Twenty-Eight Offbeat Science Fiction Books
Inspired by Catherynne M. Valente's "10 Essential Offbeat Science Fiction Novels,"[A] I thought I'd add some (eighteen) of my favorite weirder books (aiming for novels but ending up with a couple of omnibi and a couple of novella-duos).
_Alternate Realities_ (2000) by C. J. Cherryh
Cherryh is known for gritty realism more than being offbeat but this omnibus contains her oddest, most experimental novels. _Wave Without a Shore_ (1981) is a personal favorite, about art, philosophy, and invisible people, but the Arthurian spaceship of _Port Eternity_ (1982) and the alien mentalities conveyed by odd typography in _Voyager in Night_ (1984) are also interesting.
_Carmen Dog_ (1988) by Carol Emshwiller
Feminist trapeze dogs only start the surrealist meltdown which is nevertheless quite pointed.
_The City Not Long After_ (1989) by Pat Murphy
Like her Californian compatriot, Lisa Goldstein (see below), Murphy writes a somewhat hopeful tale of surrealist revolution.
_The Dead Trilogy_ (1998) by Richard Calder
This set of novels from 1992, 1994, and 1996 are somewhat like Spinrad's _The Void Captain's Tale_ in that I ordinarily have little patience for ultra-dense "style" books and this isn't even about orgasmic starships but, rather, about sorts of sex dolls. A truly bizarre set but one which drew me in and kept me involved--an honest lunacy rather than just _outre_ for _outre_'s sake.
_Divide and Rule_ (1948) by L. Sprague de Camp
I'm cheating here (and not for the only time) with a book composed of two novellas ("Divide and Rule" (1939), "The Stolen Dormouse" (1941)) but when people joust in the future and "kangaroos" ride motorcycles, category is a secondary consideration.
_Dracula in Love_ (1979) by John Shirley
Almost every book Shirley's written could be on this list, especially those around this time: _Transmaniacon_, _Three-Ring Psychus_, _City Come A-Walkin'_, etc. I don't even remember this one that well but I'm listing it because I just remember thinking this danced on a sharper razor's edge of "terrible" and "brilliant" than any of his other works. I can't even remember if this is accurate but it's the kind of thing that sounds right--from a two-star review from Goodreads: "The adventures of a vampire in love and his living, prehensile penis with yellow glowing eyes."
_The Dream Years_ (1985) by Lisa Goldstein
"Everyone switch drinks!" Lisa Goldstein romps through time with surrealism and revolution always at the forefront. The evocation of the genuine surrealists of France in the 20s and the events of the 60s are particularly good but, unbound, she includes a futuristic component, as well.
_The Green Millennium_ (1953) by Fritz Leiber
Fritz Leiber has done it all. Straight SF, fantasy (ranging from sword & sorcery to practically inventing urban), horror, humor, non-fiction, etc. In this one, an almost Phildickian protagonist meets a green cat and things just get weirder from there. This is a particularly offbeat book because it's not written in an avant-garde style and isn't artsy-surreal but is a tough, gritty noir sort of book--with fluffy kitties and farcical humor.
_Gun, with Occasional Music_ (1994) by Jonathan Lethem
Speaking of noir: gun-toting, cigarette-smoking kangaroos.
_Knight of Delusions_ (1982, revised from _Night of Delusions_ (1972)) by Keith Laumer
Yet another book with noir traces. I hesitated to include this because I re-read it not too many eons ago and it seemed much more repetitive and less mind-blowing than I recalled but it was still plenty weird and I include it just for that first mind-blowing experience. The cover with the fish and the alien lighting the protagonist's cigarette convey a lot but not the twists and turns and funhouse mirrors and inversions and...
_Norstrilia_ (1975) by Cordwainer Smith
Everything in Smith's Instrumentality of Mankind universe is offbeat, with uplifted animals suffering Kierkegaardian spiritual angst in a Sino-Romanesque future. This is the only novel set in that universe, originally published in two halves as _The Planet Buyer_ (1964) and _The Underpeople_ (1968). Stroon!
_The Paradox Men_ (1953, aka _Flight into Yesterday_) by Charles L. Harness
I suppose this isn't especially offbeat but is just a good old-fashioned van Vogtian adventure in time and space but, again, that's plenty weird enough. This is another book which I enjoyed very much on a re-read but not as much as the first time. The first time, this probably came closer to making my head explode than any other book.
_Rogue Ship_ (1965) by A. E. van Vogt
Like Shirley, most everything this wildman wrote could go on this list, especially _The World of Null-A_), but something about folded-up paper-thin spacemen frozen in time sort of sticks out. (This is fixed up from the 1950 title story (aka "The Twisted Men"--arguably all that's required), 1947's "Centaurus II," and 1963's "The Expendables.")
_The Solarians_ (1966) by Norman Spinrad
Like Shirley and van Vogt, most of Spinrad's works qualify. He's written a science fiction novel as though it were written by Hitler and others about hippies after an apocalypse, starships powered by orgasms, the power of the media in politics, mind-control cults, and mass-movement networked electronic voting... wait. Something about those last three... Anyway, I pick this one just because it's like somebody gave John W. Campbell, Jr. a giant bag of Acapulco Gold. One of the most bizarre collisions of the Golden Age and New Wave I've witnessed. Harlan Ellison, in an otherwise complimentary piece about Spinrad, described this book as "so bad it cannot be read." Spinrad's first professional publication appeared in Campbell's _Analog_ but, if Campbell read the novel, I don't doubt that he agreed. But, to me, it's bad in a good way.
_The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch_ (1965) by Philip K. Dick
Y'know... PKD. Nuff said. Tough to pick the most offbeat but, damn...
_Tomorrow and Tomorrow and The Fairy Chessmen_ (1951) by Henry Kuttner (as by Lewis Padgett)
Kuttner wrote plenty of offbeat stuff from drunken amnesiac inventors to hyper-accelerated evolved cats but when "Tomorrow and Tomorrow" (1947) opens with "He knew it was a dream when he shot Carolyn through the head. But not until then," it's a sign of the Cold War paranoia to come and "The Fairy Chessmen" (1946) immediately tops it with "The doorknob opened a blue eye and looked at him." The latter is not just the weirder, but also the better, story of the two.
_What Mad Universe_ (1949) by Fredric Brown
SF is real. Oh, the comedy! Oh, the horror! Dark, sharp-edged satire.
_Wolfbane_ (1959) by Frederik Pohl & C. M. Kornbluth
Speaking of satire, few of Pohl and Kornbluth's works are ordinary and everyone should read _The Space Merchants_. In terms of this list, a case could be made for _Gladiator-at-Law_ but I feel like the wider scope and sense of mystery (Pyramids have carted the Earth out of the solar system) of the basically non-satirical _Wolfbane_ make it offbeat even compared to their other works.
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P.S.: I'm not going to redo this to include a nineteenth title but between writing and posting, I've realized I failed to include any one of _White Light_ (1980), _Spacetime Donuts_ (1981), _Master of Space and Time_ (1984), or most anything else Rudy Rucker's written. If I left *those* off, there's no telling what else I left off. And, of course, there are authors I haven't even read (books of) who presumably have very offbeat volumes such as R. A. Lafferty. So I hope this list has lots of good and weird stuff but, in terms of comprehensiveness, it ain't very.
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--- Page created: 2018-06-13 Last changed: 2018-06-13