tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/fantasy-literature-9133/articlesFantasy literature – The Conversation2023-11-21T16:54:45Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2181482023-11-21T16:54:45Z2023-11-21T16:54:45ZItaly’s far-right claim The Lord of the Rings – but they’ve misread Tolkien’s message<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560365/original/file-20231120-27-v478qj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=125%2C116%2C5865%2C3871&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Region of Mordor on the map of Middle-earth.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/region-mordor-on-map-middleearth-2307612455">Erman Gunes/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Italian prime minister <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Giorgia-Meloni">Giorgia Meloni</a> and I have precious little in common. But one important thing we share is The Lord of the Rings. Both she and I regard the J.R.R. Tolkien trilogy as a personal “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/16/tolkiens-biggest-fan-italys-giorgia-meloni-opens-new-exhibit/">sacred text</a>” which has profoundly shaped our values and our political commitments. </p>
<p>Speaking as a queer, leftist theologian, however, the tricky thing about sacred texts is this: when you come to them searching for echoes of your own beliefs, with a little digging <a href="https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/43275654/a-new-teaching-with-authority-pacific-school-of-religion">you can usually find something</a>. </p>
<p>The fact that the leader of a far-right political party and I can both come to The Lord of the Rings and find sustenance for our imaginations suggests one of two things. Either Middle-earth is wide and wild enough to admit multiple interpretations, or one of us is reading it wrong.</p>
<p>Conservative Tolkien scholars have frequently claimed the latter. As Joseph Pearce writes in his foreword to Bradley Birzer’s book <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/J_R_R_Tolkien_s_Sanctifying_Myth.html?id=TyKDAwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">Tolkien’s Sanctifying Myth</a> (2003), it is “not merely erroneous but patently perverse to see Tolkien’s epic as anything other than a specifically Christian myth”. </p>
<p>J.R.R. Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic. In <a href="https://bibliothecaveneficae.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/the_letters_of_j.rrtolkien.pdf">a 1954 letter</a> to the Jesuit Robert Murray, he described his trilogy as a “fundamentally religious and Catholic work”.</p>
<p>Tolkien was a particular kind of Catholic. Pre-<a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Second-Vatican-Council">Vatican II era</a> (the most recent council of the Catholic Church) and English, he shared his tradition’s deep suspicion of modernity. </p>
<p>Middle-earth, with its ranked orders of elves and angels, and distinctions between High and Low Men, was influenced by the medieval Catholic notion of the <a href="http://dimitrafimi.com/2018/12/02/revisiting-race-in-tolkiens-legendarium-constructing-cultures-and-ideologies-in-an-imaginary-world/">Great Chain of Being</a> in which God ordains natural hierarchy in the cosmos. </p>
<p>It’s because of this that some of today’s far-right claim Tolkien as one of their own, arguing that his work underwrites values such as reactionary nationalism, rigid gender roles and the use of state violence to enforce cultural homogeneity.</p>
<h2>Interpreting The Lord of the Rings</h2>
<p>In his book <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-reactionary-mind-9780190692001">The Reactionary Mind</a> (2011), political theorist <a href="https://twitter.com/CoreyRobin?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">Corey Robin</a> argues that conservatism is, at its root, the defence of hierarchy. It would therefore be intellectually dishonest to deny that The Lord of the Rings could have certain right-wing interpretations. </p>
<p>If you are a neofascist, for example, looking to justify xenophobia and racism, you can latch onto Tolkien’s troubling tendency to cast nonwhite characters in the role of evil. If you are a reactionary Catholic who longs for a <a href="https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2020/11/christian-humanism-j-r-r-tolkien-bradley-birzer.html">restoration of the Holy Roman Empire</a>, you can read Aragorn’s return and coronation as justification for <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/theocracy">theocracy</a>. These things are an inescapable part of the text.</p>
<p>However, if you wish to produce such a reading of The Lord of the Rings, you will have to ignore a lot of other things about the text too.</p>
<p>The fact, for instance, that the <a href="https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/War_of_the_Ring">War of the Ring</a> requires cooperation between diverse peoples, from diverse backgrounds, with diverse goals, in order to confront a common threat.</p>
<p>Or the fact that <a href="https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Sauron">Sauron</a> and <a href="https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Saruman">Saruman</a> seek to impose their will through forced industrialisation, brutal oppression of subject populations and naked violence on a mass scale – all favourite weapons of the far right. (The <a href="https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Ents">Ents</a> even rise up against their mechanising oppressors and drown their factories).</p>
<p>Then there’s the fact that the plot hinges around the <a href="https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/One_Ring">One Ring</a>, an object with the power to dominate which corrupts all who seek to wield it and which must be destroyed – not deployed – in order to overcome the forces of evil once and for all.</p>
<p>And the fact that the salvation of the world is brought about not by force of arms, but by the dogged persistence and fierce love of the small and powerless, by pity for the pitiless and mercy upon the merciless. These are, to my mind, far more “fundamentally religious and Catholic” ideas than racialised hierarchy is.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560368/original/file-20231120-15-dwico7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="J. R. R. Tolkien" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560368/original/file-20231120-15-dwico7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560368/original/file-20231120-15-dwico7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560368/original/file-20231120-15-dwico7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560368/original/file-20231120-15-dwico7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560368/original/file-20231120-15-dwico7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560368/original/file-20231120-15-dwico7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560368/original/file-20231120-15-dwico7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">J. R. R. Tolkien in the 1920s on leaving Leeds University.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien#/media/File:J._R._R._Tolkien,_ca._1925.jpg">Bodleian Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a <a href="https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol42/iss1/3/">recent paper, I argued</a> that The Lord of the Rings is too open to interpretation – and too enchanting – to collapse into a single authoritative meaning. </p>
<p>In his foreword to the second edition of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien defends “the freedom of the reader” against reductive readings. He was far more concerned that readers take his novel on its own terms as a work of art, rather than arrive at some objectively “correct” interpretation. There is, quite simply, no one “right” way to read Tolkien – but, in my opinion, there are wrong ones.</p>
<p>There are readings that ignore what’s in the text, twisting it to suit the reader’s own religious, cultural and political purposes. Far-right readings of The Lord of the Rings do not come from nowhere. But they are far from the only solution to the riddle of Middle-earth’s enduring power. Tolkien was savvy enough to realise that his imaginative reconstruction of a mythic past was fiction. Reactionary ideologues lack any such self awareness. </p>
<p>Far-right readings of The Lord of the Rings are therefore wrong in the sense that they are technically bad interpretations. More importantly to my mind, however, they are ethically wrong. There is nothing in Middle-earth – not even its most troubling elements – which requires readers to take it as an argument for far-right nationalism. That interpretation is a choice – and it must be resisted. </p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218148/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Emanuel receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).</span></em></p>Tolkien was far more concerned that we take his novel on its own terms as a work of art than that we arrive at some correct interpretation.Tom Emanuel, PhD Candidate, English literature, University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1379422020-05-18T14:59:38Z2020-05-18T14:59:38ZUrban fantasy novels: why they matter and which ones to read first<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335396/original/file-20200515-138654-1y5a60s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C22%2C3722%2C2741&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/scifi-futuristic-fantasy-image-upside-down-1012186042">Matt Gibson/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Franchises like The Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones and The Witcher often lead us to think of fantasy as a pastoral genre: a medieval landscape filled with knights riding on quests, enchanted woodland and isolated castles. </p>
<p>Yet there is another setting for magic, supernatural creatures and ancient wisdom: the modern city. Urban fantasy occupies a place somewhere between epic fantasy and science fiction. On the one hand, it features seemingly eternal and otherworldly beings; on the other hand, it takes place within man-made, built environments.</p>
<p>In urban fantasy, these environments can be real-life cities. In Ben Aaronovitch’s <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/BP9/rivers-of-london">Rivers of London</a> (2011), London is host to supernatural creatures and magic. In Cassandra Clare’s <a href="https://shadowhunters.com/book/city-of-bones/">City of Bones</a> (2007), New York is the city in question, and Sergei Lukyanenko’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/dec/06/sergei-lukyanenko-russia-novel-fiction">The Night Watch</a> (1998) is set in Moscow. Other urban environments are entirely imaginary, like China Miéville’s <a href="https://www.tor.com/2011/03/09/best-sff-novels-of-the-decade-an-appreciation-of-perdido-street-station/">New Crobuzon</a>, Jeff VanderMeer’s <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374103170">Ambergris</a> or KJ Bishop’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/jan/31/featuresreviews.guardianreview29">The Etched City</a> (2004). </p>
<h2>Lizards and ghosts</h2>
<p>The history of urban fantasy reaches back into the 19th century, when writers were trying to comprehend the new industrialised cities. This can be seen in Charles Dickens’ imaginary dinosaur “waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill” at the start of Bleak House (1853). Another example is the French poet Charles Baudelaire’s ghostly Paris – the “unreal city”, as described in his poem Les Fleurs du Mal (1857). </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335759/original/file-20200518-83393-16qt0tx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335759/original/file-20200518-83393-16qt0tx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335759/original/file-20200518-83393-16qt0tx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335759/original/file-20200518-83393-16qt0tx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335759/original/file-20200518-83393-16qt0tx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335759/original/file-20200518-83393-16qt0tx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335759/original/file-20200518-83393-16qt0tx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Baudelaire’s Paris.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charles_Soulier,_Panorama_de_Paris_-_Pris_de_la_tour_Saint_Jacques,_ca._1865.jpg">Charles Soulier/Public domain</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Baudelaire’s poetry, Paris becomes a fantastical caricature of the real city. His narrator is beset by doppelgangers, apparitions and objects of desire. <a href="https://lauradufresne.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/baudelaire.pdf">Baudelaire believed</a> that the city demanded a new kind of writing to capture it in memory. Since the modern city changes so quickly, his fear is “of not going fast enough, of letting the phantom escape”. </p>
<p>Baudelaire’s concerns about capturing the essence of a city before it changes are linked to ideas about the impact of capitalism on modern life. It is echoed in Karl Marx’s understanding of the swift-moving forces of capital. In the <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Manifesto.pdf">Communist Manifesto</a> (1848), Marx wrote that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>All fixed, fast-frozen relations … are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>More recently, urban fantasy author China Miéville <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/hima/10/4/hima.10.issue-4.xml?language=en">has commented that</a> fantasy literature mimics the “absurdity” of capitalist modernity. Urban fantasy, seen this way, is a way of understanding and describing how the modern city is made. </p>
<h2>History and fantasy</h2>
<p>The collision of past, present and future as the city transforms is a common theme in modern urban fantasy. Perhaps the best example is Neil Gaiman’s novel and TV series, <a href="https://www.neilgaiman.com/works/Books/Neverwhere/">Neverwhere</a> (1996). Young businessman Richard Mayhew meets the mysterious character Door. He pursues her into London Below, a magical, feudalistic mirror image to London Above. </p>
<p>As Door explains: “There are little bubbles of old-time in London, where things and places stay the same, like bubbles in amber.” London Below is a grotesque version of what has been left behind in the city’s ruthless pursuit of wealth and technology. Gaiman uses a quest narrative – Richard must discover who murdered Door’s parents and, in the process, slay the Great Beast of London – but he places it within the remnants of old London.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335713/original/file-20200518-83363-dw8xr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335713/original/file-20200518-83363-dw8xr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335713/original/file-20200518-83363-dw8xr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335713/original/file-20200518-83363-dw8xr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335713/original/file-20200518-83363-dw8xr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335713/original/file-20200518-83363-dw8xr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335713/original/file-20200518-83363-dw8xr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In novels like Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, modern London intersects with remnants of the city from the past.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/man-walking-mystic-dark-city-377166763">frankie's/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Urban fantasies such as Neverwhere and also Miéville’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/may/30/china-mieville-fiction">The City and the City</a> (2009) display an <a href="https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1430176/1/418-1172-1-PB.pdf">archaeological interest</a> with the material hidden histories of the city. In The City and The City, an archaeological dig is central to the plot.</p>
<p>Linking psychology and archaeology, Sigmund Freud <a href="http://w3.salemstate.edu/%7Epglasser/Freud-Civil-Disc.pdf">once compared</a> the human mind to the ruins of ancient Rome:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Let us make the fantastic supposition that Rome were not a human dwellingplace but a mental entity … in which nothing once constructed had perished, and all the earlier stages of development had survived alongside the latest.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Urban fantasy’s mix of past and present, natural and supernatural, seen and <a href="https://gup.ub.gu.se/file/207020">unseen</a> echoes Freud’s description of the psyche, in which planes of human activity are layered one upon the other. </p>
<h2>The multicultural city</h2>
<p>The genre is not without problems. Urban fantasies such as Miéville’s industrial New Crobuzon or Philip Reeve’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/dec/12/mortal-engines-what-philip-reeves-predator-cities-tell-us-about-our-world">Mortal Engines</a> (2001), have overlapped with another sub-genre: <a href="http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/steampunk">steampunk</a>. The <a href="https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/10/the-hard-edge-of-empire.html">19th-century aesthetic</a> of steampunk tends to take inspiration from the British Empire without any serious consideration of race.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335715/original/file-20200518-83375-2niav8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335715/original/file-20200518-83375-2niav8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335715/original/file-20200518-83375-2niav8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335715/original/file-20200518-83375-2niav8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335715/original/file-20200518-83375-2niav8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335715/original/file-20200518-83375-2niav8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335715/original/file-20200518-83375-2niav8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nalo Hopkinson at the Hugo Award Ceremony Worldcon in Helsinki.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nalo_Hopkinson,_at_the_Hugo_Award_Ceremony_2017,_Worldcon_in_Helsinki.jpg">Henry Söderlund</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the other hand, Gaiman, Miéville and also Aaronovitch have all drawn upon multicultural London. Afro-Caribbean writers like <a href="https://nalohopkinson.com/index.html">Nalo Hopkinson</a> have used urban fantasy to explore racism in cities such as Toronto (Sister Mine, 2013). Although more <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-afrofuturism-gives-black-people-the-confidence-to-survive-doubt-and-anti-blackness-130974">Afrofuturist</a> than urban fantasy, the city-state of <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2018/02/black-panthers-wakanda-explained.html">Wakanda</a>, which features in the Black Panther comic books and film, takes the imperial stereotype of the “lost world” and turns it inside out. </p>
<p>At its best, urban fantasy is not only enthralling. It offers a new way to understand our own urban existence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137942/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul March-Russell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Fictional, magical cities can help us understand our own urban lives.Paul March-Russell, Lecturer in Comparative Literature, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1355132020-05-11T11:50:55Z2020-05-11T11:50:55ZScience fiction builds mental resiliency in young readers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333753/original/file-20200508-49556-2riaio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C14%2C3190%2C1782&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Science fiction offers readers a way to rethink social dilemmas. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/alien-cyborg-landing-on-a-green-planet-royalty-free-image/613023394?adppopup=true">MATJAZ SLANIC/Via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Young people who are “hooked” on watching fantasy or reading science fiction may be on to something. Contrary to a common misperception that reading this genre is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/18/it-drives-writers-mad-why-are-authors-still-sniffy-about-sci-fi">an unworthy practice</a>, reading science fiction and fantasy may <a href="https://www.unicef.org/coronavirus/how-teenagers-can-protect-their-mental-health-during-coronavirus-covid-19">help young people cope</a>, especially with the stress and anxiety of living through the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>
<p>I am <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=S763T1AAAAAJ&hl=en">a professor</a> with research interests in the social, ethical and political messages in science fiction. In my book “<a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781137520609">Medicine and Ethics in Black Women’s Speculative Fiction</a>,” I explore the ways science fiction promotes understanding of human differences and ethical thinking. </p>
<p>While many people may not consider science fiction, fantasy or speculative fiction to be “literary,” research shows that all fiction can generate <a href="https://hbr.org/2020/03/the-case-for-reading-fiction">critical thinking skills and emotional intelligence</a> for young readers. Science fiction may have a power all its own. </p>
<h2>Literature as a moral mirror</h2>
<p>Historically, parents have considered literature “good” for young people if it provides moral guidance that reflects their own values. This belief has been the catalyst for many movements to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27657052?seq=1">censor particular books</a> for nearly as long as <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4307574?seq=1">books have been published</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330255/original/file-20200424-47815-rbefo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330255/original/file-20200424-47815-rbefo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330255/original/file-20200424-47815-rbefo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330255/original/file-20200424-47815-rbefo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330255/original/file-20200424-47815-rbefo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330255/original/file-20200424-47815-rbefo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330255/original/file-20200424-47815-rbefo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330255/original/file-20200424-47815-rbefo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The controversy of Huck Finn.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/cover-of-the-book-adventures-of-huckleberry-finn-by-mark-news-photo/50947963?adppopup=true">Hulton Archive via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“<a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/banned-adventures-huckleberry-finn/">The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</a>,” published in 1885, was the first book to be banned in the U.S. It was thought to corrupt youth by teaching boys to swear, smoke and run away from home.</p>
<p>In the latter part of the 20th century, the book has come under fire for the Mark Twain’s prolific use of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/14/school-stops-teaching-huckleberry-finn-community-costs-n-word">N-word</a>. Many people are concerned that the original version of the book normalizes an unacceptable racial slur. Who can say the N-word and in what context is an ongoing social and political debate, <a href="http://www.ijscl.net/article_32639_ca7a040f687e95845369690778a0fdea.pdf">reflecting wounds in American society</a> that have yet to heal. </p>
<p>The question is, how does literature of any genre – whether popularly perceived as “serious literature” or “escapist nonsense” – perform its educational function. This is central to the conflict between parents and educators about what kids should read, especially as it pertains to “escapist” fiction.</p>
<h2>Why science fiction gets a bad rap</h2>
<p>Historically, those who read science fiction have been <a href="https://theconversation.com/fan-of-sci-fi-psychologists-have-you-in-their-sights-131342">stigmatized as geeks</a> who can’t cope with reality. This <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4651513/">perception persists</a>, particularly for those who are unaware of the changes to this genre in the past several decades. A <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12274">2016 article</a> in Social and Personality Psychology Compass, a scholarly journal, argues that “connecting to story worlds involves a process of ‘dual empathy,‘ simultaneously engaging in intense personal processing of challenging issues, while ‘feeling through’ characters, both of which produce benefits.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330457/original/file-20200424-163067-7raak6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330457/original/file-20200424-163067-7raak6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330457/original/file-20200424-163067-7raak6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330457/original/file-20200424-163067-7raak6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330457/original/file-20200424-163067-7raak6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330457/original/file-20200424-163067-7raak6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=786&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330457/original/file-20200424-163067-7raak6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=786&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330457/original/file-20200424-163067-7raak6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=786&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eagle Nebula’s Pillars of Creation, an image from the Hubble Space Telescope.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Giant-Telescope/ebf945613b7346d08369e624089fb06d/87/0">AP Images/NASA, ESA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While science fiction has become more <a href="https://www.wired.com/2015/11/geeks-guide-sci-fi-fantasy-mainstream/">mainstream</a>, one study claimed that science fiction makes readers <a href="https://thepatronsaintofsuperheroes.wordpress.com/2017/10/30/science-fiction-makes-you-stupid/">stupid</a>. A subsequent study by the same authors later refuted this claim when the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/oct/01/sci-fi-makes-you-stupid-study-refuted-by-scientists-behind-original-research">quality of writing</a> was taken into account.</p>
<p>This ongoing ambivalence towards the genre contributes to the stereotype that such works are of little value because they presumably don’t engage <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/18/it-drives-writers-mad-why-are-authors-still-sniffy-about-sci-fi">real human dilemmas</a>. In actuality, they do. Such stereotypes assume that young people can only learn to cope with human dilemmas by engaging in mirror-image reflections of reality including what they read or watch. </p>
<h2>The mental health of reading</h2>
<p>Reading science fiction and fantasy can help readers <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-science-fiction-and-fantasy-can-help-us-make-sense-of-the-world-110044">make sense of the world</a>. Rather than limiting readers’ capacity to deal with reality, exposure to outside-the-box creative stories may expand their ability to engage reality <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2158244018780946">based on science</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330456/original/file-20200424-163077-gtw1fr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330456/original/file-20200424-163077-gtw1fr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330456/original/file-20200424-163077-gtw1fr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330456/original/file-20200424-163077-gtw1fr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330456/original/file-20200424-163077-gtw1fr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330456/original/file-20200424-163077-gtw1fr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330456/original/file-20200424-163077-gtw1fr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330456/original/file-20200424-163077-gtw1fr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fantasy literature opens the door to imaginative worlds.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/cute-little-asian-girl-reading-a-book-in-the-living-royalty-free-image/1183349245?adppopup=true">Six_Characters/via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F2158244018780946">2015 survey</a> of science fiction and fantasy readers found that these readers were also major consumers of a wide range of other types of books and media. In fact, the study noted a connection between respondents’ consumption of varied literary forms and an ability to understand science. </p>
<p>With increasing rates of anxiety, depression and <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-knowledge/201811/the-college-student-mental-health-crisis-update">mental health issues</a> for youth in the past two decades, it may be the case that young people, no different from American society generally, are suffering from reality overload. Young people today have unprecedented access to information about which they may have <a href="https://theconversation.com/with-teen-mental-health-deteriorating-over-five-years-theres-a-likely-culprit-86996">little power to influence or change</a>.</p>
<h2>The powerful world of science fiction</h2>
<p>Science fiction and fantasy do not need to provide a mirror image of reality in order to offer compelling stories about serious social and political issues. The fact that the setting or characters are extraordinary may be precisely why they are powerful and where their value lies. </p>
<p>My contribution in the forthcoming essay collection “Raced Bodies, Erased Lives: Race in Young Adult Speculative Fiction” discusses how race, gender and mental health for black girls is portrayed in speculative fiction and fantasy. My essay describes how contemporary writers take an aspect of what is familiar and make it “odd” or “strange” enough to give the reader psychic and emotional distance to understand mental health issues with fresh eyes.</p>
<p>From the “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/harry-potter/oclc/1085412199&referer=brief_results">Harry Potter</a>” and “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/hunger-games/oclc/1101426163&referer=brief_results">Hunger Games</a>” series to novels like Octavia Butler’s “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/parable-of-the-sower/oclc/1136059307&referer=brief_results">Parable of the Sower</a>” and “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/parable-of-the-talents/oclc/1113840548&referer=brief_results">Parable of the Talents</a>” and Nancy Kress’ “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/beggars-in-spain/oclc/702615186&referer=brief_results">Beggars in Spain</a>,” youths see examples of young people grappling with serious social, economic, and political issues that are timely and relevant, but in settings or times that offer critical distance. </p>
<p>This distance gives readers an avenue to grapple with complexity and use their imagination to consider different ways of managing social challenges. What better way to deal with the uncertainty of this time than with forms of fiction that make us comfortable with being uncomfortable, that explore uncertainty and ambiguity, and depict young people as active agents, survivors and shapers of their own destinies? </p>
