This anthology edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel is first on the list for two reasons. First, it's the best place to start if you want to figure out what the slipstream genre is all about. Not so much for the stories — because there is disagreement on whether or not the stories are the best examples — but because the editors give a detailed explanation of slipstream. Not wanting to play the god card and leave you with a two-person-only perspective, Kessel and Kelly included a running Internet conversation between various other slipstream experts. They interspersed it between the stories. It's fun and funny, and very slipstreamish. A weird little extra self-aware tidbit. Another reason this book comes first is because two of the experts, Gavin Grant and no less than the originator of the term, Bruce Sterling, suggested it. I'd like to point out that the aforementioned Martin Lewis does not care for the book, but I enjoyed it immensely and the writing is first-rate.

Much of Stanislaw Lem's work is slipstream. It's generally classified as science fiction, but it is much more than that. The Cyberiad is a collection of short stories set in a universe populated by robots. The main characters are Trurl and Klapaucius. They are "constructors," meaning they construct robots. They are themselves robots. The stories detail their adventures as the selfish and sometimes cruel pair go about the galaxy seeking riches and fame. Their stories read like fantasies at times, fables at other times with lots of jokes that seem like they were written by a calculus instructor: the terms are familiar, but they're not easy to understand. There is no mention of where this universe exists in time and space, but the reader does get a hint that the robots were initially invented by humans, the pale albuminoids that are almost completely extinct. Trurl and Klapaucius argue about whether or not such pitiful creatures could have been their ancestors. In fact they don't believe in evolution. The arguments mirror our own about intelligent design and what fossils really are. Incredibly great prose and a wonderful sense of humor with a setting in the far future satirizing modern culture and the icons of our mythology lands this book in the slipstream milieu. It's great literature to boot.

Like Stanislaw Lem, much of Emshwiller's work is slipstream. The Mount is a sad tale of humanity turned into a race of slaves. An alien species has invaded the planet and now humans have been demoted to the role of the horse. If we're lucky we get born into a nice family that patiently teaches us how to obey commands and go to the bathroom in the right part of the barn. We learn early on how to carry our masters on our shoulders. Some unlucky individuals, born with a nasty temperament, experience a cruel fate. They are subjected to the harsh punishments and painful constraints. Resistance means death. The prose in The Mount is simple as the story is told from the viewpoint of a young person who is without benefit of formal education or anything that challenges the human mind. The simple story holds a deeper meaning though: not only could this be you, but it should be you. We deserve it. Endowing a human with the mind and plight of one of our most "cherished" animals puts this story clearly in the slipstream camp. Extra credit for the lessons taught.

These stories could perhaps be listed as horror stories, but they are not gory nor will not induce heart attack. The usual horror characters: vampires, monsters, and werewolves are not found here. Instead, the horror comes from the psychological off-kilteredness of the characters. They seem to be normal people but placed somehow in uneasy situations. They're unreasonably paranoid, but as the story moves on, their paranoia appears well founded, but further on the reader himself begins to frequently look behind as he walks down the street. Evenson's interesting methods of storytelling are used to great effect. For example the first story takes an important moment in time and has the character relive it for about twenty years. Reading these stories makes me think I might know what descending into senility feels like. You often wonder who is the sick-minded individual, the narrator or the antagonist, or maybe even the reader herself. For the psychological fears traveling over subnormal terrain, Evenson's stories are prime examples of slipstream.

