Slipstream, etc?

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MacAllister

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This question came up in the non-existent top-secret Mod Room, recently: Do we need a room or a subforum for slipstream, magical realism, New Weird, etc? Or are those areas adequately covered already, here?

So I thought I'd just ask YOUSE guys. Since, y'know, you're a big part of the target audience.
 

AMCrenshaw

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To be honest, most of my questions about Slipstream, New Weird, etc. are answered in the SF/F or lit fic sub-forums.

Of course I wouldn't mind the addition and would likely embrace it (I myself write slipstream).


AMC
 

Fenika

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Can we slipstream into the non-existent room from time to time? I like to watch :D
 

heretic_scribe

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it looks like I have some reading to do. I have no idea what "slipstream" is. Or maybe I know what it is, but didn't realize it had a name?
 

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Personally, I think they all belong in a brand new Medieval Lit forum.

:D
 

Cranky

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I think it would be a cool room to have. I don't know very much about it, and I think having a room dedicated to it would be a great way to figure out how to get started on learning.

Heck, I can only think of two writers off the top of my head who do work like this: magical realism, I mean. Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allende. I've heard of them, but not read anything by them. (Dratted TBR pile is getting out of control!)

Anyway, I'd love to learn more about it. :)
 

Fenika

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Personally, I think they all belong in a brand new Medieval Lit forum.

:D

Want! Medievalist could mod it. Just let us fantasy nuts in, kay? With our alternate histories and complications of magic :D
 

Nivarion

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Shweta

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I'll fess up to being someone who would like this room.

Not because it can't go in SF/F, but because it's diluted in here. SF/F is huge, and the slipstream-interstitial kids are a tiny drop in here, and our threads tend to wander or disappear and I don't think we even all know who else is in our little confused group.

I also wonder if there are people who normally hang out in romance, or horror, or mystery, or lit, or whatever, who feel a little lost with the genre-central stuff and would like to play.

I most certainly don't think it'd be a replacement for any of the more normal get with the genre rooms, for anyone, more an addition/crossroads sort of place.
 

Cranky

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I'll fess up to being someone who would like this room.

Not because it can't go in SF/F, but because it's diluted in here. SF/F is huge, and the slipstream-interstitial kids are a tiny drop in here, and our threads tend to wander or disappear and I don't think we even all know who else is in our little confused group.

I also wonder if there are people who normally hang out in romance, or horror, or mystery, or lit, or whatever, who feel a little lost with the genre-central stuff and would like to play.

I most certainly don't think it'd be a replacement for any of the more normal get with the genre rooms, for anyone, more an addition/crossroads sort of place.

Don't get me wrong...I love the Horror Hounds. Such a tight-knit, supportive group! :) But I like to play more to the fantasy side of things, but more "weird" (not Lovecraftian weird, though), dark fantasy type of stuff. Hmmm.

In any event, I like the idea of magical realism with a dark twist. Maybe a darker surrealism? I don't know where something like that fits, though, and so I always end up tailoring what I do more towards conventional genres as a result. Maybe out of ignorance, too.

So, yeah. Totally count me in. If nothing else, I'd sure as heck learn a lot about it. :)
 

mario_c

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I don't know what it is, but I. Like. It. And may have been writing it all along. :eek:
 

Smiling Ted

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I support it.
I'd also like sub-forums for the following:

Whipstream: Magical realism that fetishizes Kool-Whip.
Chipstream: Dark fantasy in which wood chippers become the things they dread the most.
Tipstream: Contemporary fantasy focusing on the service industries.

And of course,

The New Beard: Self-explanatory.

Please, implement these rooms as soon as possible - my Champion CX851 3pt is yearning for fiction that will adequately expresses its feelings about spruce and maple.
 

Pthom

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Why don't we install a sub-forum here for Slipstream/Interstitial, right up there above Science Fact?
 

Bravo

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remember kids:

just say no to subforums!

no mo'!
 

