i almost kind of hate the idea of 'theory fiction' because [pedantic truism incoming] all fiction already kind of contains theory. i don't just mean we can apply a theory to a work, but that almost all works are already saying a thing more than just giving simple moral lessons
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This is sort of the point of early theory-fiction studies (thinking Baudrillard or Fisher). There is a growing intersection between “reality” and fiction, compromising both. Theory-fiction describes the works which inhabit this space as more than just fiction with a message.
I prefer this definition also because it limits the genre in time, to the conditions of mass communication and late capitalism. Yes there are precursors that inhabit the same intersection, but there’s something particular in Acker or Ballard that isn’t in Sterne or Woolf.
