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| Barefoot in the Head by Brian Aldiss Essay by Ted Gioia |
At the close of the 1960s, pop culture came under the spell of
psychedelics. You didn't need to drop acid to see rainbow colors
and floating flowers blossoming in the sky. You found psychedelia
in Peter Max posters, the Beatles' Yellow Submarine animated
feature, Robert Corman's movie The Trip (filmed in 'psychedelic
color' according to the marketing campaign), even on TV sets for
The Dating Game and Laugh-In. Congress finally prohibited the
possession of LSD in 1968, but it was already too late to stop the
spread of the 'acid aesthetic' into American households. For a brief
spell, people even wore tie-dyed T-shirts without provoking ridicule
and laughter.
Okay, I made up the last part. People ridiculed
tie-dyed shirts even back in the Summer in
Love.
Brian Aldiss, born above a Norfolk draper's
shop in 1925, must seem a most unlikely
participant in this revolution. He was already
in his forties and well established as a
science fiction writer when the world turned
on and went groovy. Aldiss had served in
World War II, got married in 1948, and
became a father in 1955. His first successful
literary foray came with the publication of a
collection of fictional diary entries based on
his experiences at a Oxford bookstore,
The Brightfound Diaries (1955). In short,
Aldiss confronted the hippie phenomenon
from a safe perch half a world away, both figuratively and literally, from
the manic drug-induced literary exploits of a Ken Kesey or Hunter
Thompson.
Yet Aldiss delivered the most ambitious psychadelic sci-fi novel of
the era, Barefoot in the Head, certainly not his best book but arguably
his most au courant. There are many things to admire in this work,
but perhaps most impressive is Aldiss's insight that if you give people
a sufficient amount of mind-altering narcotics, they might start talking
like characters in Finnegans Wake. Sure, the concept is far-fetched
—would acid-heads really spontaneously spout all those Joycean
puns and double meanings?—but still appealing in its own topsy-
turvy way.
Aldiss was hardly the only sci-fi writer to fall under the spell of
Joyce's stream-of-consciousness during the 1960s and 1970s.
We find similar techniques applied in, for example, Samuel R.
Delany's Dhalgren, J.G. Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition, Philip
José Farmer's "Riders of the Purple Wage" (the centerpiece of
Harlan Ellison’s collection Dangerous Visions), Philip K. Dick's
VALIS, and Thomas M. Disch's Camp Concentration (where the
injection of a drug is also a pretext for Joycean extravagance), and
other cutting edge sci-fi works. The influence of Joyce can also
detected at many points in the The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert
Anton Wilson and Robert Shea, and A Case of Conscience by James
Blish. Even highbrow literary lions strived to combine Joyce and genre,
as demonstrated by Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange and
Vladimir Nabokov's Ada or Ardor.
But most of these sci-fi works hedged their bets. Blish drew on
Joyce for symbolic resonance and not as a model for sentence
construction. Wilson and Disch, in contrast, balanced stream-of-
consciousness techniques with more conventional methods
of narrative. Dick, for his part, was Dick, and didn't need
a copy of Ulysses to achieve his peculiar departures from traditional
sci-fi writing. Burgess, Delany and Ballard, in contrast, took the
most chances with their prose, but even their excesses (at least
the semantic ones; plot is another matter entirely) seem tame in
comparison with the verbal freak-out of Barefoot in the Head.
Aldiss's story begins in the aftermath of a new World War, during
which bombs filled with hallucinogenics fell on many European cities.
Peace now reigns, but social norms and institutions have collapsed
as citizens struggle to distinguish between reality and drug-induced
fantasy. Building are intact, but the minds of the citizenry have
been pharmaceuticalized into submission. Our protagonist Colin
Charteris is fleeing Italy, where he worked in United Nations refugee
camps, and heading towards Britain. The novel begins in Metz,
where a semblance of order still holds society together—France
was neutral in the acid war, and avoided the worst of the mind
devastation. But when Charteris crosses over into England, he
finds only disorder and paradox. He falls under the spell of the
drugs himself, and his thinking and speech grow increasingly
strange. His language now becomes semi-coherent, bursting
with metaphors—as does the novel itself—yet with sage-like
overtones.