Dawnstorm

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If you make such a room, I'll go there; I like that sort of writing. But if I'm going to vote, I'd rather not have such a room. I never found these sort of terms all that useful. It's like we make very restrictive rules for the blanket categories SF or F, so that they no longer encompass the field. A lable for the non-classifiable tends to lead a new set of restrictive rules, which leads to new outliers...

"New Weird" is a genre movement. IMO, it's little more than a new name for the New Wave. It's just that the New Wave is no longer new, so we need a new name. And since the New Wave springs straight from a marriage of the pulps with the classics... Well, it's pretty central to my idea of SF/F; so I'd be pretty confused of what goes where.

Magic(al) Realism started out as a movement, too, but it's now pretty much a classification term, and "magic realist writers" are already starting to restrict themselves on what goes into their story.

"Slipstream" is a critical term. It sounds nice but has fairly little positive content. If you have trouble classifying something it goes there. The term's basically a junk yard. If no genre wants your book, here it goes.

I know too little about Interstitial to comment. When I looked like it, it sounded a lot like "Slipstream" understood as a movement, but transcending fiction in other artforms (mostly visual). As I said, though, I know too little about Interstitial to comment.

So basically I'm not enamoured with the idea of such a room because I fear it will help consolidate genre-petrification. Removing and rebrainding the vague and hard to classify stuff leaves Fantasy and Science Fiction with easily identifiable, which I doubt is good for the genre.

Where do I place Jeff Vandermeer? Where do I place Hal Duncan? Get my drift?

But as I said, if this new room is created, and if the sort of fiction I like goes there, then I will follow. And if this actually draws together writers from different directions to play in the same yard, I'm as happy as anyone.
 

ChaosTitan

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Shweta said:
Not because it can't go in SF/F, but because it's diluted in here. SF/F is huge, and the slipstream-interstitial kids are a tiny drop in here, and our threads tend to wander or disappear and I don't think we even all know who else is in our little confused group.

SF/F is huge, yes. It's a huge genre made up of dozens of other sub-genres and sub-sub-genres. Every one of those "tiny drops" makes up the whole ocean, and it helps create the diverse community that populates this forum.

It's up to thread participants to keep threads alive and not let them die.

So basically I'm not enamoured with the idea of such a room because I fear it will help consolidate genre-petrification. Removing and rebrainding the vague and hard to classify stuff leaves Fantasy and Science Fiction with easily identifiable, which I doubt is good for the genre.

While my argument is more for this community of writers, and less for the genre as a whole, I don't particularly like the idea of one room for one sub-genre. To me, it makes the other sub-genres that get "diluted" feel less worthy. I would love a little place specifically for Urban Fantasy, because I don't write SF or traditional fantasy. I'm sure other folks would love a room just for Steampunk. Or Alternate History.

Where does the splintering stop?
 

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But Ray told me crossing the streams was bad. :|
 

maxmordon

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I think it would be a cool room to have. I don't know very much about it, and I think having a room dedicated to it would be a great way to figure out how to get started on learning.

Heck, I can only think of two writers off the top of my head who do work like this: magical realism, I mean. Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allende. I've heard of them, but not read anything by them. (Dratted TBR pile is getting out of control!)

Anyway, I'd love to learn more about it. :)

Read The House Of The Spirits and One Hundred Years of Solitude and tell me who's the most beautiful woman in the world.



Back to thread, another forum doesn't seem useful to me. I think we're fine as we're.
 

Kitty Pryde

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I think slipstream and magical realism can fit in perfectly well here in SF/F, though I think magical realism threads tend to end up in 'Novel Writing' because people classify MR as literary rather than speculative. And New Weird is, to me, just weird fantasy that doesn't follow well-tread fantasy cliches.

I don't know that they need their own forums. After all, we've got fantasy and SF all mixed up in here. There are dainty elves making friends with big ugly robots like some crazy United Colors of Benneton ad. We're a pretty welcoming group!
 
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