Updates: My 7 Favorite Metafictional Science Fiction Novels

Here are my seven favorite metafictional science fiction novels. By metafiction I’m referring to devices such as breaking the fourth wall (characters addressing the audience), the author addressing the reader, a story about a writer writing a story, a story containing another work of fiction within it, a work where the narrator reveals himself or herself as the author of the story, narrative footnotes, etc….

I’d love to hear your favorites (they don’t have to be novels)!

Obviously, these types of experimental works only appeal to some readers (especially fans of the sci-fi New Wave movement of the late 60s and early 70s) but I personally love seeing experimentation in an often — dare I say — stylistically stale genre.  Often, the metafictional aspects do not prevent authors from deploying traditional narratives.

     

My top seven (and an honorable mention):

1. Beyond Apollo, Brian N. Malzberg (1972) (REVIEW) — what you read is most likely the novel written by the main character. However, he’s most likely insane so attempting to get AT the true nature of his voyage to Venus is purposefully layered… Complicating the matter is how unreliable of a narrator he is and the fact that he’s tells many versions of the same story. Malzberg pokes fun at pulp science fiction throughout — which he clearly enjoyed as a child.

2. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner (1968) — the metafictional aspects are rather hidden in this New Wave masterpiece (my single favorite sci-fi novel).  Brunner’s vast (in scope and depth) mosaic of invented book fragments, advertising jingles, and narrative portions are interspersed with news articles taken from his own day — including the school shooting at the University of Texas in 1966.  Of course, as readers we’re geared to imagining that everything

Book Review: The Iron Dream, Norman Spinrad (1972)

(Vincent di Fate’s (?) cover for the 1972 edition)

4.75/5 (Very Good)

Nominated for the 1973 Nebula Award

Simply put, Norman Spinrad’s The Iron Dream (1972) is a fantastic alternate history novel.  However, unlike a standard “what if this happened instead and now let’s write a traditional narrative” alternate history, The Iron Dream is organized around a powerful metafictional conceit which explicitly serves to satirize pulp science fiction and fantasy and condemn its lurid nature and Spinrad would argue, racist inclinations.

The premise is straightforward: after the Great War (WWI) Hitler comes to the United States (and thus WWII never happens) and becomes a science fiction illustrator.  Eventually he starts writing science fiction and articles in fanzines.  However, he’s considered by the establishment to be little more than a hack writer and lives the rest of his life in squalor.  It is only after he dies (from symptoms related to syphilis) that he receives any critical success. What you read is Hitler’s 1954 posthumous Hugo-winning novel (which he wrote in six weeks), The Lord of the Swastika,  along with a short pseudo-scholarly “afterward to the

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. LXIV (Herbert + Tenn + Geston + Cummings)

More from my local dirt cheap book store…

By far most interested in William Tenn’s lone novel (he was predominately a short story writer) Of Men and Monsters (1968) — humans living in the walls, like mice, in the homes of the alien invaders of Earth.  Geston’s novelette The Day Star (1972) should be a fast and fun read — hopefully despite the comment by previous owner of the book who inscribed ”TEDIOUS” on the back cover with a ballpoint pen…

Some fun covers.

1. Hellstrom’s Hive, Frank Herbert (1972)

(R. Shore’s cover for the 1975 edition)

Excerpt from the inside flap of the first edition hardback: “In the summer of 1971, Doctor Nils Hellstrom appeared in his own film production, The Hellstrom Chronicle.  The motion picture

Book Review: Beasts, John Crowley (1976)

(John Cayea’s cover for the 1976 edition)

4.5/5 (Very Good)

“‘They want to kill us all, you know.  They’re trying [...].  The government.  Men.  You.’  Still his eyes searched hers. ‘We’re no use to them.  Worse than useless.  Poachers.  Thieves.  Polygamists.  We won’t be sterilized.  There’s no good in us.  We’re their creation, and they’re phasing us out.  When they can catch us’” (33).

