Slipstream (genre)

This article is about the literary genre. For other uses, see Slipstream (disambiguation).

Slipstream is a kind of fantastic or non-realistic fiction that crosses conventional genre boundaries between science fiction, fantasy, and literary fiction.

The term slipstream was coined by cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling in an article originally published in SF Eye #5, in July 1989. He wrote: "... this is 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."[1] Slipstream fiction has consequently been described as "the fiction of strangeness," which is as clear a definition as any of the others in wide use. Science fiction authors James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel, editors of Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology, argue that cognitive dissonance is at the heart of slipstream, and that it is not so much a genre as a literary effect, like horror or comedy.[2]

Slipstream falls between speculative fiction and mainstream fiction. While some slipstream novels employ elements of science fiction or fantasy, not all do. The common unifying factor of these pieces of literature is some degree of the surreal, the not-entirely-real, or the markedly anti-real.

In 2007, the first London Literature Festival at the Royal Festival Hall held a Slipstream night chaired by Toby Litt and featuring the British authors Steven Hall and Scarlett Thomas.[3]

In her 2012 volume Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction, Grace Dillon identifies a current of Native Slipstream that predates and anticipates slipstream, with examples including Gerald Vizenor's "Custer on the Slipstream" (1978).

See also

References

  1. ↑ Sterling, Bruce (July 1989). "CATSCAN 5: Slipstream". SF Eye. No. 5. Retrieved 2014-09-13.
  2. ↑ Adams, John Joseph (12 June 2006). "James Patrick Kelly, John Kessel". SciFi.com. Archived from the original on 15 June 2006. Retrieved 2014-09-13.
  3. ↑ "London Literature Festival: Slipstream by Toby Litt with Steven Hall & Scarlett Thomas". Nature Network. 2007. Retrieved 2011-12-12.

External resources

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