<p>Let them read science fiction. In it, young people can see themselves – coping, surviving and learning lessons – that may enable them to create their own strategies for resilience. In this time of COVID-19 and physical distancing, we may be reluctant for kids to embrace creative forms that seem to separate them psychologically from reality. </p>
<p>But the critical thinking and agile habits of mind prompted by this type of literature may actually produce resilience and creativity that everyday life and reality typically do not. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135513/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Esther Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Fantasy fiction provides more than escapism for young readers.Esther Jones, Associate Professor of English, affiliate with Africana Studies and Women's & Gender Studies, Clark UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1094972019-05-08T10:14:05Z2019-05-08T10:14:05ZWhy the ancient promise of alchemy is fulfilled in reading<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253693/original/file-20190114-43541-1b0ad88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The potions classroom at the Making of Harry Potter Studio.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/leaverden-uk-january-23rd-2017-potions-1106569142?src=r2jrrECDkIEt4lXsNg8Qow-1-88">Alex Volosianko</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Within a 20-minute walk from Notre Dame Cathedral, in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris, is the oldest house in the city: the house of Nicolas Flamel. If the name rings a vague bell, perhaps it’s because you read J. K. Rowling’s “<a href="https://shop.scholastic.com/parent-ecommerce/books/harry-potter-and-the-sorcerers-stone-9780545582889.html">Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone</a>” or, as it’s known outside the U.S., “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.” Nicolas Flamel creates the philosopher’s stone of the title – and he was, in fact, <a href="https://www.pottermore.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/nicolas-flamel">a historical person</a>. </p>
<p>The philosopher’s stone, the magical goal of alchemical research, was reputed to be capable of transmuting lead into gold and – of importance to Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter — brewing an elixir of life. Flamel, a wealthy Parisian bookseller and scribe, built his house in the early 15th century, and it is now associated with his legendary status as an alchemist. The menu at the restaurant on the first floor – <a href="http://www.auberge-nicolas-flamel.fr/">Auberge Nicolas Flamel</a> – promises patrons to “Transform banal reality into poetic, miraculous fiction and perfect the material. That is alchemy.”</p>
<p>While I’m neither chef nor chemist, I’m fascinated by alchemy, by the magical transformations that Rowling and others write of. In my study of fantasy literature, I have found that writers return again and again to alchemy – but why?</p>
<h2>The roots of modern chemistry</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273121/original/file-20190507-103045-19447ew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273121/original/file-20190507-103045-19447ew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273121/original/file-20190507-103045-19447ew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273121/original/file-20190507-103045-19447ew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273121/original/file-20190507-103045-19447ew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273121/original/file-20190507-103045-19447ew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273121/original/file-20190507-103045-19447ew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273121/original/file-20190507-103045-19447ew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The philosopher’s stone on display at the ‘Making of Harry Potter’ tour at Warner Bros. Studio in Leavesden, U.K.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/leavesden-uk-february-24th-2018-philosophers-1042850878?src=dqpj74fQ7wv-EkpMANfZUw-1-2">Craig Russell/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As far as we know, neither Flamel nor anyone else ever did in fact create a philosopher’s stone. But in the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/alchemy#ref414600">history of alchemy</a> lie the roots of modern chemical science. While for centuries alchemy was derided as a pseudoscience practiced only by charlatans and cheats, some <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/alchemy-may-not-been-pseudoscience-we-thought-it-was-180949430/">contemporary historians of science</a> recognize that in a pre-modern world, alchemy laid the groundwork for what later became empirical science. But alchemy never went away. </p>
<p>Rather than fading into the background of the history of science as yet one more discarded pseudoscience, alchemy retains a powerful hold on the imagination. While phrenology (the “science” of reading personality from bumps on the head) and the theory of the humors (which suggested that liquids in the body such as phlegm and bile were associated with both emotions and the four elements of earth, air, water and fire), have mostly disappeared, alchemy remains. And it recurs especially in fantasy literature such as the Harry Potter books. </p>
<p>Why is alchemy so fascinating? I think it’s because it suggests that there’s something magical in the lab: the possibility of utter transformation, of turning something worthless into something valuable. We know in our bones that lead isn’t gold – that they are unalterably separate. That’s why they appear in the periodic table, after all: Each is an element, one of the irreducible components of matter. We know they can’t change – but what if they could?</p>
<h2>The magic of transformation</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273132/original/file-20190507-103071-ioqy85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273132/original/file-20190507-103071-ioqy85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273132/original/file-20190507-103071-ioqy85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=771&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273132/original/file-20190507-103071-ioqy85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=771&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273132/original/file-20190507-103071-ioqy85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=771&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273132/original/file-20190507-103071-ioqy85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273132/original/file-20190507-103071-ioqy85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273132/original/file-20190507-103071-ioqy85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People of all ages can be transformed and transported through reading.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/little-girl-walking-stairs-magic-book-124521184?src=8LAcRlLy2Gj3HhYZHQsh3Q-1-19">Elena Schweitzer/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The magic of alchemy is the magic of books, especially of the fantasy books that entrance so many young readers. Like alchemy, fantasy novels promise a kind of transformation: the bullied kid becomes a hero, the servant girl becomes a princess, lead becomes gold. In novels like “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” or the more recent “<a href="https://www.lbyr.com/titles/laini-taylor/strange-the-dreamer/9780316341684/">Strange the Dreamer</a>” by Laini Taylor, alchemy serves as a promise that true transformation is possible, even if it requires great sacrifice. The alchemist in “Strange the Dreamer” uses his own blood in the elixir, though reputedly the historical alchemists resorted to a more dispensable bodily fluid, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/01/30/this-chemist-is-unlocking-the-secrets-of-alchemy/?utm_term=.0467a1e91047">their own urine</a>.</p>
<p>But there’s a sleight-of-hand in the stories of transformation as they come down to us in fantasy. The transformations of fantasy stories are not, it turns out, quite so fantastical as they may seem. When Harry Potter becomes a hero, or Cinderella a princess, these are just outward revelations of their inner selves. The qualities that make them special have always been there – they just haven’t been recognized. </p>
<p>Most fantasy novels operate this way, it turns out: The quest hero needs to be revealed, not essentially transformed. To extend the chemical metaphor, perhaps they need to be distilled or refined through ordeals and sacrifice – to discover their true essence. Or maybe they need to come into contact with others and bond with them, as Harry does with his friends, or Cinderella does with her godmother and the prince, in order to become something even greater than their original self. </p>
<p>In either case, while some kind of chemical process may take place, it’s not an alchemical transformation, but rather a clarification, a refinement, a revelation.</p>
<h2>The alchemy of reading</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273128/original/file-20190507-103045-1u15axq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273128/original/file-20190507-103045-1u15axq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273128/original/file-20190507-103045-1u15axq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273128/original/file-20190507-103045-1u15axq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273128/original/file-20190507-103045-1u15axq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273128/original/file-20190507-103045-1u15axq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273128/original/file-20190507-103045-1u15axq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The magic of reading.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cute-boy-reading-book-night-467029742?src=0hnRLQU9rnNkcZu5yd--sw-3-76">Africa Studio/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The only example I know of alchemy in the real world is <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780060933845/proust-and-the-squid/">reading</a>. When we read, brain circuitry designed to process visual, linguistic and conceptual information is activated simultaneously and letters on a page become ideas and even pictures and sounds in the mind almost at once. </p>
<p>Learning to read is hard work, but the process, once mastered, is really almost like magic. It’s no surprise, then, that alchemy is a controlling metaphor, or a fundamental goal, in so much fiction. Alchemical transformation is the goal of literature itself.</p>
<p>In Taylor’s “Strange the Dreamer,” the hero isn’t the alchemist. That character is actually something of a cheat, even though he does manage to perform the transmutation of lead into gold. He follows a recipe, spills some blood and makes something new, but (spoiler alert!) he himself remains selfish and opportunistic even after he achieves his greatest success. </p>
<p>The hero, though, is a librarian. Reading in the dusty depths of the archive, he puts together the story of a lost civilization, reclaims its language and then joins a band of travelers in their quest to restore that world. He takes the raw materials he has found on the shelves of the library, in the pages of ancient books, and turns them into stories – and then into a new life. Auberge Nicolas Flamel is right: That is alchemy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109497/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elisabeth Gruner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Potions, spells and alchemy are intriguing to children and adults alike. A professor of literature explains what’s behind this fascination and reveals where to experience the magic of transformation.Elisabeth Gruner, Associate Professor of English, University of RichmondLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/951592018-04-20T07:02:08Z2018-04-20T07:02:08ZGormenghast: can Mervyn Peake’s weird fantasy ever work on screen?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215563/original/file-20180419-163998-r9ewnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian Miller</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Following the <a href="http://variety.com/2017/tv/awards/even-neil-gaiman-was-surprised-by-the-reaction-to-american-gods-starz-1202460792/">success of American Gods</a>, which he adapted from his novel of the same name, <a href="http://www.neilgaiman.com/">Neil Gaiman</a> is reportedly working on adapting a new TV version of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy for FremantleMedia. </p>
<p>It’s a daunting challenge. The BBC’s attempt to adapt the books for TV in 2000 was panned by the critics and shunned by audiences. But now that advances in visual effects and green screen technology have made the onscreen depiction of improbable worlds much more convincing, a truly awe-inspiring representation of the Tower of Flints – the ancient city of ruins with its outer dwellings clinging like limpets to Gormenghast mountain – seems fully achievable.</p>
<p>Emerging from British post-war culture, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/book-of-a-lifetime-the-gormenghast-trilogy-by-mervyn-peake-1696909.html">Mervyn Peake’s trilogy</a> is a distant, dark and capricious relative to the epic fairy tale of his fantasist contemporary, J.R.R. Tolkien. It doesn’t fit easily alongside the more traditional medieval fantasies that have succeeded The Lord of the Rings and culminated in George RR Martin’s and HBO’s massively successful Game of Thrones series.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215575/original/file-20180419-163982-j0zxzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215575/original/file-20180419-163982-j0zxzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215575/original/file-20180419-163982-j0zxzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215575/original/file-20180419-163982-j0zxzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215575/original/file-20180419-163982-j0zxzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215575/original/file-20180419-163982-j0zxzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215575/original/file-20180419-163982-j0zxzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Classic trilogy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.librarything.com/topic/155916">librarything.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Written before the fantasy genre existed as a bookstore phenomenon, Peake’s books avoid most of the tropes associated with the form. There are no magic swords, sorcerers, dragons, orcs, elves or walking dead. Instead, the fantastic – especially in the first two books – is contained in beautifully wrought descriptions of Gormenghast’s labyrinthine architecture and the ancient stronghold’s bizarre, time-crusted rituals. The action is expressed through the melodramatic passions of its grotesque characters such as Steerpike, the Machiavellian kitchen boy, who climbs and kills his way up through the social edifice, briefly becoming its Master of Ritual. </p>
<p>The series begins with the birth of Titus, 77th earl of the self-contained castle. He is still an infant by the end of the first book, which explores Steerpike’s rise to a sort of power through the exploitation of numerous unsuspecting patrons. Titus only becomes an active protagonist during the second book in the series, before venturing out into a very different, almost science fictional, world in the third book, a sort of nightmarish picaresque concerning his search for identity. </p>
<p>A gothic, almost surreal atmosphere pervades these books in a manner that is closer, in many ways, to Franz Kafka’s bureaucratic nightmares and Lewis Carroll’s absurdist whimsy than to adventures of wizards, dwarves and knights in armour.</p>
<h2>Gothic flavour</h2>
<p>Though his fiction doesn’t fit the high or epic fantasy mould, Peake’s influence can be seen in the work of writers of weird fiction as varied as <a href="http://www.multiverse.org/index.php?title=Main_Page">Michael Moorcock</a>, <a href="https://ambientehotel.wordpress.com/">M. John Harrison</a>, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/sci-fis-difficult-genius">Gene Wolfe</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-i-invented-a-new-language-for-the-city-and-the-city-94189">China Mieville</a>, <a href="http://www.philip-pullman.com/">Philip Pullman</a>, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/weird-thoreau-jeff-vandermeer-southern-reach">Jeff VanderMeer</a> and, of course, Gaiman himself. Of those writers, Mieville (The City and the City), Pullman (His Dark Materials), VanderMeer (Annihilation) and Gaiman have all recently had film or TV adaptations of their work produced or put into development. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215572/original/file-20180419-164001-rxjy77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215572/original/file-20180419-164001-rxjy77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215572/original/file-20180419-164001-rxjy77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215572/original/file-20180419-164001-rxjy77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215572/original/file-20180419-164001-rxjy77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215572/original/file-20180419-164001-rxjy77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215572/original/file-20180419-164001-rxjy77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Steerpike as imagined by Mervyn Peake.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">mervynpeake.org</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Moorcock befriended the Peakes during Mervyn’s struggle with Parkinson’s disease and was instrumental in convincing Penguin to bring out the books as “Modern Classics” in 1968. This helped introduce the books to a new audience in the 1970s and coincided with the rise of fantasy as a literary genre. </p>
<p>The hippies embraced and popularised Tolkien in the US, but there is something that pre-echoes punk in Peake’s work. If you compare his illustrations of “his infernal slyness” Steerpike with photographs of the young Johnny Rotten, it is hard not to see a similarity in the two high-shouldered youths.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215574/original/file-20180419-163975-19xh3w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215574/original/file-20180419-163975-19xh3w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215574/original/file-20180419-163975-19xh3w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215574/original/file-20180419-163975-19xh3w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215574/original/file-20180419-163975-19xh3w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=791&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215574/original/file-20180419-163975-19xh3w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=791&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215574/original/file-20180419-163975-19xh3w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=791&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Would make a good Steerpike: Johnny Rotten.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/RotteninParadiso.jpg">By Koen Suyk; Nationaal Archief, Den Haag</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even the characters’ names – Swelter, Flay, Rottcodd, Sourdust, Prunesquallor, Cheeta and Muzzlehatch – have a similar raggedy gothic aesthetic to them.</p>
<p>In his book on fantasy fiction, <a href="https://www.sfsite.com/11b/ww212.htm">Wizardry & Wild Romance</a>, Moorcock talks about exotic landscape itself taking on a character function within the genre. Previously, the Gormenghast books have been adapted for radio, stage, and screen – the radio and stage versions proving more effective because they privilege the audience’s imagination over clunky representation. Much of the novels’ power lies in Peake’s descriptive language, and attempts to visualise his prose style have proved disappointing.</p>
<h2>Art of the possible</h2>
<p>In 2000, the BBC wasted a year’s drama budget on a patchily cast and overly whimsical adaptation of the first two books that had more than a whiff of the school play about it. By its second episode, the £6m budget series had <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2000/feb/05/bbc.uknews">lost 40% of its initial 4.5m audience</a>. But that was before the current rage for fantastic films and TV series and, given the aforementioned advances in visual effects, the onscreen depiction of convincing alternative worlds has became possible as well as fashionable. </p>
<p>Think of the massive wall of ice guarding the North against Wildings and White Walkers in Game of Thrones or the futuristic cities and alien landscapes of The Expanse and Altered Carbon. By employing Gaiman, a prolific and popular modern fantasy writer – as well as a Peake disciple – in the production process, it does seem that the series has a good chance of bringing the author’s unique vision to the screen and capturing the dark majesty of Gormenghast, without straying too far into the pantomime kitsch of its millennial predecessor.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95159/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Jackson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The BBC’s adaptation flopped in 2000. But times have changed.David Jackson, Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing, Liverpool John Moores UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/906362018-01-24T16:13:06Z2018-01-24T16:13:06ZUrsula K Le Guin’s strong female voice challenged the norms of a male-dominated genre<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203225/original/file-20180124-107956-4elqef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.theonceandfuturepodcast.com/blog/2017/10/27/ursula-k-le-guins-hainish-novels-and-stories-from-library-of-america">Once and Future Podcast</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hermaphrodite beings, dragon women, ambivalent utopias and sympathetic magic. Just a tiny taste of the fantasy and science fiction worlds created by Ursula K Le Guin, who has died at the ripe age of 88. </p>
<p>Le Guin challenged everything that came before and opened up new ways of doing fantasy and science fiction, but she was also a poet, essayist, historical fiction writer, and children’s writer. In 2017 she was voted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters after having won <a href="http://ursulakleguin.com/MenuContentsList.html#Awards">numerous awards</a>, including the Hugo (voted by fans) and Nebula (voted by writers) awards for a single science fiction book twice. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203235/original/file-20180124-107956-14n24lm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203235/original/file-20180124-107956-14n24lm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203235/original/file-20180124-107956-14n24lm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203235/original/file-20180124-107956-14n24lm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203235/original/file-20180124-107956-14n24lm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203235/original/file-20180124-107956-14n24lm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203235/original/file-20180124-107956-14n24lm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ursula K Le Guin in 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/kkendall/8356003997">K Kendall</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>She submitted her first short story for publication at the age of 11, and continued writing prolifically until recently. Her latest book, No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters, a collection of essays about everything, from writing to ageing, was published in December 2017. </p>
<p>She was a strong female voice of dissent within male-dominated genres. She challenged race stereotypes in fantasy and science fiction. She had a long-lasting influence on a younger generation of writers. Le Guin’s work has been iconic for a while, studied at universities, loved by readers, praised by critics. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"956044284960104453"}"></div></p>
<h2>Anthropological roots and Taoist echoes</h2>
<p>Le Guin’s parents were anthropologists. Her father, <a href="http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ANTH/emeritus/kroeber/pub/index.html">Alfred Kroeber</a>, established the Anthropology Department at Berkeley and her mother, Theodora Kroeber, wrote the biography of the last remaining “wild Indian” in the US. Le Guin’s alternative worlds were anthropological at their core. Instead of medievalesque hierarchies and politics, kings, knights and “small folk”, her worlds are populated by societies that seem tribal. In her Earthsea cycle, magic is “primitive”, ritualistic and shamanic, connected to the power of language. “True names” can summon and control people, animals, matter, and knowing them gives access to power that can become perilous.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203244/original/file-20180124-107950-17b9blc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203244/original/file-20180124-107950-17b9blc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203244/original/file-20180124-107950-17b9blc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203244/original/file-20180124-107950-17b9blc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203244/original/file-20180124-107950-17b9blc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203244/original/file-20180124-107950-17b9blc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203244/original/file-20180124-107950-17b9blc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Celebrated: Le Guin’s Earthsea cycle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amazon</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In The Left Hand of Darkness, society on the ice planet of Gethen revolves around partly familial, partly tribal groups called “hearths” – and expulsion means sure death from cold. In Always Coming Home, alongside the main narrative, we get ethnographic notes about the customs, myths and rituals of the Kesh tribe.</p>
<p>Principles and beliefs associated with Taoism were also central to Le Guin’s imaginative fiction: non-action, living harmoniously with the self and the universe, respecting the natural rhythms of life. The ying-yang symbol of the balance of opposites is reflected in the “equilibrium” which holds everything together in Earthsea. As Master Hand says: “To light a candle is to cast a shadow.” The same symbol is a powerful metaphor in the harmonious symmetries of The Left Hand of Darkness: male and female, hot and cold, fear and courage. </p>
<p>These elements make Le Guin’s worlds less binary, less based on conflict and resolution, and more mystical, spiritual and – ultimately – refreshingly different to expected norms in science fiction and fantasy. My students often arrive at the surprising realisation that “nothing much happens” in The Left Hand of Darkness. Equally, the Earthsea books don’t focus so much on the standard fantasy trope of defeating a Dark Lord in a great battle, but on changing attitudes and prejudices. The slower pace of Le Guin’s books are part of their success. In a world of fast rhythms and small attention spans, this is a major achievement.</p>
<h2>Challenging race and gender norms</h2>
<p>But Le Guin’s beautifully crafted prose also had a sharp edge. She consciously set off to question what came before her in fantasy and science fiction, especially in terms of race and gender. She was outspoken about the “colour scheme” of her Earthsea series. <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2004/12/a_whitewashed_earthsea.html">She wrote</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I didn’t see why everybody in science fiction had to be a honky named Bob or Joe or Bill. I didn’t see why everybody in heroic fantasy had to be white (and why all the leading women had “violet eyes”). It didn’t even make sense. Whites are a minority on Earth now. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ged, the main protagonist of the Earthsea cycle, has copper-brown colouring (emulating the Native American complexion), while the white-skinned Kargs are the main antagonists for most of the series. Similarly, in The Left Hand of Darkness the only character from Earth is a black man, and everybody else in the book is “Inuit (or Tibetan) brown”.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203245/original/file-20180124-107950-1yl1tmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203245/original/file-20180124-107950-1yl1tmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203245/original/file-20180124-107950-1yl1tmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203245/original/file-20180124-107950-1yl1tmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203245/original/file-20180124-107950-1yl1tmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1159&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203245/original/file-20180124-107950-1yl1tmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1159&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203245/original/file-20180124-107950-1yl1tmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1159&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Left Hand of darkness: multi award-winner.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amazon</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As for gender, is there a better example of a “thought experiment” in challenging norms in science fiction than the genderless world of Gethen in The Left Hand of Darkness? Creating an androgynous people, who only become male or female once a month in order to procreate, gave Le Guin the opportunity to write the iconoclastic sentence: “The king was pregnant”, and to also question how language shapes our prejudices. </p>
<p>Even when many later feminist critics claimed that the book hadn’t gone far enough in interrogating sexism, Le Guin publicly admitted <a href="https://americanfuturesiup.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/is-gender-necessary.pdf">in a revised essay</a> that they were right, and that she had not allowed space for homosexuality in her fictional world. To criticise your own work 20 years after publication takes guts and a unflinching belief in your principles. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"955939239857967105"}"></div></p>
<p>As for Earthsea, she took it one step further. When it dawned on her that
female magic had been excluded from Earthsea, she returned to her earlier work and <a href="http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/articles/a-revisionist-history-of-earthsea/">changed everything</a>, but without disrupting the coherence and consistency of her originally conceived imaginary world. That is a sure sign of a master in the genre who was able to see her own younger self as entrapped in the cultural and historical moment of writing.</p>