While reading John Crowley’s Beasts (1976) I was reminded of the life of Stephan Bibrowski (1891-1932) à la Lionel the Lion-faced Man.  Stephan was afflicted with hypertrichosis (most likely) which caused his entire body to be covered with hair.  His mother was so horrified at his appearance  – which she believed was caused because she saw her husband mauled by a lion while she was pregnant

Book Review: The Burning, James E. Gunn (1972)

(Robert Foster’s evocative cover for the 1972 edition)

3.25/5 (collated rating: Average)

James E. Gunn’s The Burning (1972) is a fix-up novel containing three previously published but linked novelettes: ‘Witches Must Burn’ (1956), ‘Trial By Fire’ (1969), and ‘Witch Hunt’ (1969).  The first two are contiguous while the third section is more loosely related.  I will rate each separately as I did with the superior The Immortals (1962).

As someone who has lived in areas of the United States plagued by virulent strains of anti-intellectualism, massive higher education funding cuts (especially for the liberal arts), and an increasing emphasis on “practical” fields of study, James E. Gunn’s The Burning (1972) is a profoundly unsettling read.  Of course Gunn’s dystopic future is much more one of doom and gloom: The universities lie in smoldering ruins, the professors (“eggheads”)

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. LXIII (Simak + Tenn + Clement + Frayn)

A new bookstore in my hometown!  Great results! Dirt cheap (between 1-2 $ a book)!  Happy me!

I finally have a copy of Hal Clement’s hard science fiction masterpiece, Mission of Gravity (1953)…  And a collection of William Tenn’s short stories with a downright gorgeous Powers cover — Tenn is supposedly up there with Sheckley in the satirical pantheon of the 50s… Among others…

Has anyone read Michael Frayn’s A Very Private Live (1968)?  I’ve never heard of it before but the Lehr cover was too amazing to pass up…

1. The Human Angle, William Tenn (1956)

(Robert Powers’ cover for the 1956 edition)

From the inside flap: “WIT: an extra-terrestrial sells pornographic literature

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: The Power of the Atom!

(John Richards’ cover for the 1958 edition of Crisis 2000 (1955), Charles Eric Maine)

On science fiction covers from the 40s and 50s the atom is often emblematic of atomic power and all the dangers and promises that such a scientific breakthrough could (and did) yield.  In John Richards’ cover for the 1958 edition of Charles Eric Maine’s Crisis 2000 (1955) the humanoid super beings arrive from Saturn to terrorize Earthmen — and, carefully covering the private areas of one of these denizens of Saturn is the atomic symbol surrounded by blood. The cover is made even more unnerving by the multiplicity of identical

Book Review: The Immortals, James E. Gunn (1962)

(Mitchell Hooks’ cover for the 1962 edition)

4.25/5 (collated rating: Good)

James E. Gunn’s The Immortals (1962) is less about the lives and mental state of the eponymous humans “blessed” with immortally (a fascinating topic in itself) and more about the ramifications of their existence on the rest of society not “blessed” with such genetic structures.  Their presence exacerbates the problems of an already dystopically tinged world where medical care is increasingly the domain of the ultra wealthy.  With the knowledge that a random genetic mutation has created a bloodline whose members are immortal, society is all too eager to root them out and (literally) bleed them dry.  Living longer — achieved by whatever means — becomes the single-minded desire of all.  Most of humanity is oblivious to the festering (and carcinogenic)

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. LXII (Amis + Cummings + Van Vogt)

A strange conglomeration of novels….

If there’s any era I’m lacking knowledge in it’s late 20s-early 40s (well, I’ve read some Van Vogt + Edgar Rice Burroughs) pulp science fiction — so I decided to brush up on some of the greats.  With that in mind I acquired five Ray Cummings novels (the rest will be in a later acquisition post) and Van Vogt’s Slan (1940)…..  I don’t have high hopes.  But now I own my first Alex Schomburg cover!

I generally do not accept review copies due to the fact that most offers are for self-published works rather than republished novels from the period I’m most familiar with (and prefer to read) — 1950-1985.  So, when New York Review of Books offered me a copy of Kingsley Amis’ well-known alt-history/sci-fi (depending on whose definition you’re reading) novel The Alteration (1976) I happily agreed….

1. The Exile of Time, Ray Cummings (magazine publication 1931)

(Alex Schomburg’s cover for the 1964 edition)