I'd say that was the worst thing to happen this weekend, but then I glanced at the news, and how do things keep getting worse? I thought we might at least get a reprieve over the holiday weekend, Congress would all go on vacation and not pass any terrible bills in the interim, but I guess not.
Clorinda looked very fondly across the breakfast-table at Leda and said, la, here she had been training up quite the contriver that she dared say would one day step into her own shoes!
Fie, 'tis a day will never come – was entire 'prentice work – but one could see the poor lady felt somewhat cast out into the chilly winds like unto a shorn lamb, even was she left this very comfortable competence. Did not say in so many words but we could apprehend that the ladies in her locality are inclined to be cattish – Mrs Mitchell goes confirm that from matters her maid let drop – And – Leda leant over to help herself to a mutton-chop in the style of General Yeoman’s cook – I could see Maude Coggin’s fingers quite itching to furbish her up a little – would look very well for good dressing – and sighing that was constrained by the restrictions of mourning.
Clorinda grinned as she buttered a pikelet and then considered upon the choice between various of Roberts and Wilson’s superior preserves. But a very sensible woman – did not sit about wringing her hands or hearkening to the gentlemen in the town that I am sure would have been entire delighted to be leant on, but came seek advizers that did not have a dog in the fight.
Tut, Lady Bexbury, that is an exceeding vulgar metaphor!
Dear Matt – Quennells are quite the pillar of probity – and young Mr Q assures me that the late Mr Brackley’s stockbrokers have the most excellent reputation, that Sebastian confirms. Has Mr Abrahams had any insights into the prospectuses yet?
Has been very scathing concerning the ones he has so far looked into! Are the fellows investing their own tin they are like to come to a very sorry state.
They smiled at one another. Sure, thought Leda, it was very agreeable to work thus. How far she had come from hardened Bet Bloggs of Seven Dials. O, Bet had been loyal to her friends, but had not had these, these wider sympathies that Leda had come to from knowing and loving Clorinda. Had learnt that one might be soft and gentle without being weak.
But while it was indeed agreeable to help so amiable a lady as Miss Kirkstall, there were still rogues in the world a deal worse than the fellows offering her business propositions and one dared say in due course their hand and heart. She sighed. Clorinda raised her eyebrows.
O, I was just a-thinking of this nasty business I am looking into, over finding out shameful secrets and then extorting over 'em.
Very nasty, agreed Clorinda. And on the subject of shameful secrets &C, one observes that Blatchett and his parasite Mortimer Chellow have been absent from Society this considerable while. Belinda tells me they have been much seen about racecourses, where doubtless the company is less fastidious.
They both groaned, for though the immediate threat of any damage to Bella Beaufoyle’s reputation had been scotched, there was still the feeling that there was a powder-keg might yet come about to explode, and moreover that there might be other, mayhap even worse, scandals pertaining to Blatchett could come to light.
And that beastly creature Linsleigh is still prowling about the vicinity of Naples, one must wonder what he is about, or mayhap these days is entire the dilettante –
Leda rested her chin in her hands and looked at Clorinda. Did not that beastly creature offer to reveal some scandal about you, before was obliged to flee the realm?
Clorina coloured a little. O, poo-poo, has Sandy been a-gossiping? A matter of some paintings from my youth, of a somewhat improper nature, that are now stored very secret at Nitherholme by dear Sallington –
I should like to see those!
Naughty creature!
But, Leda went on, for would not be distracted, is there aught that might bring you into trouble in this way?
Clorinda did not dismiss this concern lightly. She put on a sober face, looked thoughtful, and glanced over at her desk, where Leda knew that, in a well-concealed secret drawer, were miniatures of her daughter Flora as a child, and certain letters that she could not bring herself to destroy.
I think, she said at length, all is secure – you have give me quite excellent advice, my love! – and sure, I never went about to conceal what I had been, and 'tis so long ago that 'tis almost a romantic tale. There is a little fear for Flora and Hannah’s secrets – but indeed, the one I am in most worry for is Josh. O, I fancy he is exemplary discreet over his liaison with Julia Humpleforth, minds on her reputation, but these matters of saving badgers and foxes – for feelings about the right to hunt &C run very high – did it come about revealed concerning his interference in hunts -
Leda reached across the table to clasp Clorinda’s hand. La, I have seen that Josh can tame Nat Barron, that now believes 'twas entire his own prudent notion to eschew badger-baiting at Abbetts’ ring. And is ever cautious, has learnt somewhat from his Aunty Clorinda, I fathom, from seeing him in court that time presenting as one with his head entire in the air –
Clorinda smirked a little. Josh, that has quite the keenest eye!
Indeed, one saw that Josh Ferraby might appear a dreamer, but that was because his attention was very acutely upon some matter that others did not note.
But, my love, you go be a little evasive –
Leda wrinkled her nose. I am to go call upon this fellow Vohle, in my guise as Larry Hooper, desiring him to make a daguerreotype that I may send to my aged aunt, to provide an excuse for looking about his premises, and I am a little concerned that he may penetrate my disguise. You have remarked as to how artists of your acquaintance will note resemblances &C –
Even does he find you out a woman, he will, I fancy, suppose that you are one that chooses to go thus for your own reasons – will not know who you are.
Somewhat reassured, Leda rose and went to kiss her beloved, afore setting off to Covent Garden, and Marie Allard’s house, where she was wont to metamorphose into Larry.
There she found the most unusual sight of Marie sitting quite at her ease, looking positive doating at the child Binnie teaching the dog Pompey some trick or other.
Followed Leda up to where she was wont to transmogrify, to convey that she had excellent good news – not merely that here was Binnie’s Ma, continued to show Dorcas’ pious convert, and had obtained work scrubbing, one might have a little confidence this would last – but that she had been in some dilemma about obtaining schooling for Binnie.
And would you believe it? There is one lately comes take refuge with Molly Binns at Dolly Mutton’s, that was a governess afore her wretch of an employer ruined her, and is quite delighted to take up her old occupation.
Why, that falls out exceptional! Leda contemplated Larry in the pier-glass and fancied he would do. Enquired did Marie ever have daguerrotypes made –
Marie snorted and said, she was not obliged to go tout for trade! These days 'twas all personal recommendation.
What, do these fellows confide over their brandy, do you seek a lady that has a fine fierce hand with the lash, can do no better than Whipping Marie –
More like, they go mutter to Dumaine or other knowing fellows, do you know of any lady that will do such-and-such –
Sure there must be tales that Dumaine could tell!
But Dumaine, they both nodded and agreed, well knew the worth of discretion.
So Larry went about his business to Vohle’s studio, that did not seem to be doing anything in the way of bustling trade at this hour, and found the fellow there busy at making up stereoscopic slides, that he slid into a drawer when he observed that he had a customer.
Larry’s tale was, that the aged aunt in the country that had brought him up, was in a great anxiety to see that he was well, but he could by no means quit Town and travel to visit her, 'twas quite out of the question. So had the thought that sending her his picture, taken quite from the life, would surely reassure her that he was in health.
Vohle, a short darkish foreign-looking fellow that nonetheless had a marked Cockney note in his speech, looked Larry up and down and remarked that indeed he was a fit young chap.
So he discoursed on about the procedure and had Larry stand thus and so with the light falling in such a way, and must not move, and went fiddling-faddling about with the machinery of the thing, did not seem in particular to make very close examination of Larry himself: while acute observation took in the place and where there might be secret hiding nooks.
Then there was waiting about for the thing to be fixed and mounted – Larry wandered about, picked up a stereoscope, and blushed at what it showed. So the production of saucy pictures was, it seemed, proved upon Vohle?
Vohle, while his hands were busy about the task, and without looking at Larry, said did Mr Hooper ever have an interest in earning a little extra at any time, he saw he was a fellow of very pleasing figure – should strip well –
Saw he had seen somewhat of the other business that was about here – and the matter of it was, there was often commissions came – and at present had one upon hand – a gentleman had a fancy to a series of tableaux of a lady of ripe charms and experience that goes about to initiate a promising young fellow into amorous delights –
Say you so!
One could perchance imagine somewhat of the like, had one examined certain of the volumes upon Clorinda’s shelves! But did not suppose Vohle had any apprehension of what would be revealed – sure there were those had quite the taste, one heard, for the presentation of Sapphic amorous delights, but doubted that was required here.
So Larry looked rather shocked, and said, would have to think on’t – extra tin was ever useful –
But would be returning here discreet when Vohle was absent, to have a good poke about!
A whole world of games not playable on Mac has opened up to me, and it's Steam summer sale time!
Please rec me your favourite games, bearing in mind that I have very limited reflexes/co-ordination.
(I'm not completely ruling out games involving them, but the threshold for entry has to be very very low. I am currently enjoying Refunct because it allows me to try some simple platforming in a very chill and pleasant environment with no time pressure and no penalties for taking several hundred tries to get a jump.)
I spent quite a few years hanging out at Mike Glyer’s File 770 (a news ‘zine) with the community at during and after the years when the Sad and Rapid Puppies were trying to drive the “woke” out of the SFF Hugo Awards (read: too many people who were NOT straight white Christian men were winning the awards) back in the day. It was the usual story: I started reading, got involved, started replying to the posts and to other fans hanging out there, and next thing I know, started sending a few things to Mike to post if he wished.1
I was reminded of this piece about my readings/changing responses to Sheri S. Tepper’s work today when I was editing my “presentations and publications” from my CV. I took a look at it and went, holy shit, here’s this piece I wrote about eight years ago about my different perspectives on a feminist writer’s work as my knowledge of different feminist theory changed/increased over time, and, well, somehow this struck me as fitting in with the Webs Book which is about feminist receptions (including but not limited to my own) of Tolkien’s work. So, I thought I’d bring it over here to avoid forgetting about it again!
The piece got some lovely feedback from others sharing their ideas about Tepper’s work which you can read at the link to File 770 above. And I can highly recommend Mike’s ‘zine as an incredible resource for news about all aspects of sff fandom (not to mention a incredibly maintained tagging/curating system that makes it easy to find stuff again!).
The connection(s) I saw involved reader response as a mode of criticism especially involving feminisms. About six of the Webs by Women posts have been about feminist topics of various sorts, but mostly looking at various definitions in different contexts, academic and otherwise. I’m still thinking about how to integrate my journey through different feminisms and their impact on me. I found Tepper’s work during a period after I’d left academia (due to sexism and misogyny) and was reading only women writers (in my late 20s), thus in what I now call my “angry young feminist” phase, a period during which I’d stopped re-reading Tolkien’s fiction (because I didn’t want to get mad at a story that was so important to me for so long; as I discuss elsewhere in this Substack, I got over it!). In terms of Tepper (born in 1929, working at Planned Parenthood, and her eco-feminism), I see commonalities between us in terms of Second Wave feminism.
Now, when I talk about feminist approaches, especially in the context of Tolkien studies, I am now interested in intersectional feminisms. One of the best intersectional feminist Substacks is one titled, feminism for all by 𝙅𝙤 ⚢📖🏳️🌈. Since I plan to write the Webs book for a popular/general audience (and writing pieces for File 770 gave me a chance to practice some different rhetorical choices), I am trying to find sources to cite that one, are not as academically weighted down as sometimes happens with peer-reviewed publications, and two, are accessible online which often does NOT happen with peer-reviewed publications.
In a stack titled “bell hooks & beyoncé: who gets to call themselves a feminist?” 𝙅𝙤 ⚢📖🏳️🌈 summarizes bell hooks’s definition of feminism; hooks’s 1984 book, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center was the first work I read in my doctoral program that criticized the extent to which the major Second Wave feminist writers (white, middle-class, mostly heteronormative) had theorized sexism/misogyny as the “original sin” that was the basis for all other oppressions. In contrast hooks, as 𝙅𝙤 ⚢📖🏳️🌈 argues, points out that “these [feminists] were not global south/majority nor women of color asking to center sexism above other oppression. We do not have that luxury, that privilege is not ours.”2
One key point is the difference between “feminism” as an identity (resulting in a binary), and “feminism” as advocacy, movement, action (and especially the usefulness of plural nouns, i.e. feminisms, to avoid privileging one type of feminism which is usually default/white/middle/class version).
If you’ve not heard of Sheri S. Tepper (something which happens to me quite often the older I get—that the sff writers I adored in my youth have fallen out of print, or are not much noticed in the growing number of sff books!), here is an essay, “In Memoriam: Sheri S. Tepper” (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writer’s Association), about her life.
I wrote the following essay as a tribute to her work.
NOTE: Spoilers for a number of Tepper’s novels occur throughout the essay.
CONTENT WARNING: For references to rape and abuse of young women as an element of Tepper’s novels.
The Fan
I found my first Tepper novel in the early 1980s. I remember standing in the University of Washington bookstore reading the opening pages of King’s Blood Four, the first of what would become the nine-novel triple trilogy The True Game. Had Tepper’s work continued in that vein, interesting world-building with a male protagonist, I am not sure I would have become such a fervent fan.
However, even this early novel had threads of the feminist themes Tepper would develop in more detail in her later work. Peter starts out as a typical fantasy orphan hero. He is a young man, a foundling, raised in an all-male environment, who almost immediately embarks on a quest. The setting is the world of the True Game where characters have fantastic powers echoing medievalist fantasy conventions. But the initiating event is an attack on King Mertyn in which Peter is used and injured by his male lover, and the outcome of Peter’s journey is learning about the Immutables (those outside the Game who lack any of the powers valued in the Game) and meeting his mother (not his father!). Those differences were different enough to keep me reading the trilogy and keeping an eye out for her other work.3 I was lucky that she published so many novels so quickly: her entry in Wikipedia lists ten novels published in 1983-1985.
The later trilogies in the True Game series, Mavin’s and Jinian’s, turn away from the male bildungsroman to twist fantasy conventions on multiple levels. Suddenly, as with Anne McCaffrey’s Pern series, I found myself in a science fiction narrative of sorts, a lost colony settled by humans with all knowledge of their origins and history being buried and more fantastic elements replacing them.
But even before I read the later trilogies in the True Game series, I found the Marianne Trilogy.4
caption...
Reading the first in this series put Tepper’s name immediately on my “buy as soon as they appear” list of authors, and that response never changed although some of her later works appeal to me much less than the earlier ones. I tend to be completist when I love an author’s works even if I do not love all of them.5
The opening paragraph of Marianne, The Magus, and the Manticore remains one of my favorites:
During the night, Marianne was awakened by a steady drumming of rain, a muffled tattoo as from a thousand drumsticks on the flat porch roof, a splash and gurgle from the rainspout at the corner of the house outside Mrs. Winesap’s window, babbling its music in vain to ears which did not hear. “I hear,” whispered Marianne, speaking to the night, the rain, the corner of the living room she could see from her bed. When she lay just so, the blanket drawn across her lips, the pillow crunched into an exact shape, she could see the amber glow of a lamp in the living room left on to light one corner of the reupholstered couch, the sheen of the carefully carpentered shelves above it, the responsive glow of the refinished table below, all in a kindly shine and haze of belonging there. “Mine,” said Marianne to the room. The lamplight fell on the first corner of the apartment to be fully finished, and she left the light on so that she could see it if she woke, a reminder of what was possible, a promise that all the rooms would be reclaimed from dust and dilapidation. Soon the kitchen would be finished. Two more weeks at the extra work she was doing for the library and she’d have enough money for the bright Mexican tiles she had set her heart upon. (1).
This scene is vital, so present in its appeal to the senses (the sounds of the rain—a sound I often lie awake listening to—the light reflecting off bookshelves, a “refinished table,”), that I become immersed in the world immediately. Marianne’s achievements differ greatly from those of most fantasy novels: she is remodeling an old house and refinishing furniture primarily through her own labor in order to reclaim the color and feel of her childhood home, lost with her parents’ death. [ETA: Over the course of the trilogy, she gains her own powers which can be categorized as more religious (but not Christian) in nature.] The fantasy worlds in this trilogy seem unique (even in the context of Tepper’s work), and I fell in love.
I loved and still love Marianne and her momegs, Marjorie and her horses (Arbai series), Mavin’s refusal to compromise (Mavin trilogy), Jinian and her animals, Jinian’s Seven (Jinian’s trilogy), and the Seven–Carolyn, Agnes, Bettiann, Ophelia, Jessy, Faye, and Sova—in Gibbon’s Decline and Fall.
I love Tepper’s world-creation, the animism and ecological/environmentalist themes in her work, the creativity of her names for characters and animals, and, most of all, her descriptions of trees and forests. Tepper and Tolkien’s work seem so alike to me in their love for trees although I wonder how many readers would see any similarity.
I love the feminist elements (some of them!): my love for Grass is not only because of Marjorie and her horses but because of Marjorie’s quest to save her daughter. An additional feminist element (which I had not thought of until the early drafts of this essay) are some of the male characters who do not fit the model of heroic [AKA toxic] masculinity: there are two of them in Grass (Rillibee Chime and Brother Mainoa).6
I also (and I’ve not seen many reviews talking about this element!) love the skewering of academia that Tepper does in some of her novels (notably in the True Game series and in Sideshow (third of the Arbai series).
The opening paragraphs of Chapter 1 of Grass are also very high on my list of favorite openings (I did a presentation on the novel as a feminist epic revision of Dune by in part focusing on the epic structural elements such as this opening!)
Grass!
Millions of square miles of it; numberless wind-whipped tsunamis of grass, a thousand sun-lulled caribbeans of grass, a hundred rippling oceans, every ripple a gleam of scarlet or amber, emerald or turquoise, multicolored as rainbows, the colors shivering over the prairies in stripes and blotches, the grasses—some high, some low, some feathered, some straight—making their own geography as they grow. There are grass hills where the great plumes tower in masses the height of ten tall men; grass valleys where the turf is like moss, soft under the feet, where maidens pillow their heads thinking of their lovers, where husbands lie down and think of their mistresses; grass groves where old men and women sit quite at the end of the day, dreaming of things that might have been, perhaps once were. Commoners all, of course. No aristocrat would sit in the wild grass to dream. Aristocrats have gardens for that, if they dream at all.
Grass. Ruby ridges, blood-colored highlands, wine-shaded glades. Sapphire seas of grass with dark islands of grass bearing great plumy green trees which are grass again. Interminable meadows of silver hay where the great grazing beasts move in slanted lines like mowing machines, leaving the stubble behind them to spring up again in trackless wildernesses of rippling argent (1-2).
Tepper’s books occupy a major part of my “favorites” bookshelves (the ones in my bedroom as opposed to the ones in the library or in my home office or in my office at school). I took this picture of her books stacked up on my bedroom chair the day after I heard of her death.
I wrote Mike to ask if he would be interested in a tribute essay when I learned Sheri Tepper died (October 22, 2016). I began scribbling notes and re-reading some of her books immediately. I got (immediately!) sidetracked (academic habits now ingrained), looking at the scholarship and some critical discussions of her work online. I kept writing, and cutting, and cutting, and writing, until I realized there was a huge amount I wanted to say that I did not have time for and could not yet develop at this point.7
My original impulse was to write a fan tribute, but apparently, I am a different kind of fan in 2016 than I was in 1986.8 I still love (some) of Tepper’s work passionately (and find I am immediately grabbed/immersed in my favorites the moment I open them and read the first paragraphs) even though I can see the validity of many of the criticisms I’ve read. It’s nothing as simple as the suck fairy visiting loved books from my early years (I’ve been reading Tepper, like my other favorite writers, more or less continuously since I found her work thirty-four years ago [42 now!]).
I haven’t yet figured out what has happened although I am beginning to think that the flaws in her work are representative (for me) of some of my own flaws, and some of the flaws in some feminist discourses, and even in the broader American culture. To figure that out, I have to write more, but that has to come later. It’s all connected to my life and experiences, and to the development of Anglo-American feminist speculative fiction and to the current political situation in the U.S.
