: It's not my favourite by Gaiman, but I listened to the audio of Anansi Boys. The narrator was really good! Those three Caribbean women talking over each other? He did such a good job of it!

It was the first one of his that I'd read but I will definitely look for more.

I finished Annihilation which was suitably strange...

I finished The Nose by Nikolai Gogol. A precursor to magical realism. Written in 1835 and 1836, it is the story of a St. Petersburg official whose nose goes missing and takes on a life of its own. Very funny humorous read.

>57 Kristelh: LOL! Interesting...

>58 LibraryCin: and can be read in less than an hour and can be found free on line, short and funny

>59 Kristelh: Oh, cool! Good to know!

Like many others, I wasn't quite sure what to read for this month's CAT. I picked up the first two of Vera Nazarian's Cobweb series Cobweb Bride and Cobweb Empire and I really enjoyed them both, although I'm still not certain they fit the challenge! I'll get to the third, Cobweb Forest in October.

>51 majkia: Like you, I've just never gotten around to Garden Spells, but it's particularly pathetic in my case since I got an ARC back in 2007 before it was published. So I'm happy to say that I finally read and enjoyed it - woohoo!

Unfortunately, I ran out of time and wasn't able to squeeze Neverwhere (by Neil Gaiman) in. Hopefully before the year is out I'll be able to enjoy it!

My reads for this month:

Cobweb Bride by Vera Nazarian
Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie