"Serious" writers writing TF fiction.

[babblingfaces]

Not sure if there is already a thread like this, but what cases do you know of "serious" (i.e. published, lauded and/or well-known authors) doing work that centers around some concept that is pertinent to this site, and could even seem to be written by a member?

Last week I purchased, among other things, Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, centered around two characters who each see themselves turned into incarnations of the archangel Gabriel and a devil respectively. I still have not read it and I'm not expecting the sort of approach this site takes to transformations, but the topic does seem interesting regardless.

More accordingly with the site's approach to processes, however, is Charles Bukowski's short story "Six Inches", about a man who is shrunk down by his witch girlfriend. You can read it here: http://theguimartinez.com/charles-bukowski-six-inches/

So what other cases come to your mind? Which ones can you recommend?

[Dr. Otto]

Not gonna happen - at least not to the fetishistic extent that amateur writers (myself included) like to go. It's blunt and ugly to reduce a whole subgenre into something basically meant to "get your rocks off", but let's face it, that's what it's all about, more or less.

[babblingfaces]

Originally Posted by Dr. Otto

Not gonna happen - at least not to the fetishistic extent that amateur writers (myself included) like to go. It's blunt and ugly to reduce a whole subgenre into something basically meant to "get your rocks off", but let's face it, that's what it's all about, more or less.

Have you read that Bukwoski short story, though? I swear, the way he works with the sex appeal behind the man shrinking and the witch making him into some kind of sex toy is actually quite similar to what can often be posted in these threads.

But essentially I'm curious about interesting takes in process themes from this kind of authors any of us may have stumbled upon.

[jack36262001]

I doubt the process would be covered. They would most likely focus on the effect of said transformation on the characters life. Most stories I've read in my fetishes (BE, GTS) of chose, and thought I wonder if these could be published. Usually involved no sex or verey little. I just recently finished reading this one and it seemed to me if the author tried a smaller publishing house it could be approved and sell some copies, maybe even outside the genere. http://mg-sg.pbworks.com/w/page/5824...nti%20By%20LBP . I think to be blunt it depends how much of it is for lack of a better term "smut" and how much focus on the "human condition" impacted by said changes. Also of course quality of the writing.

[Tancred]

Well, I dońt know if you'll considerit, but I think I could say I am trhought I write in French...

In fact, I have a bachelor degree in narrative writing, and, even if I'm still not published (not enought time because I'm still working on my master degree in numeric artc and narrativity), I do have a preofessional level in my writing. I'm justdone with my verry first serous tf tg novella. This one wońtbe published because of some copyright issues, but I'll probably use the same univers in my next one and publish it on amazon...

Anyway, the story I was talking about is currently intranslation but my translator is actually very busy so it could be a little long. If you arecurrious to read it, you can find it this : http://tfancred.deviantart.com/art/S...Atfancred&qo=3

It is the story of a guy whois turning into an anthro version of Twilight Sparkle. Someone told me that google translator was doing an ok job on it! ;-)

[whiteflame]

I am currently working on a dark parody of Kafka's metamorphosis where the main character is turning into a horse that focuses on 1. humanity's fear of its own bodies, 2. body horror (consequently), 3. gentrification of the urban ghetto and the objectification of the poor, 4. the desires of thanatos. It takes place in Over-the-Rhine in Cincinnati.

There is plenty of classic literature that treats the subject of transformation and even fetishizes it. Eroticism is not mutually exclusive with regard to expressiveness and import.

You should read 'The Satanic Verses'; the author of the book has been in protective custody ever since its publication due to fatwa ordered for followers of Islam to assassinate him (ironically when the book itself was treating the topic of religious oppression).

To add to your list: "Heart of a Dog" by Mikhail Bulgakov - A famous Russian novel satirizing the Soviet's conception of their archetypal 'new man'. In the novel, a dog is transformed into a human. It even addresses the awkwardness of sexuality across species and in itself.

http://www.academia.edu/5654870/A_Se...ury_Literature

In Peter Singer's treatise on ethics and animal rights "Animal Liberation", he imagines being transformed into a horse and considers self-interested behavior. "Sum" by neuroscientist David Eagleman has a chapter called "Descent of Species". http://www.davideagleman.com/descent.html


You can also read "The Animal that Therefore I Am" by Derrida, which deconstructs the binary opposition between Human and Animal Other. To plug myself, I have written a great deal on the topic of eroticism and binary oppositions between Human and Animal, and my artwork treats this topic. http://www.furaffinity.net/user/whiteflamek/

Margaret Atwood has a collection of poetry that deals with Circe, and both Circe and 'transformation' are topics well explored in contemporary poiesis.

Song

My lover Peterson
He named me Goldenmouth
I changed him to a bird
And he migrated south

My lover Frederick
Wrote sonnets to my breast
I changed him to a horse
And he galloped west

My lover Levite
He named me Bitterfeast
I changed him to a serpent
And he wriggled east

My lover I forget
He named me Death
I changed him to a catfish
And he swam north

My lover I imagine
He cannot form a name
I’ll nestle in his fur
And never be to blame.

