Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The turbulent flow of air driven backward by the propeller or propellers of an aircraft.
  • noun The area of reduced pressure or forward suction produced by and immediately behind a fast-moving object as it moves through air or water.
  • intransitive verb To drive or cycle in the slipstream of a vehicle ahead.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun the low pressure zone immediately following a rapidly moving object, caused by turbulence
  • verb To take advantage of the suction produced by a slipstream by travelling immediately behind the slipstream generator.
  • verb computing, transitive To incorporate additional software (such as patches) into an existing installer.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the flow of air that is driven backwards by an aircraft propeller

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

from slip + stream

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word slipstream.

Examples

  • The term slipstream was coined by cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling in an article originally published in SF Eye #5, July 1989.

    New Wave Fabulists: "Make It Weird" Mirtika 2006

  • By the offered definition, I think "slipstream" is — and has been, for over a quarter of a century — my favorite.

    What's Your Favorite Slipstream Story? 2010

  • Within the cosy ghetto of serious science fiction and fantasy readers, the term "slipstream" is sometimes used as a label for stories that linger in the liminal borderlands between die-hard genre definitions.

    Genre Fiction 2010

  • At the heart of this term "slipstream" is an image of a zone of turbulence, where mainstream and genre fictions mix.

    Why Do I Infernokrush? Hal Duncan 2005

  • In fact, in a way I think he could even be called “the godfather of slipstream” in that 21st century definition of slipstream, not infernokrusher nor Sterling’s original intent, but what the term slipstream has mutated into for the way he composed stories and used his materials.

    Nelson Bond | Goblin Mercantile Exchange 2006

  • All "magic realism" and slipstream is labeled as fantasy for simplicity.

    The Ultimate Guide to Modern Writers of Science Fiction and Fantasy 2009

  • What I think we have here, at the heart of slipstream, is a folding through of the strange and the mundane, a radical interpenetration (far more radical than that of intrusion fantasy), one that leads to the deep instability and uncertainty of an infused realm, offered as an estranged postmodern view of the world -- infusion as confusion.

    Archive 2008-08-01 Hal Duncan 2008

  • What I think we have here, at the heart of slipstream, is a folding through of the strange and the mundane, a radical interpenetration (far more radical than that of intrusion fantasy), one that leads to the deep instability and uncertainty of an infused realm, offered as an estranged postmodern view of the world -- infusion as confusion.

    Notes on Strange Fiction: Seams Hal Duncan 2008

  • We talk about why the new generation slipstream is not the fusion of literary fiction and SF/F. Fri 1200 Remembering Robert Anton WILSON

    Archive 2007-08-01 Lou Anders 2007

  • We talk about why the new generation slipstream is not the fusion of literary fiction and SF/F. Fri 1200 Remembering Robert Anton WILSON

    The 65th World Science Fiction Convention Lou Anders 2007

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.