From Publishers Weekly
This primarily reprint anthology attempts to define "Slipstream" as the "literature of cognitive dissonance and of strangeness
triumphant," with examples showcasing the work of various mainstream and genre writers. Highlights include Bruce Sterling's "The Little Magic Shop," an allegorical fantasy story; Jonathan Lethem's "Light and the Sufferer," which uses the SF trope of superior aliens to comment on a story of character; Ted Chiang's "Hell Is the Absence of God," which presents a believably horrific picture of God's lack of compassion; Kelly Link's "The Specialist's Hat," which plays with the ghost story form; and Michael Chabon's "The God of Dark Laughter," a reinvention of Lovecraftian horror. Original to this volume is M. Rickert's "You Have Never Been Here Before," which the editors believe is an example of what slipstream does best by being "hauntingly familiar and very, very strange." While these intriguing stories (and accompanying essays) may not be enough to define the canon of a new subgenre, they provide plenty of good reading.
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From Booklist
*Starred Review* In 1989 sf writer Bruce Sterling coined the term
slipstream to denote a kind of story that was neither sf nor fantasy, exactly, but that was showing up in all the places that sf and fantasy did; a kind of story that used sf and fantasy elements within otherwise realistic, or at least consistent, settings to provoke a feeling of strangeness or, better, feeling at home, strangely. After every three stories or so in editors Kelly and Kessel's pick of representative slipstream stories, excerpts from several young writers' blog exchange 17 years after Sterling's essay carry on the analysis, and it's interesting--but, oh, these stories! The authors are mavericks old and new: such travelers from genre to mainstream and vice versa as Aimee Bender, George Saunders, Jonathan Lethem, Karen Jay Fowler, and Michael Chabon; longtime unclassifiables Carol Emshwiller and Howard Waldrop; new small-press stars Kelly Link and Jeff VanderMeer; two quietly grandiose weird imaginations who've broken onto the big publishers' lists, Jeffrey Ford and Ted Chiang; and virtual newcomers M. Rickert, Theodora Goss, and Benjamin Rosenbaum. Oh, and Bruce Sterling, whose "Little Magic Shop" is perhaps the tamest of a wild bunch. How wild? Try Rosenbaum's
Arabian Nights-ish alternate-history tale with the long, academic-sounding name. Try Fowler's double-time-lined "Lieserl," about Albert Einstein's forsaken daughter. Try Bender's "Healer," and ask what world it's set in. Don't stop until all have been read.
Ray OlsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved