When I wrote the
first installment of Fantasy Liberalism, I had a feeling I would continue it on. As times grow darker, we need hope and affirmation more than ever before, and that is what this diary is about.
I've often said that the most brilliant and socially aware minds of the 70s were writing fantasy novels; that is true then, and it is true now. I have a few more stories to share with you today.
City of Illusions is an old book I have just finished reading for the first time, and I highly recommend it. Written by the mother of science fiction, Ursula K. LeGuin in 1967, it makes a suprisingly relevant and modern point. The book follows Falk, a man with no memory of his past, as he discovers himself and earth in the distant future. In this distant future, humanity is ruled by an alien race called the Shing, who look just like normal humans. They have only one official law, and that is no killing; life is sacrosanct. However, the Shing had no qualms about killing people when they invaded, no qualms about lying, nor about destroying any scientific progress or technology that might threaten their supremecy, nor even with altering human minds directly.
Sound at all familiar?
It's a quick read -- only 150 pages -- and can be had at almost any used book store for a few dollars.
The next book I want to talk about is Ender's Game. It's an old classic, but deserves revisiting in this day and age. It was written by Orson Scott Card, who is himself unforgivably neo-conservative, and a religiou nut to boot, but make no mistake: he wrote some suprisingly liberal things in his youth.
Ender's Game is the story of Andrew Wiggin, who is taken from his home as a boy to be trained in the arts of futuristic war. He is taught to glorify battle, manipulated to kill with little or no remorse, and eventually tricked into committing genocide, all on the say so of his military teachers who are so caught up in their xenophobic, military framework that they can't recognize a gesture of peace for what it is.
I don't think I'm going very far out on a limb when I say that Andrew Wiggin represents every American who has been tricked into supporting Bush's wars. They trusted their military leaders to make good choices, they listened when they were told to be afraid, and now they are all complicit in the genocide that is to come. If only Americans could find the strength of moral fiber that Andrew Wiggin did. If you want to find out how he dealt with it, then you'll just have to buy the book and read it.
Lastly, I want to give a word of praise to Realms of Fantasy, a periodical that features short fantasy fiction. I had begun to loose faith in the editors' good taste, but this month I was reassured. There was a very excellent story by David Barzak, a young but talented writer, called "The Language of Moths." In it, an autistic girl learns to express her love for her brother, that brother discovers his own sexuality, their father endures a mid-life crisis of sorts, and their mother . . .well, their mother writes a book about it all.
Realms of Fantasy is $4 at any Barnes and Noble bookseller. It's worth it not only for the short fiction, also for a regular feature called "Folkroots" which examines the roots of folktales and myths. This month, the column deals with theater superstitions, like those regarding THAT play.
So go! Go forth and read, and be reassured, at least a little. Go ground yourselves to be better able to fight against the growing darkness. Go and patronize real bookstores, and in thus voting with your dollars, cast a vote against the megastores and grocery marts who are grasping for a share of the book market, and in doing so, strangle the creativity and diversity of the writers of our modern age.