<p>Ursula K Le Guin has taught us a different way of reading, a different way of thinking. If you haven’t read Le Guin yet, may I suggest a short story that encapsulates a lot of her political and social concerns, the masterful (if rather disturbing) <a href="https://www.tor.com/2017/08/07/ursula-le-guins-the-ones-who-walk-away-from-omelas-defies-genre/">The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas</a>. An imaginary world in miniature, and simultaneously a powerful and memorable “thought experiment”. A micro-capsule of Le Guin’s brilliance. She will be missed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90636/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dimitra Fimi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The literary world is mourning one of science fiction’s greatest novelists.Dimitra Fimi, Senior Lecturer in English, Cardiff Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/834072017-09-05T08:52:22Z2017-09-05T08:52:22ZShould authors’ unfinished works be completed?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184555/original/file-20170904-9753-1pjhra4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/literature-author-glasses-typing-on-typewriter-603373673?src=umRvriJKPItZd7sNstisqQ-2-77">Nomad_Soul/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The scene: a field in southwest England. The sun is shining for a quintessentially British event, the Great Dorset Steam Fair. A six-and-a-half tonne steamroller takes centre stage. This, the Lord Jericho, goes head-to-head with a computer hard drive, and in a battle of old and new technologies, rolls over it several times. Then, just to be on the safe side, the hard drive is placed in a steam-powered stone crusher.</p>
<p>A scene from a fantasy novel? No. The hard drive was <a href="https://discworld.com/terry-pratchetts-hard-drive-crushed-according-wishes/">from the late author Sir Terry Pratchett’s computer</a>, and it contained the files of, it is thought, 10 unfinished novels.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"901037198665019392"}"></div></p>
<p>Pratchett, author of the much-loved <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-beginners-guide-to-terry-pratchetts-discworld-55220">Discworld series</a>, wrote more than 60 books in his lifetime. But it was his wish that any unfinished works remained unpublished, and so he instructed that the hard drive containing his remaining works be crushed by a steamroller.</p>
<h2>Raising Steam</h2>
<p>Commenting on BBC Radio Four’s Today programme, authors Patrick Ness and Samantha Norman asserted Pratchett’s absolute right to determine the future of his unfinished work. In recent years, though, both authors have completed unfinished novels by other writers. In Norman’s case, it was The Siege Winter, <a href="https://www.bookish.com/articles/samantha-norman-finishing-my-mothers-last-novel/">a book by her late mother</a>, Ariana Franklin. For Ness, it was Siobhan Dowd’s A Monster Calls, now adapted into a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2Xbo-irtBA">hit film</a>.</p>
<p>Unfinished work abounds in literary history, from <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/13/reading-jane-austens-final-unfinished-novel">Jane Austen’s Sanditon</a> and Charles Dickens’ <a href="http://www.charlesdickensinfo.com/novels/mystery-edwin-drood/">The Mystery of Edwin Drood</a> to F Scott Fitzgerald’s <a href="https://electricliterature.com/unfinished-business-f-scott-fitzgerald-and-the-love-of-the-last-tycoon-efa4862e40e1">The Love of the Last Tycoon</a>. </p>
<p>For each of these canonical authors, their unfinished texts add to our accumulated knowledge of their writing, their rich imagination, and the development of their thinking. After completing Dorothy L Sayers’ last novel, Jill Paton Walsh went on to create warmly regarded <a href="http://www.thebookseller.com/news/newly-elected-dorothy-l-sayers-president-continues-wimsey-series-317478">new novels</a> featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane. J R R Tolkien’s son Christopher likewise has worked painstakingly on <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-harpercollins-flogging-a-dead-horse-with-latest-tolkien-publication-46968">unfinished works by his father</a>, including <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/apr/28/jrrtolkien.fiction">The Children of Hurin</a>.</p>
<p>Unlike Pratchett, the strict instructions left by some authors about their legacy have been ignored, sometimes to the reader’s benefit. Max Brod’s decision <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/magazine/26kafka-t.html?mcubz=0">to counter Franz Kafka’s wish</a> for destruction is to literary history’s benefit, as it led to the publication of <a href="http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/trial/summary.html">The Trial</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/dec/22/franz-kafka-winter-reads">The Castle</a>, and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jun/16/man-disappeared-franz-kafka-review">Amerika</a>. Emily Dickinson left no instructions on what to do with the approximately 1,800 unpublished poems she wrote before her death in 1886. Fortunately, her sister Lavinia took it on <a href="https://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/posthumous_publication">as her mission</a> to see them made public. </p>
<p>When Swedish crime novelist Stieg Larsson died suddenly, unmarried and with no will, his estate came under the control of his father and brother. They commissioned ghostwriter David Largenrcrantz <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/feud-over-stieg-larsson-sequel/">to create new works</a> using Larsson’s characters, with the latest, <a href="http://ew.com/books/2017/04/11/lisbeth-salander-millennium-series-cover-title/">The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye</a> due in September 2017. Larsson’s bereaved long-term partner is in possession of the author’s laptop which is believed to hold Larsson’s last unfinished novel, but she has <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/feud-over-stieg-larsson-sequel/">refused to turn it over</a> to his family.</p>
<h2>Reaper Man</h2>
<p>The biographical figure of the author has, despite Roland Barthes’ critical articulation of “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2010/jan/13/death-of-the-author">The death of the Author</a>” in 1967, <a href="https://www.stir.ac.uk/research/hub/publication/13293">never been more present</a>. Now, readers have unprecedented access to the names on the spines of their books, thanks to festivals, talks and social media. </p>
<p>While some authors may not want to show the struggle of their early drafts to the world, there is both an industry (famous author’ manuscripts can sell for high figures) and scholarship attached to them. <a href="http://www.senatehouselibrary.ac.uk/our-collections/special-collections/printed-special-collections/colin-smythe-terry-pratchett-archive">Formal archives</a> of Pratchett’s work exist in Senate House in London, for example – including some tantalising glimpses replete with coffee stains and notes to the publisher. Salman Rushdie has even <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/digital-life-salman-rushdie">given a desktop computer and several laptops</a> to Emory University in the US.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that Pratchett was within his rights to deprive readers of these last rough-hewn gems, though understandably fans may be disappointed with his choice. However, the rumours swirling around <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-suspicious-should-we-be-about-the-new-harper-lee-novel-37182">the appearance of Go Set a Watchman</a> – the original version of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird – suggest that elderly and infirm authors can potentially be preyed upon. Pratchett’s wish to control his literary legacy was consonant with his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/feb/02/terry-pratchett-assisted-suicide-tribunal">advocacy for assisted dying</a>. He, more than anyone else, understood the power of letting things come to an end.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"576036888190038016"}"></div></p>
<p>As an author who had “Death” as one of his major <a href="https://www.terrypratchettbooks.com/characters/">recurring characters</a>, Pratchett had thoroughly tested its presence in human life. But now, even knowing that Pratchett’s crushed hard drive will soon feature in <a href="http://www.pratchetthisworld.com/">an exhibition</a>, we can’t but regret the loss of these early, unfinished drafts, which contained the very last doorway into the Discworld.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83407/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claire Squires does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Terry Pratchett opted to have his crushed by a steamroller.Claire Squires, Professor in Publishing Studies, University of StirlingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/823042017-09-01T00:23:42Z2017-09-01T00:23:42ZWorth reading: Bananas, dwarves, salt and love<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184277/original/file-20170831-22427-1o1ookj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=333%2C2%2C1480%2C1077&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A banana on the salt lake plain at Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia, hints at themes of genetics, food and human journeys in three books recommended by fly scientist Thomas Merritt.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/banana-on-salt-lake-background-salar-641084434?src=jug1_8IDd40Vz6pzAVQw1A-1-11">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: The Conversation Canada asked our academic authors to share some recommended reading. In this instalment, Thomas Merritt, a fly scientist who wrote about <a href="https://theconversation.com/sex-matters-male-bias-in-the-lab-is-bad-science-80715">male bias in science laboratories</a> (and <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-kill-fruit-flies-according-to-a-scientist-81740">how to kill fruit flies</a>) highlights three books on his list of top reads.</em> </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184291/original/file-20170901-32045-sd7nob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184291/original/file-20170901-32045-sd7nob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184291/original/file-20170901-32045-sd7nob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184291/original/file-20170901-32045-sd7nob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184291/original/file-20170901-32045-sd7nob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184291/original/file-20170901-32045-sd7nob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184291/original/file-20170901-32045-sd7nob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184291/original/file-20170901-32045-sd7nob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>Banana</em> by Dan Koeppel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Handout</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1260005.Banana"><em>Banana</em></a></h2>
<p>By Dan Koeppel (Non-fiction. Paperback, 2008. Plume.)</p>
<p>Bananas have shaped the modern world but may no longer exist — at least in their current form — in our not-so-distant future. As a kid raised on bananas, I can appreciate the first idea, and find the second hard to believe. But it’s true. </p>
<p>Koeppel tells both of these stories well, tying each together, and leading the reader through the nefarious past and questionable future of a fruit that many of us grew up on and most of us take for granted. The book ties social history, political science, economics, genetics and disease biology together to tell an engaging, and sobering, story of the global history of one of agriculture’s — and breakfast’s — most important players.</p>
<p> </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184286/original/file-20170831-2020-fhjsg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184286/original/file-20170831-2020-fhjsg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184286/original/file-20170831-2020-fhjsg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184286/original/file-20170831-2020-fhjsg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184286/original/file-20170831-2020-fhjsg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184286/original/file-20170831-2020-fhjsg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184286/original/file-20170831-2020-fhjsg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184286/original/file-20170831-2020-fhjsg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>Mendel’s Dwarf</em> by Simon Mawer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Handout</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/98781.Mendel_s_Dwarf"><em>Mendel’s Dwarf</em></a></h2>
<p>By Simon Mawer (Fiction. Paperback, 1999. Penguin.)</p>
<p>This is the story of a geneticist, Dr. Benedict Lambert, struggling with himself, his science and his heart. Lambert is a genetic anomaly. In fact, we all are genetically unique but in Lambert’s case, his unique genetics are immediately apparent to all: He has achondroplasia — dwarfism. </p>
<p>He is also a man in love. Unrequited love. Mawer weaves a wonderful tale connecting Lambert, Gregor Mendel (often called the father of modern genetics), human genetics and love. The story and the writing are wonderful, smart and engaging. The science is very well done and woven into the story without overwhelming it. This is the kind of novel that I love to read and wish I could write.</p>
<p> </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184270/original/file-20170831-25608-13uhyg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184270/original/file-20170831-25608-13uhyg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184270/original/file-20170831-25608-13uhyg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184270/original/file-20170831-25608-13uhyg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184270/original/file-20170831-25608-13uhyg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184270/original/file-20170831-25608-13uhyg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184270/original/file-20170831-25608-13uhyg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184270/original/file-20170831-25608-13uhyg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>The Salt Roads</em> by Nalo Hopkinson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Handout</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57498.The_Salt_Roads"><em>The Salt Roads</em></a></h2>
<p>By Nalo Hopkinson (Fiction. Hardcover, 2008. Warner.)</p>
<p>Jamaican-Canadian speculative fiction author <a href="http://nalohopkinson.com/">Nalo Hopkinson</a> weaves together a haunting, intricate and absorbing series of stories across centuries and continents, joined by a spiritual entity inhabiting a series of women. The work branches from mythology, to witchcraft, to historical fiction to tell the tales of three women united by beauty, sorrow and hardship. </p>
<p>Hopkinson’s work is fantastic, twisted, turning, challenging and engaging. Her work defies easy description but combines fantasy, science fiction and erotic macabre — think <a href="http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/">Jeanette Winterson</a> or <a href="https://usa.angelacarter.co.uk/">Angela Carter</a>. This novel isn’t an easy read, but it’s infectious and rewarding in its twists, turns and beauty.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82304/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Merritt receives funding from The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and The Canada Research Chairs Program. </span></em></p>A fly scientist ponders the genetics of bananas and dwarves, women and love in reviews of his favourite fiction and non-fiction books.Thomas Merritt, Professor and Canada Research Chair, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Laurentian UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/731402017-02-17T12:16:18Z2017-02-17T12:16:18ZOn Philip Pullman’s fantastic politics and The Book of Dust<p>Millions have been thrilled to hear that His Dark Materials author Philip Pullman is back with the <a href="http://www.thebookseller.com/news/philip-pullman-announces-book-dust-publication-equel-his-dark-materials-487156">long-awaited follow-up to the infamous trilogy</a>. The Book of Dust had been referred to as early as the publication of The Amber Spyglass in 2000, but at last the first in a new trilogy is confirmed for publication in October. Pre-orders have already propelled the first title <a href="http://www.thebookseller.com/news/book-dust-shoots-pre-order-charts-490331">to the top of the bestseller lists</a>, and speculation is running riot.</p>
<p>This autumn Pullman fans will be able to take an exhilarating dive back into the fictional worlds of a <a href="http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/philip-pullman-master-storyteller-9780826417169/">master storyteller</a>, whose audacious imagination brought us both “daemons” and “dust”. Daemons are the animal alter ego, external soul, and constant companion of each character. Dust is a complex entity, an idea of consciousness connected to human evolution and the development of the human body during the course of adolescence, revisiting and rewriting philosophical ideas of the spilt between the material body and the soul. </p>
<p>As Pullman <a href="http://www.philip-pullman.com/newsitem?newsItemID=21">wrote on his blog recently</a>: “I always wanted to return to [Dust] and discover more”.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"831897375018991618"}"></div></p>
<h2>Dust and daemons</h2>
<p>The wildly inventive fantasy worlds of Northern Lights (The Golden Compass in its US and film versions) and its sequels combined with real-world moral and political questions to create critical and commercial successes at the turn of the 21st century. The Amber Spyglass won the overall Whitbread Book of the Year, as well as the Children’s category award in 2001, a clear sign that children’s literature was being taken seriously. Pullman’s trilogy and JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books (1997-2007) have frequently been seen a ushering in a “golden age” of children’s literature in the UK. Both series would go on to have spin-off titles, multiple adaptations and academic works devoted to their analysis and impact.</p>
<p>What, then, does The Book of Dust trilogy promise? Pullman says the series will be “equels” (rather than prequels or sequels), although the first book will focus on Lyra, the protagonist of His Dark Materials, as a baby ten years before the start of Northern Lights. The second will switch to her as a 20-year-old. Characters that had walk-on parts in the original trilogy will take centre stage. The worlds Pullman has already created are more than capacious enough to enable ongoing world-building – and the author has left himself a multitude of loose ends and unanswered questions.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ao1hPhJn2j4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>This continual invention already spawned two short and beautifully produced associated books, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/once-upon-a-time-in-the-north-by-philip-pullman-805733.html">Once Upon a Time in the North</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/dec/20/booksforchildrenandteenagers.philippullman">Lyra’s Oxford</a>. And Pullman has not been the only writer working on the worlds of His Dark Materials between since they were published. The advent of digital technologies <a href="http://www.smartpopbooks.com/book/fic">have enabled fans to write, upload, share and comment upon work</a> inspired by traditionally published writers, most notoriously with the work that would eventually become <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/fifty-shades-of-grey-14860">Fifty Shades of Grey</a>, which began life as Twilight fan fiction.</p>
<p>His Dark Materials <a href="https://www.fanfiction.net/book/His-Dark-Materials/">has provided much for fans to work on</a>. Are Lyra and Will really separated for ever at the end of The Amber Spyglass? What happens to Lord Asriel after his deathwards plunge? Richly created fantasy worlds encourage new invention, following a tradition of “<a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/minor-characters-have-their-day/9780231177443">minor characters having their day</a>”. Readers want to find out more, put right plot twists they disagreed with, and – in the salacious sub-genre of slash fiction – create sexual partnerships the author might never have envisaged.</p>
<h2>Policing fictional worlds</h2>
<p>Some authors police their creations more fiercely than others. There are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/oct/27/technology.news">occasional skirmishes between JK Rowling’s huge fan community</a> and the tightly controlled world of <a href="https://www.pottermore.com/">Pottermore</a>. Fans, though, can breathe new life into existing texts and fill a gap that the author can’t always fulfil. </p>
<p>Pullman is aware of the level of expectation around his work – and the same questions that bother fan fiction writers have bothered him. “There’s always more to explore,” he writes on <a href="http://www.philip-pullman.com/newsitem?newsItemID=21">his website</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Questions about that mysterious and troubling substance were already causing strife 10 years before His Dark Materials, and at the centre of The Book of Dust is the struggle between a despotic and totalitarian organisation, which wants to stifle speculation and enquiry, and those who believe thought and speech should be free.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Fifteen years ago <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/aug/12/books.humanities">at the Edinburgh International Book Festival</a>, in the post-9/11 context of terrorist threat and looming war with Iraq, Pullman stressed that writers must address “larger questions of moral conduct” if they are not to “become useless and irrelevant”. And critic Natasha Walter, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/a-moral-vision-for-the-modern-age-9237236.html">writing</a> about Pullman’s young adult trilogy His Dark Materials (1995-2000) asked in 2001: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Isn’t this a great vision for the world after 11 September? Here we have a book that asks us to believe that we can build a new, highly moral world without the precepts of religion. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In 2017, the world is already beset by a divisive geopolitics underpinned by religious and racial intolerance. Despite the obvious contemporary parallels, Pullman’s UK publisher is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/15/philip-pullman-unveils-epic-fantasy-trilogy-the-book-of-dust">quick to say</a> that Pullman is not writing about 21st-century politics. But Pullman himself has been <a href="http://www.thebookseller.com/news/pullman-leads-authors-anguish-over-trump-election-429636">at the forefront</a> of UK authors decrying Donald Trump’s election to the US presidency. Given Pullman’s trenchant critique of despotism and totalitarianism, there is no doubt that the forthcoming Book of Dust trilogy will be read allegorically.</p>
<p>Dystopian novels such as George Orwell’s 1984 and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/javiermoreno/1984-is-a-bestseller-again-amid-the-start-of-trumps-presiden?utm_term=.ytqzKAnGl#.byqDzb0M5">have seen a spike in sales</a> recently. As two of the biggest names in children’s fantasy, Pullman and <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/16/jk-rowling-donald-trump-press-conference-scariest-thing-ever/">Rowling are also stepping into the political fray</a>. Pullman’s repeated mantra “tell them stories” might yet again prove to be one of the strongest weapons in troubled times.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73140/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claire Squires does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Given Pullman’s trenchant critique of despotism, his new trilogy will certainly be read allegorically.Claire Squires, Professor in Publishing Studies, University of StirlingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/710942017-01-11T11:19:22Z2017-01-11T11:19:22ZWhy Tolkien’s fantastic imaginary languages have had more impact than Esperanto<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152366/original/image-20170111-16017-1fl6x4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Liljam / Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>JRR Tolkien began writing The Fall of Gondolin while on medical leave from the first world war, 100 years ago this month. It is the first story in what would become his <a href="http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Legendarium">legendarium</a> – the mythology that underpins The Lord of the Rings. But behind the fiction was his interest in another epic act of creation: the construction of imaginary languages. </p>
<p>That same year, on the other side of Europe, Ludwik Zamenhof died in his native Poland. Zamenhof had also been obsessed with language invention, and in 1887 brought out a book introducing his own creation. He published this under the pseudonym Doktoro Esperanto, which in time became the name of the language itself. </p>
<p>The construction of imaginary languages, or <a href="http://conlang.org">conlangs</a>, has a long history, dating back to the 12th century. And Tolkien and Zamenhof are two of its most successful proponents. Yet their aims were very different, and in fact point to opposing views of what language itself actually is.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152367/original/image-20170111-16039-a2582w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152367/original/image-20170111-16039-a2582w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152367/original/image-20170111-16039-a2582w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=842&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152367/original/image-20170111-16039-a2582w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=842&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152367/original/image-20170111-16039-a2582w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=842&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152367/original/image-20170111-16039-a2582w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1058&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152367/original/image-20170111-16039-a2582w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1058&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152367/original/image-20170111-16039-a2582w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1058&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Zamenhof in 1908.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Zamenhof, a Polish Jew growing up in a country where cultural and ethnic animosity was rife, believed that the existence of a universal language was the key to peaceful co-existence. Although language is the “<a href="http://www.genekeyes.com/Dr_Esperanto.html">prime motor of civilisation</a>” he wrote, “difference of speech is a cause of antipathy, nay even of hatred, between people”. His plan was to devise something which was simple to learn, not tied to any one nation or culture, and could thus help unite rather than divide humanity.</p>
<p>As “international auxiliary languages” go, Esperanto has been very successful. Although exact estimates are very difficult to make, today up to a million people <a href="http://uea.org/info/en/ghisdate_pri_esperanto">use it</a>, and in terms of numbers of speakers it has been consistently popular throughout its history. It has an expansive <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/12/24/utopian-for-beginners">body of native literature</a>, there’s a <a href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/culture/2013-11/18/c_132897910.htm">museum in China</a> dedicated exclusively to it, while in Japan Zamenhof himself is even honoured as a god by <a href="http://www.oomoto.or.jp/English/enFaq/indexfaq.html">one particular Shinto</a> sect who use the language. Yet it never really came close to achieving his dreams of world harmony. And at his death, with World War I tearing Europe apart, the optimism he’d had for it had turned mostly to disillusion. </p>
<h2>Fantasy languages</h2>
<p>JRR Tolkien was himself a supporter of Esperanto, believing it could help unite Europe after World War I. But his personal interest in language invention was very different. His aim wasn’t to enhance the world we live in, but instead to create a completely new one in fiction. He referred to it as his “<a href="http://idiom.ucsd.edu/%7Ebakovic/tolkien/secret_vice.pdf">secret vice</a>”, and explained that for him the purpose was aesthetic rather than pragmatic. It was the creative delight in matching sound, form and meaning in entirely original ways. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152368/original/image-20170111-16057-a58n7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152368/original/image-20170111-16057-a58n7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152368/original/image-20170111-16057-a58n7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152368/original/image-20170111-16057-a58n7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152368/original/image-20170111-16057-a58n7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152368/original/image-20170111-16057-a58n7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1091&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152368/original/image-20170111-16057-a58n7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1091&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152368/original/image-20170111-16057-a58n7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1091&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tolkien in 1916.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As part of the process of giving substance to the languages he was inventing, he needed to provide a mythology for them. As living, evolving entities, languages take their vitality from the cultures of the people who use them. And it was this that led to the creation of his fictional universe. “The invention of languages is the foundation,” he <a href="http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Letter_165">wrote</a>. “The ‘stories’ were made rather to provide a world for the languages than the reverse.”</p>
<p>And how about conlangs today? A hundred years after the death of Zamenhof, in many ways the art of language construction is as popular as ever. One of the most celebrated current examples is Dothraki, from <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/game-of-thrones-6730">Game of Thrones</a>. </p>
<p>Created by <a href="http://www.dothraki.com/about-david-j-peterson/">David J Peterson</a> for Game of Thrones, the <a href="http://www.hbo.com/game-of-thrones/about/index.html">televised version</a> of <a href="http://www.georgerrmartin.com">George RR Martin’s</a> novel series A Song of Ice and Fire, the inspiration for this can be traced back to both Zamenhof and Tolkien. </p>
<p>It was while taking <a href="http://bulteno.esperanto-usa.org/2010/5/30-dothraki.html">a course on Esperanto</a> at university that Peterson first became interested in conlangs, while Martin has spoken of the way that his saga is, in many ways, a <a href="https://www.tolkiensociety.org/2014/08/george-r-r-martin-i-revere-the-lord-of-the-rings/">response</a> to The Lord of the Rings. And as a tribute he includes various small linguistic references to Tolkien’s world: <a href="http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2016/06/george-r-r-martins-invented-language-game-thrones/"><em>warg</em></a>, for example, meaning someone who can project his consciousness into the minds of animals, is a word Tolkien uses for a large species of wolf.</p>
<p>So overall one would have to say that it’s the Tolkienian tradition of fantasy world-building that has prevailed. There are perhaps two reasons for this. </p>