I wrote the first draft of this piece Wednesday, November 9, nearly twelve hours after it became clear that Donald Trump would win the presidency. The weeks since then have featured events that I think go well beyond what Tepper in even her most “heavy-handed”9 message fiction thought of writing even though her focus on the dangers of patriarchal authoritarianism, particularly that flavored by a certain flavor of American evangelical fundamentalism (similar to that of the Quiverfull Movement), seems prescient to me.
For some years, I have thought that Tepper, among all the sff writers whose work I know, was the most focused on detailing the threats to women’s rights, especially the right to reproductive choice, that have been the focus of the GOP/Tea Party/social conservative movement the past few decades and which are reading unprecedented heights.10 These attacks are not the only threats from the social conservatives/GOP who are exulting in the chance to dismantle the legislation and overcome court rulings that addressed systemic sexism, racism, homophobia, and poverty in this country, but I do not see much contemporary sff addressing this particular issue.11 Tepper’s work is informed by the feminist discourses that are labelled “Second Wave Feminism,” a focus I see as connected to the strengths of her work as well as its flaws.12
One of the quotes from her 2008 interview at Strange Horizons is very much reflective of what I’ve been feeling since the election:
SST: Post-apocalyptic, post- or mid-holocaust? You say that’s a grim place to go on a daily basis, yet we both do it every day, don’t we? We’re living in it, Neal. Did you think it was still in the future? Read the daily paper. How do I hold myself there? I read the daily paper. How do I recover? I don’t. Do you?
I discovered Tepper, as I found so many other women writers, after I left academia in 1982 because of the sexism in a graduate theatre program where I was doing a Master’s in playwriting.13 Some of my experiences in that graduate program, and in others, are why I do not see all of Tepper’s male antagonists as “straw-men” or unrealistically flat. I spent several years working in low-level clerical jobs and adjunct teaching while reading nothing but feminist theory and women writers. I started by finding and reading all the writers discussed in Joanna Russ’ brilliant How to Supress Women’s Writing, but I also pursued a longtime strategy of mine that predated my becoming a feminist: read the bookshelves at libraries and bookstores. If a title or a cover caught my attention, I’d read the first page and see what if it grabbed me.
That’s how I found Tepper.
At the time, I was happy to see the feminist ideas in her work and did not see some of the more problematic aspects relating to Second Wave feminism, particularly in regard to the whiteness of her characters and a view of sex / gender / sexual orientation that defaults to straightness and erases or condemns queerness, flaws that [ETA: were typical at the time in most cultural productions and continued into the 21st century as debates in sff fandom the past few years have highlighted].
I returned to academia in the late 1980s because I could do feminist work in a doctoral program; I did not realize how much intersectional feminist work had been done during the 1970s/1980s until I took my first theory course. That course, and the ones following, changed everything for me. Among other things, critical theory freed me from the limitations of the New Criticism methods I learned in my undergraduate days (which excluded popular genres by fiat): Foucault was the one whose work gave me my first tools for writing about science fiction in an academic context (though I had to sort of sneak it into my dissertation). The work by intersectional feminists gave me an entirely different perspective on the sff I loved.
The Academic
As a lifelong fan turned academic who got a Ph.D. in English in part so I could teach sff, I have always been aware of how literary canons are built to exclude. The exclusionary nature of canon-building did not disappear when the 1970s led to so many challenges to the Anglo-American canon of literature: what came about was more an “explosion” of canons [ETA: something that is still bothering the hell out of the “Western Civilization/Dead White Male Canon” defenders and has started being imposed by fiat at some universities.]
Thus, there is a feminist sf canon that developed over time, with scholars focusing until recently on the relatively small body of text known as the “seventies feminist utopias” (or the lesbian separatist utopias). Feminist sf scholarship has grown and developed in recent years, and I think the early focus on utopias/dystopias was inevitable given that utopias/dystopias were the only “science fiction” allowed in literary studies at the time.14 I love some of the novels (particularly those by Joanna Russ and Marge Piercy), but never felt that I had much of anything to say about them as opposed to work by other women sff writers that I saw embodying various feminist ideas in the more genre-typical works.
My love for Tepper’s work was one of the main reasons that I became interested in the ways in which (some) women writers publishing in the 1980s integrated feminist ideas into their sff in ways that differed from the 1970s feminist utopias (a genre which has nearly disappeared, as Peter Fitting discusses in his excellent essay, “Reconsiderations of the Separatist Paradigm in Recent Feminist Science Fiction,” published in Science Fiction Studies in 1992).
The Marianne trilogy, along with Mavin’s and Jinian’s, and the Arbai series (Grass, Raising the Stones, and Sideshow are my favorite Teppers.15 My first major academic presentation in 1991 was on Grass as feminist epic revision of Frank Herbert’s Dune. I have published one article on Tepper’s work in which I talk about the trilogies in the context of feminist utopias, arguing that Tepper’s work explores feminist themes through the concept of “momentary utopias” or “momutes.”16 The paragraphs below cover some of points I made in that publication.
The early trilogies (Marianne’s, Mavin’s, and Jinian’s) are all stories about young women who resist the expectations of their male-dominated families and cultures in ways that differ from the 1970s feminist utopias (with the exception of Woman on the Edge of Time). Since more women began publishing in the 1980s, a greater range of feminist ideas began to appear along with a greater range in genres. Tepper did write one book that can arguably be considered a feminist utopia or dystopia (The Gate to Women’s Country) but I consider most of her work to be feminist speculative fiction with strong fantastic/fantasy elements.
The blend of fantastic worldbuilding and systems of magical powers existing with stories of male family members raping girls, restricting their education, and forcing them into marriages inform these novels. The protagonists resist/escape family pressures but focus on individual resistance for the most part. All the protagonists escape their families but only one is involved in an attempt to change the dominant culture.
Marianne changes her life by changing the time-line (with the help of the momentary gods which she learns how to use by watching her aunt, the villain of the narrative) rather than by changing social expectations or cultural systems. Her power comes from her birth as a Kavi, a member of the hereditary ruling class in Alpenlicht. This trilogy stands out as one of the few of Tepper’s stories in which heterosexual marriage is presented as a positive relationship. I loved it for its worldbuilding, the momegs, the beautiful descriptive prose of the natural world, and the secondary worlds.
Mavin is born into an oppressive extended family, a group of Shapeshifters in the Land of the True Game. Mavin escapes by leaving the Shifter compound, rescuing her younger brother, and, much later, her older sister, and others along the way. Not only does she face rape as she as she is deemed adult (is able to Shift), but the ongoing rape and abuse of her older sister is revealed which gives her an additional reason to leave. Mavin’s trilogy is very much a quest narrative covering twenty years of her life, but she never marries. She loves Himaggery, a wizard she meets in the first novel, but does not stay with him. One of her quests is to rescue him, and shows that they were happy only when shifted into magical beasts (singlehorns are described as very similar to unicorns). Mavin gives their son, Peter, to her brother to raise. Mavin does not change the cultures or communities she passes through, but she goes beyond what Marianne does by rescuing women and girls. The extent of the world beyond the Land of the True Game is shown in Mavin’s journeys—and the environmentalism/ecological elements are very strong.
Jinian’s trilogy moves from the focus on the individual to that of the groups attempting to change the dominant culture before the world dies (because of the actions taken by human colonists). On her quest, Jinian learns about the origin and history of human settlement on Lom. Humans colonized the planet, not realizing that Lom (embodying the Gaia hypothesis) was sentient and able to communicate with all its native creatures. Lom tries to bring humanity into its web, but humans resist; then, Lom grants humans magical Talents. But their increased power leads to more violence against each other and the destruction of the environment. The groups working to try to change human society, the Wizards and Dervishes specifically, are mostly (but not exclusively) women.17
Jinian is raised in an abusive family (who turns out not to be her birth family), but is helped from the start by a group (a coven!) of older women, called a Seven, who are Wizards /Wize arts. She is a Wizard and a beast-talker, able to communicate with animals and the other sentient beings of Lom. She is the one who discovers that the spirit is trying to commit suicide. As a result of the efforts Jinian leads, Lom decides to live but takes away the humans’ Talents. Jinian becomes involved with and marries Peter during the course of her quest, but also has strong relationships with other women, not only with her Seven, but with Silkhands the Healer.
Over time, as I read Tepper’s late work in the context of my graduate courses and embarked upon my first attempts to write intersectional feminist scholarship on science fiction [ETA: which is difficult, and I’m still trying to figure it all out!], I became aware of the problematic aspects relating to race and heteronormativity. Those patterns are not unique in sff either at the time or today. Additionally, I saw the tendency in Tepper narratives to construct sexism as institutionalized by authoritarian religions and regimes as caused by a genetic component of humanity.18
Thus, her novels showed that only a change in the human genome could change human nature, leading to eugenics/breeding programs (explored in detail in The Gate to Women’s Country but also central to The Waters Rising and Fish Tails). Some novels show groups of humans running the breeding programs while others feature external agents causing the change, at times with the cooperation of some humans (the Goddess in Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, the Arbai device in the Arbai trilogy, the Pistach in The Fresco).19
[ETA: Note to self: need to explore how Benita, the protagonist in The Fresco, and Faye, one of the Seven in Gibbons, are women of color (Hispanic and African American, respectively) and what, if anything has been written about them].
The Question for the Future
I am ending this piece by noting the question that I keep coming to as I’ve been working on the drafts: the extent to which Tepper’s gender/genetic essentialism is representative of popular ideas in feminism specifically and more broadly in U.S. culture.
The entry on Feminist Perspectives on Sex and Gender (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) covers some of the feminist theories which are are essentialist (meaning the assumption that sex or gender differences are “natural,” or genetically created).
P. Z. Myers noted in a recent post in his blog, the idea that “male” and “female” DNA exists is so widespread that even a Young Earth creationist cites “science” (incorrectly, but still tying the claim to “scientific knowledge”) to support his claim of the essential differences between men and women: There’s no such things as male and female DNA by P. Z. Myers.
Genetic essentialism is heavily implicated in Jim Crow concepts of “race.”20 This conversation between two anthropologists, (which Myers linked to in another blog post) covers the widespread and common understanding that DNA is “race”: New Articulations of Biological Difference in the 21st Century: A Conversation, Agustin Fuentes and Carolyn Rouse, at Anthropology Now.
Agustin: The core problem here remains that biology courses in high school and college are taught by individuals who, at least subconsciously, buy into the “race as biology” and “genetics as deterministic” perspectives. There are very, very few high schools in the United States where accurate information on human biological diversity is offered. There are few courses even at the college level where such information is provided or where contemporary evolutionary theory and biology are the norm. Inside and outside the classroom, students are mired in implicit “race talk” related to issues of biology and an overemphasis on genetic control of behavior. Think about discussions of professional sports, testosterone, violence, sexuality.
The history of deterministic genetics is tied to the history of genetics, with the impact on popular understanding of sex, race, and sexual orientation being documented fairly extensively.21 The tendency to assume a “natural” (aka genetic) cause for differences is widespread.
Tepper’s work definitely assumes a genetic component, but stories/novels are sneaky. They twine around and bite their own tails. As I was re-reading Tepper’s work for this essay, I kept thinking about how Fish Tails, unlike some of the earlier novels, seems to critique the common trope of breeding programs as solutions in the two plot lines: Lillis and Needly’s life in Hench Valley, one of Tepper’s most clearly delineated (and yes, heavy-handed!) portrayals of patriarchal authoritarianism, and Xulai’s story (which began in The Waters Rising. I agree with the various critical reviews I’ve seen that this trilogy has a number of problems in narrative technique, characterization, and themes,22 but it also contains some criticism of the attempt to improve the human race through breeding programs that did not exist in the earlier works.
So this piece seems to be the start of something longer trying to figure out what I see going on in Tepper’s work, and how people (including but not only me) have responded to it over the years. I don’t really need any more projects added to the mountain, but I don’t think this one is going to go away anytime soon.
ADDENDUM July 4, 2025: Well, technically it did go away, for a while, in that I didn’t keep working on it after it appeared at File 770. The drafts and other process materials are lurking in my personal archive of publications. But now I’ve gotten my hands on it again and dragged it back into my Web, I might use parts of it in the actual book, or I might develop some of it into its own essay. I gave a number of presentations on her work back in my feminist speculative fiction period.
"Visiting Middle-earth," File 770, July 5, 2018. A description of the trip we took to see Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth at the Bodleian (and some other stuff!).
From 𝙅𝙤 ⚢📖🏳️🌈’s feminism for all: what follows is an excerpt quoted from the longer stack (which also includes block quotes from the original): Substack’s tools for indicating block quotes are rather limited, so I use the green block to highlight 𝙅𝙤 ⚢📖🏳️🌈’s words; the blocked quotes from Lorde and hooks’s work have the original bolding:
When bell hooks wrote Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism at the age of nineteen, and followed it up with Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center in 1984, she set out to redefine the feminism that middle class, white, heteronormative feminists had made their own, and exclusively their own. That was a feminism that argued that all women were oppressed. It argued, as a handful of woman have argued to me, that misogyny is the original sin, the great oppression from which all other oppressions grow, the blueprint for racism, xenophobia and colonialist thinking, religious discrimination, classism, homo/transphobia…
Needless to say, but I’ll say it anyway: these were not global south/majority nor women of color asking to center sexism above other oppression. We do not have that luxury, that privilege is not ours.
As Audre Lorde wrote, in her essay There is no Hierarchy of Oppression:
I cannot afford the luxury of fighting one form of oppression only. I cannot afford to believe that freedom from intolerance is the right of only one particular group. And I cannot afford to choose between the fronts upon which I must battle these forces of discrimination, wherever they appear to destroy me. And when they appear to destroy me, it will not be long before they appear to destroy you.
Defining the original sin, the original oppression, is not what we should focus on. The measure of an oppression, the struggle of a single oppression over others, is not irrelevant to the struggle to end oppression and systems of domination. They must all be worked against, the systems themselves must be addressed and taken to task.
For hooks, the definition of feminism is:
Feminism is a struggle to end sexist oppression. Therefore, it is necessarily a struggle to eradicate the ideology of domination that permeates Western culture on various levels, as well as a commitment to reorganizing society so that the self-development of people can take precedence over imperialism, economic expansion, and material desire.3
The repeated use of the word struggle highlights a core tenet of hooks’ feminist philosophy: feminism as action. She wrote that one of the ills of the early second-wave feminist movement was that women, particularly in separatist movements that advocated for women to (unrealistically) live lives apart from men, focused on feminism as identity. A lifestyle choice, the modern equivalent of writing “feminist” in your social media bio. A hot take, a way to align with a certain image. To say I am a feminist turns feminism to a binary, and either/or. Either you prescribe to a particular set of beliefs, or you are not. It doesn’t allow for gradations of definition of feminism, it doesn’t allow that, Angela Davis once wrote, that there are feminism movements instead of a single feminist movement.
One of my favorite parts of Raising the Stones is the way in which the narrative deconstructs the “father quest” in Samasnier (Sam) Girat’s arc. Sam, having been brought up on Hobbs Land after his mother Maire escaped from Ahabar, misses the legends and religion, or his idealization of them, and embodies those ideals in his father. [ETA: When Sam finally does meet his father, he finds out that absolutely nothing of what he had imagined was embodied in the man who had raped his mother, raped others, including beings enslaved on Ahabar, participated in wide-spread terrorism, and regretted none of it. I can see the point others have made about the melodramatic Snidely Whiplash elements of some of Tepper’s male antagonists; on the other hand, their actions are right out of historical rcords and contemporary headlines.]
My least favorite work is Beauty (so much so that I don’t think I have ever re-read it), and others that I rarely reread are The Awakeners duology (North Shore and South Shore), The Companions, and Shadow’s End). [ETA: Now when I retired and had to move from a house that had bookshelves five rooms and from my corner office in my department, I had to downsize considerably, a task made easier by the proliferation of e-books which I had been turning to the older I got due to eyesight issues and arthritis in my hands). My favorite hard-copy Teppers are on one shelf of the two bookcases in the single bedroom of my cozy hobbit-hole apartment!]
The major male characters who are antagonists can be described as flat characters/ stereotypical villains (and there are many of them) although I keep thinking of the behaviors Tepper must have observed over her years working at CARE and Planned Parenthood, and of behaviors I experienced growing up in the 1950s/1960s, and stories I heard from my friends and students from the 1970s, to, well, the 21st century!
This reviewer’s comment struck me as revealing: criticizing the characterization of Rigo (especially the sections in which he is the point of view character) in Grass as stereotypical, he ends by saying: Sadly, I’m sure this isn’t too far afield from some real battered spouse situations, but it’s not anything I wanted to read about. Real life may be like this, but if any author is going to put it into a book, I want the catharsis of Marjorie kicking his ass by the end of the novel. [ETA: Russ Albery, “Review: Grass by Sheri S. Tepper, Eyrie). I’m left wondering what he would define as “kicking ass” because Marjorie saves her daughter, saves her horses, convinces the Foxen to intervene to save the colonists, helps solve the mystery of the plague, rejects the handsome younger male who is trying to restrict her to his romantic ideal, boots her Catholic guilt into the gutter, walks away from Rigo and her religion (and the one priest who is trying to keep her controlled), and then leaves for her own quest (bits and pieces of which we get in the other novels in the trilogy) with First (one of the foxen. It may be unfair of me to suspect he wanted her to kill him in some way, but really, the victories Marjorie gains are pretty amazing without falling into the “strong female character” which in the 1970s at least was sort of code for what some of us called “a man with boobs,” i.e. a female character action hero who acted just like the male action heroes. For a fantastic analysis about Marjorie and First and the foxen from the context of interspecies relations, I can highly recommend this 2024 essay which I just found: Ewa I. Wiśniewska, “Interspecies Relations in Grass by Sheri S. Tepper.” Ostrava Journal of English Philology, vol.16, no. 2, 2024-literature and culture.]
One of the ongoing problems in my life although I receive very little sympathy for it (I think it might be a form of hypergraphia although the official Technical info seems to assume that hypergraphia involves hand-written work and repetitive work—so maybe it’s related being an autist.
In 1986, I was just starting my doctoral work which focused on which focused on gender, queer, and critical race theories and was years away from learning how to be a fan of problematic things.
“Heavy-handed” is in quotes because I tend to think one person’s heavy-handed message fic can be another person’s incisive description of reality. Tepper is pretty up-front about preaching in her fiction (and rejecting “literary fiction” as she notes in this 2008 interview. And after two decades of reading (and enjoying but aware of) the “heavy-handed” message science fiction by men about men written for a (perceived to be) male audience, I was pretty happy to find a feminist message back then. [ETA: And now in July 2025, the escalation of the current regime over what happened during Trump’s first term is horrifying.]
If I thought the heights were unprecedented back in 2017, they’re are reaching the next galaxy here in 2025 (I had a link to an article about those attempts, but the link had gone dead, so in lieu of that I’m just going to link to Jessica Valenti’s Abortion Every Day Substack which I read every day (and share every day) because it’s the single best source for comprehensive coverage of the shitstorm of ongoing attempts to strip reproductive rights as well as analysis that I’ve ever found (and since I remember a lot of years where I and others were patronized by being told not to worry our pretty little heads that Roe guaranteed our rights, well, yeah, mainstream media did a shitjob of covering these stories).
I have been recommending Meg Ellison’s The Book of the Unnamed Midwife to everyone I talk to: it’s a brilliant post-apocalyptic dystopian evocation of the fundamental importance of reproductive rights: and one that speaks directly to current circumstances in the wake of the Zika virus.
ETA: This section connects to how Joanna Russ’s work influenced me: her book, How to Suppress Women’s Writing, inspired me to develop a five-year plan of reading nothing but women’s writing (after I left academia), and, well, I didn’t stop after five years (there was so much left to read) although I expanded the list to include women writers of color, non-binary and trans* readers (lesbian and bisexual women authors were there from the start!).
