THREE-RING PSYCHUS is, perhaps, John Shirley's least-known and strangest novel. It may come the closest to achieving, in text, his version of surrealism. The surrealists sought to liberate the creative powers of the unconscious mind by overcoming the dominance of reason in both literature and visual art. Spanish artist Salvador Dali, inspired by Freudian theories of the unconscious, painted startling dream images with photographic realism during self-induced hallucinatory states induced by what he called the "paranoid critical method" -- a creative process that Shirley has been known to use.

Although the framework of THREE-RING PSYCHUS is more-or-less science fictional, it is a mere bow to genre. Take out its near-future setting (2013 was 33 years into the future when the book was written), "scientific" explanations, and sf-trappings (like a professor with a "cyber-implant") and PSYCHUS starts out resembling magic realism -- albeit magic realism with social commentary. John Shirley is, of course, incapable of writing without social commentary.

Perhaps as a result of overpopulation ("...catastrophe is the will of the masses"), the gift of Up -- a partial nullification of gravity -- comes to humanity. People can fly. Selective gravity returns and with it the birth of a conscious collective mind, the psychus -- or rather several psychuses. Most of humankind, however, could not handle the Great Unweighting. Some went mad, some catatonic, insanity in others took the form of violence and the emerging new world is not a peaceful place. There's also a contingent of the military left as well as Cold War Russia vs. US hostilities and a "subversive" Indian coalition (the American Indian Movement.) Upping is realized to be a freedom that is anti-military, anarchistic, and anti-authoritarian. Sides must be taken, conflict encountered, battles fought. Somewhere the magic realism turns into a sort of visionary adventure with speculative overtones.

THREE-RING PSYCHUS is incredibly imaginative. The bizarre premise of its first 40 pages ("Book One: Nearby: Talls' Three-Ring Mustard Circus") is never quite fulfilled, but it's well worth reading. The novel is particularly interesting in the context of the emergence of Shirleyian themes and obsessions.