In England, Charteris finds himself lauded as a prophet. He and
his followers take to the road, preaching a new philosophy of life,
a mixture of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky as filtered through the
language of Humphrey Chimpden Earwicke and Anna Livia
Plurabelle. Through the craziness of his speech blossoms a
promise of renewal: "What we have seen is worth all collapse and
the old Christianity world so rightly in ruins if you forsake all and live
where there is most life in the world I offer. There the laternatives flick
flock thickly by…Europlexion and the explexion of conventional time
the time by which predecyclic man imposed himself against nature
by armed marching cross-wise to conceal body-mind apart hide
dissillusion."
Take that, you grammarians, and scan it!
Aldiss’s trippy tale now reveals nuances and overtones of the Christ
story. Charteris finds himself the focal point of his followers' hopes
and dreams, but also subsumed by the shifting political and
social landscape. He promises liberation, in cryptic terms, but
this also might turn into revolution. Disciples could easily become
doubters or betrayers. Above all, the whole movement threatens to
collapse back into passive acceptance of the status quo. Charteris
and the acid war might launch a new chapter in western civilization,
or simply reiterate, in debased parody, the same old story, but now
rewritten in bright rainbow colors.
This is a peculiar book to assess. Some of it is highly derivative.
Joyce's fingerprints are everywhere, but the influence of J.G. Ballard
is almost as marked here. Aldiss embraces Ballard's fixation with
speed and automobiles, as well as his sci-fi colleague's stylized
juxtaposition of mathematics and violence (the word "geometry," one
of Ballard's favorites, frequently shows up in unexpected places).
Yet the sheer inventiveness of the language, the effervescent
wordplay, demands praise. Aldiss creates wild neologisms,
adopts alternative spellings that convey diabolical meanings,
spews out wicked puns, turns the names of sci-fi authors into
nouns and adjectives (people drive in Heinleiner cars, and rise after
death in a "vanvogtian upward surge"), and in general has endless
fun with the liberties of the hallucinogenic conceit. No, I don’t believe
for a moment that terminal acid-heads could talk like this, but I enjoy
the pretense.
Science fiction retreated from its Joycean aspirations soon after
this book came out. Even Aldiss stepped back from its more
extreme techniques. But in that regard, Barefoot in the Head is
merely one more instance of that late 1960s ethos that promised
a permanent revolution, yet merely delivered a brief liberating
interlude, almost a dreamtime (if I can borrow an Australian
aboriginal concept), during which almost anything seemed
possible, even the reinvention of the ground rules for communal
life. As subsequent events made clear, possibilities were more
constrained than the hippies realized, and the future not all that
different from the past. Tie-dyed shirts went back into the closet,
and a lot of people got haircuts. But if you pay close attention to the
final pages of this novel, you just might decide that Aldiss saw all
that coming. Far more clearly than the Keseys and Thompsons, he
knew that even the craziest trips eventually come to an end.
Ted Gioia writes about music, literature and pop culture. His next book,
a history of love songs, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.
Publication Date: September 15, 2014
psychedelics. You didn't need to drop acid to see rainbow colors
and floating flowers blossoming in the sky. You found psychedelia
in Peter Max posters, the Beatles' Yellow Submarine animated
feature, Robert Corman's movie The Trip (filmed in 'psychedelic
color' according to the marketing campaign), even on TV sets for
The Dating Game and Laugh-In. Congress finally prohibited the
possession of LSD in 1968, but it was already too late to stop the
spread of the 'acid aesthetic' into American households. For a brief
spell, people even wore tie-dyed T-shirts without provoking ridicule
and laughter.
Okay, I made up the last part. People ridiculed
tie-dyed shirts even back in the Summer in
Love.
Brian Aldiss, born above a Norfolk draper's
shop in 1925, must seem a most unlikely
participant in this revolution. He was already
in his forties and well established as a
science fiction writer when the world turned
on and went groovy. Aldiss had served in
World War II, got married in 1948, and
became a father in 1955. His first successful
literary foray came with the publication of a
collection of fictional diary entries based on
his experiences at a Oxford bookstore,
The Brightfound Diaries (1955). In short,
Aldiss confronted the hippie phenomenon
from a safe perch half a world away, both figuratively and literally, from
the manic drug-induced literary exploits of a Ken Kesey or Hunter
Thompson.