Achieved by not ever acknowledging they were “science fiction” or had any relationship to it! Given the dominance of feminist utopias in the feminist sf canon, it’s not surprising the more articles have been written on The Gate to Women’s Country than on Tepper’s other novels. When I checked the Modern Languages Association International Bibliography [in late 2016-early 2017] I found 23 articles or book chapters listed: not all of them are peer-reviewed because the MLA currently includes popular criticism (such as reviews from the New York Review of Science Fiction) and dissertations. Nine of the articles are on Gate; six of those focus on the topic of feminist utopias. Beauty is the second most popular (three articles), and there are single articles on Raising the Stones and Six Moon Dance. I’m the only one [when I wrote this essay!] who has written on her earlier novels, or the trilogies.
My favorite stand-alone novels are Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, The Family Tree, The Fresco and, in other genres, her horror duology about Mahlia and Roger Ettison. I enjoy her two mystery series, published under the open pseudonyms of Orde and Oliphant, but they do not do the kind of work her sf does. Sheri Tepper’s Books.
“Momutes”: Momentary Utopias in Tepper’s Trilogies.” The Utopian Fantastic: Selected Essays from the Twentieth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts. Edited by Martha Bartter, Praeger, 2004, pp. 101-108.
Thesis paragraph: First, to explain the origins of my invented word, “momutes.” In Marianne, The Madame and The Momentary Gods, Tepper’s second novel of the Marianne trilogy, Tepper introduces creatures/creations called momentary gods, or “momegs.” Momegs are “basically a wave form with particular aspects,” beings who “give material space its reality by giving time its duration” (53-4). An infinite number of momegs exist, each with its own locus, and the momegs describe themselves as both a wave and a particle. I argue that Tepper’s trilogies are feminist science fiction and include “momutes,” or momentary visions of utopian possibilities. However, a reading of the trilogies in order of publication reveals that the momutes change over the course of the novels and that the changes in the nature of these momutes correlates with the development of a more complicated narrative structure and with a decreasing trust in human beings’ ability to create feminist/utopian societies. The correlation between the nature of the momutes and narrative structures reveal a change in emphasis from Tepper’s focus (perhaps also reflecting differences in feminist theory) upon the feminist empowerment of an individual woman within a patriarchal and oppressive culture, to the problem of how cultural change on a larger level occur. Cultures are rarely if ever changed by the actions of single individuals who call for such change. Instead, systemic changes beyond the agency of any single individual, involving demographics, technology, and economics, are what lead to cultural changes. Considering the change in culture, the subject of feminist utopias, is a more complex task than the changes in a single individual.
The Plague of Angels trilogy, completed in 2014 with Tepper’s last published work, Fish Tails, crosses over into the True Game World. As a fan of the earlier trilogies, I enjoyed this attempt which I consider equal to, if not superior to, the similar attempts by Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov to link up all their earlier works as well. [ETA: There are differences between Tepper’s trilogies—clearly plotted out, written and published in sequence—and her looser series which do not follow a single protagonist/plot line in the same way—something I’d be interested in writing about sometime!]
Octavia Butler explores similar themes, notably in the Xenogenesis series in which the Oankali ‘diagnose’ human’s flaws as our intelligence and hierarchical natures and begin a breeding program, and in her Patternmaster series, from a very different perspective and with different results. The difference in their respective handling of this idea—and I think it’s a very important one—is that Butler complicates/explores the negative results of such attempts while Tepper does not (though I think there are some attempts at such complication in her later work).
James Davis Nicoll noted Tepper’s tendency towards eugenics in one of his reviews, and Wendy Gay Pearson wrote an excellent critical analysis in “After the (Homo)sexual: Queer Readings of Anti-Sexuality in Sheri S. Tepper’s The Gate to Women’s Country,” Science Fiction Studies, vol. 23, iss. 2, 1991. The Abstract for Pearson’s essay is here; I am not able to find a version online, though SFS used to have it available. A copy is available in Project MUSE (if your university or library has a subscription), and also at JSTOR (which allows people to sign up for free and get an account that lets them read a certain number of articles online for free).
ETA: Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s work on unconscious/aversive racism in the U.S. notes the shift in rhetoric to “bad culture” rather than “bad genes,” but it’s a different iteration of racism. His work, and that of other sociologists, focus on the extent to which racism is systemic (and just be understood that way, not just bad behavior/feelings on the part of individuals).
ETA: I have pointed out to a few reviewer that Tepper was in her 80s when publishing the latest books in that series, and if they’re weaker than her earlier work (which she began writing and publishing in her fifties!), well, I suspect that’s not an atypical pattern for writers!
I began writing this post months ago (last fall!) for Webs — but then, as often happens became distracted by something else. My main interest was what they were doing with Tolkien’s work (the anthology is about the Inklings) and how different it might be from the more well-known (I suspect) Zimbardo and Isaacs’s collections. But I got carried away in summarizing things. I’ve decided to publish as is, not finished, and later will pull out some material for use. There’s only one more Tolkien essay I have to read.
I think some of my friends who are interested in Christianity/theology/Tolkien might be interested in the main argument the editor Mark Hillegas makes as he tries to distinguish the excellence of the Oxford writers compared to pulp sf cultists! I sure snickered a lot when I was reading that—but I think it’s a rather unique approach to trying to save their work from the “garbage can of genre” (in the context of literary scholarship of the last century’s dead white male canon and their prejudice against fantasy which has been well-documented in Tolkien studies!).
And my friends interested in feminist approaches to scholarship and questions of misogyny in scholarship might also be interested.
This post is sort of an extended (yes, it’s too long for some email browsers) set of notes and commentary on a 1969 anthology as evidence of a pattern of exclusion of women from Tolkien scholarship. I tend to write this sort of thing out at some length searching for patterns as I go through the note-taking, then compress later on. The anthology is:
Mark R. Hillegas, editor. Shadows of Imagination: The Fantasies of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams. Preface by Harry T. Moore. Southern Illinois UP, Feffer & Simons, Inc. 1969. Crosscurrents/Modern Critiques, Harry T. Moore, General Editor.
I decided it was worth seeing what the earliest (Anglophone) academic publications looked like (mapping out disciplinary, gender, theoretical, and religious discourses in them—not to mention acknowledging the Whiteness of them all!) as background for some of the current assumptions in Tolkien scholarship in today, fifty plus years later.
The notes below are just a starting point: I’m skimming the essays rather quickly to see which I’ll be interested in reading in more detail later on (spoiler alert: it will be those essays which go against what one might call the ‘mainstream’ of Tolkien literary criticism!).
I discovered the Hillegas anthology while doing research on fanzines at Marquette. I was wandering around in the shelves where the Tolkien Archive’s excellent library of secondary scholarship is stored, and it was one of those delightful serendipitous discoveries that happen in libraries and bookstores, plus other places where books assemble, creating magical spaces! [It can sometimes happen, sorta kinda, when I am mousing around online—when I click on a link from somebody, or browse through a list of the results from a search1
The title intrigued me; I pulled it out to examine, and realized that I had never heard of it which was odd given its early publication date.2
As far as I knew/had read, the first of the three Isaacs and Zimbardo collections was the only academic anthology published in the 1960s as well as the first academic collection period. Given my experiences with Tolkien (and sff in general) as a fan and aware of the Modern Language Association's attitude of disdain toward genre literature back then, I was fascinated to read the "Introduction" in which Hillegas goes into detail about his 1966 MLA session on the works of Lewis and Tolkien, noting that "the room was packed, with people standing at the back and overflowing into the hall. . . the response was so enthusiastic that it seemed worthwhile to carry the discussion over into a book" (xvi).3
At that time, I was primarily interested in how Hillegas presented the collection of essays, how he framed them, in his Introduction, which meant I only skimmed a few of the chapters since I am don’t work on the other Inklings, and the essays on Tolkien were not relevant to any of the approaches I take when analyzing Tolklien’s works (or the adaptations, or the reception).4 But it’s worth looking at the overall terrain when thinking about patterns in the scholarship as a field.
As an undergraduate and lifelong sff fan, I was aware of the prejudice that the genre/genres faced in U.S. English departments in the 1970s and 1980s! Back then, I was the weird English major who not only devoured Shakespeare and the Romantics and British literature generally but who also read sff and was not afraid to talk about in my undergraduate and two Master’s programs at the time.5 One sub-branch of the Tree of SF was somewhat respectable in Englit terms: dystopias (probably because they’re so depressing!). No contemporary fantasy was ever allowed in the door as far as I knew.
Hillegas explains that his goal is to rescue the three writers from a "cultist's underground," thus the MLA session and the anthology. Hillegas's “cult” differs from the one that Isaacs and Zimbardo (who I’ll be writing about later in this series!) saw as the problem for SRS Tolkien scholars: the fans, specifically in their case, the 1960s counterculture fans of Tolkien, were faddists, button-makers, hippies, and college students who were to blame for Tolkien’s work failing to earn the proper intellectual/academic respect.
Hillegas finds an entirely different “cult” to blame: the readers and fans of August Derleth, Weird Tales, and pulp science fiction generally, as well as the writers with "technical or scientific" educations who ignore myth in favor of materialism are the cult Hillegas wants to rescue the Inklings from. Hillegas describes Tolkien, Lewis, and Williams as “emerging, as it were, from the underground of the cultists,” praising their “seriousness” about fantasy and its “value” as a “mode. . .for presenting moral or spiritual values, which could not be presented in realistic fiction,” and the “high order of excellence of what Lewis, Tolkien, and Williams have written” (xiv).
Finally, Hillegas claims that “the fantasies of these three men are of the sort which appeals especially to the literary community—‘serious’ novelist and poets, critics, professors of literature—whom one might call ‘literary intellectuals’” (xvi).6 There are more comparisons, of course, showing the superiority of these authors over (apparently) all the “Weltanschauung of most writers of science fiction,”7 with their ”quantifying materialistic vision of the universe and human existence” (xvi).
The overall impression I get from Hillegas's introduction is that a large part of the Inklings' status (for him) comes from their Oxford connection as well the fact that their work is presented in a "mode valuable for presenting moral or spiritual values” which appeals to “literary intellectuals” which nobody would ever (snirk) call a cult, right? After all they have a better Weltanschauung that all the grubby materialists and peons out there who LIKE pulp sf!
NOTES
170 pages, hardback, blurb on back is summary of the “Contributor Information”
Part of a series focused on “Crosscurrents/Modern Critique” (meaning not coming from medievalists).
Preface (v-vi), Harry T. Moore, dtd. March 2, 1969, 7 paragraphs.
In the first paragraph, he explains that as a series editor, he always writes a preface for all the books chosen for the series which was “not an easy task, but he did the beset he could, often wishing that he had been born more glib. Since he read widely, however, he could generally manage to find something to say about whatever book he was dealing with” (v).8 However, this particular book is about “three authors he had no read with any thoroughness, nor did he intend to read them, although the book in question was one he had no hesitation in accepting” (v).
In the rest of the preface, Moore explains that he accepted the ms. for publication in a series which “has been fairly wide-ranging” (vi); that he does not consider “his preferences necessarily infallible . . . . particularly when so many people whose judgment he respects happen to like those particular authors” (v); that while he enjoys some fantasy, “he cannot become engrossed by the whimsy of a Tolkien; let others enjoy it as much as they please,” but he will “help them along, and help the cause of these three writers,” by publishing it for “the many intelligent readers interested in its material” (vs). Moore is friends with Hillegas9 whose “Introduction . . . makes out a good case for his special kind of fantasy, showing how it has an appeal for many ‘literary intellectuals,’ as Professor Hillegas designates them” (vi).
Notes on Contributors (vii-ix) [10 men (83%) 2 women 17%)]10
J. B. S. Haldane: The “world-famous bio-chemist, biologicist, geneticist, Marxist, and philosopher and spokesman of science,” (vii). Link goes to a site dedicated to his life and work. I’m not sure how much of his published work is literary criticism—but I look forward to following up after reading his essay on Lewis!
Mark R. Hillegas: At the time Shadows was published, he was an “Associate Professor of English at Southern Illinois University,” specializing in “the impact of science on literature, the relationship between the humanities and the sciences, and the literary imagination of science” (vii) [huh, apparently he thought the impact of science on literature was no-good, materialistic, not spiritual?]. The link leads to his entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction which notes that “[i]n 1961 he gave, at Colgate, one of the first university-level classes in sf in the USA,” and published a number of essays on dystopian fiction (“his approach reflecting a period [‘1960s-1970s] when they were primarily thought of and treated as Mainstream Writers”)11 AHA: he was working with dystopias which were considered mainstream instead of pulpy.
Daniel Hughes: A literary critic and”poet; he was “an Associate Professor at Wayne State University, specializing in English Romanticism” (vii), publishing on “Shelley, modern fiction, and poetry. The link leads to an obituary for Hughes, written by a personal friend of his from Wayne State, focusing more on his poetry than his criticism, describing him as living “a pure life of the mind, and art -- romantic poetry, Renaissance Italian painting, European classical music -- [which] was for him a kind of religion, through his life, including the forty years he endured multiple sclerosis.”
W. R. Irwin: William Robert Irwin was a “Professor of English and Director of Graduate Study in English at the University of Iowa.]” (viii). The link leads to the entry describing his archived papers at the University of Iowa, a collection which includes “reviews, essays, and manuscripts he produced throughout his career as a professor of English. Correspondence, newspaper clippings, course notes, and departmental memos are also included.”12
Clyde S. Kilby: The first major figure in Tolkien studies hoves into view, described as “Professor of English at Wheaton College . . . a personal friend of C. S. Lewis [who] spent the summer of 1966 working with J. R. R Tolkien in Oxford” (vii). The link leads to Kilby’s biographical page at Wheaton College: he was the “founder and first curator of the Marion E. Wade Collection [now Center].”
Charles Moorman: Full name: Charles Wickham Moorman III. He was a “professor of English [focusing on medieval and Arthurian mythologies] and Associate Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Southern Mississippi,” publishing on the Oxford Christians (such as Charles Williams, C. S. Lewis, and T. S. Eliot).13 The link goes to his Wikipedia article (which supports my sense that there are not many online sources about Moorman available).
Robert Plank : was “the Program Chief, Social Work Service, Mental Hygiene Unit, Veterans Administration Hospital, Cleveland Ohio, and Lecturer in English and Psychology, Case Western Reserve University” (vii). The link leads to the Tolkien Compass which lists Plank as one of the contributors to Jared Lobdell’s A Tolkien Compass. Plank’s essay is "'The Scouring of the Shire': Tolkien's View on Fascism.” Lobdell’s anthology was first published in 1975, so six years after the Hillegas anthology. Plank’s essay in Shadow is on “Some Psychological Aspects of Lewis’s Trilogy.” In the second paragraph of this essay, Plank declares that his intention is to “stay away, as far as possible, from literary criticism,” and to avoid“[fixing] Lewis’s place in literary history, or [discussing] his religious, philosophical or political ideas” (26).
Gunnar Urang: I could not find any authoritative source to link to for this writer, and his “Note” is rather brief. He was an “Assistant Professor of English at Wooster College, has just completed his Ph.D. in Theology and Literature in the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, writing a dissertation on Lewis, Tolkien, and Williams” (ix). That means he probably completed his doctorate in or slightly before 1969.
Jessica Yates has a post (at the Tolkien Collector’s Guide) discussing the possibility that Gunnar Urang was the “Mr. Rang” that wrote to Tolkien asking for information about about some of the names in LotR which led to Tolkien writing a letter (#297) which he never sent. Yates references Urang’s book, Shadows of Heaven: Religion and Fantasy in the Writings of C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and J. R. R. Tolkien. The book was published in 1971, so I would bet a nickel that it’s based on Urang’s dissertation. Yates describes the book (including his careful attribution of research!) and concludes that the “book deserves to have been more cited than it has been.”
George Parker Winship, Jr.: I have not been able to find any online information on this author (although I think I may have found some articles about his father, George Parker Winship, Sr.? the name doesn’t seem all that common); the only results are citations of his work. Junior was at the time of publication of the anthology “Chairman of the Department of English at King College,” and wrote an “early, seminal14 article on [Charles] Williams’ fiction, which appeared in the Yale Review in 1950” (ix). The title of early article is cited in publications about Williams: “This Rough Magic: The Novels of Charles Williams.”15
Alice Mary Hadfield got a degree from Oxford, and then an “M.A. from Mount Holyoke [and was] an assistant to Charles Williams at Oxford University Press in Amen House in London” (vii). She published a number of books, including “the first biography of Williams” (vii). The first link leads to her Wikipedia entry, and the second to a list of her books at an online used book shop.
Patricia Meyer Spacks OK, this is interesting—I actually *knew* of Spacks previous to finding the Hillegas anthology (as I knew of Kilby, but in an entirely different context). I vaguely knew Haldane was a scientist, and I knew Kilby’s name from other Tolkienists, but Spacks was a feminist literary scholar! And I spent a lot of years doing feminist literary scholarship (which used to be a small enough field you could buy all the books in a year without much effort and which then grew rapidly and exponentially during my time as a working academic though the “feminist scholarship on sff was a very small part of that growth!). Her area of specialization was 18th/19th C literature (not really Tolkien’s period), and according to the Wikipedia article, she accomplished a great deal during her life (chairing multiple departments, publishing books, winning awards, serving on major humanities organizations, and serving as the President of the Modern Language Associations, not exactly a bastion of feminism back in the day!). Lo, she has donated papers to the Archives at Yale!
Born in 1929, she is still alive and apparently still writing as of information posted in 2024. Her essay in Hillegas is on Charles Williams’ work (“Charles Williams The Fusions of Fiction”) but she has another essay, titled “Power and Meaning in The Lord of the Rings” which appeared in the 1968 and the 2004 Isaacs and Zimbardo anthologies. According to Wikipedia, it was a reprint from a socialist journal, Critique, I’m saying “apparently” because I have to check this all out.16 All I’ve found so far is Wikipedia sources, and I think there’s an error in their attribution which I’ll try to figure out when I have a bit more time later, plus I want to see what Zimbardo and Isaacs say in their anthologies which are on my pile to be covered later for this series!)
She published many books—none about Tolkien!—but the earliest book publication seems to be 1971 (I don’t know how comprehensive this list is—I may find a better one later). She got her doctorate in 1955 (the year I was born!) I am interested in her work, given she is clearly a feminist literary scholar who, for whatever reason, chose to write on a fantasy writer at a period when the genre was not accorded much respect/status by the academic types .
“Introduction,’ Mark R. Hillegas, pp. xiii-xix, dated December 18, 1968.
Table of Contents
“C. S. Lewis: The Man and the Mystery” by Chad Walsh (pp. 1-14)
Focus is on Lewis’s work on religion; Walsh knew Lewis; draws on biographical sources, influences on Lewis, and mostly the nonfiction. I don’t think I’ll be spending much time on this one.
“Auld Hornie, F.R.S.” by J. B. S. Haldane (pp. 15-25)
Haldane was not part of the original MLA session; in fact, his essay is a reprint of one which was published earlier.17 As a scientist and Marxist, his essay was (I suspect) sought out by Hillegas because he describes his “principle of selection in putting together this volume has been to achieve as much variety in approach and viewpoint as possible: not only the biologist and Marxist, Haldane, but an expert in psychological analysis, two poets, and various scholar-critics have their say” (xix).
While the essay was originally framed as a review of Lewis’s Space trilogy, Haldane feels free to engage with Lewis’s books “which are intended to defend Christianity,” nonfiction as well as fiction (15) and to make larger argument about Lewis’s influence, and the contemporary debates around “science” and “religion” (as well as to be rather sarcastic about some elements of Lewis’s style). I can definitely tell that I’ll be coming back to this one because, although it’s about Lewis, there are resonances with Tolkien’s work (although now I have to go see if Haldane every wrote about Tolkien!).18 And, I am impressed, given the commentary from Hillegas in his introduction, that he wanted to feature Haldane’s essay in this collection!