<p>The first is linguistic. Paradoxically, Tolkien’s concept is closer to how languages actually work in the real world. His Elvish languages as they are depicted throughout his work are <a href="http://www.tolkienestate.com/en/learning/languages-and-writing-systems/tolkiens-invented-languages.html">living, changing things</a>, which evolve to reflect the culture of the communities who speak them. The idea of an international auxiliary language, on the other hand, is to provide a stable base, which can be easily learnt by anyone. But human languages are never static; they’re always dynamic. So Esperanto has a fundamental flaw built into its very conception. </p>
<p>And the second reason? Well, maybe these days we’re happier to dedicate ourselves to the creation of fantasy worlds, rather than looking for ways to repair our own.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article was edited on January 30 to correct the impression given that the number of speakers of Esperanto has decreased over the years.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71094/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Seargeant does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tolkien and Zamenhof are two of imaginary languages’ most successful proponents – yet their aims were very different.Philip Seargeant, Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/586262016-09-15T20:15:34Z2016-09-15T20:15:34ZFriday essay: science fiction’s women problem<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137856/original/image-20160915-4972-gqonsw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We need women to participate equally in science fiction's conversations about humanity's future</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">MsSaraKelly</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since 1953, the Hugo Awards have been one of science fiction’s most prestigious honours – past winners include Isaac Asimov, Arthur C Clark and Ursula Le Guin. The <a href="http://www.thehugoawards.org/">2016 results</a> were recently announced, and women and diversity were the clear winners. </p>
<p>However, if you saw the list of titles in contention for the awards, you’d have noticed some oddities, such as Chuck Tingle’s <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24453778-space-raptor-butt-invasion">Space Raptor Butt Invasion</a> and My Little Pony’s <a href="http://www.denofgeek.com/us/tv/my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic/255239/why-my-little-pony-friendship-is-magics-hugo-nomination-is-so-important">The Cutie Map</a>. That’s because the awards – nominated and voted on by science fiction writers and readers – have been targeted by two major voting blocs: the Sad Puppies, who started their campaign in 2013, and the Rabid Puppies, who appeared the year after and have been growing stronger ever since. </p>
<p>The Sad Puppies wanted more traditional, mainstream popular science fiction <a href="https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2015/04/16/we-are-not-rabid/">on the ballot</a>. The more extreme Rabid Puppies, who have ties with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_controversy">Gamergate movement</a>, were about <a href="https://voxday.blogspot.com.es/2015/04/the-international-lord-of-hate-fisks.html">creating chaos</a>. So their bloc included ridiculous-sounding works: both to mock the awards and stack the ballot to prevent more diverse books being nominated.</p>
<p>Both groups’ gripe is with contemporary trends in science fiction toward more literary works with progressive themes. <a href="http://www.castaliahouse.com/authors/vox-day/">Vox Day</a>, leader of the Rabid Puppies, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/26/hugo-awards-shortlist-rightwing-campaign-sad-rabid-puppies">complains that</a> “publishers have been trying to pass off romance in space and left-wing diversity lectures as science fiction”. Last year’s leader of the Sad Puppies, Brad R. Torgersen, <a href="https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2016/05/15/">likewise complains</a> about “soft science majors (lit and humanities degrees) using SF/F as a tool to critically examine and vivisect 21st century Western society”. The Hugos, he says, are being used as an “<a href="https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2015/01/07/announcing-sad-puppies-3/">affirmative action award</a>”.</p>
<p>A significant number of those “soft science majors” writing “left-wing diversity lectures” are, of course, women. Female authors have dominated science fiction awards of late.</p>
<p>This year, women (and people of colour) did very well at the awards. Ironically, the Puppies’ activities have now galvanised more progressive members of the World Science Fiction Society to use their voting rights. The best novel was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/aug/21/hugo-awards-winners-nk-jemisin-sad-rabid-puppies">The Fifth Season</a>, a tale of a planet experiencing apocalyptic climate change, written by NK Jemisin – a black, female writer. Best novella was <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25667918-binti">Binti</a> by Nnedi Okorafor. The best short story, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29104283-cat-pictures-please">Cat Pictures Please</a>, was written by Naomi Kritzer and both best editor gongs went to women.</p>
<p>But the ongoing saga of the Puppies and their attempts to derail the Hugos exemplifies broader conflicts within the realm of science fiction – an enormously popular, lucrative and controversial genre that has <a href="https://litreactor.com/columns/controversies-inside-the-worl-of-science-fiction-and-fantasy">major issues with women</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137853/original/image-20160915-4963-sh9nqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137853/original/image-20160915-4963-sh9nqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137853/original/image-20160915-4963-sh9nqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137853/original/image-20160915-4963-sh9nqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137853/original/image-20160915-4963-sh9nqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137853/original/image-20160915-4963-sh9nqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137853/original/image-20160915-4963-sh9nqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137853/original/image-20160915-4963-sh9nqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hugo award winner Nnedi Okorafor at a reading of her work.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">byronv2</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A male dominated genre</h2>
<p>In recent years, the bestselling female-authored <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1840309/">Divergent</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392170/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Hunger Games</a> series have been made into multi-million dollar movie adaptations. But women’s contribution to science fiction has historically gone unnoticed – as a look at any compilation list of the “best” science fiction books will attest.</p>
<p>MIT Technology Review’s <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/424202/the-best-hard-science-fiction-books-of-all-time/">Top Ten Hard Science Fiction Books of All Time</a> includes one woman. (“Hard sci fi” tends to stick to real scientific theories and physical laws. More on that later.)</p>
<p>Forbidden Planet’s list of <a href="https://forbiddenplanet.com/log/recommendations/50-sf-books-you-must-read/">50 Science Fiction Books You Must Read</a> includes three women, with Ursula K Le Guin appearing twice (making it 92% male). The <a href="http://bestsciencefictionbooks.com/top-25-best-science-fiction-books.php">Best Science Fiction Books</a> website has four women in their list of 25 (84% male). And Goodreads’ <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/19341.Best_Science_Fiction">Best Science Fiction</a> list has ten women in the top 100 (making it 88% male), with Le Guin books chosen three times. (The books of Le Guin’s that appear in these lists – <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18423.The_Left_Hand_of_Darkness">The Left Hand of Darkness</a> (1969), <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13651.The_Dispossessed">The Dispossessed</a> (1974), and <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59924.The_Lathe_of_Heaven">The Lathe of Heaven</a> (1971) – all have something very significant in common: male protagonists.)</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137850/original/image-20160915-4980-192ew48.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137850/original/image-20160915-4980-192ew48.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137850/original/image-20160915-4980-192ew48.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137850/original/image-20160915-4980-192ew48.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137850/original/image-20160915-4980-192ew48.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137850/original/image-20160915-4980-192ew48.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137850/original/image-20160915-4980-192ew48.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137850/original/image-20160915-4980-192ew48.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This 2013 edition of the Bulletin of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association of America provoked an outcry from its female members.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association of America</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Seventy five per cent of science fiction writers are men. Consequently, there are not a great number of realistic or relatable female characters. No wonder fewer female than male readers have traditionally found it a rewarding genre. Indeed feminist science fiction writer and critic <a href="http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/russ_joanna">Joanna Russ</a> has famously stated that there are “no real women” in science fiction, only images of them, since so many women characters are based purely on male fantasy. </p>
<p>Last year, science fiction and fantasy reader Liz Lutgendorff published an <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2015/08/i-read-100-best-fantasy-and-sci-fi-novels-and-they-were-shockingly-offensive">article in the New Statesman</a> after reading the National Public Radio’s list of the <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/139085843/your-picks-top-100-science-fiction-fantasy-books">Top 100 Science-Fiction, Fantasy Books</a> – voted on by 60,000 readers. Lutgendorff found the “continued and pervasive sexism” within these books to be “mysogynistic” and “shockingly offensive”. </p>
<p>Speculative fiction writer and critic Sarah Gailey, meanwhile, recently noticed that, of the 31 genre books featuring female protagonists she had recently read, two-thirds included scenes of sexual violence. Writing on the <a href="http://www.tor.com/2016/08/22/do-better-sexual-violence-in-sff">Tor website</a>, she called for genre writers to “do better” when it comes to imagining alternative realities for women: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>… we can’t suspend our disbelief enough to erase casual misogyny from the worlds we build. We can give a wizard access to a centuries-old volcano-powered spaceship, but we balk at the notion of a woman who has never been made to feel small and afraid.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137854/original/image-20160915-4968-1wdew83.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137854/original/image-20160915-4968-1wdew83.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137854/original/image-20160915-4968-1wdew83.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137854/original/image-20160915-4968-1wdew83.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137854/original/image-20160915-4968-1wdew83.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137854/original/image-20160915-4968-1wdew83.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1094&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137854/original/image-20160915-4968-1wdew83.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1094&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137854/original/image-20160915-4968-1wdew83.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1094&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Isaac Asimov in 1965.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Phillip Leonian</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Gailey mentions this year’s Hugo-winning NK Jemisin as one of the rare writers whose “imaginations are strong enough to let their female characters have stories that don’t include sexual violence”. </p>
<p>Still, this objectification of women in science fiction sadly extends beyond the page. Hugo award-winning fan writer Jim C Hines reminds us that science fiction superstar Isaac Asimov was notorious for harassing women at conventions. Hines recently urged the science fiction, fantasy and comics community to <a href="http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2016/08/dont-look-away-fighting-sexual-harassment-in-the-scififantasy-community">stop “looking away”</a> from the problem of sexual harassment in the industry. </p>
<h2>Hard science in science fiction</h2>
<p>An ongoing debate in the science fiction community is about the merits of “hard” vs “soft” science fiction. And the role of gender is significant here.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/heinlein_robert_a">Robert A Heinlein</a> – considered the “dean” of science fiction writers and counted alongside Asimov and Clarke as one of the three key figures of the genre – has defined science fiction as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/hard_sf">Hard science fiction</a> tends to stick to or extrapolate from real scientific theories and physical laws as they are currently understood (think of Andy Weir’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18007564-the-martian">The Martian</a> (2011), Carl Sagan’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61666.Contact">Contact</a> (1985), or Arthur C Clarke’s own <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/70535.2001">2001: A Space Odyssey</a> (1968)).</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137832/original/image-20160915-4944-8icp58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137832/original/image-20160915-4944-8icp58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137832/original/image-20160915-4944-8icp58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=987&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137832/original/image-20160915-4944-8icp58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=987&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137832/original/image-20160915-4944-8icp58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=987&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137832/original/image-20160915-4944-8icp58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1241&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137832/original/image-20160915-4944-8icp58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1241&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137832/original/image-20160915-4944-8icp58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1241&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Robert Heinlein’s Hugo-award-winning novel Glory Road (1963). This paperback version was published in 1976.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">New English Library</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/soft_sf">Soft science fiction</a> is not so concerned with exploring the finer details of technology and physics. Although its stories are generally set in the future, it is more interested in psychological and social aspects of the narrative (think of works such as Veronica Roth’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13335037-divergent">Divergent</a> (2011), Margaret Atwood’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38447.The_Handmaid_s_Tale">The Handmaid’s Tale</a> (1985), or George Orwell’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5470.1984">Nineteen Eighty-Four</a> (1948)).</p>
<p>Hard science fiction tends to be a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/07/hard-sf-women-writers">boys’ club</a>, while soft science fiction can be seen as <a href="http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/women_sf_writers">more accommodating to female writers</a>. There is a perceived hierarchy of merit operating in these classifications as well: “hard” sounds masculine and virile, while “soft” connotes a weaker, less potent, feminised form of the genre. This is why “hard” science fiction is more likely to be considered among the “best” science fiction, and why the “soft” science fiction that more women tend to write doesn’t often make the cut.</p>
<p>In 2013, the judges of the <a href="https://www.clarkeaward.com/about-the-award/">Arthur C. Clarke Award</a>, Britain’s most prestigious science fiction prize, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/apr/04/feminist-all-male-clarke-prize-shortlist">disqualified a number of submitted books</a> on the basis that they were not “technically” science fiction. They were deemed by the judges to be fantasy – a genre that does not require the realism of science – which has twice as many female authors compared to science fiction. As Damien Walters has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/aug/08/science-fiction-invisible-women-recognition-status">observed</a>, women’s writing is “dismissed as fantasy, while the fantasies of men are granted some higher status as science fiction”.</p>
<p>The Hugo Awards, like most major literary prizes, have also traditionally been dominated by <a href="https://nicolagriffith.com/2015/05/26/books-about-women-tend-not-to-win-awards/">books by and about men and boys</a>.</p>
<p>In 2015, the Sad Puppies successfully placed dozens of books on the final ballot. They then released a tongue-in-cheek <a href="http://blog.sadpuppies.org/2015/04/terms-of-surrender.html">Terms of Surrender</a> to their culture war with the Hugo Awards declaring:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… only those works embodying the highest principles of Robert A. Heinlein shall be permitted. Girls who read Twilight and books like it shall be expelled from the genre. We will recognize The Hunger Games as a proper SF novel, but the sequels are right out. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>These jibes reveal sexist undertones, intolerance for diversity and disdain for the kind of speculative fiction that is written by women and read by girls. </p>
<h2>The lessons of Frankenstein</h2>
<p>This hierarchy of “hardness” in science fiction, as well as being a dubious way of judging merit, puts women at a distinct disadvantage, because there’s a serious shortage of women working in science. Only 28% of the world’s scientific researchers <a href="http://www.uis.unesco.org/ScienceTechnology/Pages/women-in-science-leaky-pipeline-data-viz.aspx">are women</a>.</p>
<p>If women aren’t encouraged to pursue careers in scientific fields, it’s unlikely they’re going to have the confidence to write in a genre that uses science as a launch pad for fiction.</p>
<p>And yet, the first example of science fiction is often said to be Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s gothic horror <a href="http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Mary_Wollstonecraft_Shelley/Frankenstein/">Frankenstein</a>: the tale of a man who, through scientific experimentation, discovers a way to imbue inanimate matter with life. The novel was first published anonymously in 1818.</p>
<p>Overall, it was popular and well received. But when critics discovered Anonymous was a young woman, the author’s gender caused such offence as to render the writing irrelevant. The British Critic famously concluded its <a href="https://www.rc.umd.edu/reference/chronologies/mschronology/reviews/bcrev.html">scathing review</a> thus:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The writer of it is, we understand, a female; this is an aggravation of that which is the prevailing fault of the novel; but if our authoress can forget the gentleness of her sex, it is no reason why we should; and we shall therefore dismiss the novel without further comment.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Discrimination on the basis of sex isn’t surprising for the time, but what is surprising is how little has changed for women’s writing over these past two centuries.</p>
<p>Women may not be likely to publish anonymously these days, but they may still erase their female identities to appease male readership. Many women are encouraged to publish under their initials, to choose a gender neutral name, or even to take a <a href="http://io9.gizmodo.com/5967253/female-science-fiction-and-fantasy-authors-still-using-male-pseudonyms">male pseudonym</a>. </p>
<p>Science fiction writer Alice Sheldon, winner of two Hugos and three Nebula Awards under the pseudonym <a href="http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/tiptree_james_jr">James Tiptree Jr</a>, passed her writing off as male for around a decade between 1967–77 before she was exposed as a woman.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137857/original/image-20160915-4963-1yfrylu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137857/original/image-20160915-4963-1yfrylu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137857/original/image-20160915-4963-1yfrylu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137857/original/image-20160915-4963-1yfrylu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137857/original/image-20160915-4963-1yfrylu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137857/original/image-20160915-4963-1yfrylu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=633&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137857/original/image-20160915-4963-1yfrylu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=633&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137857/original/image-20160915-4963-1yfrylu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=633&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alice Bradley Sheldon, who wrote under the pen name James Tiptree Jr.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">via Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Not only did she enjoy more success as a male writer, she was also in a better position to advocate for female writers. She even found that her female pseudonym Raccoona Sheldon was more likely to be included in anthologies if her submission was accompanied by a letter of recommendation from Tiptree.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, once it was revealed that Tiptree was, as she so sadly described herself, “<a href="http://www.enotes.com/topics/james-tiptree-jr">nothing but an old lady from Virginia</a>”, she lost much of the authority and respect she had previously enjoyed in the <a href="http://www.limina.arts.uwa.edu.au/volumes/21.2/pierce-and-krasnostein">male-dominated science fiction community</a>.</p>
<p>Today, the fact remains that most female writers would still be better off using a male name. In 2015, emerging novelist Catherine Nicholls found that when she sent her manuscript out under the name of “George”, she was <a href="http://jezebel.com/homme-de-plume-what-i-learned-sending-my-novel-out-und-1720637627">eight times as successful</a> as when she sent it out as “Catherine”.</p>
<p>More than half of the human race is female, yet three-quarters of the voices heard in science fiction are male; and the rest are under consistent commercial pressure to sound male too. Of the 30 science fiction writers named the industry’s highest honour of “Grand Master”, only five are female (16%).</p>
<p>A study of the habits of readers in 2014 found that men “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/25/readers-prefer-authors-own-sex-goodreads-survey">tend to gravitate to reading more male authors</a>”. During the first year of publication, it found a female author’s audience will be around 80% female. A male author’s work will be read by a 50% split of men and women. </p>
<p>But trying to tackle this problem by using a pseudonym or an author’s initials perpetuates the invisibility of women on bookshelves, denying other women role models. It’s vitally important to have more women writing science fiction – using their real names, being reviewed, being read and winning awards. </p>
<h2>By the numbers</h2>
<p>Both the Puppies groups stand <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/04/the-culture-wars-come-to-sci-fi/390012/">against affirmative action</a> as a way of redressing the imbalance between the sexes in science fiction. However, there are many reasons why affirmative action by publishers and reviewers is needed in a genre suffering from entrenched sexism.</p>
<p>The latest <a href="http://www.strangehorizons.com/2016/20160509/1sfcount-a.shtml">SF Count</a> - the speculative fiction community’s own mini version of the <a href="http://www.vidaweb.org/">VIDA count</a> of women in literary arts - was announced in May this year. The SF Count tracks the gender and race balance of both books reviewed and their reviewers. </p>
<p>It concludes that six out of every ten books reviewed were written by men. But that’s an average of results across all publications, and there is wide variation within the sample. The lowest percentage of reviews of books by women was 17% from <a href="https://www.analogsf.com/2016_06/index.shtml">Analog Science Fiction and Fact</a>. The highest was 80% from <a href="http://thecsz.com/about.html">Cascadia Subduction Zone</a>, a publication that specifically aims to represent women writers.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137830/original/image-20160915-4948-q695tg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137830/original/image-20160915-4948-q695tg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137830/original/image-20160915-4948-q695tg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=870&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137830/original/image-20160915-4948-q695tg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=870&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137830/original/image-20160915-4948-q695tg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=870&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137830/original/image-20160915-4948-q695tg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1093&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137830/original/image-20160915-4948-q695tg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1093&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137830/original/image-20160915-4948-q695tg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1093&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The July/August 2016 issue of Analog magazine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Analog</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The story told by these figures changes significantly when you consider only the five publications that are purely science fiction focused – <a href="https://www.analogsf.com/2016_06/index.shtml">Analog Science Fiction and Fact</a>, <a href="http://www.asimovs.com/">Asimov’s Science Fiction</a>, <a href="http://www.nyrsf.com/">New York Review of Science Fiction</a>, <a href="http://www.sf-foundation.org/publications/foundation/index.html">Foundation: the international review of science fiction</a> and <a href="http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/">Science Fiction Studies</a>. Of these, the average percentage of reviews of books by women is 22%, meaning more than three in four books reviewed in science fiction publications are written by men. </p>
<p>The gender balance of book reviewers averaged across these five titles is similarly low, with just 18% of them women. What’s particularly shocking is that arguably the two most famous and prestigious science fiction publications – Analog and Asimov’s – both averaged 0% female reviewers. The fact that the two most celebrated publications in science fiction asked next to no women to review books is clearly unacceptable.</p>
<p>And yes, reviewers can cry the impossibility of reviewing what isn’t published, just as publishers can claim the <a href="http://www.torbooks.co.uk/blog/2013/07/10/sexism-in-genre-publishing-a-publishers-perspective">impossibility of publishing more women’s writing</a> when it isn’t submitted, and judging panels can lament the impossibility of considering more women’s books for awards when so few are entered.</p>
<p>But it would be far better for the science fiction industry to recognise it has an ethical responsibility to work to correct the imbalance it has perpetuated for far too long, and get started.</p>
<p>It is, as publishing veteran <a href="http://www.vidaweb.org/why-the-submissions-numbers-dont-count/">Danielle Pafunda points out</a>, an important part of the position of editor to actively seek out new work and to shape the direction of a publication or publishing house.</p>
<p>We need women to be able to participate fully and equally in science fiction’s conversations about humanity’s future – to shape how women are portrayed in those visions, to consider the roles women might play in those futures, and to imagine what a truly evolved and advanced society might look like for women. </p>
<p>Until gender equality is achieved, science fiction remains only a fraction of what it could be. Affirmative action for women in science fiction is not only warranted; it’s essential for the growth of the genre.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58626/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Bronwyn Lovell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Science fiction is a popular and lucrative genre – but most authors are men and relatable female characters are sadly lacking. Given this entrenched sexism, it’s time for publishers to take affirmative action.Dr Bronwyn Lovell, PhD Candidate in Creative Writing, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/552202016-03-09T18:59:33Z2016-03-09T18:59:33ZA beginner’s guide to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114403/original/image-20160309-22132-21u6q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Discworld is a wildly inventive literary creation that sprawls over dozens of books. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Skinner</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Terry Pratchett once told me that he didn’t actually recommend beginning your relationship with the Discworld through his first novel in the series, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34497.The_Color_of_Magic">The Colour of Magic</a> (1983).</p>
<p>That’s because hindsight is 20:20. When Terry wrote “The First Discworld Novel” in 1983 he didn’t know how big a phenomenon he was starting. </p>
<p>Over the next 32 years, 40 more novels flowed, first from his keyboard and later from his speech recognition software, up until a year ago this Saturday, when Alzheimer’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/farewell-terry-pratchett-a-psychological-analysis-of-discworld-38757">stole away</a> one of the greatest contemporary English language writers. </p>
<p>Back in 1983, Terry was working full-time and writing in his spare time. When he created the Discworld, Pratchett simply couldn’t have foreseen how things would evolve.</p>
<p>It was a strange, magical, flat world, populated by wizards, dwarfs and trolls, replete with dragons and barbarian heroes. In turn, this world was perched atop four enormous elephants, themselves standing atop a giant star-turtle swimming through the galactic void.</p>