Yet Aldiss delivered the most ambitious psychadelic sci-fi novel of
the era, Barefoot in the Head, certainly not his best book but arguably
his most au courant. There are many things to admire in this work,
but perhaps most impressive is Aldiss's insight that if you give people
a sufficient amount of mind-altering narcotics, they might start talking
like characters in Finnegans Wake. Sure, the concept is far-fetched
—would acid-heads really spontaneously spout all those Joycean
puns and double meanings?—but still appealing in its own topsy-
turvy way.
Aldiss was hardly the only sci-fi writer to fall under the spell of
Joyce's stream-of-consciousness during the 1960s and 1970s.
We find similar techniques applied in, for example, Samuel R.
Delany's Dhalgren, J.G. Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition, Philip
José Farmer's "Riders of the Purple Wage" (the centerpiece of
Harlan Ellison’s collection Dangerous Visions), Philip K. Dick's
VALIS, and Thomas M. Disch's Camp Concentration (where the
injection of a drug is also a pretext for Joycean extravagance), and
other cutting edge sci-fi works. The influence of Joyce can also
detected at many points in the The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert
Anton Wilson and Robert Shea, and A Case of Conscience by James
Blish. Even highbrow literary lions strived to combine Joyce and genre,
as demonstrated by Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange and
Vladimir Nabokov's Ada or Ardor.
But most of these sci-fi works hedged their bets. Blish drew on
Joyce for symbolic resonance and not as a model for sentence
construction. Wilson and Disch, in contrast, balanced stream-of-
consciousness techniques with more conventional methods
of narrative. Dick, for his part, was Dick, and didn't need
a copy of Ulysses to achieve his peculiar departures from traditional
sci-fi writing. Burgess, Delany and Ballard, in contrast, took the
most chances with their prose, but even their excesses (at least
the semantic ones; plot is another matter entirely) seem tame in
comparison with the verbal freak-out of Barefoot in the Head.
Aldiss's story begins in the aftermath of a new World War, during
which bombs filled with hallucinogenics fell on many European cities.
Peace now reigns, but social norms and institutions have collapsed
as citizens struggle to distinguish between reality and drug-induced
fantasy. Building are intact, but the minds of the citizenry have
been pharmaceuticalized into submission. Our protagonist Colin
Charteris is fleeing Italy, where he worked in United Nations refugee
camps, and heading towards Britain. The novel begins in Metz,
where a semblance of order still holds society together—France
was neutral in the acid war, and avoided the worst of the mind
devastation. But when Charteris crosses over into England, he
finds only disorder and paradox. He falls under the spell of the
drugs himself, and his thinking and speech grow increasingly
strange. His language now becomes semi-coherent, bursting
with metaphors—as does the novel itself—yet with sage-like
overtones.
In England, Charteris finds himself lauded as a prophet. He and
his followers take to the road, preaching a new philosophy of life,
a mixture of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky as filtered through the
language of Humphrey Chimpden Earwicke and Anna Livia
Plurabelle. Through the craziness of his speech blossoms a
promise of renewal: "What we have seen is worth all collapse and
the old Christianity world so rightly in ruins if you forsake all and live
where there is most life in the world I offer. There the laternatives flick
flock thickly by…Europlexion and the explexion of conventional time
the time by which predecyclic man imposed himself against nature
by armed marching cross-wise to conceal body-mind apart hide
dissillusion."
Take that, you grammarians, and scan it!
Aldiss’s trippy tale now reveals nuances and overtones of the Christ
story. Charteris finds himself the focal point of his followers' hopes
and dreams, but also subsumed by the shifting political and
social landscape. He promises liberation, in cryptic terms, but
this also might turn into revolution. Disciples could easily become
doubters or betrayers. Above all, the whole movement threatens to
collapse back into passive acceptance of the status quo. Charteris
and the acid war might launch a new chapter in western civilization,
or simply reiterate, in debased parody, the same old story, but now
rewritten in bright rainbow colors.
This is a peculiar book to assess. Some of it is highly derivative.
Joyce's fingerprints are everywhere, but the influence of J.G. Ballard
is almost as marked here. Aldiss embraces Ballard's fixation with
speed and automobiles, as well as his sci-fi colleague's stylized
juxtaposition of mathematics and violence (the word "geometry," one
of Ballard's favorites, frequently shows up in unexpected places).