Haldane praises Lewis’s literary skill and brilliant writing in the trilogy (comparing him to Dante and Milton), but also criticizes Lewis’s ignorance of the science of his time.19 Haldane’s explanation for this problem is that “Christian mythologoy incorporated the cosmological theories current eighteen centuries ago. Dante found it a slight strain to combine this mythology with the facts known in his own day. Milton found it harder. Mr. Lewis finds it impossible” (16). Haldane goes on to point out that there is only “one decent scientist in the three books, a physicist who is murdered by the deveil-worshippers before we have got to know him” (17), while the rest “have an ideology which ranges from a Kiplingesque contempt for ‘natives’ to pure ‘national socialism’ with the devil substituted for the God whose purposes Hitler claimed to carry out” (17). Then, Haldane extends the criticism of “scientists” to the limitations of Lewis’s theology upon his view of “[Haldane’s] species” (22) (a lovely word choice! Then, a page or so later, Haldane says “I agree with Mr. Lewis that man is in a sense a fallen being The Origin of the Familyseems to be to provide better evidence for this belief than the Book of Genesis. But I disagree with him in that I also believe that man can rise against by his own efforts” (24).
“Some Psychological Aspects of Lewis’s Trilogy” by Robert Plank (pp. 26-40)
Plank situates his purpose, and his argument, in this chapter as “[staying] away, as far as possible, from literary criticism,” in order to focus on the [I guess psychological] question of “why does [this literary text, the Space Trilogy] appeal to readers?” while also avoiding Lewis’s “religious, philosophical, or political ideas” (26). I admit that I’m not quite sure what to do with that information which appears in the second paragraph, immediately following the first paragraph’s opening statement that:
C. S. Lewis was, for which we should be thankful, paradoxical: a science fiction writer who did not write real science fiction;20 a Christian who ranged far away from the inherited world of Christianity;21 a novelist whose works were not, in any ordinary sense, novels.22 (26)
Plank claims that Lewis “shows in his works how he has come to terms with the great issues that are also the objects of psychological study: birth and death; the role of man [sic]—and his own role in particular—in the world; love and hate (or sex and aggression),” “great issues” that Plank also calls “fragments” (26-7). And by paragraph 5, Plank has pulled the rhetorical move which is one of the major reasons I dislike (most) psychological approaches to literature: he is going to psychoanalyze the human being who write the fiction:
The task of psychological analysis is to put the confession together from the fragments. In endeavoring to do so, I shall lean on what Lewis says in the trilogy, using extraneous material only occasionally, to make explicit what in the three novels, since they are fiction, can only be implicit. (27).
If someone ever wants to do a study of the historiography of psychological criticism of authors/literature (especially done by people trained in the discipilne, as opposed people trained in literary studies who’ve read some psychology), they might be interested in reading what Plank has to say!
“Out of The Silent Planet as Cosmic Voyage” by Mark R. Hillegas (pp. 41-58)
This chapter is by the editor of the anthology and might be of some interest to Lewis scholars! The basic argument is that the scholarship on Lewis’s Space Trilogy has focused on his “use of myth in the ‘cosmic trilogy,” but that readers tend to think that the first of the books is less valuable than the second and third (presumably in how mythic it is). Hillegas’s argument is that: “I would like to argue here that Out of the Silent Planet, seen for what it really is and not just as a mythic presentation of Christian doctrine, is a considerably better work than it is at the moment thought to be” (42), concluding that the first “is the least propagandistic of the three volumes in the trilogy,” and that Hillegas thinks that as time goes on, Silent Planet will be considered the best of the three books” as an example of "the “cosmic voyage” (58).
“‘Now Entertain Conjecture of a Time’—The Fictive Worlds of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien” by Charles Moorman (pp. 59-69)
A rather interesting comparative approach, starting with comparing “On Fairy Stories” with “Fantastical or Mythical?” (an essay by Lewis) in order to consider the ways in which each of the writer’s theory connects to their fictional practice: Moorman sees Lewis as more consciously allegorical than Tolkien (check!); also sees Lewis as more focused on Christian themes than Tolkien (check—in fact, at the end, Moorman sees LotR as more pagan! YAY early pagan identification FTW!); acknowledges the different tones might be largely due to the presence of child protagonists). Would probably be of most interest to Inklings scholars (and/or Lewis fans who might disagree with some of Moorman’s conclusions about Lewis’s series), but I’m definitely interested in the pagan element.
“Meaning in The Lord of the Rings” by Clyde S. Kilby (pp. 70-80)
Kilby seems to consider the “meaning” of a text to be connected to its popularity and/or being recognized “as a creation of permanent value” (70), and puts forth some reasons for the popularity. These include: “Ancestry and antiquity”. . . .”a viable history”. . . .being a “world. . .containing its own myths and legends” . . . .characters still living from “the ancient past” . . . .and the “myths [turning] out to be true” which is important to those of us living in an “infinitely atomized l[universe] (70-71). Additional reasons come up throughout the essay: “epic scope”. . . . “noble blending of melancholy and joy” [compared to Keats’s “Grecian Urn”]; “joins the high art of the world in revealing the significance, even the glory of the ordinary” (73); “creates a more poignant feeling for the essential quality of many outdoor and indoor experiences” . . . “the depiction of a world of being as well as doing” (74). . . .the desire of readers to re-read (“Great writing is always more qualitative than quantitative. Knowing the outcome enhances rather than detracts from the story” [74-5]). And the list goes on for a few more pages (little time spent developing any of these points—it truly does read like a list, especially when a few pages later, Kilby lists names of people writing about the dire situation of the modern world (Barfield, Lewis) and, a few pages later (astonishing!) “Miss Marjorie Wright” (must indicate marital status of The Woman!) who wrote a thesis on myth in Lewis, Tolkien, and Williams. But she doesn’t take up much space, and within a few lines, Kilby is back rhapsodizing about goodness/truth/beauty/myth/mystery/reality and the conversations among/between men, and then off to a couple of pages on sound/phononlogy in Tolkien’s work (a lot of lists here) (oops, I was wrong: at one point, “Professor Tolkien” appears—the only other honorific popping up.23 The last two paragraphs are all about the reason why the novel is “being widely read today”, with the answer being that “people [specifically “a businessman,” W.H. Auden, and Kilby himself] experience in common the meaning of leadership, greatness, valor, time redolent of timelessness, and common trials. Men become temporary human. . . . . For a century at least the world has been increasingly demythologized. But such a condition is apparently alien to the real nature of men” (80).
OK then! But I have to say this is just the sort of example I figured I’d find that sees Tolkien’s world as “a world in which history is not bunk and truth is a possibility here and now, a world in which God still happens to be alive and man is still responsible, an allusive but not at all an illusive world” (75).
Clearly Kilby felt Tolkien’s work was limitless and inspiring; not surprisingly perhaps, Kilby’s interpretation of its meaning seems limited in many many many ways.
“Pieties and Giant Forms in The Lord of the Rings” by Daniel Hughes (pp.81-96)
Hughes’s essay explores whether or not LotR is more connected to the Classical (which is what Hughes claims that Tolkien’s aesthetic is “aligned with” [81], according to "“On Fairy Stories”) or to the Romantic (comparing parts of his essay and novel to Coleridge and Blake’s work). Tolkien’s religious beliefs are more or less gestured at in the context of his art (treating them more as as shaping his Classical and/or Romantic elements, or as a way to connect Tolkien’s themes to Simone Weil’s work). Hughes covers quite a few structural elements of the novel: Frodo as the main character, Gollum, and Gandalf as the characters “whose presence manifest almost as well as Frodo’s” [86]), discussing the characterization and narratological choices Tolkien made. But the essay also covers the major “fantastic” characters: Bombadil, Treebeard, the Elves, and what he says “may be the most striking feat of The Lord of the Rings [for many readers]: its resuscitation of the Heroic Age, its virtues and valor intact” (91). Interesting claim at this point:
Tolkien, in writing for now even through his removed world, has succeeded in doing what might have been thought impossible in our ostensibly liberal-democratic, war-hating times (emphasis mine); he has almost brought off an epic as grand as Beowulf, as detailed as an old dim chronicle, and as old-faschioned in its values as an Icelandic saga or Sir Walter Scott. (91)
The exemplar of the Heroic Age is Aragorn who serves, when Tolkien realized who “Strider” was, as the “image that enables Tolkien, the artist, fantastist, and theorist of Faërie, to join hands with Tolkien the admirer of the Heroic Age’s tales and devices” (92).
“Tolkien’s Fantasy the Phenomenology of Hope” by Gunnar Urang (pp. 97-110)
Note to self, need to do!
The Novels of Charles Williams” by George P. Winship, Jr. (pp. 111-24)
“The Relationship of Charles Williams’ Working Life to His Fiction” by Alice Mary Hadfield (pp. 125-38)
“Christian Doctrine and the Tactics of Romance The Case of Charles Williams” by W. R. Irwin (pp. 139-149)
“Charles Williams The Fusions of Fiction” by Patricia Meyer Spacks (pp. 150-159)
Not so much with Google these days, and yeah, don’t get me started on the “AI/Sponsored results", but I’ve switched to Ecosia The Search Engine That Plants Trees, so it’s still possible.
It dawns on me that saying it was “odd” might not make sense to some people—but one of the steps in a humanities research process (in theory!) is doing bibliographic searches to see the history of publication on your topic—the historiography of the scholarship. You can also get a sense by paying attention to the “Works Cited” or “Bibliographies” in the recent scholarship. One of the most educational experiences I had in a graduate class (on “Renaissance Playwrights Who Were Not Shakespeare”?) was being assigned to find and review 200 years (plus or minus a few years) of critical commentary on one of the plays—with that timeline, the definition of “critical commentary” was purposefully broad since peer-reviewed scholarship is such a recent invention. I chose 'Tis Pity She's a Whore by John Ford. We had to submit our plays before starting so my professor could make sure we had different plays, and also probably to warn us off any she knew wouldn’t have enough stuff written about them, and we presented to the class at the end. What. An. Education! This assignment was back in the days where you had to go to the library and haul the humongous MLA Indexes of publications off the shelves, sneeze at the dust, and, in order to get back to publications during the past two centuries, brave the microfiche room in the dark’n’gloomy basement if you couldn’t find what you needed in the card catalog! Good times, good times (erm, I am NOT being sarcastic here!)
So, yes, when I did my pivot from feminist speculative fiction to Tolkien stuff, I started looking around for the criticism, and all I ever saw cited and discussed as the "first/earliest (in the U.S.) were the Isaacs and Zimbardo collections.
He notes that because of time constraints, Charles Williams was not included in the focus of the panel but that his name came up during the papers and following discussion, so he got included in the anthology.
In the early stages of research, I’m pretty much skimming to see what books I need to spend more time with, meaning reading over the Table of Contents, the Preface and Introductions at the start of anthologies (or monographs), and looking at the introductions to the essays (or the chapters in monographs). Checking out essays involves reading the introductions and conclusions (which in academic writing are usually multi-paragraph sections).
Not only that, I tried to write an sf story in my creative writing class to the horror and confusion of my peers (probably my prof too, but he was too professional to show it). I remember the only feedback I got was that they just could not get over the opening lines where the doors the POV character (a woman) was passing through swished open: I said, um, like in Star Trek and got nothing but BLANK stares. I didn’t try another sf story in my fiction writing classes (I was doing more with poetry and plays anyway, so no hardship, but MEMORABLE).
I had to look up what “Weltanschauung” means: and according to online dictionaries, basically the worldview or philosophy of a certain group—in this case science fiction writers—but of course using a word borrowed from German make the specific audience of the essay (which isn’t likely to be sf writers with their nasty materialism!) clear.
Yes, he refers to himself in third person — and his first sentence opens with “Once upon a time—to begin fabously, there was an editor of a series . . .”(v). I’m sure he thought himself very clever. I couldn’t find much information about him, but it’s clear from the scholarship he’s associated with that he did in fact read widely (very Dead White Male Canon widely, that is, which is probably why he found the Inklings’ work “unreadable” (v)).
It isn’t what you know, it’s who you know—networking is a basic human characteristic, I think, but in this place and time, it was the academic white old boy network and not much else.
Yep, I’ll be doing the basic math for percentages because there is (or has been—I’m sure the Mump Regime will be trying to shut it down) a growing amount of scholarship on gender perception bias (which I identified in third grade as “fear of girl cooties” based on my classmates’ behavior which involved a lot of shrieking and running away—specifically the boys would shriek “girl cooties” and run away dramatically).
This bias is particularly evident when it comes to estimates of women in leadership. One 2018 global Ipsos survey spanning 27 countries and nearly 20,000 respondents found that people in almost every country polled believed that more than 20% of the world’s top CEOs were women. In reality, the actual figure was 3% at the time. Another 2020 study in the US found that Americans overestimate women’s representation in Congress by an average of 14%. Interestingly, it’s young people — especially young men — who had the most inaccurate perceptions of how many legislative seats women actually hold.
Jgln, Katie. "Why Even a Few Women At The Top Feels Like ‘Too Many': On gender perception bias and its damaging consequences." The Noösphere. 10 Feb 2025, thenoosphere.substack.com/p/why-even-a-few-women-at-the-top-feels.
Interesting entry in the Encyclopedia on “Mainstream Writers” as a category that was more relevant in the 20th century (“the early twenty-first century has seen such an extraordinary slurring of old boundary lines among the genres that the term seems decreasingly relevant to characterize recent work”). I have always been interested in the “genre” debates around what is “Literature” (with a capital-L!), vs. what is “genre” (and conflicts over quality vs. popularity — as if the two cannot exist in the same work), as well as how the constructedness of such categories reflect socio-cultural hierarchies. I was born in 1955, and was reading sff from an early age because my father was a fan, and was used to hearing sff dismissed as “junk” — but became an English major (and then teacher) anyway because I loved reading a lot of the “Great Books” as well as “Junk,” and didn’t actually see what was to many a huge difference between them!
Samples of “Tolkien Criticism 1954-1973” are listed at the Tolkien Collector’s Guide and references Irwin’s essay on Tolkien; the essay in the Hillegas anthology is on Charles Williams.
From what I can tell, the term “Oxford Movement” seems to refer to the “Oxford Christians,” but this is not a topic I’m familiar with except in the most basic sense that it seems important to discussions about religion and the Inklings.
The fact that “seminal” (yes, based on the literal “semen”) was used as a figure of speech to denote important literary criticism is another indication of just who thought themselves the default CREATORS in literary studies as an academic field. The metaphor may have been used in other fields, but I know it from literary criticism, and at one point in my angry young feminist phase started using “ovular” in regard to major feminist authors’ work!
I was surprised to see that “This Rough Magic” (from Shakespeare’s Tempest) was not in quotation marks which I’d expect these days. Maybe the idea was “everybody would know it was from Shakespeare so no need to mark it as such”?
As I used to tell my students, it can be useful to check an encyclopedia (way back in the days before Wikipedia existed) as a place to get basic information and (if a good encyclopedia) some expert sources when they are starting their research project! But it wasn’t enough to stop there (and I more or less said the same thing about Wikipedia in later years!).
In my experience, academic anthologies often get their start in a paper session at a conference, but since most paper sessions in the humanities are limited to three-four presenters, the editors do a call for proposals, or invite others to submit their work. Haldane’s essay was first published in 1946 (The Modern Quarterly which, according to Wikipedia, was the first British Marxist academic journal; there’s an American journal, The Modern Quarterly as well — right now, I’m guessing that Haldane published in the British one, but that’s a guess—and WOW, cool to see all these socialist Marxist journals way back in what a lot of *ahem* “conservative” people think was the good old days before the Woke Behemoths began trampling the universe!). Hillegas got permission from Allen & Unwin who published Haldane’s Everything Has a History to reprint the essay in Shadows. You can read a transcription of Haldane’s essay online, at the Marxist’s Internet Archive! Serendipity can happen online as well as in physical spaces!
A quick search online isn’t turning up much: Tolkien Gateway, Letter to G.E. Selby (14 December 1937), JRRT references Haldane slightingly; and this whatever it is at PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23674294/; OK, good, grief, Naomi Mitchison is Haldane’s SISTER, and Tolkien definitely knew and respected her work, and exchanged letters with her as I recall: https://apilgriminnarnia.com/2017/03/28/the-tolkien-letter-must-read/; a few Lewis scholars talking about Haldane’s “polemic.” Will have to do more when time allows.
That issue is definitely one that Tolkien struggled with—would be a fascinating topic for someone interested in religion and science and how the two discourses engage but not my topic!
My first question would be what is the definition of “real science fiction” and how does Lewis’s work differ from that category? Is it only his religion which makes his work “notreal” science fiction (possible underlying assumption is that all all scientists are atheists and all sf writers are scientists [both proven wrong over the years]). Oh, and how do you square this generalization with the fact that Lewis also wrote fantasy, hmmmm?
My second question would be what is the “inherited world of Christianity,” and what makes Lewis’s Christianity different (hmmm, same structure as above!). There is a reason one of my mantras for my students was “define your terms, pls.” Also one of my criteria for evaluating critical/analytical writing at all levels.
Ditto the two questions above for my third: what do you mean by “novels…in the ordinary sense,” and where, again, how is Lewis a novelist who isn’t really a novelist by some definition I have that I cannot bother to define for readers who might have a different definition especially those trained in literary studies which includes genre studies from which you want to remain as far away as possible?
The convention in academic literary criticism is to not use honorifics, just names, starting with the full name the first time someone is mentioned or cited, then following with last name only.
NOTE: This post is not really a "readable" post (in the sense I cannot imagine anybody wanting to read it) because it's adapted from my academic resume (aka: a curriculum vitae, CV, because academics gonna academic) and is basically an organized list of my publications and presentations. So it's a resource (and I bet I find it easier to update when it's online especially since I don't have to keep documenting "teaching" and "service" which I did before I retired) that I find useful to have handy because I don't remember dates!
The majority of publications are print (and thus paywalled) (because academia, publish or perish, etc.) but the ones that are open-access contain links. And I am shifting to almost entirely open-access (when I choose a journal to publish in; sometimes friends bounce into view and ask for me to do something for one of their projects, and wave fun titles/topics in front of me).
Personal Photo of Author
ROBIN ANNE REID
robinareid A fastmail.com
EDUCATION
Ph.D. University of Washington, December 1992
M.A. Bread Loaf School of English, Middlebury College, 1984
M.A. Western Washington University (Creative Writing/Poetry), 1981
B.A. Western Washington University, 1979
BOOKSQueer Approaches to Tolkien: Essays on the Many Paths to Middle-earth. Co-edited with Christopher Vaccaro and Stephen Yandell. Forthcoming 2026.
Race, Racisms, and Racists: Essays on J. R. R. Tolkien's Legendarium, Adaptations, and Readers (working title), editor. Forthcoming 2026.
Tolkien in the New Century: Essays in Honor of Tom Shippey. Co-edited with John Wm. Houghton, Janet Brennan Croft, Nancy Martsch, and John D. Rateliff, McFarland, 2014.
The Encyclopedia of Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Greenwood, 2008.
Ray Bradbury: A Critical Companion. Critical Companions to Popular Contemporary Writers Series. Greenwood P, 2000.
Arthur C. Clarke: A Critical Companion. Critical Companions to Popular Contemporary Writers Series. Greenwood P, 1997.
EDITED JOURNALSAuthorizing Tolkien: Control, Adaptation, and Dissemination of J. R. R. Tolkien's Works. Co-edited with Michael D. Elam, Journal of Tolkien Research, vol. 3, iss 3, 2016.
scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol3/iss3/
Race and Ethnicity in Fandom. Co-edited with Sarah N. Gatson. Half of double-guest edited issue for Transformative Works and Cultures, vol. 8, 2011. journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/issue/view/9
ESSAYS & CHAPTERS
"'Within Bounds That He Has Set': A Stylistic Analysis of Cities and Strongholds in The Lord of the Rings," Cities and Strongholds of Middle-earth: Essays on the Habitations of Tolkien's Legendarium, edited by Cami Agan. Mythopoeic Press, 2024.