<p>Any reader beginning with “book one” and thinking that they’re embarking on a journey that will take them through 41 variations on that first theme is hugely mistaken. For one thing, the Discworld novels aren’t, strictly speaking, a series. Certainly not in the sense of a story where plot continues to be told across multiple instalments. </p>
<h2>Rincewind the Wizzard and the birth of a world</h2>
<p>While The Colour of Magic and its 1986 sequel <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34506.The_Light_Fantastic">The Light Fantastic</a> serve to introduce the Disc, these early books are, in many ways, really only a prologue to the Discworld series that follows.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114399/original/image-20160309-19310-1a3xfb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114399/original/image-20160309-19310-1a3xfb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114399/original/image-20160309-19310-1a3xfb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114399/original/image-20160309-19310-1a3xfb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114399/original/image-20160309-19310-1a3xfb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114399/original/image-20160309-19310-1a3xfb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1261&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114399/original/image-20160309-19310-1a3xfb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1261&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114399/original/image-20160309-19310-1a3xfb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1261&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Colour of Magic (1983).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Corgi</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They introduce its idiosyncratic societal peculiarities, geographies and some recurring characters. </p>
<p>All are brought to life and framed by Terry’s wit and irreverence and presented in a uniquely original style: no chapters, many puns, twisted takes on the contemporary presented in less than contemporary environs and frequent forays into footnotes, which meander through humorous observation parallel to the main story. </p>
<p>They’re laced with both overt and sly nods to classical mythology and literary classics. In fact, a “family” of books is probably a more appropriate description to use than series.</p>
<p>Books one and two are predominantly a comical riff on swords and sorcery, dungeons and dragons, Tolkein-like quests and the concept and conceits of using parallel universes as plot device. </p>
<p>They’re referential and irreverent. Pratchett’s first anti-hero, Rincewind the Wizzard (whose inability to cast a spell is bettered only by his inability to spell) is a misadventure magnet. </p>
<p>He bumbles his way through calamity, much of it caused by him, accompanied by the innocent and all-trusting Twoflower, the Disc’s first tourist. </p>
<p>Together, with Twoflower’s malevolently sentient Luggage in tow, they inadvertently and neatly manage to save the world.</p>
<p>The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic chart the protagonists’ chaotic course across the Disc and could stand alone as a single novel. Indeed these two books are the only ones in the “series” that demand sequential reading to convey a story in its entirety. </p>
<p>In later novels, where other recurring characters are introduced, each “episode” is largely self-contained. The reader doesn’t have to have read these books in sequence to appreciate the story being told. </p>
<p>Structurally, the Discworld novels can be grouped into reasonably logical subsets: novels which feature the same characters and which, if read sequentially in their own right, provide both narrative chronology and character (if not plot) development and arc. </p>
<h2>Mighty and mundane magic</h2>
<p>Pratchett’s first steps on the Discworld left his footprints in magic. One of Terry’s earlier footnotes postulated that the word “wizard” was derived from the archaic word “Wys-ars” – a hypothesis which tees the reader up with all they need to enjoy this series and its characters. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114400/original/image-20160309-22120-yfnjbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114400/original/image-20160309-22120-yfnjbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114400/original/image-20160309-22120-yfnjbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1022&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114400/original/image-20160309-22120-yfnjbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1022&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114400/original/image-20160309-22120-yfnjbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1022&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114400/original/image-20160309-22120-yfnjbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1284&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114400/original/image-20160309-22120-yfnjbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1284&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114400/original/image-20160309-22120-yfnjbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1284&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Equal Rites (1987).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Corgi</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Unseen University, (Discworld’s premier university for the study of magic) features centre stage across half dozen or so novels. It’s chaotic, with professional advancement through wizarding hierarchy secured through assassination of one’s colleagues, while excessive use of magic attracts horrible beasts from the Dungeon Dimensions. </p>
<p>This is all before things settle down with the arrival of Mustrum Ridcully as the Arch-chancellor, who sensibly recognises that the power of magic lies in knowing when not to use it – but at the same making sure that those around you know that you could use it, you know, if you really felt like it. </p>
<p>This group of novels features more slapstick than its cousins in the series, and is a must for anyone who has ever watched Porterhouse Blue, or ever been to or worked in a university (magical or otherwise). Terry never attended university, but he certainly had insight as to how they run, in spite of themselves.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114401/original/image-20160309-2183-1fju96m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114401/original/image-20160309-2183-1fju96m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114401/original/image-20160309-2183-1fju96m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=996&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114401/original/image-20160309-2183-1fju96m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=996&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114401/original/image-20160309-2183-1fju96m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=996&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114401/original/image-20160309-2183-1fju96m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1251&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114401/original/image-20160309-2183-1fju96m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114401/original/image-20160309-2183-1fju96m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1251&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wyrd Sisters (1988).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Corgi</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Magic in the Discworld is not restricted to the academy. The next major character created after Rincewind was Mistress Esmerelda Weatherwax, a witch. Granny Weatherwax, as she is more commonly known, is everything Rincewind is not: strong, fearless, stubborn, prim, proud and immensely magical. </p>
<p>She and her wonderful compatriot and partner in adventure, Nanny Ogg only really get into their stride in the second book recounting their activities – <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34504.Wyrd_Sisters">Wyrd Sisters</a> (1988).</p>
<p>Along with the third member of their recurring trio, Magrat Garlick (whose mother liked the name Margaret, but, alas, was unsure of the spelling) they do what witches do best: interfere with what is going on around them. </p>
<p>Wyrd Sisters, which suspiciously resembles a well-known Scottish play by W. Shakespeare, allows Pratchett full reign to twist the familiar through a Discworld wringer and humour leaps from the pages right from the beginning: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>As the cauldron bubbled an eldritch voice shrieked: ‘When shall we three meet again? There was a pause. Finally another voice said, in far more ordinary tones: ‘Well, I can do next Tuesday’.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Pratchett uses this conceit on other occasions with the Witches of Lancre, notably the Phantom of the Opera styled <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/78876.Maskerade">Masquerade</a> (1995), and Cinderella in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2442.Witches_Abroad">Witches Abroad</a> (1991). </p>
<p>Rather than simply retelling these tales on Discworld, we’re presented with a kernel of the familiar narrative, which is then deftly inverted and gleefully perverted in Pratchett’s alternate rendering. </p>
<h2>Death and loss on Discworld</h2>
<p>It’s interesting that <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7576115-i-shall-wear-midnight">I Shall Wear Midnight</a> (2010) was written by a man who was, at the time of writing, beginning a more serious struggle with Alzheimer’s disease than his outward persona may have let on. The pacing, complexity and adventure of this story is exceptional, and I rank it among Terry’s very best work.</p>
<p>Reflecting on his own mortality and the role that Alzheimer’s might play in his demise, Terry once told me, <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/i-don-t-mind-dying-i-just-don-t-want-to-be-there-when-it-happens-1.1052090">riffing on Spike Milligan</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I don’t mind dying, I’d just like to be there when it happens.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Death may not strike the reader as possessing the makings of a great recurring literary character, but on the Discworld he is chaperoned through an exploration of life and humanity by Pratchett. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114398/original/image-20160309-22135-skfmx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114398/original/image-20160309-22135-skfmx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114398/original/image-20160309-22135-skfmx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114398/original/image-20160309-22135-skfmx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114398/original/image-20160309-22135-skfmx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114398/original/image-20160309-22135-skfmx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1261&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114398/original/image-20160309-22135-skfmx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1261&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114398/original/image-20160309-22135-skfmx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1261&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mort (1987).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Corgi.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The skeletal, cowl-wearing, bee-keeping, scythe wielding, soul-stalking harbinger of the end of all things, who talks in all-caps sᴇᴘᴜʟᴄʜʀᴀʟ ғᴏɴᴛ has become a firm fan favourite – and has taken on some more human traits over time. </p>
<p>The Death novels usually relate to world-ending catastrophe, brought about by the naivety and innocence of the ultimate arbiter as he struggles to deal with the personality he feels is missing from his personification. His horse, for example, is called Binky. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/386372.Mort">Mort</a> (1987), the story of what goes terribly wrong when Death takes on an apprentice, is another book in the canon where new readers can dip their toe safely into the Discworld without prior knowledge being needed to get to grips with the goings-on which unfold.</p>
<h2>I fought the law…</h2>
<p>In his graduation address to the University of South Australia’s Class of 2014, on receipt of his <a href="http://www.unisa.edu.au/Media-Centre/Releases/UniSA-honours-Sir-Terry-Pratchett--International-best-selling-author-humourist-and-humanist-/#.Vt94DJN95Bw">honorary doctorate from our institution</a>, Terry noted,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>there is possibly more of me in Sir Samuel than in any other player on my pages.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114405/original/image-20160309-22126-rixoic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114405/original/image-20160309-22126-rixoic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114405/original/image-20160309-22126-rixoic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1011&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114405/original/image-20160309-22126-rixoic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1011&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114405/original/image-20160309-22126-rixoic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1011&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114405/original/image-20160309-22126-rixoic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1270&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114405/original/image-20160309-22126-rixoic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1270&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114405/original/image-20160309-22126-rixoic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1270&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Guards! Guards! (1989).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Corgi</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That’s what makes the group of books that deals with the Watchmen of Ankh Morpork a must for anyone interested in Pratchett. </p>
<p>Samuel Vimes, introduced as a drunken night-watchman in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64216.Guards_Guards_">Guards! Guards!</a> (1989), develops and grows in the course of our encounters with him across multiple books. </p>
<p>The dedication from Guards! Guards! sums up the genre-bending playfulness of these works:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>They may be called the Palace Guard, the City Guard, or the Patrol. Whatever the name, their purpose in any work of heroic fantasy is identical: it is, round about Chapter Three (or ten minutes into the film) to rush into the room, attack the hero one at a time, and be slaughtered. No one ever asks them if they want to. <br>
<br>
This book is dedicated to those fine men.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Across ten Guards novels Pratchett explores prejudice and humanity with forays into nationalism, racism, bigotry and genocide. </p>
<p>Big topics, subtly handled and with a thread of passion that leaps from the page. Whenever asked, I generally recommend that anyone stepping onto the Disc for their first time does so with Guards! Guards!</p>
<h2>The development of technology</h2>
<p>Beyond a handful which deal with gods and religion, many of the remaining novels individually and collectively deal with the industrialisation of the Discworld. Some are stand-alone, some are linked by recurring characters. Pratchett grew increasingly interested in the impacts of technology on society and he explored this through the introduction of technologies to the Disc. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114407/original/image-20160309-19310-1ynyx9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114407/original/image-20160309-19310-1ynyx9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114407/original/image-20160309-19310-1ynyx9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1011&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114407/original/image-20160309-19310-1ynyx9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1011&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114407/original/image-20160309-19310-1ynyx9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1011&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114407/original/image-20160309-19310-1ynyx9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1270&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114407/original/image-20160309-19310-1ynyx9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1270&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114407/original/image-20160309-19310-1ynyx9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1270&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Moving Pictures (1990).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Corgi</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34510.Moving_Pictures">Moving Pictures</a> (1990) intersects with the wizards of Unseen University and indeed, sees the first appearance of one of that series’ favourites, Ponder Stibbons – who in later life emerges as the one person who actually knows how the Unseen University actually works on a day to day basis. </p>
<p>But in Moving Pictures our focus is on the invention of (or indeed the rediscovery of the magic behind) the movies. Film buffs will relish spotting subtle and not-so-subtle references to early Hollywood greats.</p>
<p>Much later on in the Discworld series, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34498.The_Truth">The Truth</a> (2000) sees the invention of moveable type and the first newspaper, along with journalistic freedom in the context of a City ruled by a sometimes benign dictator. </p>
<p>Pratchett drew deeply on his own journalistic background with ample references to amusingly shaped vegetables and the importance of recording both the name, age and address of everyone quoted in every interest piece.</p>
<p>The Moist Von Lipwig series’ revolve around an improbably named ex-con anti-hero who is reprieved from the jaws of certain death by the Patrician and set to work to revitalise the official postal service just as commercial modern telecommunications begin to blossom on the Disc in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64222.Going_Postal">Going Postal</a> (2004). </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114419/original/image-20160309-22114-1b2s4ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114419/original/image-20160309-22114-1b2s4ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114419/original/image-20160309-22114-1b2s4ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114419/original/image-20160309-22114-1b2s4ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114419/original/image-20160309-22114-1b2s4ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114419/original/image-20160309-22114-1b2s4ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1150&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114419/original/image-20160309-22114-1b2s4ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1150&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114419/original/image-20160309-22114-1b2s4ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1150&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Making Money (2007).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Corgi</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Moist returns a second time to revamp the banking system in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/116296.Making_Money">Making Money</a> (2007), which came into print coincident with the global financial crisis, and in his last instalment, sets out to lay down the iron highway as the Discworld enters the age of rail in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11275323-raising-steam">Raising Steam</a> (2013). </p>
<p>In each of these outings, Von Lipwig outshines his con-artistic tendencies and grows in his heroism through the selflessness of his deeds and actions, despite himself. I do know that this particular character, oddly named though he may be, was originally conceived with a different name – but that secret remains one for someone else to tell in Terry’s biography perhaps.</p>
<p>The body of work that is Discworld extends into <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18090153-turtle-recall">companion pieces</a>, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13536349-the-compleat-ankh-morpork">guides</a>, <a href="http://discworldapp.com/">maps</a>, <a href="http://www.stephenbriggs.com/the-plays">plays</a>, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2429032.The_Folklore_of_Discworld">folklore</a> and <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/233674.The_Science_of_Discworld?from_search=true&search_version=service">popular science</a> guides. Even the odd (but exciting) <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0695332/">short movie</a> exists, set atop that magical world. Like any companion set to a core series, readers can get by with or without these additions, but fans probably can’t.</p>
<p>The moral of this tale is that you can step onto the Discworld anywhere you like. If you enjoy wit, humour and fastly-paced plot, you will enjoy yourself immensely. Just don’t feel obliged to begin at the beginning. </p>
<p>The beauty of it is that with forty-one books to enjoy, you can always go back around again for more – and such is the depth of Pratchett’s craft, you’ll likely find something you’ve previously missed on every re-read.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55220/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David G. Lloyd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This Saturday it will be a year since Alzheimer’s stole Terry Pratchett from the world. We mark the occasion with a beginner’s guide to his most enduring creation, the 41-book Discworld series.David G. Lloyd, Vice-Chancellor and President , University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/507592015-11-17T19:05:19Z2015-11-17T19:05:19ZPhilosophy and Fallout 4: what’s the appeal of the post-apocalypse?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102121/original/image-20151117-16026-17l8dc3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">All's well ... then one day you walk out the front door and into a freshly-nuked hellscape.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Midhras</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you’re ever stuck for an ice-breaker at a party, you may as well try asking what everyone’s <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/phpr/zombies_novella.htm">zombie survival guide</a> is. You’ll get some surprising answers – and what’s more surprising is how many people have thought about <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUTmmmBhUL8">their strategy</a> for living in a <a href="http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Build-the-Perfect-Zombie-Survival-Kit/">post-apocalyptic wasteland</a>. </p>
<p>Why do we relish the idea of (near) total destruction? With the release of post-apocalyptic playground <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/fallout-4/">Fallout 4</a> last week, three philosophers offer their views. </p>
<h2><em>Laura D'Olimpio, Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Notre Dame Australia: Dystopia and the desire to be ‘special’</em></h2>
<p>With the hype surrounding the November 10 release of Fallout 4, a source of familiar excitement in the world of entertainment emerges: the appeal of a post-apocalyptic world. I first heard about Fallout 4 from my cousin’s 14-year-old son, who excitedly informed us that the game is awesome for a number of reasons, including the immersive open-world with its quests and storylines. </p>
<p>I’m not really sure what that means, as I’m not into gaming, but I questioned the appeal of a world where everything has been destroyed, except for yourself and a few others.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102122/original/image-20151117-4983-67h90.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102122/original/image-20151117-4983-67h90.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102122/original/image-20151117-4983-67h90.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102122/original/image-20151117-4983-67h90.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102122/original/image-20151117-4983-67h90.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102122/original/image-20151117-4983-67h90.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102122/original/image-20151117-4983-67h90.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102122/original/image-20151117-4983-67h90.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fallout 4.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Midhras</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The appeal of the post-apocalyptic is something familiar to all lovers of fiction. The world is both different to anything we have ever experienced ourselves, yet also familiar enough to recognise. Nuclear war is a genuine threat to our existence, and this moral and political concern provides a backdrop to the action.</p>
<p>For an individual who, alone, cannot do anything about such a threat, the fictional world that has been ravaged by nuclear weaponry is a place of exploration and creativity as new structures are built, and new rules formed. Such make-believe spaces are engaged with imaginatively as you feel special: you have survived.</p>
<p>The appeal of being special is found everywhere in our celebrity-obsessed society as people compete on reality-TV shows with the hope of being “discovered”. Each one of us is the Hero of our own story – sorry, “journey”. </p>
<p>Humans have always narrated tales of Superheroes whereby we identify with the ordinary, flawed individual who goes on to discover his or her special powers that almost ensures he or she is invincible. We long for immortality. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102124/original/image-20151117-4164-181j7q9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102124/original/image-20151117-4164-181j7q9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102124/original/image-20151117-4164-181j7q9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102124/original/image-20151117-4164-181j7q9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102124/original/image-20151117-4164-181j7q9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102124/original/image-20151117-4164-181j7q9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102124/original/image-20151117-4164-181j7q9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102124/original/image-20151117-4164-181j7q9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wilnora</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is another obvious appeal to a world that no longer has any rules. With the institutions and people destroyed who uphold civil society, as scary as this “Wasteland” may be, there is freedom. Without rules, you can do as you please … without anyone telling you to eat your greens, go to work or do your homework. </p>
<p>Everyone understands this feeling of rebellion. From 1954’s <a href="http://www.faber.co.uk/9780571295715-lord-of-the-flies.html">Lord of the Flies</a> to <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2767052-the-hunger-games">The Hunger Games</a> (2008) franchise, the dystopian universe is a great source of fantasy and wish fulfilment. </p>
<p>You – yes, YOU – could be the reluctant hero who saves future generations of humanity by selflessly overcoming power-hungry tyrants. A classic battle of good versus evil ensues. The eventual victor had better be humble, compassionate and want good for all, as ultimately a sense of community and belonging is reinforced as desirable. </p>
<h2><em>Patrick Stokes, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Deakin University: The possibilities of the post-apocalyptic sandbox</em></h2>
<p>Personal identity is largely relational: who we are and what we can and can’t do is very largely defined by our relationships to others. You’re a child, a sibling, partner, ex-partner, parent, co-worker, friend, enemy, frenemy, frenemy-with-benefits, relative, student, teacher, carer … any and all of these relations to others shape boundaries and expectations around how you live your life. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102118/original/image-20151117-4936-5qxr7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102118/original/image-20151117-4936-5qxr7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102118/original/image-20151117-4936-5qxr7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102118/original/image-20151117-4936-5qxr7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102118/original/image-20151117-4936-5qxr7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102118/original/image-20151117-4936-5qxr7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102118/original/image-20151117-4936-5qxr7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102118/original/image-20151117-4936-5qxr7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brendan</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Without even noticing it, your life largely runs along in a groove formed by how you intersect with the lives of others, and they into yours. </p>
<p>Then one day you walk out the front door and into a freshly-nuked hellscape. All the sedimentation of your life has just been blasted away. Your defining relationships? Gone, or at the very least, dramatically altered. No job. No government. Possibly no family or friends. That snug groove you ploughed along in is now a wide-open plane. </p>
<p>Even the network of ethical and social norms that guide our lives in ways we’re barely even aware of suddenly go out the window. The moral sphere has broken down. So go ahead: loot the abandoned store, shoot your newly zombified neighbours with barely suppressed delight, and procreate like a rabbit on ecstasy with total strangers in the cause of “preserving the species”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102115/original/image-20151117-4973-rb4d4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102115/original/image-20151117-4973-rb4d4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102115/original/image-20151117-4973-rb4d4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102115/original/image-20151117-4973-rb4d4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102115/original/image-20151117-4973-rb4d4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102115/original/image-20151117-4973-rb4d4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102115/original/image-20151117-4973-rb4d4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102115/original/image-20151117-4973-rb4d4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nikki Gibson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of course if this <em>really</em> happened you’d be excused for crumpling into a heap and lying in the foetal position until starvation kicks in. But it’s not really happening. When we engage emotionally with fiction we’re inhabiting a world that’s nonetheless held in suspension; as Rick Anthony Furtak put it in <a href="http://undpress.nd.edu/books/P00965">Wisdom in Love</a> (2005):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>our ‘aesthetic’ emotions are not founded on belief, but on the entertaining of propositions unasserted.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In that sense, post-apocalyptic fictions, particularly of first-person game variety, create a sort of sandbox in which you can mess around with grounding commitments that are in fact largely concreted in place: who would you want to be, what would you want to do, if none of it really mattered?