Yet the sheer inventiveness of the language, the effervescent
wordplay, demands praise. Aldiss creates wild neologisms,
adopts alternative spellings that convey diabolical meanings,
spews out wicked puns, turns the names of sci-fi authors into
nouns and adjectives (people drive in Heinleiner cars, and rise after
death in a "vanvogtian upward surge"), and in general has endless
fun with the liberties of the hallucinogenic conceit. No, I don’t believe
for a moment that terminal acid-heads could talk like this, but I enjoy
the pretense.
Science fiction retreated from its Joycean aspirations soon after
this book came out. Even Aldiss stepped back from its more
extreme techniques. But in that regard, Barefoot in the Head is
merely one more instance of that late 1960s ethos that promised
a permanent revolution, yet merely delivered a brief liberating
interlude, almost a dreamtime (if I can borrow an Australian
aboriginal concept), during which almost anything seemed
possible, even the reinvention of the ground rules for communal
life. As subsequent events made clear, possibilities were more
constrained than the hippies realized, and the future not all that
different from the past. Tie-dyed shirts went back into the closet,
and a lot of people got haircuts. But if you pay close attention to the
final pages of this novel, you just might decide that Aldiss saw all
that coming. Far more clearly than the Keseys and Thompsons, he
knew that even the craziest trips eventually come to an end.
Ted Gioia writes about music, literature and pop culture. His next book,
a history of love songs, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.
Publication Date: September 15, 2014
| To purchase, click on image |
Follow Ted Gioia on Twitter at
www.twitter.com/tedgioia
Conceptual Fiction:
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Home Page
Abbott, Edwin A.
Flatland
Adams, Douglas
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Aldiss, Brian
Barefoot in the Head
Aldiss, Brian
Hothouse
Aldiss, Brian
Report on Probability A
Allende, Isabel
The House of the Spirits
Amado, Jorge
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands
Amis, Martin
Time's Arrow
Apuleius
The Golden Ass
Asimov, Isaac
The Foundation Trilogy
Asimov, Isaac
I, Robot
Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid's Tale
Banks, Iain M.
The State of the Art
Ballard, J.G.
The Atrocity Exhibition
Ballard, J.G.
Crash
Ballard, J.G.
The Crystal World
Ballard, J.G.
The Drowned World
Barth, John
Giles Goat-Boy
Bester, Alfred
The Demolished Man
Blish, James
A Case of Conscience
Borges, Jorge Luis
Ficciones
Bradbury, Ray
Dandelion Wine
Bradbury, Ray
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
The Illustrated Man
Bradbury, Ray
The Martian Chronicles
Bradbury, Ray
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Brockmeier, Kevin
The View from the Seventh Layer
Bulgakov, Mikhail
The Master and Margarita
Bunch, David R.
Moderan
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Card, Orson Scott
Ender's Game
Carpentier, Alejo
The Kingdom of This World
Carroll, Lewis
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Chabon, Michael
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Chiang, Ted
Stories of Your Life and Others
Clarke, Arthur C.
Childhood's End
Clarke, Arthur C.
A Fall of Moondust
Clarke, Arthur C.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Clarke, Susanna
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Crowley, John
Little, Big
Danielewski, Mark Z.
The Fifty Year Sword
Danielewski, Mark Z.
House of Leaves
Davies, Robertson
Fifth Business
Delany, Samuel R.
Babel-17
Delany, Samuel R.
Dhalgren
Delany, Samuel R.
The Einstein Intersection
Delany, Samuel R.
Nova
Dick, Philip K.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Dick, Philip K.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Dick, Philip K.
The Man in the High Castle
Dick, Philip K.
Ubik
Dick, Philip K.
VALIS
Disch, Thomas M.
Camp Concentration
Disch, Thomas M.