"Making or Creating Orcs: How Thorinsmut's Free Orcs AU Writes Back to Tolkien," Journal of Tolkien Research, vol. 11, iss. 2, article 3. 2020.
"The History of Scholarship on Lois McMaster Bujold's Science Fiction and Fantasy: A Feminist Bibliographic Essay," Biology & Manners: Essays on the Worlds and Works of Lois McMaster Bujold, edited by Regina Yung Lee and Una McCormack, Liverpool UP, 2020, pp. 13-31.
"The Holy Family: Divine Queerness in The Curse of Chalion and The Hollowed Hunt," Biology & Manners: Essays on the Worlds and Works of Lois McMaster Bujold, edited by Regina Yung Lee and Una McCormack, Liverpool UP, 2020, pp. 209-227.
"On the Shoulders of Gi(E)nts: The Joys of Bibliographic Scholarship and Fanzines in Tolkien Studies," Mythlore, vol. 37, no. 2, article 3, pp. 23-38.
"The Queer Phenomenology of Ann Leckie's Worldbuilding in the Imperial Radch Series," Fastitocalon: Studies in Fantasticism Ancient to Modern, vol VII, Worldbuilding in the Fantastic, 2017, pp. 61-77.
"Race in Tolkien Studies: A Bibliographic Essay," Tolkien and Alterity, edited by Christopher Vaccaro and Yvette Kisor, Palgrave, 2017, pp. 33-74.
"Writing a Life: The Stylistics of Ray Bradbury's Autobiographical Novels," Critical Insights: Ray Bradbury, ed. Rafeeq McGiveron, Salem, 2017, pp. 137-162.
"Bending Culture: Racebending.com's Protests against Media Whitewashing,"
Dis-Orienting Planets: Racial Representations of Asia in Science Fiction, edited by Isiah Lavender III, U of Mississippi P, 2017, pp. 189-203.
"'[T]hings That Were, and Things That Are, and Things That Yet May Be': Teaching Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings Online," with Judy Ann Ford. Approaches to Teaching Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and Other Works, ed. Leslie A. Donovan. The Modern Language Association of America. Approaches to Teaching World Literatures Series, 2015, pp. 214-18. Finalist for the 2017 Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies.
"Reading the Man in the Moon: An Intersectional Analysis of Robert A. Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress," Critical Insights: Robert A. Heinlein, ed. Rafeeq O. McGiveron, Salem, 2015, pp. 55-69.
"The Authenticity of Intersectionality in Nicola Griffith's Hild," The Middle Ages in Popular Culture: Medievalism and Genre, edited by Helen Young. Cambria, 2015, pp. 75-90.
"The History of Scholarship on Female Characters in J. R. R. Tolkien's Legendarium: A Feminist Bibliographic Essay," Perilous and Fair: Women in the Works and Life of J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Janet Brennan Croft and Leslie A. Donovan, Mythopoeic P, 2015, pp. 13-40.
"'The Wild Unicorn Herd Check-In': Reflexive Racialisation in Online Science Fiction Fandom," Black and Brown Planets: The Politics of Race in Science Fiction, ed. Isiah Lavender III, U of Mississippi P, 2014, pp. 225-240.
"Polytemporality and Epic Characterization in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: Reflecting The Lord of the Ring's Modernism and Medievalism," with Judy Ann Ford. The Hobbit in Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on the Novel's Influence on the Later Writings, edited by Bradford Lee Eden, McFarland, 2014, pp. 208-221.
"Genre, Censorship, and Cultural Changes: Critical Reception of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451," Critical Insights: Fahrenheit 451, edited by Rafeeq McGiveron, Salem P, 2014, pp. 37-49.
"Light (noun, 1) or Light (adjective, 14b)?: Female Bodies and Femininities in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings," The Body in Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on Middle-earth Corporeality, edited by Christopher Vaccaro, McFarland, 2013, pp. 98-118.
"Remaking Texts, Remodeling Scholarship" in Remake/Remodel: Film Remakes, Adaptations and Fan Productions, edited by Kathleen Loock and Constantine Verevis, Palgrave, 2012, pp. 179-196.
"Into the West: Far Green Country or Shadow on the Waters?" with Judy Ann Ford. Picturing Tolkien: Essays on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings Film Trilogy, edited by Janice Bogstad and Philip Kaveny. McFarland, 2011, pp. 169-182.
"Mythology and History: A Stylistic Analysis of The Lord of the Rings," Style, vol. 43, no. 4, Winter 2009, pp. 517-538.
"Thrusts in the Dark: Slashers' Queer Practices," Extrapolation, vol. 50, no. 3, Fall 2009 pp. 463-483.
"Councils and Kings: Aragorn's Journey Towards Kingship in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings," With Judy Ann Ford. Tolkien Studies, vol. VI, 2009, pp. 71-90.
"'Yearning Void and Infinite Potential': Online Slash Fandom as Queer Female Space," with Alexis Lothian and Kristina Busse. English Language Notes. Queer Space Special Issue, ed. by Jane Garrity, vol. 45, iss. 2, Fall/Winter 2007, pp. 103-111. A collaborative experiment in a note format (rather than formal essay) that in online at LiveJournal in its full version; the cut version is in the print journal.
"'Tree and flower, leaf and grass': The Grammar of Middle-earth in The Lord of the Rings," Fantasy Fiction into Film, edited by. Leslie Stratyner and James R. Keller, McFarland, 2007, pp. 35-54.
"Breaking of the Fellowship: Competing Discourses of Archives and Canons in The Lord of the Rings Internet Fandom," How We Became Middle Earth, edited by Adam Lam and Nataliya Oryshchuk, Walking Tree, 2007, pp. 347-370.
"Cunning Linguists: The Bisexual Erotics of Words / Silence / Flesh," with Eden Lee Lackner and Barbara Lynn Lucas, Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet. edited by Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse, McFarland, 2006, pp. 189-206.
"Tolkien's Book and Jackson's Film: Adaptation, Substitution, Translation or Desecration?" Arizona English Bulletin, vol. 45, no. 2, 2003, pp. 3-10.
"Borderlands Theory and Science Fiction," The SFRA Review, no. 250, Jan/Feb 2001, p. 10.
"Lost in Space Between 'Center' and 'Margin.'" Feminist Nightmares: Women at Odds, edited by Susan Weisser and Jennifer Fleischner, New York UP, 1994, pp. 343-357.
"Constructing Sites/Sights of Resistance: Inserting Different Discourses of 'Race' and 'Ethnicity' into Feminism," Diversity: A Journal of Multicultural Issues, vol. I, no. 2, Spring 1993, pp. 29-56.
EDITOR REVIEWED CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
"How Queer Atheists, Agnostics, and Animists Engage with Tolkien's Legendarium," Tolkien and Diversity: Proceedings of the Tolkien Society Summer Seminar 2021, The Tolkien Society, edited by Will Sherwood, Peter Roe Series XXII, Luna Press, 2023, pp. 52-85.
"From Beowulf to Post-modernism: Interdisciplinary Team-Teaching of J .R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings," With Judy Ann Ford. The Ring Goes Ever On: Proceedings of the Tolkien 2005 Conference Celebrating 50 Years of The Lord of the Rings, edited by Sarah Wells, Tolkien Society, 2008, pp. 106-111.
"'Momutes': Momentary Utopias in Tepper's Trilogies," The Utopian Fantastic: Selected Essays from the Twentieth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, edited by Martha Bartter, Praeger, 2004, pp. 101-108.
EDITOR REVIEWED BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAYS
"Tolkien's Literary Theory and Practice," in "The Year's Work on Tolkien Studies 2018," edited by David Bratman. Tolkien Studies, vol. 20, 2021, pp. 297-305.
"Tolkien's Literary Theory and Practice," in "The Year's Work on Tolkien Studies 2017," edited by David Bratman. Tolkien Studies, vol. 19, 2020, pp. 282-88.
"Tolkien's Literary Theory and Practice," in "The Year's Work on Tolkien Studies 2016," edited by David Bratman. Tolkien Studies, vol. 18, 2019, pp. 211-16.
"Tolkien's Literary Theory," in "The Year's Work in Tolkien Studies 2015," edited by David Bratman. Tolkien Studies, vol. 15, 2018, pp. 301-307
"General Criticism: The Hobbit," in "The Year’s Work in Tolkien Studies 2014," edited by David Bratman. Tolkien Studies, vol. 14, 2017, pp. 229-233.
"Tolkien's Literary Theory and Practice," in "The Year’s Work in Tolkien Studies 2014," edited by David Bratman. Tolkien Studies, vol. 14, 2017, pp. 240-247.
"Philology and Language Studies: Tolkien’s Use of English," in "The Year in Tolkien Studies 2013," edited by David Bratman. Tolkien Studies, vol. 13, 2016, pp. 283–290.
"Tolkien’s Literary Theory and Practice," in "The Year in Tolkien Studies 2013," edited by David Bratman. Tolkien Studies, vol. 13, 2016, pp. 242–257.
EDITOR REVIEWED "NOTES" & "COMPANIONS TO"
"'Perilous and Fair' in 'A Bleak, Barren Land': A Feminist Responds to Dylan Lee Henderson’s Essay," Mythlore, vol. 43, no. 2, article 19, 2025, pp. 253-269. The Online Supplement, Writing from Ithilien, 2025.
“Chapter 17: Anglophone Science Fiction Fandoms, 1920s-2020s.” The New Routledge Companion to Science Fiction, edited by Mark Bould, Andrew M. Butler, Adam Roberts, and Sherryl Vint, 2nd ed. Routledge, 2024, pp. 147-54.
"Chapter 13, 'I Came for the 'Pew-Pew Space Battles'; I Stayed for the Autism: Martha Wells' Murderbot," The Routledge Companion to Gender and Science Fiction, edited by Sonja Fritzsche, Keren Omry, Wendy Pearson, and Lisa Yaszek, Routledge, 2023, pp. 95-101.
"A Queer Atheist Feminist Autist Responds to Donald Williams's "Keystone or Cornerstone? A Rejoinder to Verlyn Flieger on the Alleged 'Conflicting Sides' of Tolkien's Singular Self"," Note, Mythlore, 2022, vol. 40, no. 2, article 14.
"Melissa Scott," Fifty Key Figures in Cyberpunk Culture, edited by Anna McFarlane, Graham J. Murphy, and Lars Schmeink, Routledge, 2022, pp. 179-184.
"The White Elephant in the Room: Lois McMaster Bujold's Participation in Racefail '09," Short But Concentrated: An Essay Symposium on the Works of Lois McMaster Bujold, eds. Una McCormack and Regina Yung Lee, Fifth Storey Press, Chapter 3.
"Celebrating 'Queer Lodgings.'" Note, Mallorn, iss. 61, Winter 2020. pp. 31-31.
“Chapter 21: Fan Studies.” The Routledge Companion to Sciencd Fiction, edited by Mark Bould, Andrew M. Butler, Adam Roberts, and Sherryl Vint. Routledge, 2009, pp. 204-13.
REVIEWS
Review, Tolkien Among the Moderns, edited by Ralph C. Wood, Journal of Tolkien Research, vol. 6, iss. 1, article 2, 2018.
Review, The Woman Fantastic in Contemporary American Media Culture, edited by Elyce Ray Helford, Shiloh Carroll, Sarah Gray, and Michael R. Howard II. Science Fiction Film and Television, vol 11, iss. 2, 2018, pp. 341-6.
Review, Tolkien's Modern Middle Ages, edited by Jane Chance and Alfred K. Siewers. Tolkien Studies, vol. 4, Spring 2007, pp. 314-323.
Review, "J.R.R. Tolkien Special Issue," Mfs: Modern Fiction Studies, guest edited by Shaun F. Hughes. Tolkien Studies, vol. 3, Spring 2006, pp. 178-182.
Review, "Three Greenhaven Press Books (Readings on J.R.R. Tolkien; Readings on Fahrenheit 451; Readings on Frankenstein)," Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, vol. 12, iss. 1, no. 45, 2001, pp. 126-131.
Review, Sherri Tepper's The Fresco, The SFRA Review, no. 253, July/Aug 2001, p. 30.
Review Essay: "New Feminist Cultural Criticism," Science Fiction Studies, vol. 27, no. 81, part 2, July 2000.
Review Essay: "Feminism, Gender and Science Fiction," The SFRA Review, #235/236, August/October 1998, pp. 10-12.
ENCYCLOPEDIA ENTRIES
"Ray Bradbury," Popular Contemporary Writers, vol. 2, edited by Michael D. Sharp, Marshall Cavendish, 2005.
"Charles de Lint," Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 251: Canadian Fantasy and Science-Fiction Writers, edited by Douglas Ivison, Bruccoli Clark Layman, 2002, pp. 49-60.
ONLINE ESSAYS
"Writing Against the Grain: T. Kingfisher's Feminist Mythopoeic Fantasy," File 770, Aug. 4, 2021.
"Melissa Scott’s Invisible Worlds," Glasgow In 2024. June 28. 2021.
"Visiting Middle-earth," File 770, July 5, 2018.
"Sheri S. Tepper," File 770, Jan. 2, 2017.
GRANTSExternal
Co-director, National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer Institute for School Teachers. "J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings: The Real and the Imagined Middle Ages" with Judy Ann Ford. $175,395. Summer II 2009.
Co-director, National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer Institute for School Teachers, "From Beowulf to Post-Modernism: J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings" with Judy Ann Ford. $138,000. Summer II 2004.
Internal
2009 Research Enhancement Grant $4500
The Fan Fiction Reader
2007 Research Enhancement Grant $4,738
Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy: An Encyclopedia, published 2008, Greenwood P.
CREATIVE WRITINGPoetry
"Rock Roses. "The Mayo Review. Texas A&M University-Commerce. 2008.
"Fireflies and Spidersilk." Cereberation, 2007.
"January 29, 2000." New Texas 2001, edited by Donna Walker-Nixon and James Ward Lee. University of Mary Hardin-Baylor.
"Texas Victorian Wedding Story." New Texas '99, edited by Donna Walker-Nixon and James Ward Lee. University of Mary Hardin-Baylor.
"Wings and Stone." Western Ohio Journal IX-1 Spring 1988.
"Taking Pictures." cold drill, Spring 1988.
"Song." Boise Statesman, Fall 1987.
"Old Woman." Root Weave, Fall 1985.
"Montana Camping Trip." passaic review, #7/8.
"Ancestral Determination." The Panhandler, #14, Fall 1984.
"A Matter of Survival." "Northwest Magazine," Portland Oregonian, Summer 1984.
"Fall Haiku" and "Holly Haiku." Piedmont Literary Review, vol. VIII, no. 4, 1984.
"A Sheep and Horse Man," Poetry Today, December 1983.
"Different Feelings." Kwani #1, Fall 1982.
"Bus Trip." Another Small Magazine, I-2, Spring 1982.
"Turning of the Season," Poetry Seattle, May, 1982.
Plays ProducedPatterns. One Act, Cornish Institute, Seattle, Washington, November 1984.
A Reforestation Project, One Act, Student Directed Plays, Western Washington University, March 1982.
Lonely Woman, One Act, Radio Theatre, Western Washington University, February 1982.
Rose Tints, Full Length, New Playwright's Theatre, Western Washington University, November 1981.
The Hostage, One Act, New Playwright's Theatre, Western Washington University, Spring 1980.
Other
Dissertation: A Genealogy of North American Feminism, 1963-1991: Competing Narratives of 'Gender,' 'Race,' and 'Ethnicity,' University of Washington, December, 1992.
Thesis: Permutations: A Group of Poems in Three Movements. Western Washington University, June 1981.
PRESENTATIONSKeynote/Plenary And Invited Presentations
“Tolkien’s ‘Absent [Female] Characters’: How Christopher Tolkien Expanded Middle-earth.” Tolkien Society, Christopher Tolkien Centenary, Virtual, November 23, 2024.
"On the Shoulders of Gi(E)nts: The Joys of Bibliographic Scholarship and Fanzines in Tolkien Studies," Guest of Honor, MythCon 29, Atlanta, GA, July 20-23, 2018.
"The Tolkien Corpus," Plenary, with Christian Hempelmann, THATCAMPOK 2016, Oklahoma State University, May 20-21, 2016.
"Tolkien and Popular Culture," Keynote, Tolkien in Vermont 2016, University of Vermont, April 8-9, 2016.
"Slashing the Fathers: Who's Anxious Now? Queering Harold Bloom and J. R. R. Tolkien in Female-Authored Fantasy," IAS Benjamin Meaker Visiting Professor, University of Bristol. Public lecture, and postgraduate seminar on theories of reception, rereading, rewriting, and remixing in popular culture. July 2010.
"Remaking Texts, Remodeling Scholarship," Keynote. Remake | Remodel: New Perspectives on Remakes, Film Adaptations, and Fan Productions. University of Göttingen, Germany, 30 June - 2 July, 2010.
"'Harshin Ur Squeez': Racisms in LiveJournal Online Fandoms," Plenary presentation, Third Slash Fiction Study Day, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK, 25 February, 2008.
"'A Room of Our Own:' How F/F Slash Queers Female Space," Keynote, Second Slash Fiction Study Day at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK, 27 February 2007.
"The Final (?) Closet: Real People Fiction/Real People Slash," Keynote, Slash Fiction Study Day, De Montfort University, Leicester, United Kingdom. March 1, 2006.
"Bringing 'Popular Culture' Into the Multiethnic American Literature Classroom," Keynote. Second Annual URI English Studies Conference: The Uses of Popular Culture. Providence, Rhode Island, October 20-21, 2000.
"Boundary Crossings: Litera(Cul)tur(Genr)es," Featured Speaker. The 1994 Lorraine Sherley Literature Symposium: A Limitless Field: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Literature," Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX, October 1, 1994.
Conference Papers
“A ‘Tolkien’ of One’s Own: Women Making Their Own ‘Tolkiens.’” Popular Culture Association Annual Conference, New Orleans, LA, April 16-19, 2025.
“Heritage Starts with HER: Women Writers Writing Back to Tolkien’s Legendarium.” Tolkien as Heritage, Tolkien Society & Tolkinovo društvo Srbije 2024 Seminar, Virtual, December 8, 2024.
“An Incomplete Academic Fellowship: Excluding Queer Feminist Women from Tolkien Studies.” GIFCon 2025: Queering the Fantastic, Virtual, Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic, University of Glasgow, Centre May 7-9, 2025.
“I desire the road. . . . . [but] [r]oads were made for young men, not middle-aged women”: Ista’s Journey from Dowager to Paladin.” Mythcon 53: Fantasies of the Middle Lands, Hybrid, August 2-3, 2024.
“Victoria Goddard’s Nine World Series: Interleaving and Resonating with J.R.R. Tolkien’s Mythopoeic Worldbuilding.” 20th Annual UVM Tolkien Conference, University of Vermont, Hybrid, April 13, 2024.
“Second Thoughts about the Second Age: Applying Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands Theory to Tolkien’s Legendarium,” Popular Culture Association Annual Conference, April 5-8, San Antonio, TX., 2024.
“‘Really I’m an atheist, but not the kind that yells at people’: Atheist Readers of J.R.R. Tolkien.” Popular Culture Association Annual Conference, Chicago, IL, March 27-30, 2024.
“Wide Seas Islander, Autist, and Asexual: The Intersectional Mythopoeic Characterization of Cliopher (Kip) Mdang.” Mythopoeic OMS 2024, Virtual, February 17-18, 2024.
