10 ultra-weird science fiction novels that became required reading
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You want a really weird ride? A science fiction or fantasy epic that stretches your brain
like taffy and ties it into strange irregular shapes? Forget television or movies: books are
where the really off-kilter stories are told in speculative fiction.
A while ago, we listed 10 ultra-weird science fiction books that you've never read. But
what's really mind-blowing is the list of science fiction and fantasy books that are equally
strange — but which almost everybody has read, or wants to read. Here are 10
super-weird SF books that are considered part of the canon.
Top image: Ubik cover art by Chris Moore.
Science fiction is great when it's weird. Really bizarre
science fiction takes you on a wild…
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Dhalgren by Samuel R. DelanyWhy It's Weird: It opens with a man making love to a woman who turns into a tree. It
ends with this:
But I still hear them walking in the trees: not speaking.Waiting here, away from the terrifying weaponry, out ofthe halls of vapor and light, beyond holland into thehills, I have come to
Dhalgren takes place in a burning, dilapidated, extra-dimensional city named Bellona,
and it's famous for its non-linear narrative, which requires multiple readings to get a lot
of meaning out of.
Why It's Required: Dhalgren is full of mythological references, and layers of meaning.
It's also a fascinatingly contentious book. The novel has drawn praise from Umberto Eco:
"I consider Delany not only one of the most important SF writers of the present
generation, but a fascinating writer in general who has invented a new style." It's become
a stage play and a MOO, and it's been compared to Pynchon. The original edition sold
more than a million copies.
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The Four-Gated City by Doris LessingWhy It's Weird: Lessing's sprawling Children of Violence series starts
out as realistic quasi-memoir about growing up in Africa, only to turn
weird and experimental in the final couple of volumes. There is
voluntary sleep deprivation, weird sexual experiments where nobody
touches each other, and more. After spending the entire series
building the character of Martha Quest, Lessing kills her off on a
contaminated island off the coast of Scotland during World War
Three. Lessing's World War Three takes place during the ‘60s and
‘70s, with most of Britain wiped out via bubonic plague, nerve gases,
nuclear explosions, etc. by 1978. The ideas behind the novel, as
elucidated on Lessing's own website: "[It] takes on the medical
profession, which she believes is destroying (recently through
imprisonment, currently through the use of drugs) that part of
humanity which is in fact most sensitive to evolution, those people we
label as mentally sick or unbalanced: and, criticising the scientists
who have created and perpetuate a climate in which "rationalism" has
become a new God, she claims that everyone has "extra-sensory
perception", in varying degrees, but has been brainwashed into
suppressing it, and that schizophrenia is the name of our blindest
contemporary prejudice."
Why It's Required: Lessing won the 2007 Nobel Prize and wrote TheGolden Notebook, which frequently appears on college syllabi — but
the Children of Violence trilogy is the series on which she spent
arguably the most time, and in many ways the cornerstone of her
work. Earlier parts of the Children of Violence series appear on
college syllabi pretty often.
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Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A.HeinleinWhy It's Weird: The novel follows Valentine
Michael Smith, son of the first astronauts to
explore Mars, as he is reintegrated into human
society after being raised as a Martian. Valentine
believes a bunch of strange things, Valentine
believes in a bunch of strange things, including the
rightness and sacredness of consuming your
friend's flesh after he/she dies, the superfluity of
clothing, and the obvious self-evidence of an
afterlife, based on his experiences on Mars. He
founds the Church of All Worlds, in which sexual
liberation blends with psychokinesis.
Why It's Required: In addition to winning the
1962 Hugo Award for Best Novel, Stranger in aStrange Land is considered a bona fide classic,
frequently mentioned on the lists of the best
science fiction books of all time. One of its
invented Martian words, "grok" has even entered
the Oxford English Dictionary. You can also see it
on Pearson's Recommended High School Reading
List.
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Ubik by Philip K. DickWhy It's Weird: From lunar
telepaths to mysterious
product placements to a kid
named Jory who sucks the life
force out of other people, this
is a book that doesn't
particularly care about making
sense. Did we mention that
half the characters might be
dead? As Conceptual Fiction
explains, "Ubik keeps you
guessing at almost every step
along the way, and your
hypotheses about what is
actually transpiring will
probably change several times
as the story progresses. From
this regard, the work
progresses much like a
conventional mystery, with
clues to be deciphered and
puzzles to be solved. Only here
the questions are peculiar ones
– not who committed the
murder, but whether a murder
actually took place, not finding
the body but understanding
what a body might be and
become, not avenging a death
but reassessing the boundaries
between life and death."
Why It's Required: Most often
found in science fiction class
syllabi, Ubik is also used as an
example of of late-‘60s
paranoia about reality and
government or corporate
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control of
life. And
Time
Magazine
named it as
one of the
100 best
novels
written in
English
between
1923 and
2005.
Reportedly,
Michel
Gondry is
working on
a movie
version.
How
has
The
Adjustment
Bureau
affected
future
Philip
K.
Dick
movie
adaptations?
What's
going…
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