The Genocides
Doctorow, Cory
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Donoso, José
The Obscene Bird of Night
Ellison, Harlan (editor)
Dangerous Visions
Ellison, Harlan
I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream
Esquivel, Laura
Like Water for Chocolate
Farmer, Philip José
To Your Scattered Bodies Go
Fuentes, Carlos
Aura
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
Gaiman, Neil
Neverwhere
Gibson, William
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
Neuromancer
Grass, Günter
The Tin Drum
Greene, Graham
The End of the Affair
Grossman, Lev
The Magicians
Haldeman, Joe
The Forever War
Hall, Steven
The Raw Shark Texts
Harrison, M. John
The Centauri Device
Harrison, M. John
Light
Heinlein, Robert
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein, Robert:
Stranger in a Strange Land
Heinlein, Robert
Time Enough for Love
Helprin, Mark
Winter's Tale
Herbert, Frank
Dune
Hoffman, Alice
Practical Magic
Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Keret, Etgar
Suddenly, A Knock at the Door
Keyes, Daniel
Flowers for Algernon
Kundera, Milan
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Kunzru, Hari
Gods Without Men
Lafferty, R.A.
Nine Hundred Grandmothers
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Dispossessed
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Lathe of Heaven
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Leiber, Fritz
The Big Time
Leiber, Fritz
Conjure Wife
Leiber, Fritz
Swords & Deviltry
Leiber, Fritz
The Wanderer
Lem, Stanislaw
His Master's Voice
Lem, Stanislaw
Solaris
Lethem, Jonathan
The Fortress of Solitude
Lewis, C. S.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Link, Kelly
Magic for Beginners
Malzberg, Barry N.
Herovit's World
Mann, Thomas
Doctor Faustus
Márquez, Gabriel García
100 Years of Solitude
Markson, David
Wittgenstein's Mistress
Matheson, Richard
Hell House
Matheson, Richard
What Dreams May Come
McCarthy, Cormac
The Road
Miéville, China
Perdido Street Station
Miller, Jr., Walter M.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Millhauser, Steven
Dangerous Laughter
Mitchell, David
Cloud Atlas
Moorcock, Michael
Behold the Man
Moorcock, Michael
The Final Programme
Morrison, Toni
Beloved
Murakami, Haruki
1Q84
Murakami, Haruki
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the
End of the World
Nabokov, Vladimir
Ada, or Ardor
Niffenegger, Audrey
The Time Traveler's Wife
Niven, Larry
Ringworld
Noon, Jeff
Vurt
Obreht, Téa
The Tiger's Wife
O'Brien, Flann
At Swim-Two-Birds
Okri, Ben
The Famished Road
Percy, Walker
Love in the Ruins
Pohl, Frederik
Gateway
Pratchett, Terry
The Color of Magic
Pynchon, Thomas
Gravity's Rainbow
Rabelais, François
Gargantua and Pantagruel
Robinson, Kim Stanley
Red Mars
Rowling, J.K.
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone
Rushdie, Salman
Midnight's Children
Russ, Joanna
The Female Man
Saramago, José
Blindness
Sheckley, Robert
Dimension of Miracles
Sheckley, Robert
Mindswap
Sheckley, Robert
Store of the Worlds
Shelley, Mary
Frankenstein
Silverberg, Robert
Dying Inside
Silverberg, Robert
Nightwings
Silverberg, Robert
The World Inside
Simak, Clifford
City
Simak, Clifford
The Trouble with Tycho
Smith, Cordwainer
Norstrilia
Smith, Cordwainer
The Rediscovery of Man
Stephenson, Neal
Snow Crash
Spinrad, Norman
Bug Jack Barron
Stross, Charles
Glasshouse
Sturgeon, Theodore
More Than Human
Sturgeon, Theodore
Some of Your Blood
Swift, Jonathan
Gulliver's Travels
Thomas, D.M.
The White Hotel
Tiptree, Jr., James
Warm Worlds and Otherwise
Tolkien, J.R.R.
The Hobbit
Updike, John
The Witches of Eastwick
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Mixed Men
Van Vogt, A.E.
Slan
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Voyage of the Space Beagle
Van Vogt, A.E.
The World of Null A
Vance, Jack
Emphyrio
Verne, Jules
Around the Moon
Verne, Jules
From the Earth to the Moon
Verne, Jules:
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Vonnegut, Kurt
Cat's Cradle
Vonnegut, Kurt
The Sirens of Titan
Vonnegut, Kurt
Slaughterhouse-Five
Wallace, David Foster
Infinite Jest
Walpole, Horace
Hieroglyphic Tales
Wells, H.G.