“Virtual Culture Warriors: The Alt-Right Crusade Against Diversity in The Rings of Power. The Marvelous Diversity of Science Fiction and Fantasy Symposium, Hybrid, Texas A&M University, April 13-14, 2023.
"Second Thoughts about the Second Age: Applying Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands Theory to Tolkien's Legendarium," The Second Age of Middle-earth, 19th Annual UVM Tolkien Conference, hybrid. April 1, 2023.
"How Much Has It Changed?: Racisms In SF/F In The 21st Century," When It Changed: Women In Sf/F Since 1972, Science Fiction Foundation, University of Glasgow's Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic, and the Games and Gaming Lab, hybrid. Dec. 2-4, 2022.
"What Happens when the Cauldron of Story Boils Over: How Jemisin's Broken Earth Trilogy Breaks Middle-earth," Northeast Popular Culture Association Virtual Conference, Oct. 20-22, 2022.
"J. R. R. Tolkien, Culture Warrior: The Alt-Right Religious Crusade against 'Tolkien and Diversity,'" Tolkien Society, Oxenmoot, hybrid, Sept. 1-4, 2022.
"What Happens when the Cauldron of Story Boils Over: How Jemisin's Broken Earth Trilogy Breaks Middle-earth," MythCon 52, July 29-Aug. 1, Albuquerque, NM., 2022,
"J. R. R. Tolkien, Culture Warrior: The Alt-Right Religious Crusade against 'Tolkien and Diversity,'" Popular Culture Association Annual Conference, virtual, April 13-16, 2022.
"Writing Against the Grain: T. Kingfisher's Feminist Mythopoeic Fantasy," MythCon 51, virtual, July 20-Aug. 2, 2021.
"Queer Atheists, Agnostics, and Animists, Oh, My!", "Tolkien and Diversity," Tolkien Society Summer Seminar, virtual, July 3-4, 2021.
"Race in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and in Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor," Popular Culture Association Annual Conference Conference, Philadelphia, PA. April 2020. Cancelled. Presented at the virtual Popular Culture Association Annual Conference, June 2-5, 2021.
"Melissa Scott Queered Those Punks!", Virtual Southwest Popular Culture, Feb. 22-27, 2021.
"Atheists, Agnostics, and Animists, Oh My!: Secular Readings of J. R. R. Tolkien's Legendarium," Southwest Popular Culture Association Conference, Albuquerque, NM, Feb. 2020.
"Medievalist, Modernist & Postmodernist Readings of Tolkien's Constructions of Race," International Congress for Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI May 9-12, 2019.
"Why White Supremacy Can No Longer Provide Cover for White Academia," International Congress for Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 9-12, 2019.
"Atheists, Agnostics, and Animists, Oh My!: Secular Readings of J. R. R. Tolkien's Legendarium," Popular Culture Association Annual Conference, Washington, D.C., April 17-20, 2019.
"Atheists, Agnostics, and Animists, Oh My!: Secular Readings of J. R. R. Tolkien's Legendarium," New York Tolkien Conference 2019, March 17, 2019.
"The Grammar of Historical Memory in Tolkien's Legendarium: the Tales of Beren and Lúthien," International Medieval Congress, Leeds, U.K., July 2-5, 2018.
"An Incomplete Fellowship: The Exclusion of Queer Women in Tolkien Studies," Popular Culture Association Annual Conference, Indianapolis, IA, March 28-31, 2018.
"'Making or Creating': Fans Transforming Orcs," Popular Culture Association Annual Conference, San Diego, CA, April 12-15, 2017.
"Stylistics Analysis of "Fatherhood" in "The Tale of Fëanor," International Congress of Medieval Studies, Western MI University, Kalamazoo, MI, May 12-15, 2016.
"The Grammar of Myth in The Silmarillion (Turin Turambar)," Popular Culture Association Annual Conference, Seattle, WA, March 22-25, 2016.
"The Grammar of Myth in The Silmarillion," Southwest Popular and American Culture Association Conference. Albuquerque, NM, Feb. 15-18, 2016.
"Conflicting Audience Receptions of Tauriel in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit," Popular Culture Association Annual Conference, New Orleans, LA, April 1-4, 2015.
"The Processes of Performing Masculinity in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit," Southwest Popular and American Cultural Studies Conference. Albuquerque, NM, Feb. 11-14, 2015.
"The Holy Family: Divine Queerness in Lois McMaster Bujold's Chalion Series," South Central MLA Conference. Austin, TX. Oct. 28-21, 2014.
"Political Rhetorics of Color-Blind Racism in Racefail '09," SFF NOW Conference. Warwick University, UK, Aug. 22-23, 2014.
"The Holy Family: Divine Queerness in Lois McMaster Bujold's Chalion Series," Biology and Manners Conference. Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK, Aug. 20, 2014.
"Constructions of Middle-earth in Tolkien's The Fall of Arthur," Popular Culture Association Annual Conference, Chicago, IL, April 18, 2014.
"Middle-earth: Tolkien's Geography in The Fall of Arthur," 35th Southwest Popular and American Culture Conference. Albuquerque, NM, Feb. 21, 2014.
"Tolkien Corpus Project," 35th Southwest Popular and American Culture Conference. Albuquerque, NM. Feb. 21, 2014.
"A Roundtable Discussion of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," Organizer, Moderator, and Presenter at special event for the J. R. R. Tolkien Archive, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, Feb. 21, 2013.
"In Honor of Verlyn Flieger: The State of Tolkien Scholarship," 46th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 2013.
"Tolkien and Alterity: In Honor of Jane Chance," 46th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 2013.
"Interspecies Bromance in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey? and What Fans Will Do," Celebrating the Hobbit: A Conference on the Works of J. R. R. Tolkien. Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Indiana. March 1-3, 2013.
"Women and Tolkien: Amazons, Valkyries, Feminists, and Slashers," 45th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 2012.
"Creating a Conceptual Search Engine and Multimodal Corpus for Humanities Research," Digital Humanities and Internet Research Special Session. Modern Language Association, Seattle, WA, Jan. 5, 2012
"The Monstrous and the Feminine in J. R. R. Tolkien's Legendarium," MythCon 39, Albuquerque, NM, July 15-18, 2011.
"Grammar and Geography in Middle-earth," The 44rd International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 12-15, 2011.
"Racefail 09 Part Nth: Citizenship Fail," Popular Culture Association Annual Conference, San Antonio TX, April 20-23, 2011
'What Do You Mean "Pleasure," White Man?': Complicating Empathic Identification and Self Insertion in Online Fan Fiction," Desiring the Text, Touching the Past: Towards an Erotics of Reception. University of Bristol, UK, July 10, 2010.
"Where No Straight Man Has Gone Before: Queering Star Trek," American Studies Division, University of Göttingen, Germany, July 3, 2010.
"The Rhetorics of Color-Blind Racism in Racefail 09," International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, Orlando, FL, 17-21 March, 2010.
"'A Room of Our Own:' Women Writing Women in Fan and Slash Fiction," International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, Orlando, FL, March 18-22, 2009.
"The Crown of Durin and the Shield of Oromë the Great: Spirituality and History in The Lord of the Rings," International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 8-11, 2008.
"'Harshin Ur Squeez': Visual Rhetorics of Anti-Racism in LiveJournal Online Fandoms," International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, Orlando, FL, March 19-23, 2008.
"Slashing the Fathers: Who's Anxious Now?" MythCon 38, Berkeley, CA, August 3-6, 2007
"Into the Woods: Faramir as Top, Bottom, and In-Between," International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, March 14-17, 2007.
"The Theme of Mistaken Love: A Feminist Re/Vision of Éowyn," International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 10-13, 2007.
"'Tree and flower, leaf and grass': The Grammar of Middle-earth in The Two Towers" MythCon 37, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, August 4-7, 2006.
"'Tree and flower, leaf and grass': The Grammar of Middle-earth in The Fellowship of the Ring," International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 4-7, 2006.
"A Thrust in the Dark: Slash Girls' Internet Queerness," 27th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts," Ft. Lauderdale, FL, March 15-19, 2006.
"From Beowulf to Postmodernism: Interdisciplinary Teaching of The Lord of the Rings" with Judy Ann Ford. Tolkien 2005: The Ring Goes Ever On, Aston University, Birmingham, UK, Aug. 11-15, 2005.
"Epic Becomes Novel, Novel Becomes Film: Texts by Tolkien and Jackson," 40th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 5-8, 2005.
""Breaking of the Fellowship: Competing Discourses of Archives and Canons in The Lord of the Rings Internet Fandom," 26th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, Fort Lauderdale, FL, March 16-21, 2005.
"'Far Green Country' or 'Shadow on the Waters'?: The Question of Valinor in The Lord of the Rings," The University of Texas-Tyler, "From Plato to Potter," March 26, 2005.
'History Becomes Legend': The Lord of the Rings in History and Literature. Collaborative Keynote Speech with Dr. Judy Ann Ford, Interdisciplinary Conference, English Graduates for Academic Development, A&M-Commerce, Sept. 17, 2004.
The Lord of the Rings: Middle Earth in the College and High School Classroom. Session: TEAMS V. Beowulf Comes to Edoras: Tolkien as a Gateway to Medieval Studies. With Judy Ann Ford. International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI. May 5-8, 2004.
Cunning Linguists: The Queer Erotics of "Words/Silence/Flesh," International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, March 16-21, 2004.
"Tolkien's Book and Jackson's Film: Adaptation, Substitution, Translation or Desecration?", PCA/ACA Conference, New Orleans, LA. April 16-19, 2003.
"Root, Branch, and Leaf: Resonances from Tolkien to de Lint," International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, Ft. Lauderdale, FL. March 19-23, 2003.
"So You Want To Be . . . . More than the Stereotypical Girl: Wizardry and Gender in Diane Duane's 'Young Wizards' Series," International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, March 20-23, 2002.
"Social Constructions of 'Wizards' in Fantasy Novels by Duane, Hambly, and Pratchett," PCA/ACA Conference, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, March 13-16, 2002.
"Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Life in the Borderlands/Season Two," Popular Culture Association Annual Conference, Philadelphia, PA, April 11-14, 2001.
"Teaching and Preaching in the Nineties: Politics, Religion, Education, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," Second Annual URI English Studies Conference: The Uses of Popular Culture. Providence, RI, October 20-21, 2000.
"Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Life in the Borderlands/Season One," Popular Culture Association Annual Conference. New Orleans, LA, April 19-22, 2000.
"'When Worlds Collide": War on the Borderlands in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," Popular Culture Association Annual Conference. San Diego, CA, March 31-April 3, 1999.
"'Momutes': Momentary Utopias in Tepper's Trilogies," International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts. Ft. Lauderdale, FL, March 17-21, 1999.
"'The Perils of Pauline': Professing Popular Pscholarship," Sigma Tau Delta Upsilon Beta Chapter, Initiation Speaker. Commerce, TX, November 19, 1998.
"Deep Space Nine: Star Trek's Borderlands," Popular Culture Association Annual Conference, Orlando, FL, April 9-11, 1998.
"Feminist Movements Toward New Spaces," International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, March 18-21, 1998.
"Sheri S. Tepper: 'Webster, Witch, and Wicked/Wiccan Woman,'" Popular Culture Association Annual Conference, San Antonio, TX, March 26-29, 1997.
"'Points/Knots/Focuses:' 'Power" and "Feminism' in David Brin's Glory Season," Popular Culture Association Annual Conference, Las Vegas, NV, March 25-28, 1996.
"Single White Female Wants to Meet Vampire: Object, Contemporary Feminist Sex; Or, Whatever Happened to Vlad the Impaler in the 90s?", Popular Culture Association Annual Conference, Philadelphia, PA, April 12-15, 1995.
"'Multiculturalism' and 'Feminism': Teaching and Working in the Nineties," South Central Women's Studies Association, Annual Conference, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, March 24-25, 1995.
"Feminist Theory in Science Fiction," Featured speaker. Interdisciplinary Conference, English Graduates for Academic Development, East Texas State University, Commerce, TX, July 30, 1994.
"Race-ing to the Stars and Back: Bodies and Culture in US SF," Popular Culture Association Annual Conference, Chicago, IL, April 6-9, 1994.
"Octavia Butler and Jewelle Gomez: Crossing Boundaries," Baylor Literary and Academic Conference, Waco, TX, February 11-12, 1994.
"(An)Other Look at North American SF: Multiculturalism in Trilogies by Butler, Ore and Tepper," Popular Culture Association Annual Conference, New Orleans, LA, April 1993.
"What is a Publishable Essay? A Perilous Question," Modern Language Association, New York City, Dec. 1992.
"Heroes or Sheroes?" Popular Culture Association Annual Conference, Louisville, KY, March, 1992.
"Sayers' Communities of Women: A Feminist Practice of Woolf's Theories," Detective Fiction and Film Conference, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY, Oct. 1991.
"Grass: An Epic Reversal of Dune," Popular Culture Association Annual Conference, San Antonio, TX, March, 1991.
"Movements Toward New Spaces: Feminist Theory and World Changing Fictions," Life, the Universe and Everything, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, Feb. 1990.
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
Popular Culture Association
Trustee-at-large, April 2022-April 2025
Area Chair: Tolkien Studies Area, 2014-2025
Member of Editorial Review Board, Mallorn, 2020- Present.
https://www.tolkiensociety.org/society/publications/mallorn/mallorn-editorial-board/
Member, Editorial Board, Journal of Tolkien Research, 2014-present
https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/editorialboard.html
Reader for AP English Literature exams. Louisville, Kentucky. June 2010; June 2011.
Tolkien at Kalamazoo, 2007-2011: Proposed and organized paper sessions and roundtables.
Reader/Reviewer, N.E.H. Panel on Summer Seminars and Institutes Applications. Washington, D.C., April 2010.
International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts
Second Vice President, 2006-2009
Division Head, Science Fiction Literature, March, 2003-2006
Popular Culture Association, Second Vice President 1997-2000
Area Chair, Science Fiction and Fantasy, 1995-1997
Finished The Islands of Sorrow and it is a bit slight, definitely one for the Simon Raven completist I would say - a number of the tales feel like outtakes from the later novels.
Decided not for me: Someone You Can Build a Nest In.
Started Val McDermid, The Grave Tattoo (2006), a non-series mystery. Alas, I was not grabbed - in terms of present-day people encounter Historical Mystery, this did not ping my buttons - a) could not quite believe that a woman studying at a somewhat grotty-sounding post-92 uni in an unglam part of London would have even considered doing a PhD on Wordsworth (do people anywhere even do this anymore) let alone be publishing a book on him b)a histmyst involving Daffodil Boy and a not so much entirely lost but *concealed unpublished in The Archives* manuscript of Epic Poem, cannot be doing with. (Suspect foul libel upon generations of archivists at Dove Cottage, just saying.) Gave up.
Read in anticipation of book group next week, Anthony Powell, The Kindly Ones (1962).
Margery Sharp, Britannia Mews (1946) (query, was there around then a subgenre of books doing Victoria to now via single person or family?). Not a top Sharp, and I am not sure whether she is doing an early instance of Ace Representation, or just a Stunning Example of Victorian Womanhood (who is, credit is due, no mimsy).
Because I discovered it was Quite A Long Time since I had last read it, Helen Wright, A Matter of Oaths (1988).
Also finished first book for essay review, v good.
Finally came down to a price I consider eligible, JD Robb, Bonded in Death (In Death #60) (2025). (We think there were points where she could have done with a Brit-picker.)
On the go
Barbara Hambly, Murder in the Trembling Lands (Benjamin January #21) (2025). (Am now earwormed by 'The Battle of New Orleans' which was in the pop charts in my youth.)
Up next
Very probably, Zen Cho, Behind Frenemy Lines, which I had forgotten was just about due.
***
O Peter Bradshaw, nevairr evairr change:
David Cronenberg’s new film is a contorted sphinx without a secret, an eroticised necrophiliac meditation on grief, longing and loss that returns this director to his now very familiar Ballardian fetishes.
She had thought this interview would be a deal more difficult than it was turning out to be – what an agreeable man was Mr Johnson! How very soothing his manner! – nothing at all of the sordid about the business.
Caroline Kirkstall glanced around the office as Mr Johnson perused the documents she had passed to him. Entirely inspired confidence – very well-appointed – fine polished desk – good furniture – comfortable chair in which she might be easy while explaining her situation –
Of course, the recommendation by Lord Peregrine Shallock conveyed a good deal of reassurance – understood his brother-in-law, the exceedingly wealthy Mr Grigson, had the highest commendations for the Johnson agency – one must suppose that dear Nehemiah Brackley would have entirely approved this course.
She suppressed a sigh. Wondered if he had quite imagined how besieged a very comfortably left spinster that was still in early middle years would be – see how well she kept house for him after her poor sister died –
Mr Johnson looked up. Why, I can make little enough myself of these prospectuses – should like to place 'em in the hands of our Mr Abrahams, that has a fine nose for smelling out dubious financial matters – is that agreeable to you.
That is quite exactly what I hoped – to place 'em before one that would understand the intricacies – for here these gentlemen come, hearing that I have come into a tidy independence from my brother-in-law, and tell me here is this very good thing that they have confidential knowledge of, would greatly repay investment, and I do not like to trouble my brother, that is a clergyman and somewhat unworldly – but I find myself in great need of advice.
Quite so. I will go put these in Solly’s hands, and I daresay you might care for tea?
That would come very grateful!
Really, it was like going to a really sympathetic physician, or mayhap what those of the Romish persuasion found with a father confessor? One’s worries not set at naught but one’s mind eased.
Mr Johnson returned with a tray of tea-things, offered that she might pour out, and disposed himself comfortably beside the desk.
Dared say Miss Kirkstall had other business in Town – oh yes, went to call upon Mr Brackley’s stockbrokers, and also Quennells over certain legal matters – for she had rather not, she confessed, go to Magson in Droitwich for somehow, one’s business got all about the town –
Mr Johnson gave a small chuckle and said, indeed!
– and this was hardly within Mr Johnson’s remit, but although she was at present staying at the Euston Railway Hotel with her maid she wondered about seeking rather quieter lodgings for the duration of her stay –
Mr Johnson beamed. So happens that one of my operatives happened to mention to me that there is a room in her lodging-house – that is very select – stands vacant for a short while as the usual resident has been ordered to the seaside by her doctor – would not wish to advertize –
So Caroline went to gather up Merrow, that had been sitting outside the office, knitting, and they were both introduced to Miss Hacker, a plain and sensibly-dressed young woman, that said she would be entire delighted to take 'em to view the room at Mrs Mitchell’s – quiet street in Marylebone – very respectable – excellent good table –
And both she and Merrow immediately noticed when they arrived, impressively clean, that was quite a feat in London. Were somewhat took aback to discover Mrs Mitchell black – but this was London and they had already noted several darker faces about the streets – and she was all that was welcoming.
Showed 'em the room – a good size – we might easily bring in a truckle bed, would not be cramped at all – discussed the rate – very eligible – mentioned that 'twas no great distance to omnibus stops, very convenient –
Above and beyond helpful!
The very next day they moved in – the very helpful odd-job man of the house helping carry the trunks &C – and Caroline was pleased to see Merrow a deal more at home here than she had found herself in the hotel.
The permanent residents of the house a very amiable set – sensible women about earning their livings – some of 'em in a most superior way – there was Miss Coggin that was a partner in a fine Mayfair modiste – Miss Hacker that besides working at the Johnson Agency did secretarial work for Dowager Lady Bexbury –
Fine tales over tea in the sitting-room, and doubtless excellent gossip belowstairs as well.
Was not long before Caroline came round to confide that, besides soliciting her interest in business propositions, she had a notion that certain of the gentleman in her locality were about establishing an interest with a view to courtship once she was out of mourning –
This was considered exceedingly likely!
Miss Hacker remarked that the agency did a thriving business in looking into prospective suitors to discover was they bigamists – in financial straits – keeping a mistress – give to high play - &C&C. Law, they could tell tales!
