Comments on: SF Genre Benders

Question: SF Genre Benders

Dag Maggot — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 17:55:23 -0800

I'm looking for SF books that may not be classified as sci-fi, but instead as standard adult fiction "literature" at my local library. Examples would be Mary Doria Russell's "The Sparrow" or David Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas"

The SF books at my library have little stickers on them to help me easily find them, but they seem to only classify the hardest core SF type books with this sticker. I've almost missed a few great SF books which I love, because they are genre benders.

By: rabbitsnake

rabbitsnake — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 17:59:53 -0800

Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse Five), Margaret Atwood(The Handmaid's Tale), Jules Verne (any one of them), Mary Shelley (Frankenstein), George Orwell (1984), and Aldous Huxley (Brave New World).

By: elisabeth r

elisabeth r — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 18:04:22 -0800

Another Margaret Atwood: Oryx and Crake

The newest Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go

both books belong in the SF and mainstream contemporary literature categories.

By: zadcat

zadcat — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 18:09:17 -0800

P.D. James' The Children of Men is a departure from her usual crime tales, and is a sort of cosy-catastrophe in the British mode.

Doris Lessing's five Shikasta novels.

By: precipice

precipice — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 18:10:49 -0800

Anything by Kim Stanley Robinson, but particularly his most recent two, Forty Signs of Rain and Fifty Degrees Below, and Antarctica.

By: Espy Gillespie

Espy Gillespie — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 18:14:19 -0800

Maybe Solaris by Stanislaw Lem.

By: dilettante

dilettante — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 18:18:30 -0800

Sexing the Cherry, Jeanette Winterson. Assorted books by Angela Carter.

By: dilettante

dilettante — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 18:23:43 -0800

Oh, and Bimbos of the Death Sun, Sharyn McCrumb. No, really.

Slight derail - I really loathe the division of books into genres, especially at the library. I'm hypocrite enough to take full advantage of it for my own convenience and won't even bother with certain sections - but I'm sure I miss stuff I'd like that way.

By: nev

nev — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 18:23:58 -0800

I just finished The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, which some may find too chick-lit but does involve, believe it or not, time travel.

By: jgee

jgee — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 18:24:16 -0800

Richard Powers: Galatea 2.2
Much of Murakami, specifically Hard-Boiled Wonderland at the End of the World

By: nev

nev — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 18:27:49 -0800

Also The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon and The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathem Lethem are both well-regarded books that have elements of the fantastic.

(Lethem's earlier work is more straight-up sci-fi.)

By: thecjm

thecjm — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 18:29:16 -0800

A lot of good stuff has already been mentioned especially the two dystopian Atwood books and the Ishiguro, but here's some more: Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, and, from the teen section but definitely worth reading, the His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman. Haruki Murakami books might be a good shot too if you like Phil Dick style experimental sci-fi.

By: skwm

skwm — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 18:31:24 -0800

James Morrow's novels are usually in the regular fiction section at libraries.

By: ubersturm

ubersturm — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 18:32:51 -0800

Haruki Murakami's books often have sci-fi elements, but I've only rarely seen them put in the sci-fi shelves in a library. Some of Kim Stanley Robinson's stuff gets shelved in "fiction" as well. Adams' "Watership Down" is not science fiction, but it's not particularly well-suited to the "fiction" shelves either. I think people have already mentioned most of the rest of the authors I've encountered in other sections - Vonnegut, Atwood, Orwell, Huxley, etc.

I'd stay away from Oryx and Crake, if you're looking for a good read. I like a lot of Atwood's books, but I found it really, really disappointing. Shallow characters, incredibly annoying brand faux names, and absolutely nothing novel to say on the topic. Bleh. There's satire, and there's serious fiction, and Oryx and Crake has the worst points of both.

By: Dag Maggot

Dag Maggot — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 18:33:12 -0800

dilettante, I don't mind the ghettoization of SF so much in the library or bookstore, it's more people's attitudes and general disdain for the genre that gets me. Of course there is a fair amount of crap on the shelves, (most books based on a TV series come to mind).

By: jgee

jgee — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 18:33:55 -0800

Also,
Anthongy Burgess: A Clockwork Orange.
You would probably be interested in DeLillo's Ratner's Star, as well.

By: Dag Maggot

Dag Maggot — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 18:37:27 -0800

ubersturm, you're barking up the wrong tree with Oryx and Crake. I loved that book. It was a very well fleshed out world, and I believed in the charecters. One big thumbs up for Oryx and Crake from me.

By: ubersturm

ubersturm — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 18:46:10 -0800

Oh, an obvious author I missed: Neal Stephenon. Some of his stuff is obviously sci-fi, but his more recent stuff has only more subtle subtle sci-fi elements. Libraries often put at least some of his books in "fiction."

Didn't mean to derail on the Atwood bit. I'd just been looking forward to the book coming out and was very disappointed at the uninteresting characters (neither Oryx or Crake, for example, are particularly believable, and Jimmy barely real enough to keep me reading), the obtrusive product/company names and writing style, and at the fact that Atwood didn't go anywhere new or interesting with the "my god, genetic manipulation could have Bad Effects!" theme. It continually surprises me that people think it lives up to her other [very good] books. But that's not what this question's about; sorry, Dag Maggot.

