R. A. Lafferty
A wholly singular American voice whose tall tales bent science fiction into something closer to folklore.
R. A. Lafferty was an American author unlike anyone else the genre has produced — a self-taught Oklahoma original whose stories read like tall tales, fables, and barroom yarns spun by a mad genius. A late starter who didn't publish fiction until his forties, he became a cult favorite revered by other writers for the sheer strangeness and joy of his prose.
His work resists summary by design: novels like Past Master and Fourth Mansions, and a glittering pile of short stories, blend Catholic mysticism, Native American myth, Irish whimsy, and dizzying invention into something that's only nominally science fiction. He won a Hugo for the story "Eurema's Dam" and the devotion of readers who like their fiction wild.
Expect playful, profound, gloriously eccentric storytelling that follows no rules but its own. Lafferty is a perfect pick for adventurous readers tired of the predictable — a writer whose tall tales feel beamed in from a genre that exists nowhere else.
- For adventurous readers who want the unconventional
- Tall-tale whimsy and dazzling invention
- A genuinely singular genre voice