Miss Coggin recounted the story of a friend of hers that would have been beguiled by a scoundrel had it not been for Miss Hacker and the agency’s acuity.
Mrs Mitchell had suggested that though Miss Kirkstall might take hackney carriages about her various errands, there was a very well-run livery stable – employed several relatives of her own – would job her a conveyance at a very good rate, in particular was she taking one in a regular way.
And just like the lodging-house, the carriage that came for her first journey to the City was admirably clean, with the horses looking well-kept. The young coachman very civil – pointed out sights of interest along the way – handed her and Merrow down very punctilious – entirely deserving of a good tip.
Sure she was here about business but there was no reason why she should not take advantage of being in Town to see some of the sights!
One morn at breakfast, that she was sitting to a little late, Caroline was perusing Mogg’s New Picture of London, when came in Miss Hacker, yawning somewhat, remarking that had been about a commission that had took her out late, la, malefactors did not keep strict business hours alas.
Caroline smiled. Asked was it true that Mr Johnson had been a Bow Street Runner?
O, quite so! Was solicited to join the Detective Branch of the peelers, but declared that was too old a dog for that – even so, there are those there will still come consult him about tricky cases –
She drank off a cup of coffee and cut herself a slice of bread.
I mind me, she went on, before you go about your ways – she nodded at Mogg’s – Her Ladyship mentioned to me t’other day when I was at her house, that she supposed you would go leave your card on Lord Peregrine Shallock.
What? – is he not in Oxford?
Alas, there is still a deal of to-do following his brother’s death –
They both made sympathetic sighs and murmurs of poor boy.
– so remains at present with the Grigsons – his sister Lady Lucretia and her husband – in Belgravia.
One hears that is a very fine part.
O, entirely worth seeing!
Having been provided with the direction, Caroline ordered the carriage from Jupp’s, and decked herself in her finer mourning garments, that she had had some advice upon from Miss Coggin, and looking in the glass, felt the effect was exceeding good. While one should eschew vanity, one did not wish to look the complete provincial spinster!
Why, indeed, she saw out of the window, Belgravia was very fine! Merrow remarked upon the greenness of the squares – may not be the countryside, miss, but 'tis very pretty, is it not? Such houses!
The Grigsons’ was somewhat daunting – very large and splendid, well, one heard Grigson was exceeding wealthy and could afford it – and here was a liveried footman with a silver tray, for her card with the appropriate corner turned down –
Do you wait here, madame, while I see whether Lord Peregrine be at home.
Surely not, thought Caroline.
But he shortly returned to say that Lord Peregrine would be delighted would Miss Kirkstall come take tea –
Caroline looked around at Merrow –
The footman added that the housekeeper would be pleased to give Miss - ? –
Merrow.
– tea in her sitting-room.
So Caroline, feeling considerable nervous, followed the fellow along corridors – how lovely this place was – to a small parlour in which Lord Peregrine, in deep mourning, was sitting in the window-seat, gazing out at the square. He rose at once and came to take both her hands.
Miss Kirkstall! I am enchanted to see you! What do you do in Town? I hope it is no matter of coming to see some crack physician –
O, naught of the like, she cried, as she settled herself in the chair to which he gestured her, and commenced upon explaining her mission in Town. That indeed I am greatly indebted to your good advice for, for certain of the prospectuses are already shown up as very dubious matters.
Entered two footmen with a tea-service and a pair of well-provided cake-stands. Shortly followed by two ladies – the younger one, in mourning, that must be Lady Lucretia, and the other, considerably older, that –
Sometimes one looked at a lady of those years, and thought, she must have been a beauty in her day: but this lady was, still, beautiful.
Lord Peregrine, she said, pray make your guest known to us.
The Dowager Lady Bexbury! As well as his sister – had been about some matter to do with a purposed drawing-room meeting, that 'twas too late to cancel, or move elsewhere, but had found some solution.
Caroline made suitable condolences on the loss of her brother to Lady Lucretia, and the latter took charge of the tea-things – one observed that she and Lord Peregrine did not seem devastated with grief – Lady Bexbury came and sat in the chair adjacent to Caroline’s.
Quite the strangest thing – Caroline found herself quite unbosoming to her, that she had never met before –
How fretted she was going about the town – the speculations as to her relations with dear Mr Brackley – the interest in her fortune – a deal of gossip &C –
My dear, said Lady Bexbury, 'tis alas to be expected. Now, I have a little place not so distant from Droitwich – 'twas formerly a hunting-box but I have undertook improvements – am not using it myself at present –
Lord Peregrine interjected that he and his set had held a reading-party there and it was quite the prime place.
– a very amiable set about the mine and the village – would not be entire solitude –
I embrace new tools. In Fabula Ultima, for example, the order in which characters go in combat varies. I found it hard to keep track of who'd gone, so I went out and got poker chips and little round labels. Now, I can just toss the chips representing characters into a bowl once they've gone. Order!
OK, except it turns out I can't tell blue from green under the ceiling light in the room where I DM and the names on the labels need to be bigger.
PLAIDDER: Hi, Conn. Thanks for coming to the meeting.
CONN: This is a meeting? I thought we were going to–
PLAIDDER: Yeah, I’m sorry, I didn’t make it clear in the summons. We’re not doing an episode. I just wanted to tell you in person.
CONN: If it’s about the new Marshlands with the alligators, I’ve already–
PLAIDDER: It is about that, kind of. I mean…this is hard to do, Conn, but I’m canceling the show.
CONN: What? Why?
PLAIDDER: Well you know how you’re the avatar of the part of me that believes in the American experiment and tries to take the optimistic view of the future of democracy here?
CONN: Don’t tell me that part of you is dead.
PLAIDDER: WELL IT’S DYING.
CONN: Because these gleachinai are being obnoxious in public about their new reality show?
PLAIDDER: That, and Congress just voted to give ICE all the money it needs to turn this whole country into a concentration camp.
CONN: You’re not cheered up even slightly by the general strike?
PLAIDDER: What are you talking about? This country–
CONN: This country will never be able to pull off a general strike. I know. But. You remember how, during the government shutdown, the flight attendants and the air traffic controllers started not showing up to work after they hadn’t been paid for a while?
PLAIDDER: Yes, but–
CONN: So that wasn’t a General Strike in the sense of being national, organized, and all-inclusive. But as I believe I said at the time: the shutdown pushed ordinary people, on their own, to resist the government–not by marching or protesting but by refusing to cooperate with it.
PLAIDDER: That has nothing to do with them building a concentration camp in the middle of the Florida Everglades.
CONN: But it does.
PLAIDDER: All right, this is your last chance. Explain the connection.
CONN: So, in your world, when you want to put on a show for a certain group of people, you put it on the Ethernet–
PLAIDDER: Internet, but whatever–
CONN:–because that’s the fastest way to get it to your audience. And what people just keep forgetting, and this will never make sense to me, is that when you put your show out there, other people are going to watch it who are not part of the audience you’re playing to.
PLAIDDER: And?
CONN: So all of this…what do they call it…performative cruelty. The masked raids, the disappearing, the sending of people to notoriously vile prisons in faraway countries, and now this new Marshlands…I mean is there a reason why you put our detention center in the marshlands 20 years ago? Were you anticipating this?
PLAIDDER: I definitely did not anticipate that enough people in power in this country would think it was a great idea to build what is essentially a cartoon villain’s lair in the middle of a swamp in Florida.
CONN: There isn’t something special about…swamps?
PLAIDDER: Well I mean that probably does explain it. The whole swamp thing. I guess I put the Cretid prison camp in the marshes because I figured that would be a place where there was nothing already built, where that land was already being treated as waste, and where it would be easy to prevent people from getting into it or out of it. But you were saying.
CONN: And this is all for their audience, the people they hope will be buying this “merch” and enjoying their show. But of course other people are watching this show, including the people who are afraid of being sent to this place.
PLAIDDER: Well isn’t that part of the point? Intimidation and terror?
CONN: Yes. But remember, your Buttercup and his minions are idiots. So they think that by intimidating and terrorizing people, they will convince them to “self-deport.” Instead, it’s just convincing them that that their first priority, now and as long as this crowd is in charge, is to stay out of ICE’s clutches. And since ICE has started showing up at people’s workplaces, people are naturally not showing up to work.
PLAIDDER: Yes, I know there have been a few stories about that…
CONN: So sure. It’d probably be impossible to organize an effective general strike. But these gleachinai are stumbling into one all on their own. It would have taken a while for the actual arrests to register, in terms of the number of people showing up to work. But because these people can’t stop themselves from piling on the horrors, they’ve already convinced people that they’re better off not showing up to work. Which is a thing that is very HARD to convince Americans of.
PLAIDDER: How does that help? I mean the people who are too scared to come to work are miserable and broke. The people who employ them are miserable and eventually going to be broke. Those of us who like to eat, you know, produce, or who would like to buy a newly constructed home maybe, are miserable and broke.
CONN: So what are the two issues everyone is most concerned about in your country? Grocery prices and the housing market. And look how fast this administration is making both things worse.
PLAIDDER: This is optimism?
CONN: This is how you get to widespread noncompliance. You make things so bad that people feel like they have nothing to lose by refusing to cooperate. Which is the first step in the trip out of here.
PLAIDDER: Nope.
CONN: What do you mean?
PLAIDDER: I mean I understand your logic but…I don’t see a way out of this. I really don’t. I look into the future and I just see horror after horror after horror.
CONN: And yet I’m still here talking to you.
PLAIDDER: And yet you are.
CONN: For the last time?
….
PLAIDDER: We’ll see.
CONN: OK.
PLAIDDER: I mean I can’t have you going all Tiny Chef on me.
CONN: One day at a time, friend. Remember how stupid all of these people are. There’s always a price to be paid for that.
PLAIDDER: If only they were the only ones paying it.
The organizers of the sponsoring organization, Tolkien at Kalamazoo (TAK), have announced that nine sessions (paper sessions and roundtables) have been approved for the 61st ICMS Conference at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo . The conference takes place during May 14-16, 2026, but they schedule hybrid (in-person and virtual participants) and virtual (all online participants) as well as in-person events.1
Below is the TAK Call for Proposals for paper sessions and roundtable discussions which are due by Sept. 1, 2025. All proposals should be submitted through the Confex Proposal Portal.
VIRTUAL: 3 sessions (2 paper session and 1 roundtable discussion)
Medieval Roots and Modern Branches: Medieval Texts and Tolkien's Work VIRTUAL.
Our session uses the metaphor of “medieval roots and modern branches” to approach analysis of the relationship between medieval poets and J. R. R. Tolkien. We articulate critical readings of medieval poems and the work of J. R. R. Tolkien, analyzing sources, analogues, and influence from a comparative point of view, alongside reception analysis of related literary and filmic texts. Sponsored by International Pearl-Poet Society / co-sponsored by Tolkien at Kalamazoo.
Stupid Sexy Sauron: Interpretations of Tolkien's Medieval Villainy VIRTUAL.
This session seeks papers that explore the various ways in which Tolkien’s villains have been interpreted, depicted, and reimagined across literature, film, television, video games, and fan culture. We invite contributions that engage with the following themes, though submissions are not limited to them: Medieval Villainy and Mythic Archetypes, especially how Tolkien’s villains fit within the medieval tradition of villainous figures. What elements of The Lord of the Rings reflect a more traditional, mythic interpretation of villainy? Other possible themes: Film and Media Adaptations, Fan Culture and Interpretations, Power and Corruption, Queering Sauron, and A Variety of Villains.
Adaptations of Tolkien: Medieval Traces in Movies, Games and Other Transmedial Texts (A Roundtable) VIRTUAL.
This roundtable explores enduring medieval influences in adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien's works across various media, including films and television, table-top and video games, and other transmedial texts. Roundtable panelists will examine how Tolkien's deep engagement with medieval literature, history, and mythology continues to shape modern interpretations, from the visual aesthetics and world-building in cinematic adaptations to the narrative structures and mechanics in interactive games and other media. Through interdisciplinary perspectives, the discussion will address ways medieval motifs are preserved, altered, or reimagined in these adaptations, considering both creative intentions and audience reception. Sponsored by Tales After Tolkien Society / Co-sponsored by Tolkien at Kalamazoo.
HYBRID: FOUR SESSIONS (3 paper sessions and 1 roundtable discussion)
Queer and Feminist Medievalisms in Tolkien's Legendarium HYBRID.
This session invites scholars to give critical attention to a host of important issues (gender, language, narrativity, sex, sexuality, and transgender identity/expression) in Tolkien’s legendarium. Scholars could expressly draw connections from the medievalism of Tolkien’s work back to earlier realizations of the medieval or to the medieval period itself. All essays should situate their investigations within the theoretical discourses of feminist and queer theories but could certainly explore intersections with class, race, religion, or other topics.
Tolkien and the Old English Exodus Poem HYBRID.
Tolkien often taught the 590 line Exodus poem, found only in Oxford Bodleian Library, Junius 11 manuscript, over two semesters demonstrating the depths of the poem into which Tolkien led his students. The purpose of this session is to examine the poem and Tolkien’s work on it through a variety of possible approaches. Papers could focus on Tolkien as teacher of the poem, Tolkien as editor, Tolkien as translator, Tolkien as commentator, and Tolkien as creator of a fantasy world influenced by the Exodus poem.
The Sea, the Shore, the Sky: Medieval Thresholds in Tolkien's Legendarium HYBRID.
We invite papers that explore how Tolkien drew inspiration from medieval sources to wrestle with physical and abstract thresholds, borders, and boundaries within his legendarium. Some examples of possible topics include: the sea, land, and sky as literal and metaphorical thresholds; willing or unwilling exile; border walkers and how they reflect Tolkien’s conceptions of morality; liminal thresholds i.e., the seen and unseen worlds and the ability to move between them via magical objects; Tolkien’s attitudes towards colonialism within tales of the Elves and Númenóreans; the importance of the elements (i.e., air, water, fire, earth) within Tolkien’s legendarium; and more.
New Tolkien: Medieval Resonances (A Roundtable) HYBRID.
Although he passed away over fifty years ago, Tolkien’s work continues to be published. Expected in October 2025 is The Bovadium Fragments, featuring Tolkien’s illustrated story “The End of Bovadium,” previously unpublished. Also recently published are The Collected Poems (2024) and the expanded Letters (2023). All offer copious opportunities for explorations of medieval resonances, particularly the use of Latin in Bovadium, and the inclusion of poetry based on Old and Middle English works in The Collected Poems; especially noteworthy are sections of Tolkien’s verse translation of Beowulf, The Owl and the Nightingale, Pearl, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
IN-PERSON (1 paper session and 1 roundtable discussion)
Scribes and Scripts: Medieval Roots of Tolkien's Writing Systems IN_PERSON.
We invite scholars, researchers, and enthusiasts to delve into the fascinating connections between the medieval world and the scripts of Middle-earth. Potential topics include, but are not limited to: paleographical parallels, such as examining visual similarities and structural resonances between medieval scripts (e.g., runes, Insular script, Carolingian minuscule, Gothic script) and Tolkien's invented alphabets. Other topics include: scribal culture and practices, the materiality of writing language, evolution and script development, the role of ornamentation and illumination, medieval cryptography and secret scripts, the literary and linguistic functions of script, and Tolkien's academic writings and lectures.
One Hundred Years of Tolkien and Lewis: Fruits of a Medieval Collaboration (A Roundtable) In-PERSON.
Tolkien at Kalamazoo and C. S. Lewis and the Middle Ages propose a roundtable of 5 or 6 short papers reflecting on the literary and scholarly relationship of Lewis and Tolkien, uncovering influence and even plagiarism (!), correcting or re-situating earlier descriptions of their relationship, pointing out their resistance to one another as well as their agreements, and tracing how their relationship continues to resonate in the history of literary scholarship, in studies of mythopoeic literature, and in the history of literary influence. Sponsored by Tolkien at Kalamazoo / Co-sponsored by C.S. Lewis and the Middle Ages.
I am planning to submit two proposals: one for the paper session on (wait for it!) the use of medieval feminist scholarly approaches in Tolkien studies: “Queer and Feminist Medievalisms” for the hybrid paper session (although it may not fit the organizers’ theme!) and one on “Medieval Misogyny in Tolkien & Jackson” for the Virtual Adaptations Roundtable.
Information on the three types of modality from the online CFP:
In Person: attendees participate in sessions live on location at Western Michigan University's campus in Kalamazoo, MI. The speakers and audience of the session are all present in a physical room.
Virtual: attendees participate in virtual sessions live over Zoom. The speakers and audience of the session all join a Zoom session facilitated through the Confex meeting site.
Hybrid: attendees participate in sessions live, both in person on Western Michigan University's campus and virtually. Some speakers and audience members will be in a physical room on Western Michigan University's campus, but others may join virtually from around the world through Zoom. Speakers joining virtually will be projected onto a large screen at the front of the room in Kalamazoo.
I gather that the hybrid and virtual sessions may be recorded *if* all the presenters involved agree.
Well, in further conferencing misadventures, woke up around 5 am with what I came to realise was a crashing migraine - it is so long since I have had one of these as opposed to 'headache from lying orkard' - took medication, and after some little while must have gone to sleep, because I woke up to discover it was nearly 9.30, and I had slept well past the alarm I had set in anticipation of the 9.00 first conference session. But feeling a lot better.
I was only just in time to grab some breakfast before they started clearing it up.
The day's papers were perhaps a bit less geared towards my own specific interests - and I was sorry to miss the ones I did - but still that there Dr oursin managed the occasional intervention. There were also some good conversations had.
So the conference, as a conference, was generally judged a success, if somewhat exhausting.
I managed to get the train from the University to Birmingham New Street with no great difficulty.
However, the train I was booked on was somewhat delayed (though not greatly, not cancelled, and no issues of taking buses as in various announcements) and I initially positioned myself at the wrong bit of the platform and had to scurry along through densely packed waiting passengers.
Journey okay, with free snacks, though onboard wifi somewhat recalcitrant.
At Euston, the taxi rank was closed!!!!
Fortunately one can usually grab a cab in the Euston Road very expeditious, and I did.
So I am now home and more or less unpacked.
Given that Mercury is, I recollect, the deity of travellers, is Mercury in retrograde?
AO3: We will be down for two hours for scheduled maintenance in a couple days. Just wanted to warn you.
ME: Ok, fine.
AO3: We’re just reminding you because in the past sometimes people get upset but really, it’s scheduled maintenance, everything is still there, you just won’t be able to access it for two hours. It’s only two hours. We planned this. It will be OK.
ME: I don’t know what you’re reassuring me for. I’m a rational adult. I have object permanence.
AO3: Are you sure? Here’s another reminder.
ME: Jesus, AO3, I got the message. Leave me alone. I’m fine here. I’ve got work to do.
AO3: All right then. Here goes. Scheduled maintenance starting…
[AO3: goes offline
ME: checks AO3, gets error message]
ME: WHERE IS IT WHERE IS MY FIC WHERE HAS IT GONE WHY CAN’T I SEE IT
Today, for the first time, the Aud trilogy (The Blue Place, Stay, Always) will be published in the UK. It only took 27 years. I know I’m not even remotely an impartial observer but these books kick ass. I love them with a crazy love. And I would dearly like UK readers to go buy a copy—and then tell me what you think.
Do you know any other queer noir/not-noir novels 1 praised by Dennis Lehane, Val McDermid, Dorothy Allison, Lee Child, Manda Scott, Francis Spufford, Laurie King, Ivy Pochoda, Robert Crais, Alex Gray, Elizabeth Hand, James Sallis, and more? No? Then maybe you should go find out what brings together such disparate writers in their love.
You can buy now or borrow from your local library. Enjoy!