By: skallas

skallas — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 18:50:30 -0800

Just about anything by Vonnegut or Ursula K. Le Guin.

Wikipedia entry on soft sci-fi here.

By: skallas

skallas — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 18:56:33 -0800

As a side note, I would classify Atwood's Onryx and Crake and most of Neal Stephenson's work as non-soft sci-fi. I wouldn't even call it literary sci-fi. Onryx is too William Gibson-esque and Stephenson's writing presumes a very geeky reader. This may or may not be a problem for you. Atwood's The Handmaiden's Tale is soft literary sci-fi. Conversely, most of Philip K Dick's sci-fi is very soft/literary. A Scanner Darkly is just a war on drugs story through sci-fi metaphor. Bladerunner is just a story about a man going through an existenstial crisis through a sci-fi filter.

Essentially, the soft/literary stuff are traditional stories that use sci-fi as metaphor. For instance, there's no reason 1984 could not have been written in a world with existing technologies. I believe Dune is one of first, if the first, successful and popular sci-fi book that didn't rely on being allegory/metaphor.

By: justkevin

justkevin — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 18:56:54 -0800

Some SF books that might also get filed under Fiction/Literature:

Fahrenheit 451
Cat's Cradle
Nova Express
War of the Worlds
Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde

By: SPrintF

SPrintF — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 19:04:31 -0800

On the Beach by Nevil Shute.

Whereas Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days is science fiction only by the most technical definition, in that it's denoument involves an interesting, although by no means speculative, scientific fact.

By: stray

stray — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 20:11:29 -0800

Maybe Elizabeth Moon's The Speed of Dark?

By: Lycaste

Lycaste — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 20:47:04 -0800

Michel Faber's Under the Skin is a good example of literary science fiction, and some of the stories in Some Rain Must Fall also fall into the category.

By: dorian

dorian — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 21:04:59 -0800

jack vance hates to be called a sci-fi author. he's more of a secular/transcendental humanist, or something. also, he's a mystery writer.

By: Cyrie

Cyrie — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 21:05:57 -0800

I've seen Marge Piercy's two SF novels shelved in regular fiction (He, She and It and Woman on the Edge of Time).

By: drezdn

drezdn — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:08:03 -0800

Most Letham is Sci-Fi that's shelved in fiction.

By: dorian

dorian — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:18:40 -0800

dammit, this thread has inspired me to go back to my local liberry and find some of these authors I've never heard of. and I thank you.

also, sheri s tepper is generally uncategorizable and for good reason. plus, she's really amazing.

By: brujita

brujita — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:19:28 -0800

Oryx and Crake? I found Jimmy believable as the child of a depressed parent--although I didn't like it that the character who was murdered was only seen as an object even by the killer (I don't want to put in spoilers).

By: amberglow

amberglow — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:41:43 -0800

great thread--keep em coming! /piggybacking and taking notes : >

By: niloticus

niloticus — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:43:18 -0800

Into the Forest by Jean Hegland

Doomsday book by Connie Willis; also Passages

Timescape by Gregory Benford

By: furvyn

furvyn — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 23:09:11 -0800

Lewis Shiner

John Crowley

Mark Helprin

By: GoatCactus

GoatCactus — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 00:07:29 -0800

In the Wet by Nevile Shute.

By: salmacis

salmacis — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 02:44:23 -0800

Iain Banks - The Glass Ceiling

By: ninebelow

ninebelow — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 03:19:07 -0800

Everyone is at it these days. In the last year or so the most recent novels by Margaret Atwood, Kazuo Ishiguro, Michael Cunningham, David Mitchel, Michel Houllebecq and Audrey Neiffinger have all been science fiction market as standard literary fiction.

Iain Banks hasn't written a book called The Glass Ceiling. Do you mean Walking On Glass?

By: roofus

roofus — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 06:30:40 -0800

I second Houllebecq, but only Atomised (aka The Elementary Particles). None of his other books is nearly so interesting or satisfying.

By: Scooter

Scooter — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 07:34:22 -0800

Gravity's Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon, is often called science fiction but is classified among literature.

By: verysleeping

verysleeping — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 09:08:07 -0800

Kevin Guilfoile's Cast of Shadows definitely hovers between lit fic and sci fi. Excerpts here.

By: gnomeloaf

gnomeloaf — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 10:13:38 -0800

Anything by Geoff Ryman, and Rupert Thomsen's book Divided Kingdom. I'd also put George Saunders in this category.

You also might want to cast around a bit for slipstream literature.

By: zadcat

zadcat — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 22:49:32 -0800

Also Alasdair Gray's Lanark.

By: ninebelow

ninebelow — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 02:30:24 -0800

Unfortunately I thought Rupert Thomsen's Divided Kingdom was awful, which is a shame because I love Thomson. It is a pretty much textbook example of how fables fail. However his Dreams Of Leaving is an excellent piece of magical realism. As is everything else he's written.