Transrealism

Transrealism is a literary mode that mixes the technique of incorporating fantastic elements drawn from science fiction with the technique of describing immediate perceptions drawn from naturalistic realism, combining the strengths of both approaches as a reaction to their perceived weaknesses. It answers science fiction's escapism and disconnection from reality through stronger characterization built from autobiographical material and depictions of the author's own acquaintances, while answering realism's tiredness and narrow boundaries by using fantastic elements to create new metaphors for psychological change and to register the author's sense of a stranger, higher reality. Its main proponent is the science fiction writer Rudy Rucker, who coined the term after reading Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly, and set out the mode's principles in his 1983 essay A Transrealist Manifesto, applying them in works such as White Light and Saucer Wisdom.