SLIPSTREAM or SURREAL or BIZARRO:
CHARACTERISTICS:
- Crosses conventional genres (between science-fiction, fantasy and literary)
- Between speculative and mainstream fiction
- Cognitive dissonance
- Surreal or not all too real, fantastical, illogical, jarring
- postmodern with a magical realism feel
- relies very heavily on imagery and descriptions because it is a dream-like world
- first person narrative
- character perceives the world in a very personal, subjective and distorted way
QUOTE:
“This is a kind of writing which simply makes you feel very strange; the way that living in the late twentieth century makes you feel, if you are a person of a certain sensibility. We could call this kind of fiction Novels of Postmodern Sensibility, but that looks pretty bad on a category rack, and requires an acronym besides; so for the sake of convenience and argument, we will call these books "slipstream."
It's very common for slipstream books to screw around with the representational conventions of fiction, pulling annoying little stunts that suggest that the picture is leaking from the frame and may get all over the reader's feet. A few such techniques are infinite regress, trompe-l'oeil effects, metalepsis, sharp violations of viewpoint limits, bizarrely blasé reactions to horrifically unnatural events...all the way out to concrete poetry and the deliberate use of gibberish. Think M. C. Escher, and you have a graphic equivalent.”
-- (Bruce Sterling, "Slipstream.” SF Eye #5, July 1989".)
EXAMPLES:
FICTION:
The City and the City by China Miéville
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
The Bridge by Iain Banks
White Noise by Don Dedillo
The Edge of Time by Marge Piercy
Vurt By Jeff Noon
MOVIES:
“Twilight Zone” (Hitchcock)
“Paprika”
“Spirited Away”
“Inception”
CHARACTERISTICS:
- Crosses conventional genres (between science-fiction, fantasy and literary)
- Between speculative and mainstream fiction
- Cognitive dissonance
- Surreal or not all too real, fantastical, illogical, jarring
- postmodern with a magical realism feel
- relies very heavily on imagery and descriptions because it is a dream-like world
- first person narrative
- character perceives the world in a very personal, subjective and distorted way
QUOTE:
“This is a kind of writing which simply makes you feel very strange; the way that living in the late twentieth century makes you feel, if you are a person of a certain sensibility. We could call this kind of fiction Novels of Postmodern Sensibility, but that looks pretty bad on a category rack, and requires an acronym besides; so for the sake of convenience and argument, we will call these books "slipstream."
It's very common for slipstream books to screw around with the representational conventions of fiction, pulling annoying little stunts that suggest that the picture is leaking from the frame and may get all over the reader's feet. A few such techniques are infinite regress, trompe-l'oeil effects, metalepsis, sharp violations of viewpoint limits, bizarrely blasé reactions to horrifically unnatural events...all the way out to concrete poetry and the deliberate use of gibberish. Think M. C. Escher, and you have a graphic equivalent.”
-- (Bruce Sterling, "Slipstream.” SF Eye #5, July 1989".)
EXAMPLES:
FICTION:
The City and the City by China Miéville
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
The Bridge by Iain Banks
White Noise by Don Dedillo
The Edge of Time by Marge Piercy
Vurt By Jeff Noon
MOVIES:
“Twilight Zone” (Hitchcock)
“Paprika”
“Spirited Away”
“Inception”