The First Men in the Moon
Wells, H.G.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
Wilson, Robert Anton & Robert Shea
The Illuminatus! Trilogy
Winton, Tim
Cloudstreet
Woolf, Virginia
Orlando
Zabor, Rafi
The Bear Comes Home
Zelazny, Roger
Lord of Light
Zelazny, Roger
This Immortal
Special Features
Notes on Conceptual Fiction
When Science Fiction Grew Up
Ray Bradbury: A Tribute
The Year of Magical Reading
Remembering Fritz Leiber
A Tribute to Richard Matheson
Samuel Delany's 70th birthday
The Sci-Fi of Kurt Vonnegut
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Robert Heinlein at 100
A.E, van Vogt Tribute
The Puzzling Case of Robert Sheckley
The Avant-Garde Sci-Fi of Brian Aldiss
Science Fiction 1958-1975: A Reading List
Links to related sites
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copies and promotional materials from
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parties.
www.twitter.com/tedgioia
Conceptual Fiction:
A Reading List
(with links to essays on each work)
Home Page
Abbott, Edwin A.
Flatland
Adams, Douglas
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Aldiss, Brian
Barefoot in the Head
Aldiss, Brian
Hothouse
Aldiss, Brian
Report on Probability A
Allende, Isabel
The House of the Spirits
Amado, Jorge
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands
Amis, Martin
Time's Arrow
Apuleius
The Golden Ass
Asimov, Isaac
The Foundation Trilogy
Asimov, Isaac
I, Robot
Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid's Tale
Banks, Iain M.
The State of the Art
Ballard, J.G.
The Atrocity Exhibition
Ballard, J.G.
Crash
Ballard, J.G.
The Crystal World
Ballard, J.G.
The Drowned World
Barth, John
Giles Goat-Boy
Bester, Alfred
The Demolished Man
Blish, James
A Case of Conscience
Borges, Jorge Luis
Ficciones
Bradbury, Ray
Dandelion Wine
Bradbury, Ray
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
The Illustrated Man
Bradbury, Ray
The Martian Chronicles
Bradbury, Ray
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Brockmeier, Kevin
The View from the Seventh Layer
Bulgakov, Mikhail
The Master and Margarita
Bunch, David R.
Moderan
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Card, Orson Scott
Ender's Game
Carpentier, Alejo
The Kingdom of This World
Carroll, Lewis
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Chabon, Michael
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Chiang, Ted
Stories of Your Life and Others
Clarke, Arthur C.
Childhood's End
Clarke, Arthur C.
A Fall of Moondust
Clarke, Arthur C.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Clarke, Susanna
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Crowley, John
Little, Big
Danielewski, Mark Z.
The Fifty Year Sword
Danielewski, Mark Z.
House of Leaves
Davies, Robertson
Fifth Business
Delany, Samuel R.
Babel-17
Delany, Samuel R.
Dhalgren
Delany, Samuel R.
The Einstein Intersection
Delany, Samuel R.
Nova
Dick, Philip K.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Dick, Philip K.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Dick, Philip K.
The Man in the High Castle
Dick, Philip K.
Ubik
Dick, Philip K.
VALIS
Disch, Thomas M.
Camp Concentration
Disch, Thomas M.
The Genocides
Doctorow, Cory
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Donoso, José
The Obscene Bird of Night
Ellison, Harlan (editor)
Dangerous Visions
Ellison, Harlan
I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream
Esquivel, Laura
Like Water for Chocolate
Farmer, Philip José
To Your Scattered Bodies Go
Fuentes, Carlos
Aura
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
Gaiman, Neil
Neverwhere
Gibson, William
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
Neuromancer
Grass, Günter
The Tin Drum
Greene, Graham
The End of the Affair
Grossman, Lev
The Magicians
Haldeman, Joe
The Forever War
Hall, Steven
The Raw Shark Texts
Harrison, M. John
The Centauri Device
Harrison, M. John
Light
Heinlein, Robert
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein, Robert:
Stranger in a Strange Land
Heinlein, Robert
Time Enough for Love
Helprin, Mark
Winter's Tale
Herbert, Frank
Dune
Hoffman, Alice
Practical Magic
Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Keret, Etgar
Suddenly, A Knock at the Door
Keyes, Daniel
Flowers for Algernon
Kundera, Milan
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Kunzru, Hari
Gods Without Men
Lafferty, R.A.