<br></p>
<h2><em>Matthew Beard, Adjunct Lecturer, UNSW Canberra: By freeing us from moral norms, post-apocalyptic worlds allow for ethical freedom</em></h2>
<p>Post-apocalyptic literature has never been my favourite genre. I’ve always preferred the optimism of fantasy. And yet I was far more hooked by <a href="http://bethsoft.com/en-us/games/fallout_3">Fallout 3</a> than I was by <a href="http://bethsoft.com/games/skyrim">Skyrim</a> – Fallout’s fantasy rival. Why the distinction?</p>
<p>I think it has to do with the difference between the forms. In literature, you witness a narrative unfurl before you from the perspective of a spectator. You marvel in the adventure, hope for the best and fear the worst. </p>
<p>Read (and written) well, fantasy, like fairytales, provides us with a moral lesson. Admittedly, these lessons are more nuanced and less didactic than The Boy Who Cried Wolf, but there is a lesson the reader can glean, if he or she chooses to.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102120/original/image-20151117-4973-1sy1l1z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102120/original/image-20151117-4973-1sy1l1z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102120/original/image-20151117-4973-1sy1l1z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=232&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102120/original/image-20151117-4973-1sy1l1z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=232&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102120/original/image-20151117-4973-1sy1l1z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=232&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102120/original/image-20151117-4973-1sy1l1z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102120/original/image-20151117-4973-1sy1l1z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102120/original/image-20151117-4973-1sy1l1z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fallout 4.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Midhras</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fantasy, I think, provides this opportunity more than other genres (though every genre can and does share moral lessons) because it stimulates the imagination in a unique way - through <em>magic</em>. Tolkien himself <a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://brainstorm-services.com/wcu-2004/fairystories-tolkien.pdf&ved=0CFEQFjAKahUKEwi94fnF9JXJAhVmiKYKHbCRBkU&usg=AFQjCNG0oFCjHWDDwNEok1cLTSXxDETmNQ&sig2=5EKKNrHhyoIO4PxnGcxl3Q">defined fairy stories</a> - a genre his own fantasy tales fit into - by this standard. In his 1939 lecture <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23603.Tales_from_the_Perilous_Realm">Fairy Stories</a>, he said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>‘Fairy-story’ is one which touches on or uses Faerie, whatever its own main purpose may be: satire, adventure, morality, fantasy. Faerie itself may perhaps most nearly be translated by Magic …</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Fantasy speaks to us of morals and deeds and religion through magic. It tickles a part of our imagination not bound by the world’s limitations. But magic also imposes rules: Tolkien insists magic “must not be made fun of”. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102123/original/image-20151117-4952-1k7c5as.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102123/original/image-20151117-4952-1k7c5as.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102123/original/image-20151117-4952-1k7c5as.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102123/original/image-20151117-4952-1k7c5as.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102123/original/image-20151117-4952-1k7c5as.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102123/original/image-20151117-4952-1k7c5as.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1091&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102123/original/image-20151117-4952-1k7c5as.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1091&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102123/original/image-20151117-4952-1k7c5as.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1091&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">JRR Tolkien in 1916.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This makes fantasy less palatable as an avenue for the development of ethical agency rather than the seduction of gamers or readers to certain moral norms. Because of this, fantasy is a less interesting genre for videogames than for literature - to me, at least. </p>
<p>That’s because post-apocalyptic stories are ideal for the exercise of ethical agency. Without the usual constraints of a well-established society, gamers can exercise what Sartre called “radical freedom”. </p>
<p>They can choose their behaviour from a near-limitless slate of opportunities without coercion. Game mechanics also hold them responsible for their choices – murdering innocent people is likely to lead other characters in the game not to trust you. </p>
<p>Fallout was able do this better than Skyrim, I believe, precisely because by eschewing magic and fantasy it signalled to the gamer that there are no rules in its post-nuclear wasteland. It is expressly because post-apocalyptic games do not aim to convey a particular moral message that gamers can be reflective, ethical agents within the sandbox of the game. </p>
<p>It will be interesting to see how continuing horrors around the world – Paris, Beirut, Baghdad and so forth – affect people’s desire for post-apocalyptic freedom. Might feelings of powerlessness in the physical world make Fallout 4 appear as an escape? Or perhaps fear and uncertainty will lead gamers to desire something with more overt moral messages – something more magical … </p>
<p>After all, even grown-ups need fairy stories sometimes, don’t they?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50759/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Do you run wild in Fallout, or vicariously hunt zombies in The Walking Dead? Three philosophers investigate the enduring appeal of the post-apocalypse.Laura D'Olimpio, Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Notre Dame AustraliaMatthew Beard, Adjunct Lecturer, UNSW SydneyPatrick Stokes, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/469682015-09-02T13:03:10Z2015-09-02T13:03:10ZIs HarperCollins flogging a dead horse with latest Tolkien publication?<p>On the day Terry Pratchett’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/shepherds-crown-is-a-crowning-achievement-for-terry-pratchett-and-his-discworld-46872">posthumous book</a> was published, the latest publication by J R R Tolkien arrived through my letterbox – a thin volume called The Story of Kullervo. This latest from Tolkien is a paraphrasing of the tale of Kullervo from the Finnish <em>Kalevala</em>, which inspired Tolkien’s own reworking of the story in <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/apr/28/jrrtolkien.fiction">The Children of Húrin</a>. Tolkien had bemoaned the lack of anything in English to rival the <em>Kalevala</em> as he saw it, and in part then his Middle-earth legendarium was written in response.</p>
<p>The differences between the Pratchett and Tolkien publications are striking, of course. Terry Pratchett has only recently died; his book was, by all accounts, “<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-34067207">90% there</a>”; and we are told this will be the last ever Discworld volume. Tolkien, on the other hand, died more than 40 years ago and since then, if we include the work that has been published for the first time in scholarly journals, there have been more than <a href="http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Category:Posthumous_publications">30 new titles</a> bearing his name. It would be hard to imagine a writer with a posthumous publication record to match this.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93631/original/image-20150902-6144-akvgwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93631/original/image-20150902-6144-akvgwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93631/original/image-20150902-6144-akvgwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93631/original/image-20150902-6144-akvgwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93631/original/image-20150902-6144-akvgwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93631/original/image-20150902-6144-akvgwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1185&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93631/original/image-20150902-6144-akvgwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1185&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93631/original/image-20150902-6144-akvgwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1185&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">HarperCollins</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The immediate response is cynicism. As is well known, especially to the publisher HarperCollins, any title bearing Tolkien’s name immediately opens up international sales to a large and ever-hungry readership. Images of <a href="http://www.authorama.com/grimms-fairy-tales-50.html">the golden goose</a> spring to mind, especially when we note that this latest publication is based on some unfinished notes and an attempt at a tale by Tolkien at the beginning of his career (some 20-30 years before The Lord of the Rings saw the light of day), is based on a relatively obscure tale from Finnish mythology and has already been published more or less in a previous edition of the journal <a href="http://wvupressonline.com/journals/tolkien_studies">Tolkien Studies</a>, also edited by Verlyn Flieger. To top it all off, some of it is simply a talk he gave as an undergraduate.</p>
<p>So is this fair, or is the seemingly never-ending publication mill attributing works to Tolkien warranted? </p>
<p>The answer is mixed. First we must remember that the posthumous publications include The Silmarillion, Tolkien’s great unfinished epic that presented the underlying history of his world, which was edited after his death by his son Christopher. To this we can add the extraordinary series of volumes detailing the history of Middle-earth, not only providing us with a series of unseen tales, but also the creative process behind The Lord of the Rings. Again all edited to a very high standard by Christopher Tolkien. </p>
<p>And herein lies the issue. Tolkien’s strength was also his great weakness. His mythology succeeds precisely because it is so intricate. References in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to tales and legends we only have a glimpse of were thus revealed to be already written but unpublished. This added to the depth within the mythology that Tolkien desired but such a mammoth task, especially for a constant rewriter like Tolkien, proved too much to allow for a chain of publications within his lifetime. So we can only celebrate the work by Christopher Tolkien and other editors in terms of providing this corpus of material that illustrates, if it was not already evident, Tolkien’s genius.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93634/original/image-20150902-6192-n0cc2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93634/original/image-20150902-6192-n0cc2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93634/original/image-20150902-6192-n0cc2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93634/original/image-20150902-6192-n0cc2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93634/original/image-20150902-6192-n0cc2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93634/original/image-20150902-6192-n0cc2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93634/original/image-20150902-6192-n0cc2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tolkien in 1916.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It often comes as a surprise to many people to hear that Tolkien was also an eminent medievalist, a professor at Oxford University. His publication record was not his strength, and while everything he did manage to get into print was of exceptional value, there is a wealth of material that never saw the light of day – some of which has also been posthumously published. Into this category fall his lectures, and translations or paraphrases of some of the great medieval tales – such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Beowulf (which appeared last year), and now The Story of Kullervo.</p>
<p>But like Bilbo’s feeling of butter being spread too thin there are signs of a sense of weariness here. It began with <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/books/review/the-fall-of-arthur-by-j-r-r-tolkien.html?_r=0">The Fall of Arthur</a>, Tolkien’s attempt at part of the Arthurian myth which appeared in 2013. It was incomplete, as The Story of Kullervo is (the latter finishes with only a few hurried notes detailing Kullervo’s death). We then had the <a href="https://theconversation.com/publishing-tolkiens-beowulf-translation-does-him-a-disservice-27244">Beowulf translation</a>. Fascinating though this has been, and no doubt has brought a new audience to the great work, as many people have noted the commentary and notes just run out of steam around half-way through.</p>
<p>The Story of Kullervo deserved publication. But one questions whether it was right to move it from an academic journal (where Verlyn Flieger’s research deserved its place) to mainstream book production. That said, who can deny this piece to a wider audience? Tolkien readers now have access to these rare texts – and on balance, that must be a good thing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46968/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stuart Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>J R R Tolkien died over 40 years ago and since then there have been over 30 titles bearing his name. Is this warranted?Stuart Lee, Deputy CIO; Member of English Faculty; Member of Merton College, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/468722015-08-31T03:59:57Z2015-08-31T03:59:57ZShepherd’s Crown is a crowning achievement for Terry Pratchett and his Discworld<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93392/original/image-20150831-17764-18vs3fl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'I once asked Terry why he hadn't killed off a particular character. He looked at me askance.'</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Alessandro Della Bella </span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>Oh, waily, waily. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22886868-the-shepherd-s-crown">The Shepherd’s Crown</a> (2015) – by English author <a href="http://www.terrypratchettbooks.com/">Sir Terry Pratchett</a>, featuring his young witch character, Tiffany Aching – was never going to be an easy read for me. I knew and counted Terry among my friends since 2008, and I watched Alzheimer’s slowly and insidiously strip him of attributes and faculty over that time. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/18/terry-pratchett-final-discworld-novel-the-shepherds-crown-tiffany-aching">41st and final Discworld novel</a> – published five months after <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/12/terry-pratchett">its author’s death</a> – wasn’t something I ever wanted to face. </p>
<p>But I am glad I did. It’s a joy to read. Terry knew in 2014 that this was the likely curtain call for his time on the Disc.</p>
<p>He was still incubating ideas for future books. He wasn’t quite finished with <a href="http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Sam_Vimes">Sam Vimes</a> or the wizards of <a href="http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Unseen_University">Unseen University</a> – but he was a very clever and, above all, realistic man. </p>
<p>So what can we make of this final book?</p>
<p>The fifth instalment of the <a href="http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Tiffany_Aching">Tiffany Aching</a> series sees Tiff assume a greater mantle of responsibility than ever before. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93393/original/image-20150831-17760-tgrfhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93393/original/image-20150831-17760-tgrfhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93393/original/image-20150831-17760-tgrfhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93393/original/image-20150831-17760-tgrfhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93393/original/image-20150831-17760-tgrfhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93393/original/image-20150831-17760-tgrfhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93393/original/image-20150831-17760-tgrfhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93393/original/image-20150831-17760-tgrfhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>She’s no longer the little girl we first met in the <a href="http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Wee_Free_Men&redirect=no">wee free men</a>; nor is she the apprentice, trainee or P-plater of her second and third and fourth outings. She is now the <a href="http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/The_Chalk">Witch of the Chalk</a>, and events conspire to ensure she yet must become much more. </p>
<p>Shepherd’s Crown wasn’t an easy write for Terry. Rob Wilkins’ afterword to the book hints both at that and that there was still more finishing to be done on this novel, had there only been more time. </p>
<p>We can only wonder what that may have been. It’s little wonder that <a href="http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Death">Death himself</a> – an anthropomorphic character in Discworld – does his duty with sorrow in this book. </p>
<p>Neil Gaiman has <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/terry-pratchett-wanted-different-ending-shepherds-crown/">hinted at an alternate ending</a> which Terry never had a chance to pen. I know that Terry always wanted to do more, to refine the words again and again. </p>
<p>In this book he tips his famous hat to a swathe of older, much-loved characters as the consequences arising from the death of one of his greatest creations ripples throughout their fictional world.</p>
<p>I once asked Terry why he hadn’t killed off a particular character before. He looked at me askance, and said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If I did that I wouldn’t be able to write more books about them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There are no more books to come and Terry takes steps in this final novel that he never contemplated before. </p>
<p>He carries off another ripping yarn with aplomb; the wit and humour we have come to love over 32 years and 41 visits to the Discworld are all there. </p>
<p>He excelled at gallows humour and a simple two-word edit to a very familiar phrase raises a hearty laugh when tears are infinitely more appropriate. </p>
<p>Tiffany faces off against an old, old foe, but it is not just the formidable powers of this young and now leading witch that save the day: the passage of time, the relentless advances of progress and life itself all play a role. </p>
<p>The consequences of the actions of many others, characters new and old, across years of Discworld narrative are all neatly interweaved and seamlessly push the plot of this book forward.</p>
<p>This is not a fantasy novel intended for “younger readers” as it is wont to be pigeonholed. I assert that with confidence, even though contains witches, a man who wants to be a witch, wizards, a woman who was once a wizard, wily cats, counting goats, <a href="http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Pictsies">pictsies</a>, goblins and the most malevolent of fairies.</p>
<p>This is a book for all ages, the <em>tour de force</em> of one of the English language’s greatest authors, who, in the midst of encroaching darkness and facing so many terrors of his own, has contrived to astound us one last time with his craft.</p>
<p>Terry’s razor-sharp insight to the human condition, through an unusually <a href="http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Discworld_(world)">turtle-shaped</a> lens remains strong. </p>
<p>Pratchett liberally sprinkles his text with instructions to his readers – read books if you want to learn things, make choices when faced with them, stand your ground, don’t tolerate the intolerable from others. Simple, yet sound advice for life. </p>
<p>For those of us who long for more, we will have only the realm of our own imaginations and a rich and deep seam of wonderful words to mine again and again. </p>
<p>Alzheimer’s robbed the world of one of is brightest lights last March. No-one could replace Terry, never in a hundred years, but, as <a href="http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Nanny_Ogg">Nanny Ogg</a>, Pratchett’s witch from the Ramtop Mountains, gnomically put it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>don’t get your knickers in a twist … it won’t solve anything an’ will just make you walk odd. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Here’s to Terry Pratchett and lost futures; may we all go round again!</p>
<p><br>
<em>The Shepherd’s Crown by Terry Pratchett is published by <a href="https://www.terrypratchettbooks.com/penguin-random-house-to-publish-final-discworld-novel-from-sir-terry-pratchett/">Penguin Random House</a></em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46872/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David G. Lloyd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>‘I knew and counted Terry among my friends, and I watched Alzheimer’s slowly and insidiously strip him of attributes and faculty.’ So what can we make of his final Discworld novel, published posthumously?David G. Lloyd, Vice-Chancellor and President , University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/403432015-05-29T10:09:09Z2015-05-29T10:09:09ZRival fantasies: Dungeons & Dragons players and their religious critics actually have a lot in common<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83285/original/image-20150528-31347-bn70er.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A miniature orc from the popular role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/chicagobart/6535176187/in/photolist-aXuucv-5pmaH-DYGrj-6ACqLi-4FHzaM-boQ6eo-dXvjVT-4VnEaM-7Krndk-bBSUvB-D1xnn-bp7pRU-4VnD78-3wyCD6-7Dy1af-7Dy1J7-7DxZLd-7DxZby-7Dy1Eq-7Dy1wG-7DuchX-6H8EFn-bwUXjG-bwUX5C-3wB44A-6H8LHa-6HcP7Y-6HcGn1-6H8NNa-bC2ivK-4VrSYh-PGYJH-4fKBLL-bC2gxT-4VnEP4-8xFAzx-3wD6nJ-3wwVmt-3wB173-3wAVcY-3wAX6G-3wwFnR-3wwTeK-3wwQLv-dZEQfE-zDrXA-bBSUqx-boQ67L-boQ5Zu-boQ5Qq">Bart Heird/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Religion-fueled conspiracy theories continue to pervade our culture.</p>
<p>Today, some claim energy drinks <a href="http://abc7.com/religion/video-monster-energy-drinks-promote-satan-says-woman-in-viral-video/392023/">are Satanic plots</a>. Others argue that <a href="http://religionnerd.com/2015/03/26/lizard-people/">shape-shifting reptiles secretly rule the world</a>. And musicians from <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/kanye-west-comments-celebrity-illuminati-rumors-1893884">Kanye West</a> to <a href="http://religiondispatches.org/katy-perrys-siren-song-to-conspiracy-theorists/">Katy Perry</a> have been accused of conducting occult Illuminati rituals disguised as harmless stage performances.</p>
<p>But one of the strangest – and most persistent – conspiracy theories in American culture is the claim that the popular role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is actually a recruiting tool for Satanism.</p>
<p>Last year, D&D celebrated its 40th anniversary, and the game’s publisher, Wizards of the Coast, has just announced a new transmedia storyline for the game called <a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/140702-New-D-D-Rage-of-Demons-Story-is-in-Sword-Coast-Legends-Neverwinter-and-the-Tabletop-RPG">“Rage of Demons.”</a> </p>
<p>Since many of these raging demons, such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orcus">Orcus</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baphomet">Baphomet</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demogorgon">Demogorgon</a>, are drawn from “actual” myths and legends, it’s a fitting time to explore the real fear that D&D is a crash course in evil occultism.</p>
<p>As a religion professor, I study the history and sociology of religious movements. While the opposition to D&D wasn’t always framed in religious terms, a particular strain of evangelical Christianity was the driving force behind the panic.</p>
<p>Why were these Christians so bothered by a game? And why did they claim the game was ungodly instead of merely unwholesome? Exploring these questions led me to conclude that fantasy role-playing games (RPGs) do, in fact, share traits in common with religious worldviews. Conversely, religious worldviews can resemble RPGs.</p>
<h2>An ‘occult crime’</h2>
<p>In 1974 Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax created Dungeons & Dragons, the first commercially viable fantasy role-playing game. Fantasy RPGs usually involve players assuming the role of characters in an imaginary world. Complicated rules (often involving multi-sided dice) are used to determine the outcome of a character’s actions. D&D quickly spread through college campuses and filtered down to secondary schools, where it was incorporated into programs for gifted children.</p>
<p>Beginning in the 1980s, <a href="http://www.theescapist.com/archives.htm">rumors abounded</a> that the game caused players to dissociate from reality and commit suicide. The decade also saw the apogee of “Satanic Panic”: when a coalition of evangelicals, talk show hosts and dubious “occult crime” experts claimed that Satanic cabals had infiltrated all aspects of society. According to psychiatrists like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Pazder">Lawrence Pazder</a>, these groups conducted horrifying rituals in secret in order to corrupt innocent children and create brainwashed cultists.</p>
<p>Soon, church leaders, concerned parents, politicians and others began to claim that the Satanists had created D&D to indoctrinate children into the occult. They formed coalitions, petitioned federal agencies and worked to shut down school-based D&D clubs. Many of the self-proclaimed experts were invited to special police seminars on “occult crime,” where they claimed D&D led directly to involvement in criminal cults. They even drafted documents to help police interrogate adolescent players.</p>
<p>However, in many ways, RPGs and religious cultures aren’t so different: both involve a collective effort to construct and inhabit an alternative reality that is uniquely meaningful. Whereas gamers explore alternate realities using dice, character sheets and narrative, religious communities use sermons, hymns and rituals to create a sense of connection to another world.</p>
<p>The key difference is the frame through which this reality is understood. For role players, it’s purely fantasy. Religious cultures, on the other hand, generally regard otherworldly realities as real.</p>
<h2>Who led the charge?</h2>
<p>One area in which this line of thinking can serve as an interpretive lens is the phenomenon of conspiracy theories.</p>
<p>In a 2000 <a href="http://archives.theonering.net/features/interviews/gary_gygax.html">interview</a> D&D creator Gary Gygax suggested that it is the claims-makers –- rather than the gamers –- whose grasp of reality is poor:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>That a group playing a fantasy RPG will lose touch with reality or become “mind-controlled” is completely fatuous. This is obvious to any observer of or participant in RPG activity. Those who claim such an effect is possible are the ones who have lost touch with reality.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Indeed, when I traced the claims about the dangers of D&D back to their sources, I arrived at a handful of people who appear to have been either hopelessly uncritical, liars or mentally disturbed.</p>
<p>Figures who claimed D&D was a Satanic conspiracy included <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Pulling">Patricia Pulling</a>, founder of Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons (and author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Devils-Web-Stalking-Children/dp/0910311595">The Devil’s Web: Who Is Stalking Your Children for Satan?</a>), evangelist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Warnke">Mike Warnke</a>, conspiracy theorist John Todd and author <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_controversies#The_Schnoebelen_articles">William Schnoebelen</a>. </p>
<p>Warnke, Todd and Schnoebelen all claimed to have been powerful leaders of Satanic cults before converting to Christianity – claims that were eventually debunked in various Christian publications.</p>
<h2>Cut from the same cloth</h2>
<p>Interestingly, the Satanic conspiracies of the 1980s were constructed from many of the same elements as D&D – especially 1960s horror media. Some of D&D creator Dave Arneson’s early ideas for the game came from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creature_Features">Creature Features</a> – local TV programming featuring schlocky monster movies – and the vampire soap opera <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Shadows">Dark Shadows</a>.</p>
<p>But anti-D&D crusader Mike Warnke also confessed to loving Creature Features and other horror films as a child. Meanwhile, John Todd claimed to have been brought up in a family of witches named Collins who settled in the New England colonies – a plot line lifted from Dark Shadows.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83282/original/image-20150528-31328-7bji0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83282/original/image-20150528-31328-7bji0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83282/original/image-20150528-31328-7bji0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83282/original/image-20150528-31328-7bji0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83282/original/image-20150528-31328-7bji0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83282/original/image-20150528-31328-7bji0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83282/original/image-20150528-31328-7bji0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A still from the TV series Dark Shadows.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Alex_Stevens_werewolf_Dark_Shadows_1969.JPG">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As play worlds crafted from similar elements, Satanic conspiracy theories and D&D weirdly mirrored each other: both were replete with themes of fighting against demonic evil.</p>