-Leonard Cohen,
from Let Us Compare Mythologies


Sitting in a Small Screenhouse on a Summer Morning

Ten more miles, it is South Dakota.
Somehow, the roads there turn blue,
When no one walks down them.
One more night of walking, and I could have become
A horse, a blue horse, dancing
Down a road, alone.

I have got this far. It is almost noon. But never mind time:
That is all over.
It is still Minnesota.
Among a few dead cornstalks, the starving shadow
Of a crow leaps to his death.
At least, it is green here,
Although between my body and the elder trees
A savage hornet strains at the wire screen.
He can't get in yet.

It is so still now, I hear the horse
Clear his nostrils.
He has crept out of the green places behind me.
Patient and affectionate, he reads over my shoulder
These words I have written.
He has lived a long time, and he loves to pretend
No one can see him.
Last night I paused at the edge of darkness,
And slept with green dew, alone.
I have come a long way, to surrender my shadow
To the shadow of a horse.

-James Wright

[whiteflame]

Basically, if you think that the topic of transformation isn't treated in great detail and without process nor eroticism, you don't know very much contemporary literature. As a topic it is becoming more significant in critical theory.

There is a whole field of writing called Zoopoetics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoopoetics

Rather than speak of "it is possible" or "it is impossible", why not do a bit of research y'all. Hell, I am a professional writer, artist and musician whose entire oeuvre deals with transformation.

There's even contemporary music. Milton Babbitt has an avant-garde electronic composition titled "Philomel" that tries to understand the transformation process of the mind of an individual becoming a tree, and deals with materialistic reductions in computer science.

[Dr. Otto]

Originally Posted by whiteflame

Basically, if you think that the topic of transformation isn't treated in great detail and without process nor eroticism, you don't know very much contemporary literature.

I'm not talking so much about "contemporary" literature as "memorable" literature. I'm sure you could point out several dozen examples of erotically charged transformations in TV, movies or books, but if you tried assembling a list of ones that have remained within the public consciousness the way franchises like STAR WARS or DOCTOR WHO have, you'd come up painfully short. Some of the more famous/infamous TF's are usually a result of an impressionable nostalgic childhood, as opposed to fetishistic values - the donkey transformation from PINOCCHIO, for example.

Sure, there are novels about transformation like THE METAMORPHOSIS or ORLANDO that are recognized as great literature, but I haven't come across any interpretation of METAMORPHOSIS that analysed how the book was some kind of perverted metaphor for Kafka's own secret sexual fantasies. Even if there was some truth to it, both Kafka and Woolf did a helluva job at making their works accessible to the general reading public, while avoiding the usual "ick" factor that "normal people" would associate with TF/TG fiction.

I can admit that I'm into transformation, although more as a theme than a fetish per se. The trick is to somehow prevent one from overriding the other, so a casual reader won't be looking at you as if you're some kind of oily deviant freak. Take DR. JEKYLL AND MS. HYDE (1995), for example: There's a film with great transformations, but I wouldn't dare show it to any of my acquaintances, as it doesn't have any appeal beyond its TF content. ("Dude, why the hell are you making me watch this shitty movie? This is the un-funniest fucking comedy I've seen since MASTER OF DISGUISE." "Well, uh...don't you think Sean Young's kind of hot?")

You could cite AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON or THE FLY as two films that managed to defy the odds, but both flicks are still accessible to mainstream audiences as basic science fiction/horror thrillers. When you start getting into more offbeat territory like TG, it's tough not to weird out the viewer. But getting back to the OP's question: Other than instances where transformation shows up in some stories, it's difficult to find a work by a published author where the entire novel orientates AROUND the transformation.

[babblingfaces]

Cheers, Whiteflame. Good response, and indeed the topic is not mutually exclusive to eroticism: in fact, Greek mythology works with transformations in numerous occasions and often relates these to matters regarding the sexual and taboo. It's only bound to be expected then that literature will be filled with cases where such matters are treated.

[Kyutetsuki]

Ovid. Metamorphoses. That is all.


Also, Stephen King has plenty of transformations. Tommyknockers, for example, in which the population of a small town slowly turn into aliens, and it even has a scene where the protagonist's love interest tries to seduce him with her new alien body.

[Quadhouse]

Jack L. Chalker wrote a lot of books with TF/TG content.

His Well World books had alien poof transformations.

The River of Souls series had a mix of slow and poof changes into few mythological creatures. A couple of the main characters got turned into a were. JUST a were. Every full moon, they would turn into a copy of whatever the nearest living being was. This included each other.

His Wonderland Gambit trilogy has a LOT of poof TG. Unfortunately, most of those changes happened at the start of each book. WARNING: DO NOT read this series if you question reality in any shape, manner, or form. It took me 3 months to stop seeing things out of the corner of my eyes. Seriously, this series will twist your perceptions of reality.

[Dr. Otto]

Originally Posted by dtx

While Tommyknockers was the most TF-dense of any of King's books that I've read, the degree of TF is limited.

I'd argue SALEM'S LOT has just as much TF content, and even the protagonist's love interest gets tragically vampirized. But once again, most of the actual biting and infecting takes place "off-screen", so to speak.