Nine Hundred Grandmothers
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Dispossessed
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Lathe of Heaven
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Leiber, Fritz
The Big Time
Leiber, Fritz
Conjure Wife
Leiber, Fritz
Swords & Deviltry
Leiber, Fritz
The Wanderer
Lem, Stanislaw
His Master's Voice
Lem, Stanislaw
Solaris
Lethem, Jonathan
The Fortress of Solitude
Lewis, C. S.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Link, Kelly
Magic for Beginners
Malzberg, Barry N.
Herovit's World
Mann, Thomas
Doctor Faustus
Márquez, Gabriel García
100 Years of Solitude
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Wittgenstein's Mistress
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Hell House
Matheson, Richard
What Dreams May Come
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The Road
Miéville, China
Perdido Street Station
Miller, Jr., Walter M.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Millhauser, Steven
Dangerous Laughter
Mitchell, David
Cloud Atlas
Moorcock, Michael
Behold the Man
Moorcock, Michael
The Final Programme
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Beloved
Murakami, Haruki
1Q84
Murakami, Haruki
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the
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Ada, or Ardor
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The Time Traveler's Wife
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Ringworld
Noon, Jeff
Vurt
Obreht, Téa
The Tiger's Wife
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At Swim-Two-Birds
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The Famished Road
Percy, Walker
Love in the Ruins
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Gateway
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The Color of Magic
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Gravity's Rainbow
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Gargantua and Pantagruel
Robinson, Kim Stanley
Red Mars
Rowling, J.K.
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone
Rushdie, Salman
Midnight's Children
Russ, Joanna
The Female Man
Saramago, José
Blindness
Sheckley, Robert
Dimension of Miracles
Sheckley, Robert
Mindswap
Sheckley, Robert
Store of the Worlds
Shelley, Mary
Frankenstein
Silverberg, Robert
Dying Inside
Silverberg, Robert
Nightwings
Silverberg, Robert
The World Inside
Simak, Clifford
City
Simak, Clifford
The Trouble with Tycho
Smith, Cordwainer
Norstrilia
Smith, Cordwainer
The Rediscovery of Man
Stephenson, Neal
Snow Crash
Spinrad, Norman
Bug Jack Barron
Stross, Charles
Glasshouse
Sturgeon, Theodore
More Than Human
Sturgeon, Theodore
Some of Your Blood
Swift, Jonathan
Gulliver's Travels
Thomas, D.M.
The White Hotel
Tiptree, Jr., James
Warm Worlds and Otherwise
Tolkien, J.R.R.
The Hobbit
Updike, John
The Witches of Eastwick
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Mixed Men
Van Vogt, A.E.
Slan
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Voyage of the Space Beagle
Van Vogt, A.E.
The World of Null A
Vance, Jack
Emphyrio
Verne, Jules
Around the Moon
Verne, Jules
From the Earth to the Moon
Verne, Jules:
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Vonnegut, Kurt
Cat's Cradle
Vonnegut, Kurt
The Sirens of Titan
Vonnegut, Kurt
Slaughterhouse-Five
Wallace, David Foster
Infinite Jest
Walpole, Horace
Hieroglyphic Tales
Wells, H.G.
The First Men in the Moon
Wells, H.G.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
Wilson, Robert Anton & Robert Shea
The Illuminatus! Trilogy
Winton, Tim
Cloudstreet
Woolf, Virginia
Orlando
Zabor, Rafi
The Bear Comes Home
Zelazny, Roger
Lord of Light
Zelazny, Roger
This Immortal
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When Science Fiction Grew Up
Ray Bradbury: A Tribute
The Year of Magical Reading
Remembering Fritz Leiber
A Tribute to Richard Matheson
Samuel Delany's 70th birthday
The Sci-Fi of Kurt Vonnegut
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Robert Heinlein at 100
A.E, van Vogt Tribute
The Puzzling Case of Robert Sheckley
The Avant-Garde Sci-Fi of Brian Aldiss
Science Fiction 1958-1975: A Reading List
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