<p>The difference, of course, is that while D&D is just a game, the conspiracy theorists refused to admit their play worlds were imaginary.</p>
<h2>Play as inspiration and escape</h2>
<p>Each of these figures described a parallel world in which they were opposed by Satanic forces. To them, their choices carried tremendous importance. But it doesn’t enhance our understanding to medicalize their behavior or dismiss these figures as “insane.”</p>
<p>Generally, paranoid schizophrenics do not publish books, organize speaking tours at local churches or collaborate with like-minded people. Rather, the strange views of these conspiracy theorists seem to be the product of play not unlike an RPG. Their theories present an enchanted world in which they can assume heroic roles.</p>
<p>Play is a serious thing. It creates a situation in which real-world elements may be removed from their established order, reassessed and repurposed. A child at play can take a banana and imagine it is a phone, a pistol or a yellow rocket ship. In play, we have the power to reimagine the world.</p>
<p>Theorists such as <a href="http://art.yale.edu/file_columns/0000/1474/homo_ludens_johan_huizinga_routledge_1949_.pdf">Johan Huizinga</a> – and, more recently, Robert Bellah – have argued that all human culture, including religion, was derived from play.</p>
<p>Bellah even <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?recid=31281&amp;content=reviews">called play</a> “the first alternative reality” from which the frames of science, philosophy and religion are ultimately derived.</p>
<h2>When play becomes distorted</h2>
<p>In a sense, conspiracy theories are a form of “corrupted play,” in which the frame of play is lost and the game passes for reality.</p>
<p>One factor contributing to this corruption of play may be the emphasis on <a href="https://bible.org/seriespage/6-bible-inerrant-word-god">Biblical inerrancy</a> – the idea that Bible stories are “true” in the same sense that historical and scientific claims are “true.” This frame of religious thinking accompanied the rise of <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/222234/Christian-fundamentalism">Fundamentalism</a> in the early 20th century.</p>
<p>And with this move comes a suspicion of discrete frames of meaning. Several of the anti-D&D crusaders claimed that when players “imagine” a demon, they are actually having a metaphysical encounter with a real demon. Others claimed that the imagination itself is an unbiblical and heretical faculty.</p>
<p>Because imagination and reality were confounded together, people from these religious cultures had no alternative reality onto which to project their natural, heroic fantasies. They could battle evil only if that evil was given a <em>literal</em> existence in the form of demonic paranoia and conspiracy theories.</p>
<p>In this sense, the impulse to spin conspiracy theories is a kind of spiritual malaise that arises from a sense of disenchantment, combined with a fear of the imagination.</p>
<p>The irony is that the conspiracy theorists who claimed D&D was Satanic were the ones who could have benefited the most from playing it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40343/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph P. Laycock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When conspiracy theorists label games and literature “Satanic,” what does it say about their own imaginations and ability to engage in play?Joseph P. Laycock, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Texas State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/371432015-04-20T05:13:43Z2015-04-20T05:13:43ZThe Hobbit box set released – and finally, the Jackson saga is over<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78386/original/image-20150417-3261-b95mys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Freedom.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Think Jam</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With the release of the DVD box set of The Hobbit, Peter Jackson’s stronghold on the trilogy may finally be over. </p>
<p>Undeniably, the trilogy has been incredibly successful on a US and worldwide stage. The three-film trilogy cost around US$765m to produce and made almost <a href="http://thetechreader.com/movies/the-lord-of-the-rings-and-the-hobbit-series-brought-in-a-cumulative-6-billion-dollars/">US$3 billion worldwide</a> – so, a triumph for all those who had anything financial to gain from the franchise. </p>
<p>But despite this, it gained little attention. No mention on the award circuits. Not a very positive reception. The problem is, the films just aren’t very good. The Hobbit trilogy can be seen as one of the lowest points of the blockbuster culture and modern Hollywood film-making.</p>
<p>For over two years now, the Hobbit films have fascinated us and other scholars alike. The three instalments have even inspired an <a href="http://www.worldhobbitproject.org/en/home/">international research project</a>.</p>
<p>Fascinated, not exactly in a very positive way though. The films fail on the most central point of storytelling – painting an immersive picture. Here’s how.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78389/original/image-20150417-3245-nni84j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78389/original/image-20150417-3245-nni84j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78389/original/image-20150417-3245-nni84j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78389/original/image-20150417-3245-nni84j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78389/original/image-20150417-3245-nni84j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78389/original/image-20150417-3245-nni84j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78389/original/image-20150417-3245-nni84j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One of the five armies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Think Jam</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Watching The Hobbit is like a bad taxi ride in a new town. Instead of staying on the perfectly scenic direct route to your direction, your driver decides to take you up every side street just to show you the sights. Eventually you get so tired that you lose all interest in what attracted you to the town in the first place. </p>
<p>This is what can happen when you take a small novel and transform it into three overly long films. The films throw out hook after hook after hook but never follow through in a meaningful way on any of them. This means you can’t really connect to any character who might transport you into the narrative world.</p>
<p>Peter Jackson’s adaptation suffers from a drastic case of over-dramatisation, failing in terms of storytelling quality. The underlying problem is that Tolkien’s novel is a relatively linear story that is coherent and enjoyable because it does not pretend to be more than the tale of a group of unusual heroes that travel a long way to fight a dragon. Jackson blows this up to a much larger scale by adding lots of links to The Lord of the Rings trilogy and characters. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78390/original/image-20150417-3261-1nu34px.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78390/original/image-20150417-3261-1nu34px.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78390/original/image-20150417-3261-1nu34px.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78390/original/image-20150417-3261-1nu34px.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78390/original/image-20150417-3261-1nu34px.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78390/original/image-20150417-3261-1nu34px.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78390/original/image-20150417-3261-1nu34px.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fresh from Lost.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Think Jam</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>All these additions don’t blend with the main journey story. They seem like awkward and artificial add-ons. Jackson may have been aiming for something “richer” and more “ambitious” than the straightforward source he was adapting, but instead he just produced an incoherent and overblown Lord of the Rings copycat. The old adage “less is more” has hardly been truer than for these films. </p>
<p>Probably as a result of its blown-up nature, the storytelling pace varies, with the films arbitrarily changing from high-speed action-adventure to slow-moving character piece. It is like your taxi driver not only ruins your experience of the new town, but also changes gear every second. </p>
<p>The films oscillate between breath-taking action, human drama, quasi-religious pathos, and stupid comedy, Dumb and Dumber style. Just think of Radagast the Brown covered in bird droppings. Worse still, all this change in tone appears to happen on an involuntary, random basis. Even the greatest, most captivating drama loses its appeal when over-the-top thrills and cheap gags surround it.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78387/original/image-20150417-3245-rfdo8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78387/original/image-20150417-3245-rfdo8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78387/original/image-20150417-3245-rfdo8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78387/original/image-20150417-3245-rfdo8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78387/original/image-20150417-3245-rfdo8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78387/original/image-20150417-3245-rfdo8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78387/original/image-20150417-3245-rfdo8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ridiculous Radagast.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Think Jam</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another way that the films fail to captivate audiences is the excessive CGI and trashy makeup. Jackson spent <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/oct/07/peter-jackson-hobbit-production-costs">US$560m</a> to bring his hobbits, orcs, and dwarfs to life, but when the orcs ride on screen on their horse-like creatures, they move like they have been animated with <a href="http://www.rayharryhausen.com/">Ray Harryhausen</a>’s good old stop-motion special effects.</p>
<p>And dwarves may be comical creatures, but they lose all dramatic power altogether in their 48 frames per second Hobbit renditions. The way they seem to shrink when on screen with humans or wizards only heightens the sense of play-town. Watching the romance that evolves between “honey-I’ve-been-shrunk” Kili and the elven Tauriel made us chuckle, nothing more.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78388/original/image-20150417-3241-vye9lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78388/original/image-20150417-3241-vye9lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78388/original/image-20150417-3241-vye9lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78388/original/image-20150417-3241-vye9lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78388/original/image-20150417-3241-vye9lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78388/original/image-20150417-3241-vye9lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78388/original/image-20150417-3241-vye9lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dwarvish.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Think Jam</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/peter-jackson-finally-leaves-middle-earth-with-last-hobbit-film-35235">Some thought</a> that The Battle of the Five Armies, the final of the three was the most lacking, but we thought it the best. It’s the only one that is able to add at least some value by drastically extending Tolkien’s fable. Yet it is also a case study of why <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/673383">believability and lifelikeness</a> are key for narrative transportation and that Jackson is not aware of that.</p>
<p>What a disaster. Neither <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/the-hobbit-no-more-tolkien-films-after-the-battle-of-the-five-armies-says-peter-jackson-9899935.html">Tolkien’s family</a> nor we can think of another film series that has adapted a well-known and beloved book in a less authentic and truthful way. There is hardly any resemblance left, except for some occasional names that readers might have heard before and that might resonate emotionally, only to certainly be destroyed in the next scene. The Hobbit not only fails as a cinematic achievement; it is also a lousy adaptation.</p>
<p>We can only hope that Peter Jackson’s epic failure might provide a blueprint to future directors as to how not to make a movie.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37143/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Hobbit trilogy can be seen as one of the lowest points of the blockbuster culture.Tom van Laer, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, City, University of LondonThorsten Hennig-Thurau, Professor of Marketing and Media Research, University of MünsterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/387572015-03-12T19:53:14Z2015-03-12T19:53:14ZFarewell Terry Pratchett: a psychological analysis of Discworld<p>Terry Pratchett, the incredibly prolific fantasy author and creator of the bestselling Discworld series, has died aged 66. He was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease eight years ago. </p>
<p>Pratchett set 40 of his novels in his most famous creation, Discworld. This is a place in which magic is the natural rule and the way to deal with life and its problems. Here, the “scientist” is held in either mild disdain or open disbelief. </p>
<p>This magical world took the form of a flat disc spinning through the universe balanced on the backs of four elephants, who are in turn standing on the back of a turtle. So this is not a world composed of beautiful fairies and helpful pixies, oh no. </p>
<p>The Discworld is full of barely competent wizards, who inhabit a university where the most important event is lunch. They tolerate the strange young men who experiment with crazy stuff, like electricity and a clockwork data analyser driven by ants. </p>
<p>Conversely, there are witches living in rural areas, who have power that hold whole villages in their thrall, and who instead of the wizard’s form of magic practice “headology” with a wisdom that puts politicians and psychologists to shame. The rule of three applies to these witches like the traditional ones, but this is not the hubble bubble of the Shakespearean witches. Their trios must comprise a mother, a maiden, and well, the other one.</p>
<p>In 2010 Jacqui Bent and I presented a <a href="https://www.interdisciplinarypress.net/online-store/ebooks/ethos-and-modern-life/magic-and-the-supernatural">conference paper</a> about the Discworld witches. This allowed us to indulge our love of his books and their psychological bizarreness, to share this with conference goers also talking about magic and the supernatural. Wearing witch hats a flutter with feathers and glitter, I like to think we injected a bit of silliness and glamour into a very serious and erudite conference.</p>
<p>The differing experiences of each of the inhabitants that we follow through the books are, by turns, hilarious, poignant or thought provoking, but never, ever boring. What the words reveal is not just something about the fictitious world and its characters, but that the author has a warm and affectionate sense of humour, a great wit and an understanding of humankind rivalling some of the greatest philosophers. It was also clear that he loved and respected women, as well as championing the downtrodden, the disenfranchised and, of course, the downright silly. </p>
<p>I have been reading Terry Pratchett’s work for more than 20 years, immersing myself in the world he created. I feel as if I know each of the people in the books personally. I am a massive fan, of both the Discworld books, and his other works, especially those involving cats, talking or not. I have followed the exploits of the wizards, the witches, the Night-watchmen (and women) the vampires, the trolls, the dwarf miners, the tourist (there is only one tourist in the Discworld) and the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork. </p>
<p>And of course, Death, how could I forget him, and his horse, Binky? It says a lot about Pratchett’s view of things that he created a sympathetic figure out of the most feared, and had him stand in when Santa Claus, sorry, the Hogfather, went missing.</p>
<p>When Pratchett was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, as befitted the man, he approached this new challenge head on, becoming the poster boy for all sufferers. He tried every treatment, campaigning for more research funding, and for the right to die with dignity. </p>
<p>He died at home, surrounded by his family and his cat, and will be sadly missed by lovers of great fiction, comic or otherwise. Death has finally arrived to escort him, personally, as befits the most revered inhabitants of all worlds, on his next adventure. It is most fitting that his death was announced through his Twitter account, Death reporting (in capitals, as he is wont to do in the books):</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"576036599047258112"}"></div></p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"576036726046646272"}"></div></p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"576036888190038016"}"></div></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38757/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen Gavin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It was only appropriate that the news of Terry Pratchett’s death at the age of 66 was announced not only by his publisher, but via his own Twitter account.Helen Gavin, Director of Graduate Education and Principal Lecturer in Psychology, University of HuddersfieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/352352014-12-10T06:23:04Z2014-12-10T06:23:04ZPeter Jackson finally leaves Middle Earth with last Hobbit film<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66762/original/image-20141209-32165-q2gpvw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lord of the Rings 6.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Pokorny/Warner Bros Pictures</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1937 a fairy tale about a reluctant hero with hairy feet was published by a tweedy English academic called JRR Tolkien. The Hobbit was an instant success – and its mighty sequel The Lord of the Rings followed in 1954. From the start, this was a project of scale – Tolkien specialised in ancient languages and had invented a number of new ones while still in his 20s. World-building came naturally to him: he produced maps, illustrations, songs and an entire folk lore as well as an enormous cast of characters. The Middle Earth sagas became his defining life work. </p>
<p>Adapting Tolkien’s oeuvre for the screen seems to have had a similarly all-consuming effect on the producers and director Peter Jackson. The success of the Lord of the Rings films spawned a sequel series after a ten-year gap, and the decade-spanning global endeavour with its starry cast and vast budget has become an epic story in itself. </p>
<p>Everything about the project is super-sized – the Hobbit trilogy cost <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/oct/07/peter-jackson-hobbit-production-costs">more than half a billion dollars</a> to make. This is partly because of Jackson’s decision to shoot in 3D and at <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5969817/the-hobbit-an-unexpected-masterclass-in-why-48-fps-fails">48 frames per second</a> in order to increase the clarity of the images. (Normally films are shot at 24 frames per second.) </p>
<p>So here we have the final 144 minutes of a very long story indeed. This is the third Hobbit movie and the sixth in the franchise as a whole. There will be no others unless the Tolkien family release rights to <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4OfWWfRDAXcC">The Silmarillion</a> and other connected works, which is unlikely. But this is probably cause for celebration rather than regret. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66765/original/image-20141209-14567-phouhk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66765/original/image-20141209-14567-phouhk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66765/original/image-20141209-14567-phouhk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66765/original/image-20141209-14567-phouhk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66765/original/image-20141209-14567-phouhk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66765/original/image-20141209-14567-phouhk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66765/original/image-20141209-14567-phouhk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The elusive hero.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Pokorny/Warner Bros. Pictures</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Why? Because the final Hobbit movie feels both cumbersome and predictable. Whatever the original intentions of the production team, it is still essentially “Lord of the Rings Six”, and that shows. </p>
<p>I’ve used Tolkien’s The Hobbit when teaching fantasy to creative writing students – it is an excellent example of the classic hero’s journey structure, and Bilbo Baggins personifies the classic hero in that genre. Part home-loving Baggins, part thrill-seeking Took, he is in conflict with himself and susceptible therefore to the temptations that the ring presents. He’s not exactly Madame Bovary, but he has as much psychological complexity as the fantasy genre demands. </p>
<p>In the film adaption, Bilbo is still conflicted, but his character is overwhelmed by the scale and time-frame of epic trilogy. And so by the time we get to the The Battle of the Five Armies he is all but submerged in a welter of sub-plots. </p>
<p>The film opens with what looks like – and in fact is – the climax of another film. (That would be The Hobbit – The Desolation of Smaug.) The dragon is laying waste to Lake Town, producing a Dresden-like firestorm until he’s terminated by Bard the Bowman. (Here, one might assume the film is called “The Bowman”.) Meanwhile, Bilbo is holed up with the dwarves in the Lonely Mountain, reduced as he is for much of the film to the status of sensitive bystander. The ring, already in his possession, serves mainly as a slightly queasy invisibility cloak, enabling him to go incognito at crucial moments. There is nothing in this final third of the narrative to compare to his riddling match with vicious, foetal Gollum in the first film, or with the terror of this first meeting with Smaug in the second.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66764/original/image-20141209-32159-tduoyf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66764/original/image-20141209-32159-tduoyf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66764/original/image-20141209-32159-tduoyf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66764/original/image-20141209-32159-tduoyf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66764/original/image-20141209-32159-tduoyf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66764/original/image-20141209-32159-tduoyf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66764/original/image-20141209-32159-tduoyf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bring on ‘The Bowman’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Pokorny/Warner Bros. Pictures</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Visually, the film looks spectacular. But there is little that is new. One scene which stands out has Legolas firing arrows while leaping across falling boulders above a giddying abyss. But even in this stunningly balletic sequence, there is no real sense of jeopardy. Likewise, the massed hordes of orcs and wargs evoke little tension – these are computer-game dramatics. Again, after starting with a climax, structurally the film has nowhere to go. </p>
<p>Given that the story is so confused and diffused, it is a testament to the skill of the actors that they manage to invest the story with some dramatic power. Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage and Luke Evans are particularly impressive. The same cannot be said for the Harry Potter-esque cameos phoned in by Stephen Fry and Billy Connolly.</p>
<p>This is event cinema, hard-wired into popular culture – and the hype, expense and global reach are all part of the package. But the narrative suffers more than is necessary. The original novel, elegant, engaging and clearly structured, was based on myths reaching back into pre-history, which may explain some of its Jungian power. </p>
<p>Reconstituted as a constant thrill-ride, extended over more than eight hours, the dramatic tension is fatally undermined. And the heart of the novel – Bilbo’s inner journey – is marginalised. The glittering fakery of cinematic art brings the panorama of Middle Earth vividly to the screen, but the story itself has reached vanishing point.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35235/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sally O'Reilly does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In 1937 a fairy tale about a reluctant hero with hairy feet was published by a tweedy English academic called JRR Tolkien. The Hobbit was an instant success – and its mighty sequel The Lord of the Rings…Sally O'Reilly, Lecturer in Creative Writing, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/333472014-10-28T05:57:32Z2014-10-28T05:57:32ZEnid Blyton’s The Faraway Tree to hit the screen in latest bid to aim fantasy at grown-ups<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/62886/original/282yp5ck-1414422321.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Let's go faraway ...</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/dadour/7534594508">dadour</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Children’s fantasy has become a lucrative global industry, and duly producers are plumbing all kinds of magical authors. Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree is only the latest children’s classic destined for the silver screen, with a live action film currently in production. </p>
<p>Enid Blyton is one of those children’s authors that everyone recognises, yet many love to hate. She had a prolific writing career, phenomenal selling success, and the popularity of her books shows no signs of waning. But her books have also often been labelled racist, sexist, classist, easy reading for the very young, and mass-produced. </p>
<p>Her zenith was 1955, a year in which she produced an incredible 70 titles. Although I grew up in Greece, even I have memories of reading book after the book of the Famous Five adventures (of which, it was announced earlier this summer, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/25/enid-blyton-famous-five-big-screen-adventure">a film series is also planned</a>). Blyton’s facile plots and language make these books particularly suitable to be read in different languages without much being lost in translation.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/62889/original/cby8y38b-1414423527.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/62889/original/cby8y38b-1414423527.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/62889/original/cby8y38b-1414423527.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/62889/original/cby8y38b-1414423527.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/62889/original/cby8y38b-1414423527.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/62889/original/cby8y38b-1414423527.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/62889/original/cby8y38b-1414423527.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Blyton with two children in 1957.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">PA Archive</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But Blyton was not only successful in writing the adventure tales and school stories for which she is best known. Some of her best-loved books fall neatly into the category of children’s fantasy. </p>
<p>This is a genre that began in earnest during the “golden age” of children’s literature in the Victorian era. Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland paved the way for a series of timeless classics. Generations of readers have grown up engrossed in novels such as The Princess and the Goblin, Peter Pan, The Hobbit and the Narnia books. </p>
<p>Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree series includes four books, written between 1939 and 1951. In the books, Jo, Bessie and Fanny stray away from adult supervision to find exciting adventures in a series of magical lands. These alternative worlds are reached via the enormous Faraway tree, which acts as a portal (like the wardrobe that leads to Narnia). The lands are always different on each visit, and can be fantastically fun or incredibly unpleasant.</p>
<p>All books in the series are episodic and employ a number of stock creatures from folklore and fairy-tales, and revel in humour and onomatopoeia. Many of my students mention them – they bring back fond memories of supernatural creatures, childish mischief and a colourful world of magic now lost.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hrJQDPpIK6I?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The latest Narnia adaptation.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Young adults, old children</h2>
<p>And this may be the reason why the film industry seems to be showing an ever-increasing interest in adapting some of the old classics of children’s fantasy. As attested by the Harry Potter books, contemporary children’s fantasy is not only read by children. This was true to such an extent in the case of Harry Potter that each of Rowling’s books was issued with variant covers, a “children’s” version and an “adult” version. Critics and publishers have been eulogising the success of these books as “crossover” literature, written for children, but enjoyed by children and adults alike. </p>
