Literary Term: Slipstream
Writing of the fantastic, which neatly sidesteps the whole fantasy-bigotry-ghetto thing. As in “Why does it need to be called ’slipstream?’ Why isn’t it just ‘fantasy?’” Appearantly, it has a lot to do with marketing: getting Borders to buy it when it doesn’t fit their standard definition of “fantasy,” and then putting it on a shelf in a place where people who would normally walk right past R. A. Salvatore can find it.
James Patrick Kelly offers an overview of how the field arrived at the term.