Morrison's book usually would be classified as a ghost story. The beautifully descriptive prose alone, though, sets this above the rest. Morrison makes the reader sympathize with the most hated creature in the world: the mother who murders her own child. What balls. But further, she is not content with telling a story of a victim coming back to haunt the accused. She's not interested in shocking us, or merely coming up with something worse than we've seen before, although she could easily have left it at that. Morrison's story is much more. It's a history lesson, an illustration of society gone wrong and making bad choices. The subject matter, the cruelties of slavery, has been done before. But where Uncle Tom's Cabin is sanctimonious and obvious, Beloved is realistic and subtle. The brutality is not witnessed so much as felt. Morrison elegantly justifies murder of a child. She not only depicts the circumstances, the consequences, the aftermath, the price to pay, she also puts the reader in the shoes of the murderer. Not to witness the events, but to feel them. We feel the anguish, the pain, the humiliation, the knowledge of what is to come. We viscerally understand and react in a way that's far beyond wringing our hands over Simon Legree. We go to bed sick at heart, depressed, despondent as if things haven't changed after all. It's a slipstream sort of manipulation that happens without us seeing it creep up on us.

Halfway through this book, the author inserts himself as the narrator, not by name but by recognizable circumstances. The story itself is hard to follow, but we hang in there and read the book for Vonnegut's wit and cultural lampoons. Especially revealing are references to the failed career of the narrator. Is Vonnegut bitter? Is he bemoaning the plight of the author? Perhaps, but the cultural clutter that is modern life's loud and tasteless commercialism is what the story is about. Like Morrison's Beloved, there's a big lesson here beyond the events of the story. It's not a slight book, even though the plot seems slight. The hand drawings peppered throughout the book give it an impressionistic feel. Vonnegut looks quickly at the world and this is the impression he gets. And like an impressionistic painting, if you look closely you're not going to get the details, you're only going to get blobs. Stand back, and view the thing as a whole to get the idea. Perceive the book this way and you understand it. Some slipstream requires you do that.

It seems to me most of slipstream is written in the short form and therefore some of the best slipstream is found only in literary zines or magazines. Longer novels tend to be more constrained by commercial limitations, maybe. Short story writers are allowed to stretch out and experiment. Or perhaps it's harder to sustain the strangeness for a full length novel. At any rate short stories of slipstream abound. One of the best outlets is Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet well as Sybil's Garage. The content of any fiction magazine is a reflection of the editors' tastes. Both the editors for these pubs, Gavin Grant and Matthew Kressel respectively, have exquisite taste. They give us stories that are not just weird, but very well written. Any author that makes it into either one of these magazines has arrived. I pick up copies whenever I come across them.

Annalee Newitz finds things in books that most of us overlook. She sent me a list of slipstream books that included Ellison's Invisible Man. I include it here on her recommendation: "It's a literary classic which uses metaphors from B-grade horror movies and science fiction to explain what it's like to be a black man in white-dominated America during the first half of the twentieth century."

Back in 2001, Martin Lewis came up with a list of important slipstream books. I enjoy his viewpoint even though I don't always agree with it. Here's a fine book I wouldn't have included as slipstream, but Lewis insisted: "In Sterling's essay he claimed he did not write slipstream but he clearly does. Zeitgeist is the full length debut of his recurring character Leggy Starlitz, avatar of the Twentieth Century. Managing a girl group as the Millennium nears he finds that his time is running out along with the century." So Sterling, who invented the term is saying it's not slipstream, but a critic disagrees, so we must consider. I'm finding I agree with Lewis. The story has a realistic feel with lots of identifiable culture artifacts such as the cult of personality and back room maneuvers of the global stage, but included are very unreal elements which, for all their unrealness don't fit the science fiction mold. There's a smattering of weird tech gizmo here, but the unreal elements more fit into fantasy. If nothing else the fact that we can't all agree about what genre the book is in addition to Sterling's excellent writing and subtle humor, indicates that this is a slipstream book.

I'm finishing up this list with another anthology from Kelly and Kessel. I've only just started reading it and I'm finding the book to be astounding. It's not outwardly a book of slipstream stories, but with the literary and experimental nature of what I've read so far, I can tell it belongs in this category. I've actually stopped reading it because Ursula Le Guin's story, The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, is so profound and has struck me in such a way that I'm finding it impossible to go on until I think through it completely. It's not a difficult story to understand, but like Jackson's The Lottery, it's making me wonder. And if there's one thing slipstream stories do better than any other form of writing, it's to make you wonder.