<p>Most parents will be familiar with that sense of rediscovery when they read their favourite childhood books to their own children. It is on this that the film industry is intent on capitalising. Fantasy in particular is perfect – it evokes the nostalgia of rediscovering memories of childhood reading and the celebration of imagination that has been central in children’s literature since the Victorian era. The film industry can bank not only on the “magic” things special effects can accomplish today to bring a fantasy world to life, but also on the new value now placed on the parent’s own reading of fantasy. </p>
<p>It is no wonder that, alongside adaptations of recent children’s fantasy books (the Harry Potter series, Eragon, The Spiderwick Chronicles), cinemas all over the world have been packed with both adults and children flocking to see The Hobbit trilogy and the Chronicles of Narnia films. It is clearly Enid Blyton’s turn to be rediscovered as a fantasy writer and to be enjoyed again by parents and a new generation of children.</p>
<p>Ursula K Le Guin famously defended fantasy against charges of childishness, saying: “An adult is not a dead child, but a child who survived.” The celebration of imagination and the evocation of our own childhood that these books and films allow are part of this trend of a gradual change of attitude to children’s fantasy, which has only gained real respect and recognition in the 21st century. Many of us are now crossover readers – and reading children’s fantasy makes us proud to be children who survived.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/33347/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dimitra Fimi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Children’s fantasy has become a lucrative global industry, and duly producers are plumbing all kinds of magical authors. Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree is only the latest children’s classic destined…Dimitra Fimi, Lecturer in English, Cardiff Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/272442014-05-29T05:20:39Z2014-05-29T05:20:39ZPublishing Tolkien’s Beowulf translation does him a disservice<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49652/original/wk8mrkxt-1401276822.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tolkien probably would have destroyed the work if he thought it might be published.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/galaxyfm/247842722/">Galaxy fm ®</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fans of J R R Tolkien must wonder why there is any controversy associated with the <a href="http://www.tolkienbeowulf.com/">recent publication</a> of his 1926 translation of Beowulf. For them anything new from Tolkien is welcome. But imagine if Tolkien’s son had found and published prose paraphrases of Shakespeare’s sonnets by his father. Even avid fans might have thought differently about that. </p>
<p>A prose translation has the same devastating effect on the poetic majesty of Beowulf – and no one more than Tolkien recognised this in his day. </p>
<p>After all, it was Tolkien who denigrated his translation, calling it an “abuse” and “hardly to my liking”. He left it behind and forgot about it. How does its unauthorised publication serve Tolkien’s reputation? It was with his own remarks in mind that I said in a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/19/books/jrr-tolkiens-translation-of-beowulf-is-published.html?_r=0">recent interview for the New York Times</a> that “publishing the translation is a disservice to him, to his memory and his achievement as an artist”. His own assessment suggests he would have destroyed it, if he imagined anyone might publish it with selections from his undergraduate lecture notes.</p>
<p>In the interview I explained that any diligent teacher (or advanced student) of Beowulf in the original Old English ends up with at least a clumsy translation after a semester of labour. My explanation was unfortunately construed to mean that most scholars “try their hand at Beowulf translations to better understand the poem”. No one teaching or studying Beowulf in Old English for the first time can get beyond even the opening lines without consulting an Old English dictionary, addressing its foreign grammar, and deriving a translation:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Hwæt we Gar-Dena in geardagum<br>
þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon<br>
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon </p>
</blockquote>
<p>With study one learns the special letterforms, the different grammar, the multitude of words and compounds lost to modern English, and begins to recognise the relatively few words and word-elements that survive in modern English. But no prose or poetic translation can put even these three lines into modern English word order. Old English, like Latin, is an inflected language in which distinctive forms and endings, rather than natural word order, convey meaning. </p>
<p>The lofty metre of Beowulf is lost even in admirable poetic versions like <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mlg7VKOvsZAC&">Seamus Heaney’s</a>, which is recognised as a new poem, often called Heaneywulf. Prose translations such as Tolkien’s claim to be more “faithful”, but this fidelity refers to the literal translation of poetry, which captures only the facts of the story in unavoidably stodgy prose, struggling to sort out the word order while losing the grandeur of verse. </p>
<p>Old English poetry, based on half-line formulas with two stresses linked by alliteration, is quite foreign to modern listeners. In the opening line of Beowulf above, there is double linking alliteration on the stressed syllables, Gar-De- in the first half-line and gear-da- in the second half-line. </p>
<p>In line 2 the stress and linking alliteration fall on the first syllables of the first words in the two half-lines. Then in line 3 the stress and alliteration are vocalic across the half-lines, a favourite variation in the Old English alliterative style. </p>
<p>A consummate craftsman with a special ear for contemporary idiom, Heaney does not attempt to simulate this kind of poetry, so no one gets to hear the rhythms of Old English verse in his poetic version. But fidelity to any of the powerful sounds of poetry is not even an issue in a prose translation.</p>
<p>Tolkien enthusiasts have always provided a core of students eager to study Beowulf in the original Old English because of the high regard Tolkien held for it and the role he played in getting readers of his generation to see it as a work of poetic genius in his 1936 paper “Beowulf, the Monsters and the Critics”. But now these fans will be reading his prose translation, which Tolkien himself belittled. </p>
<p>London’s Evening Standard ends <a href="http://www.standard.co.uk/news/londoners-diary/hwt-a-new-academic-spat-over-tolkien-9409559.html">its breezy piece</a> on the translation by quoting the famous line in Annie Hall: “Just don’t take any class where you have to read Beowulf.” Neither Woody Allen, who took college courses in communications and film, nor Alvy Silver, his neurotic comedian in Annie Hall, ever “read”, much less translated, Beowulf in Old English. The joke is a well-understood allusion to the ubiquitous Survey of English Literature from Beowulf to Virginia Woolf. These surveys have introduced generations of undergraduate students to the first great long poem in English through a literal, artless, tedious, prose translation, so cumbersome that some traumatised students leave this introductory course believing that they have read Beowulf in the original. </p>
<p>The brilliant poetic version by Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney is for now, in my opinion, the best way to introduce new students to Beowulf in translation, because it tells the story and is poetry of a high order. </p>
<p>Tolkien’s own creative legacy is secure. It will be a travesty if his Beowulf legacy turns out to be a translation he was the first to disparage.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27244/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin Kiernan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Fans of J R R Tolkien must wonder why there is any controversy associated with the recent publication of his 1926 translation of Beowulf. For them anything new from Tolkien is welcome. But imagine if Tolkien’s…Kevin Kiernan, Emeritus Professor of English, University of KentuckyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/252952014-04-07T05:16:35Z2014-04-07T05:16:35ZReview: Game of Thrones season four opener<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/45659/original/fpphzs9f-1396625095.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Striding back on to our screens. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sky Atlantic</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for Game of Thrones season four, episode one.</em></p>
<p>When we first met Charles Dance’s Tywin Lannister back in season one he was gutting a stag – a none-too-subtle foretaste of his intentions for the divided House Baratheon. Three years later, and Game of Thrones’ fourth season opens with a pre-credits sequence in which Tywin not only melts down and re-forges the sword that once belonged to the terminally honourable Ned Stark, but tops off the procedure by lobbing a dead wolf into the pool of molten metal while the Lannister song The Rains of Castamere hums menacingly in the background. </p>
<p>Given Tywin’s predilection for symbolic animal murder, we can only hope the Lannisters never make an enemy of anyone whose sigil is a basket of kittens. It’s a potent, bombastic opening and the episode that follows lives up to it. The episode is series writer D B Weiss’ directorial debut, and the best season opener that the series has had so far.</p>
<p>After the mass Starkocide of the Red Wedding, the final episode of season three was a space for both characters and viewers to adjust to what was effectively victory for the Lannisters and their allies. It was comparatively calm and wide-ranging, and felt more like a traditional start to a season than the end of one. With this scene-setting already done, and with the Stark-Lannister conflict resolved, Two Swords feels like a consolidated and energised opener to an Act Two of a larger, ongoing saga.</p>
<p>Throughout, this is an episode underpinned by the idea of family. Jamie and Cersei struggle to adjust to their new situation in King’s Landing, with Jamie divided between loyalty to the Lannister name, and loyalty to his incestuous family with Cersei. John Snow has re-joined his “brothers” in the Night’s Watch, but interrogation by its commanders reveals just how much he had been changed by his time with the wildlings. Daenerys’s followers call her “mother”, but can she be both a mother to her people and The Mother of Dragons?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/45660/original/wrd4j4wg-1396625122.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/45660/original/wrd4j4wg-1396625122.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45660/original/wrd4j4wg-1396625122.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45660/original/wrd4j4wg-1396625122.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45660/original/wrd4j4wg-1396625122.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45660/original/wrd4j4wg-1396625122.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45660/original/wrd4j4wg-1396625122.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tywin Lannister’s dark presence has a more central role in this season.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sky Atlantic</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Two new characters, Oberyn Martell and his lover Ellaria Sand (played by Pedro Pascal and Indira Varma respectively), gesture strongly towards even older family conflicts. Nominally present in King’s Landing for Joffrey’s wedding, Oberyn reveals his sister was married to Rhegar Targaryen, and both she and her children were murdered by Tywin Lannister at the end of the previous war in Westeros. It’s a subtle echo of the Red Wedding, and a reminder of another family butchered by Tywin. A dark presence on the periphery for three seasons, it now feels like Tywin Lannister is being moved closer to the centre of the story, as we are reminded just how much grief and death he has been responsible for.</p>
<p>But it’s the Stark girls, Arya and Sansa, who get what might be two of the best moments from the episode. Sansa’s is more subtle, but possibly indicates a bigger change for the character. She is briefly reunited with Ser Dontos, a drunk she once saved from Joffrey’s wrath. Until now, Sansa has been mostly defined by passivity, afraid to do anything but submit and stay alive in the hope that her family would rescue her. The presence of Ser Dontos, though, reminds both her and us of the one time she took action and saved a man’s life. It seems to promise that Sansa might find the confidence to act again, and to rescue herself. But then again, this is King’s Landing, where everybody lies …</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/45661/original/jzm5jng4-1396625173.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/45661/original/jzm5jng4-1396625173.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45661/original/jzm5jng4-1396625173.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45661/original/jzm5jng4-1396625173.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45661/original/jzm5jng4-1396625173.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45661/original/jzm5jng4-1396625173.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45661/original/jzm5jng4-1396625173.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Is it Sansa’s time to shine?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sky Atlantic</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The episode ends with Arya recovering her long-lost sword “Needle”. If Ned’s re-forged sword was the first, then Needle is the second sword of the episode’s title. There’s a nice dissonance between the shot that closes the episode – Arya on a white horse, carrying a sword with a name – and the dead men it took to get her there. As a character, Arya has always seemed at her best when the writers pair her with brutal, ruthless men like Tywin, Jaqen h’ghar, or the Hound. And in that final image, it is not clear if she is a hero riding to avenge her family, or another murderer in the making.</p>
<p>Before the episode aired, George R R Martin <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/mar/20/game-of-thrones-multiple-movies-george-rr-martin-franchise">revealed the possibility of concluding the series with a feature film</a>. If it wasn’t a tempting prospect before, it is after seeing the quality of the writing in this episode. The ambiguity, complex characters and expansive canvas that Game of Thrones is renowned for could potentially translate into epic cinema free from convenient heroic clichés and moral simplicity. The one reservation is the sheer scale of the story on offer. Ambitious and thrilling on television, Game of Thrones’ greatest strength might be that it’s too big for cinema.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25295/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Douglas Small does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for Game of Thrones season four, episode one. When we first met Charles Dance’s Tywin Lannister back in season one he was gutting a stag – a none-too-subtle…Douglas Small, Early Career Researcher, University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/223072014-03-02T19:30:33Z2014-03-02T19:30:33ZChildren’s fantasy literature: why escaping reality is good for kids<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42334/original/kn7fbp72-1393217505.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fantasy comments on social reality through indirections.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Beacon Radio</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fantasy is a genre of literature that tends to polarise people. The oft-repeated logic is that “serious” readers prefer realism while fantasy caters primarily to children or those who view reading as a form of escapism. The assumption is that fantasy is of lesser value than realist writing – which is why it is commonly associated with children and the imagination. </p>
<p>Last year, the top most-read children’s books – at least in the UK – was <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/16/fantasy-novels-dominate-children-reading">almost entirely comprised</a> of fantasy novels. </p>
<p>But why is this the case? What exactly does fantasy offer to young readers?</p>
<p>This pitting of fantasy and realist writing against each other corresponded with the development of separate literatures for children and adults in the 18th and 19th centuries: the serious realist novel was for adult male readers, whereas fantasy and romance were relegated to the readership of women and children. </p>
<p>(It’s interesting how this gendered perception of fantasy has gradually changed over time, because fantasy is more often than not associated with young men today – although their youth is evidently the important factor.) </p>
<p>What’s important to point out here is that fantasy writing has come to be perceived as belonging to popular culture, and is therefore generally regarded as being of inferior quality to realism. </p>
<p>This idea was ingrained in me during childhood by my bibliophile mother, who was convinced that fantasy was “rubbish”. (She was always trying to persuade my two brothers to let go of their dog-eared copies of American author <a href="http://www.fantasybookreview.co.uk/David-Eddings/biography.html">David Eddings</a>’ books and read something “proper”.) </p>
<p>I encountered a similar hostility to fantasy while living in Finland, where I joined a book club of expatriate English-speakers and was cautioned at my first meeting that the club didn’t read “genre” books – which essentially meant that realism was “in”, but everything else – including fantasy - was “out”. </p>
<p>The peculiar thing about this marginalisation of fantasy is that all writing is “fantasy” to some extent. Even realism is a constructed and imagined representation of reality, not reality <em>per se</em>. Fantasy just happens to be a more exaggerated departure from reality. </p>
<p>When it comes to the subject of children, discussions about which books are inherently “better” for them often pivot on the fantasy versus realism debate, causing <a href="http://www.mq.edu.au/about_us/faculties_and_departments/faculty_of_arts/department_of_english/staff/professor_john_stephens/">Professor John Stephens</a> to [write that](http://books.google.com.au/books?id=dKCJAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA78&lpg=PA78&dq=one+of+the+more+curious+sides+to+the+criticism+of+children%E2%80%99s+literature+is+the+urge+to+polarize+fantasy+and+realism+into+rival+genres,+and+to+assert+that+children+prefer+one+or+the+other,+or+%E2%80%98progress%E2%80%99+from+fantasy+to+realism+(or+vice+versa&source=bl&ots=BvCHCOvT92&sig=ezLTnpQkPkdlOa_LbVsNfIwtdvA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=xswKU5j-LMiulQWK-oCICg&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=one%20of%20the%20more%20curious%20sides%20to%20the%20criticism%20of%20children%E2%80%99s%20literature%20is%20the%20urge%20to%20polarize%20fantasy%20and%20realism%20into%20rival%20genres%2C%20and%20to%20assert%20that%20children%20prefer%20one%20or%20the%20other%2C%20or%20%E2%80%98progress%E2%80%99%20from%20fantasy%20to%20realism%20(or%20vice%20versa&f=false): </p>
<blockquote>
<p>one of the more curious sides to the criticism of children’s literature is the urge to polarise fantasy and realism into rival genres, and to assert that children prefer one or the other, or ‘progress’ from fantasy to realism (or vice versa) </p>
</blockquote>
<p>A quick survey of the big children’s publishing trends over the first decade of the new millennium confirms that fantasy is as popular as ever in the children’s book scene. From the 450 million copies of Harry Potter books sold over this period, to the more recent “young adult” phenomenon of Stephenie Meyer’s <a href="http://stepheniemeyer.com/twilightseries.html">Twilight series</a>, it would seem that children are as keen on fantasy as ever before – and rather than “progressing” out of fantasy, the domination of dystopian fantasy within the young adult market (with Suzanne Collins’ <a href="http://www.thehungergames.co.uk/">Hunger Games trilogy</a> leading the charge) would suggest just the opposite. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42336/original/nm7f9tx5-1393218012.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42336/original/nm7f9tx5-1393218012.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42336/original/nm7f9tx5-1393218012.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42336/original/nm7f9tx5-1393218012.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42336/original/nm7f9tx5-1393218012.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42336/original/nm7f9tx5-1393218012.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1011&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42336/original/nm7f9tx5-1393218012.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1011&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42336/original/nm7f9tx5-1393218012.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1011&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Makena G.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the most obvious benefits of fantasy is that it allows readers to experiment with different ways of seeing the world. It takes a hypothetical situation and invites readers to make connections between this fictive scenario and their own social reality. </p>
<p>Fantasy writing, says Stephens, operates through metaphor – so that the unfamiliar is used to stand in for, or comment upon, the familiar. Metaphors are obviously less precise than other forms of language (they are subject to more complex interpretive processes) and this is perhaps a significant advantage of fantasy over realism. </p>
<p>Fantasy’s use of metaphor makes it more “open” to different readings and meanings. This allows fantasy to explore quite complex social issues in ways that are less confrontational than realism because it takes place in a world that is distanced from social reality (and can also be mediated with humour). </p>
<p>Take <a href="http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/contributor/m-t-anderson">M.T. Anderson</a>’s 2002 futuristic fantasy novel <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/169756.Feed">Feed</a> as an example. Set in a future win which everyone has an internet feed hardwired into their brain, which constantly bombards their consciousness with advertising, the novel is a sharp satire of both consumer and digital culture. </p>
<p>A key theme is the loss of language that occurs as a result of the speed and ease of digital communication – represented most amusingly through the collapsing of distinctions between adult and adolescent speech. In the opening of the novel the teenage Titus and his friends end up in hospital after their feeds are hacked, prompting this inarticulate reaction from his father: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“This is … Dude”, he said. “Dude, this is some way bad shit” (2003: 67). </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42035/original/xqvw9bfc-1392865459.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42035/original/xqvw9bfc-1392865459.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42035/original/xqvw9bfc-1392865459.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42035/original/xqvw9bfc-1392865459.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42035/original/xqvw9bfc-1392865459.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42035/original/xqvw9bfc-1392865459.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42035/original/xqvw9bfc-1392865459.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/39992553@N00/2501193106/in/photolist-4P2gz5-5eLzFG-4Q6nmW-4Q6nrW-4Q6npE-5rMpgP-4Qab7b-4QdRia-4XbwkJ-6F7xeX-6F6FER-4TNMvY-4Q63WH-4UaY5K-6e4DdB-5iZRfs-7hmSG4-7hmJ56-7hqQ23-7hqJTE-7hqHif-7hqL7J-7hqGES-7hqJrw-7hmKgt-7hqFoL-7hqMS3-7hqQSY-7hqTnm-4NX1DM-4P2gG3-4P2gPq-4P2gws-4P2gR3-4P2ghb-4P2gtS-4NX1Fx-4P2gp1-73kVbd-7hn51z-7hn2n2-4P2gHU-4P2grS-4QfiyD-4QdGEH-kbhvoD-kbjbAL-kbh5bX-kbgT3K-kbhugD-kbgXfH">Crashworks </a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://craphound.com/bio.php">Cory Doctorow</a>, who specialises in science fiction, takes an even more direct approach to the idea that fantasy allows readers to play with hypothetical situations. His first young adult novel, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/954674.Little_Brother">Little Brother (2008)</a>, provocatively draws on the multiple cases reported in the international media which involved individuals who were imprisoned at places such as the Guantanamo Bay detention camp following the terrorist attacks of 2001. </p>
<p>Little Brother uses this historical background, but imaginatively subverts the facts by placing an innocent child, who is also a legitimate US citizen, in the same situation as the “non-citizens” who were detained at Guantanamo Bay. By telling the story from the perspective of this child, Doctorow clearly exposes the brutality and injustice of such imprisonment practices, and makes a compelling case for the argument that once such powers have been exercised in relation to non-citizens, it may not be long before they are also exercised upon actual citizens. </p>
<p>Little Brother is thus highly political – an effective example of how fantasy writing can directly comment upon real-life scenarios. What is also appealing about Doctorow’s writing is that it reads very much as realism: the “fantasy” elements of the novel are technological, although the imagined high-tech surveillance techniques described are only a slight exaggeration of what current technology allows.</p>
<p>Both Anderson and Doctorow work within the genre of futuristic sci-fi, which happens to be immensely popular with teenagers at the moment – perhaps because it offers readers a way to make sense of our times. But fantasy is an extremely broad literary category that encompasses a wide variety of subgenres. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42037/original/g65m4bxn-1392865931.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42037/original/g65m4bxn-1392865931.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42037/original/g65m4bxn-1392865931.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42037/original/g65m4bxn-1392865931.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42037/original/g65m4bxn-1392865931.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1159&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42037/original/g65m4bxn-1392865931.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1159&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42037/original/g65m4bxn-1392865931.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1159&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/78042051@N00/3199685944/in/photolist-5SKea3-9k8uUj-5scnKt-6RxcNz-6G3JZe-6G3JvF-5y8BWZ-5ycZfU-5rFLZC-5rFM5m-5ycYuA-6r9z5A-5Xq4af-5fSSJY-576Wvv-6Jg5eH-6Jg37K-6Jk9D1-bLWnmB-4EGBPi-91DcEg-L4H2v-6r4JYP-NZqCN-5pHNmL-7zDKpL-aF7vW-7zDBkG-7zDEiS-7zzRzr-7zzW3H-6zbKF3-6bVSGr-5xXim5-bAgzpe-6AwoQC-5pBN7A-5KaCic-oaqSN-wE7bS-9RLAU-9Yt4jV-9pNoq5-iRezNE-359C1W-3bNs4g-8RrQAh-38GcnQ-ciKgrG-6ZBkY-6oZkAk">svennevenn/Flickr. </a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the finest writers of children’s fantasy in the world today bucks the current trend for futuristic narratives by looking to the past for inspiration. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/About_Neil">Neil Gaiman</a> – who is married to musician <a href="http://www.ted.com/speakers/amanda_palmer.html">Amanda Palmer</a> and friends with Tori Amos (which may just make him the coolest children’s author on the planet) – has produced a number of Victorian-influenced fantasy novels for children, including <a href="http://www.neilgaiman.com/works/Books/The+Graveyard+Book/">The Graveyard Book</a> (2008). </p>
<p>This wonderful novel tells the story of Bod, whose parents are murdered when he is a small baby, leaving him to be raised by ghosts in a nearby graveyard. Gaiman borrows heavily from Rudyard Kipling’s <a href="http://www.penguinreaders.com/pdf/downloads/pr/teachers-notes/9781405878470.pdf">The Jungle Book</a> (in terms of structure and story motifs) but modernises the tale for contemporary readers – so that notions of good and evil are necessarily more complex, and Bod’s final transition from childhood to adulthood is much more joyous than Mowgli’s: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>But between now and then, there was Life; and Bod walked into it with his eyes and his heart wide open.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Fantasy is a genre that has much to offer young readers. One of the most compelling reasons for giving children fantasy is that it comments on social reality through indirections (metaphor, allegory, parable) and can therefore deal with complex moral questions in a more playful and exaggerated manner. Fantasy also prompts young readers to play at seeing the world in different ways and accordingly teaches them to construct meaning by making connections between seemingly unrelated concepts or things. </p>
<p>The other bonus is that, unlike green vegetables, children can often be persuaded to read fantasy without the adults in their lives resorting to bribery. </p>
<p>Kids have already worked out these books are magic in their own right.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/22307/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Victoria Flanagan received funding from the Australian Research Council in 2011/2012.</span></em></p>Fantasy is a genre of literature that tends to polarise people. The oft-repeated logic is that “serious” readers prefer realism while fantasy caters primarily to children or those who view reading as a…Victoria Flanagan, Senior Lecturer in English, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.