# Slipstream fiction
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{{Short description|Genre of speculative fiction}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2020}}
'''Slipstream''' is a [literary genre](/source/literary_genre) or category of [speculative fiction](/source/speculative_fiction) that blends together [science fiction](/source/science_fiction), [fantasy](/source/fantasy), and [literary fiction](/source/literary_fiction),[{{Cite book |last=Butler |first=Andrew M. |title=The Science Fiction Handbook |last2=Daley |first2=Christopher |last3=Duncan |first3=Roby |last4=Filtness |first4=Emma |last5=Higgins |first5=David M. |last6=Hubble |first6=Nick |last7=Langer |first7=Jessica |last8=Mousoutzanis |first8=Aris |last9=Norman |first9=Joseph |collaboration=Contributors |publisher=[Bloomsbury](/source/Bloomsbury_Publishing) |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-4411-7096-5 |editor-last=Hubble |editor-first=Nick |series=Literature and Culture Handbooks |location=New York |pages=132 |author-link=Andrew M. Butler |editor-last2=Mousoutzanis |editor-first2=Aris}}] or otherwise does not remain within conventional boundaries of genre and narrative. It directly extends from the experimentation of the [New Wave science fiction](/source/New_Wave_science_fiction) movement while also borrowing from fantasy, [psychological fiction](/source/psychological_fiction), [philosophical fiction](/source/philosophical_fiction) and other genres or styles of literature.
Historical examples of the genre were partially codified in ''[Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology](/source/Feeling_Very_Strange%3A_The_Slipstream_Anthology)''; contemporary examples include ''[Peaces](/source/Peaces)'' by [Helen Oyeyemi](/source/Helen_Oyeyemi), ''[The Dangers of Smoking in Bed](/source/The_Dangers_of_Smoking_in_Bed)'' by [Mariana Enríquez](/source/Mariana_Enr%C3%ADquez), and ''The Butterfly Lampshade'' by [Aimee Bender](/source/Aimee_Bender).[Manusos, Lyndsie. [https://bookriot.com/what-is-slipstream/ "Too Weird or Not Weird Enough: What is Slipstream?"] ''Book Riot'', 15 June 2021.]
== Origin ==
The term was invented by Richard Dorsett according to an interview with renowned [cyberpunk](/source/cyberpunk) author [Bruce Sterling](/source/Bruce_Sterling) in ''Mythaxis Review''.[{{Cite magazine |last=Sterling |first=Bruce |authorlink=Bruce Sterling |date=September 2020 |title=Artist Spotlight on Bruce Sterling |url=https://mythaxis.com/2020/09/18/artist-spotlight-on-bruce-sterling/ |magazine=Mythaxis Review |access-date=30 December 2021}}] He said:
It was invented by my friend the late Richard Dorsett while the two of us were discussing a category of non-genre fantasy books that we had no name for. "They're certainly not [mainstream](/source/mainstream_fiction)," I said, and "Why not slipstream?" he suggested, and I thought it was a pretty good coinage.
Sterling later described it in an article originally published in ''SF Eye'' #5, in July 1989, as "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."[{{Cite magazine |last=Sterling |first=Bruce |authorlink=Bruce Sterling |date=July 1989 |title=CATSCAN 5: Slipstream |url=https://www.journalscape.com/jlundberg/page2 |magazine=SF Eye |issue=5 |access-date=2014-09-13}}] ''[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction](/source/The_Encyclopedia_of_Science_Fiction)'' credits Sterling with inventing the related term of "slipstream sf" for works that "make use of sf devices but which are not Genre SF".[{{Cite web |title=SFE: Slipstream SF |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/slipstream_sf |access-date=2022-08-31 |website=sf-encyclopedia.com}}]
== Concept ==
Slipstream fiction has been described as "the fiction of strangeness",[{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X8NACgAAQBAJ&q=Slipstream+genre&pg=PT3|title=Idaho Powwow and Other Tales from the Slipstream|last=Martinsen|first=Axel|date=2015-09-15|publisher=Lulu Press, Inc|isbn=9781329182059|language=en}}] or a form of writing that makes "the familiar strange or the strange familiar" through skepticism about elements of reality.[{{Cite book|title=Victimhood and Vulnerability in 21st Century Fiction|last1=Ganteau|first1=Jean-Michel|last2=Onega|first2=Susana|publisher=Routledge|year=2017|isbn=9780415788298|location=Oxon|pages=64}}] Illustrating this, prototypes of the style of slipstream are considered to exist in the stories of [Franz Kafka](/source/Franz_Kafka) and [Jorge Luis Borges](/source/Jorge_Luis_Borges).[{{cite journal |url=https://s3.amazonaws.com/arena-attachments/1689978/01dd1d32b0c8acd88a11b8451f79b578.pdf?1517605418 |title=A Working Canon of Slipstream Writings |journal=Readercon |year=2007}}]
Science fiction authors [James Patrick Kelly](/source/James_Patrick_Kelly) and [John Kessel](/source/John_Kessel), editors of ''[Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology](/source/Feeling_Very_Strange%3A_The_Slipstream_Anthology)'', argued [cognitive dissonance](/source/cognitive_dissonance) is at the heart of slipstream, and it is not so much a genre as a literary effect, like horror or comedy.[{{cite web|url=http://www.scifi.com/sfw/interviews/sfw12963.html |title=James Patrick Kelly, John Kessel |last=Adams |first=John Joseph |author-link=John Joseph Adams |date= 12 June 2006 |website=[SciFi.com](/source/SyFy) |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20060615021123/http://www.scifi.com/sfw/interviews/sfw12963.html |archivedate=15 June 2006 |accessdate=2014-09-13}}] Similarly, Christopher Priest, in his introduction to [Anna Kavan](/source/Anna_Kavan)'s genre-defying but arguably slipstream novel ''[Ice](/source/Ice_(Kavan_novel))'', writes "the best way to understand slipstream is to think of it as a state of mind or a particular approach, one that is outside of all categorisation. ... slipstream induces a sense of 'otherness' in the audience, like a glimpse into a distorting mirror."[Kavan, Anna. Foreword. ''Ice''. By Christopher Priest. Peter Owen Publishers.]
== Characteristics ==
In slipstream, characteristics of works of fiction considered under the term include disruption of the principle of [realism](/source/Literary_realism), avoidance of being a traditional fantasy story, and being a [postmodern](/source/Postmodern_literature) narrative.[{{Cite book|title=The Oxford Handbook of Science Fiction|last=Latham|first=Rob|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2014|isbn=9780199838844|location=Oxford|pages=119}}]
In her 2012 volume ''Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction'', [Grace Dillon](/source/Grace_Dillon) identified a current of Native American Slipstream that predates and anticipates the timeframe for slipstream, notably including [Gerald Vizenor](/source/Gerald_Vizenor)'s 1978 short story "Custer on the Slipstream".
Other science fiction authors and fans claim "that slipstream is a term that lumps together [metafiction](/source/metafiction), [magical realism](/source/Magic_realism), [surrealism](/source/surrealism), [experimental fiction](/source/Experimental_literature)[,] counter-realism", and [postmodern](/source/Postmodernism) writing, and/or applies to a story with themes coming from one or more of these literary influences.