They use some of the prose style of noir but they don’t do noir, in the sense that Aud, the protagonist, does not trap herself in an ever-downward spiral. The three books between them describe a hopeful arc—with, y’know, lots of sex, and scams, and seamy cityscapes. Aud, like Hild, has an essential joy in life no matter what tight spot she finds herself in… ︎
Director of the nation formerly known as Canada Quinn Atherton is determined to deliver much mass murder as it takes to achieve peace, order, good government. Why do so many ingrates object?
Really, Heggleton was a deal more entertaining a place than Ollie – the Honble Mr Oliver Parry-Lloyd, second son of Lord Abertyldd – had anticipated! Had accompanied his grandfather and namesake, Sir Oliver Brumpage, out of a sense of duty, for Granda’s man Barnet was no longer young himself, and Ma and Pa had been fretting that some younger person should go with him, make sure he did not overdo &C&C&C. And had been very agreeable to see the admiration in Thea – Lady Theodora Saxorby’s – eyes when he made the offer. For sure he had been being somewhat of a frivolous young man about Town – not particularly wild, since that fright they had all had over that business of Rathe and his gambling-hell, but not, perchance, the like of young man to appeal to a serious and pious young woman.
So he had undertook the task in somewhat of a penitential spirit, and was discovering it much more agreeable than his suppositions. Here was Heggleton not just a fine bustling manufacturing town with its prosperity built largely on cotton, but there was a deal of life about the place! An Institute – Assembly Rooms – societies for getting up concerts and choral performances – one of Lady Ollifaunt’s fine theatres – as well as a great number of improvement schemes.
Also a good deal of local society that was very welcoming to Sir Oliver’s grandson, particularly one that was in Society, had a sister that was lately married, a father that was part of an active coterie in the Lords on the side of reform –
Even more welcoming when he was discovered musical, for besides playing the bassoon, that he considered his instrument, Ollie was capable of sustaining a reasonable performance on bass fiddle or pianoforte. So there were invitations to informal gatherings to make music, and he just happened to have brought with him copies of some several of Zipsie’s compositions, that were greeted with extreme enthusiasm.
Sure, he was no innocent, he perceived that there were a number of young ladies who looked upon him as an eligible parti. Granda indeed commented upon it, with remarks upon what they would bring to a match –
I hope I am not the kind of fellow that would make that a consideration!
So do I, but do you like any of 'em, is somewhat to be took into account.
But was not all frivolity and flirtation – was being made acquainted with the business of cotton, that was where their fortunes came from.
Granda sighed, and deplored that one could not yet get by without some American cotton, though he did what he could – and revealed that as some salve to his conscience, sent a considerable sum to the di Serrantes in Boston – what a fine woman is Mrs di Serrante, the Quakers breed a very exceptional type – to disburse in various ways for the abolitionist cause.
Indeed one saw that Granda was not the brutal industrialist at all – had been twitted at first about the conditions in his mills, but had proved that not working the hands to exhaustion – having a school for children – light and air &C&C– came about remunerative in the long run.
So there was that – and Ollie began to see the interest in it all – but there would be a deal to learn!
There were also meetings with the political set in the town, for Heggleton was now a Parliamentary borough, and there was very like an election impending. Ollie did not entirely see that there was any cause for anxiety in the matter – 'twas a very solid Radical Whig seat – but over the course of various dinners, meetings of local societies and clubs &C, he came about to apprehend that there was another matter under advizance.
Here was Mr Oliver Parry-Lloyd, grandson of Sir Oliver Brumpage, son of Lord Abertyldd, that gave him a sound political pedigree – might he not, in due course, consider standing for Parliament? Ollie realized that 'twas quite a reasonable expectation. Had never given it thought before, but, indeed, had been hearing political discussion for some several years – ever since he was of an age to join the gentlemen in brandy and cigars after dinner – had observed Bobbie Wallace take to the business of being an MP quite like a duck to water –
So he attended to the conversations, and ventured an occasional question.
Granda clapped him on the shoulder and said he was glad to see that Ollie was not one of these young fellows that supposes he knows precisely how to set the world to rights, and will tell his foolish seniors in and out of season what they should be doing.
Why, said Ollie, have not give the whole matter the thought I should.
It also struck him that going into politics would manifest a seriousness that might, perchance, appeal to Thea? Or at least, impress her parents that he was no idle wastrel?
Oh, Thea.
Zipsie was a good sister that conveyed a certain amount of news in her occasional letters – well, one could not expect a new wife with all the burdens of that position upon her to indite lengthy epistles like one in a novel by Richardson! – even was that mostly about the music she and Thea were about. Certain songs by the late Miss Billston, that had been Lady Jane Knighton’s cousin, that Lady Jane greatly desired to hear once more –
But was Thea happy? Were her parents persecuting her for her religious inclinations? Were they advancing some suitable match?
It was during a ball in the Assembly Rooms for the benefit of the new hospital that he learnt intelligence that he hoped might be a good omen.
He had no idea how the conversation over the supper table had turned to that topic – had someone asked where he went to church o’Sundays? And that had got on to various parish squabbles – some matter of who would be appointed chaplain to the hospital – and a mention that this new vicar at St Oswald’s was said to have very High practices, positively Romish.
Ollie determined to go to at least one service at St Oswald’s to ascertain whether it might conform to Thea’s leanings.
But before the nearest Sunday he attended a performance at the local theatre. Was teazed by the resemblance of the actress playing Amanda in The Rivalrous Ladies to a young woman – well, had been a girl at the time – that had been wont to be among the merry throng at the Raxdell House parties for young people in the Ferraby days. But the name, he recollected – there had been a brother and a sister as well – had been Richardson and the name on the playbill was Miss Dalrymple.
One had never seen them elsewhere – but indeed, there was a considerable diversity to be found in the parties give at the Raxdell House Phalanstery! – Julius and Hannah Roberts were ever among the young guests, along with the Lowndes offspring – though sure one now saw Ferraby Lowndes received everywhere –
That had been a fine girl – not exactly pretty, but with a certain vivacity that made one overlook more obvious beauties – and had been some matters of boyish stolen kisses during Hide and Seek.
So here he was at St Oswald’s, that was to be found in one of the poorer parts of Heggleton – not that there were any actual slums – and being dutifully attentive to the service and the vicar’s practices, and observing that he had a decent congregation.
Was waylaid by the fellow on his way out, that was clearly a little surprized to see a fine gentleman – Ollie made it clear that he was only visiting – not sure how long his stay would be – felt disinclined to reveal his family connexions just yet –
When a hand came through his arm and a fine attractive female voice said, La, Mr Parry-Lloyd! What a pleasure to encounter you! Might I beg you to be so kind as to escort me to my lodgings?
He looked around and down, and seeing her closer he could not doubt that 'twas Rosalind Richardson – perchance had married? – though he saw no ring – and, blushing a little, said 'twould be an entire pleasure.
So they stepped away from the church porch, and once they had got a sufficient distance she gave a little ripple of laughter and said, had Mr Pringle been at him about work with the young men of the parish?
Ollie grinned. He had not yet quite got to that! Manly recreations to keep 'em out of places of low resort &C?
Quite so! But what do you in this place?
He explained the reasons for his presence. Mentioned that he had been to the play t’other night – praised her performance – had not been sure 'twas her, because of the name –
O, when I ran away to go on the stage, I determined to change my name so that there would be no odorous caparisons with Mama –
Lord, Richardson! that would be, Clara Richardson, only slightly less noted a thespian than Amelia Addington.
– so I took darling Papa’s name professionally, even am I not entitled to it in law.
Ollie came to a stock-still halt. Dalrymple – Danvers Dalrymple, his father’s old friend, that one had ever supposed a sad old bachelor that still dressed as if 'twere the days of the Regent – though still a fine hand on the cricket pitch – ?
I see, she said with an air of amuzement, that you are not apprized of their domestic establishment – are quite Darby and Joan – Mama would not marry and renounce the boards – they live most genteel and respectable with Grandmama and her pugs – a deal more genteel and respectable than many couples that have gone to church –
Do you not mind? Ollie enquired.
Why, Gods stand up for bastards! – I daresay there are stations I might aspire to where it might hurt me, but all I have ever wanted to do is tread the boards, just like my brother, that is now running a theatre in New South Wales.
They walked on a little way, coming to rather more respectable streets.
She said with somewhat of wistfulness that those had been wonderful parties at Raxdell House – but, she added, to his sympathetic expression, we did not go home to sleep in ashes! And here were her lodgings.
They shook hands and she went in.
He shook his head. The encounter had give him a deal to think on.
The inspiration being the 1999 Mummy movie is not without problematic elements.
Imagine an Egyptian film company wanting to make a movie about idiots waking a horror in Canada that only the Egyptian lead can resolve. ( Read more... )
On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A fisherman mends a glimmering net. Happy porpoises jump in the sea, By the rainspout young sparrows are playing And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.
On the day the world ends Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas, A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn, Vegetable peddlers shout in the street And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island, The voice of a violin lasts in the air And leads into a starry night.
And those who expected lightning and thunder Are disappointed. And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps Do not believe it is happening now. As long as the sun and the moon are above, As long as the bumblebee visits a rose, As long as rosy infants are born No one believes it is happening now.
Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy, Repeats while he binds his tomatoes: There will be no other end of the world, There will be no other end of the world.
There are certain people in the world who are so uncaring of others’ needs and feelings that they are untroubled by conscience—they have no conscience. These are the people who as children pulled the wings off flies for fun, just because they could. These are people who, when they have power, kill other people.
Here today, by ‘people’ I am referring specifically to the current US administration. There are literally dozens of decisions the Trump administration and its minions in Congress have made that will kill people at home and abroad. Remember that: dozens.1 I’m going to mention just two as examples, one foreign, one domestic.
Domestically:
According to the Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan agency, the OBBB (‘one big beautiful bill’) package just passed by the Senate and now back with the House would increase the federal deficit by $3.4 trillion over the next 10 years. 11.8 million Americans will lose their health insurance in the next decade due to the bill’s changes to Medicaid and the ACA, while more than half Americans will pay fewer taxes.
According to the Yale Budget Lab, after taking into account tax and social safety net changes, the poorest 20% of U.S. households will lose an average of 2.9% of their real income. The real income of the next 20% of households would remain flat. The top 60% of households (those earning over about $36,500 a year) will all benefit—but those in the top 20% (earning over about $120,500) will benefit massively—and just look at how much the top 5% (earning >$265,000) will gain.
At those low incomes, nearly 3% can mean the difference between survival and not: the old, the frail, the ill, the disabled will die—most especially the old, fail, ill and disabled people of colour. Can you spell ‘eugenics’?
Then add in the ballooning deficit, and what they will mean in terms of the value of the dollar and the ability of the US to borrow, and things get virulently worse, very quickly. In the short term, many people in the US will die; in the long term, many many people will die.
Internationally
Again, I’m going to talk about just one decision (of so many, so very many): the shuttering of USAID. I just looked at a new paper in The Lancet: 2
Higher levels of USAID funding—primarily directed toward LMICs, particularly African countries—were associated with a 15% reduction in age-standardised all-cause mortality (risk ratio [RR] 0·85, 95% CI 0·78–0·93) and a 32% reduction in under-five mortality (RR 0·68, 0·57–0·80). This finding indicates that 91 839 663 (95% CI 85 690 135–98 291 626) all-age deaths, including 30 391 980 (26 023 132–35 482 636) in children younger than 5 years, were prevented by USAID funding over the 21-year study period. USAID funding was associated with a 65% reduction (RR 0·35, 0·29-0·42) in mortality from HIV/AIDS (representing 25·5 million deaths), 51% (RR 0·49, 0·39–0·61) from malaria (8·0 million deaths), and 50% (RR 0·50, 0·40–0·62) from neglected tropical diseases (8·9 million deaths). Significant decreases were also observed in mortality from tuberculosis, nutritional deficiencies, diarrhoeal diseases, lower respiratory infections, and maternal and perinatal conditions. Forecasting models predicted that the current steep funding cuts could result in more than 14 051 750 (uncertainty interval 8 475 990–19 662 191) additional all-age deaths, including 4 537 157 (3 124 796–5 910 791) in children younger than age 5 years, by 2030.
Which boils down to
USAID funding saved nearly 92 million lives during the 21 years analyzed
including over 30 million children under age 5
as result of o USAID, 14 million people will die within 5 years—14 million preventable deaths
and 14 is just the average—it could be as many as 19 million
So what’s my point?
Do not try to appeal to the administration or Congress’s better natures. They don’t have one. They understand power. The power we have is our voice and our vote. Use it. Thinks of the tens of millions of people—real people, with real lives—who are dying now and will die in the future because people like us gave those wing-pullers power. Take their power away. Please.
Possibly hundreds. So many I truly don’t know where to start. Pandemic readiness, science funding, space funding, climate research, Gaza, Ukraine, tariffs, climate regulations, the ACA… ︎
The June 2023 Dark Eye Megabundle featuring the English-language edition from Ulisses Spiele of the leading German tabletop roleplaying game of heroic fantasy, The Dark Eye.
Travel troubles today: being unable to see where the hell the alleged railway station near hotel was, and taking a taxi instead; railway out of order this evening, Ubers were summoned to take participants to hotel.
Yr hedjog was Living Bit of History in opening roundtable.
And in later sessions, there was a certain amount of That There Dr oursin going on in the questions/comments....
Some good conversation - even if hearing aids not too helpful in crowded rooms - but have noped out from evening meal, feeling too tired, will go for light meal here and early night (I hope).
Sadly, I am still slogging my way through Cultish. As a dyslexic reader, I get into these weirdly stubborn things. I am SO freaking close to being done with this book that, even though I'm no longer enjoying it, I refuse to give up. Admittedly, this is incredibly stupid. Life it too short for books you aren't enjoying! But, here I am, anyway. To be fair to me, I did take a break to read the first several issues of a 1980s American comic book called American Flagg. I talked my co-host into reading this for our podcast and, I'm going to be honest. I kind of regret that. I had a VERY DIFFERENT memory of these comic books than what is apparently the reality. Oof, they do not stand the test of time! I have literally never seen the n-word (spelled out!) so many times in a mere 12 issues, holy shit.
It should be an interesting podcast, though!
Also, when I was volunteering out at Pride, Jason Tucker who is a comic book affectionado turned to me when I told him what I'd been reading, "Huh. Is American Flagg cyberpunk, though?" Not to spoil the upcoming episode because this is a question we regularly ask of whatever we're reviewing or discussing, but I do think I now know why I thought so having re-read them, at least. I mean, this is hardly a spoiler to the episode or the comics since it is revealed in the literal first panel, but Rueben Flagg did lose his acting job to AI, actually, so I mean, that's kind of prescient, in a way, cyberpunkly-speaking.
But, wow, also a hard read, albeit in a completely different way than Cultish.
Part of my absence here is due, in part, to the fact that we've gotten some really bad news from my brother-in-law, Keven. Keven's test results have come back and the cancer has spread to his bones. The doctors informed him that its incurable and have given him about a year, year and a half to live. I don't even know how to cope with this? I was telling Shawn that you always hear people asking the hypothetical, "What would you do if you found out you only had a year left to live?" But, like that's supposed to be a fun thought-experiment, not Real Life. And, as I have reported previously, Keven is the sibling of Shawn's that my family interacts with the most. He lives within striking distance of our house--just on the other side of the Mississippi in Minneapolis. So, we see him often. Mason has been Keven's odd job man for hire now and most of his in-between college summers. And, like, our relationship with Keven is, like with a lot of family, somewhat fraught? We've had some terrible fights in the past. However, for better or for worse, Keven has been a constant in our lives.
Yesterday, when we found out, Shawn was already at work. She decided that she was just not functional after talking to Keven and so I picked her up and brought her home. We spent much of the day yesterday just trying to wrap our heads arounds this--alternating between crying/staring into the middle distance and doing distracting things like, for her working on her quilt and watching mindless British detective shows, and me randomly coming up with panel ideas for Gaylaxicon (I wrote about ten yesterday! It was kind of soothing in a weird way?)
'Twould be hard to say what was the crowning experience of this visit! Mayhap not merely going see Miss Addington play Cleopatra from a fine comfortable box, but being invited to call on her in her dressing room after!
And had done exceeding well in making connexions for the chaps: there was Averdale, had been very gladly offered a post as secretary by Jimsie, and once had completed his term at Oxford, would proceed to join the Trembournes for the summer at Worblewood. Thornton was all enthusiasm about the prospect of tutoring the Yeomans orphans, and had already commenced upon certain commissions in reviewing. Wood had been invited to spend the summer assisting in the work of the parish at St Wilfrid’s, with the possibility of eventually being appointed a curate. And Smithers was going around quite in a daze having been offered a pupillage in Mr Geoffrey Merrett’s chambers.
Then, as they were contemplating their last few days, here came Mr Gordon Marshall, that was married to the governess at Yeomans, and a reporter for the Lowndes Press, and also, they discovered, the brother of that sensation, Clo Marshall, offering that he could arrange for 'em to attend her performance at the Beaufoyle Arms Song and Supper Rooms!
They were returning from this unanticipated treat in great spirits, to discover most unwonted Cretia and Mr Grigson waiting in the hall, looking very sombre, what looked like a telegram in Grigson’s hand.
His first thought was that Father had died.
Oh Lord – 'twas not somewhat had come to Myo? One understood her condition was delicate.
O Grinnie, cried Cretia, coming up and falling upon his neck, would you believe it? Here is Talshaw, gone fallen down a flight of stairs in a drunken fit and broke his neck.
The fellows all made sympathetic murmurs, and Wood said, quite saw that they should not intrude upon the family at this time, would be about their departure the morn, at which all nodded, and Mr Grigson went over doubtless to discuss the practicalities.
O God, thought Peregrine, patting Cretia’s shoulder. Sure they had none of 'em been particularly fond of their elder brother, but ‘twas a shock. And worse than a shock.
Now he was the heir.
Grigson came over from seeing the fellows off to their beds, laid a hand on the shoulder not occupied by Cretia, and said, Lord Peregrine was entire welcome to stay here while the formalities were put in hand – had no doubt the authorities at the college would be entirely understanding, would send one of his confidential clerks about the matter –
Excellent fellow!
That is above and beyond kind – am still in shock –
Quite so. The best thing would be to go to bed and have a good night’s rest.
Cretia squeezed his hands, as he managed to detach himself and walk with not too much stumbling to the staircase.
These violent delights have violent ends, he thought, as he blew out the candle, and thought that surely, he felt so exhausted, he would sleep like the dead.
But did not. His thoughts were a clamorous agitation. Indeed there had been no particular fraternal affection 'twixt 'em. But he had not in the least been an envious younger brother, resentful of the eldest’s position. He had been exceedingly glad not to be the heir – to be able to pursue a different path –
He groaned. Doubtless his father was already plotting, making plans – one might hope that they would be checked somewhat by the conventions of mourning – surely it would look extremely vulgar to be displaying him about Society with Talshaw barely cold –
All he had desired was to have the quiet life of an Oxford fellow, pursuing scholarship, alleviated by a little recreation in Town made possible by the independence good old Brackley had provided him –
Grinnie sat up. Independence.
He had a modest competence of his own. His father could not flourish the power of the purse-strings over him. He did not have to knuckle down and comply with his demands. It would be – he gulped – uncomfortable perchance to point that out, but far less uncomfortable than being paraded about as a Marquess’s heir, ripe for marriage.
He had no great desire to live lavishly – but already came to an apprehension that Mr Brackley had left him comfortable, and that his enterprize with Roberts and Wilson was doing exceeding well, along with Mr Grigson’s sound advice on investments. He was no poor scholar of Oxenforde, but a gentleman of independent means.
His mouth went to a wry twist. From stray comments of Iffling’s and Grigson’s, very like his father would be touching him for assistance!
Feeling his mind a good deal more at rest, he lay down again, and was shortly asleep.
The following day saw off his friends, that clasped his hand and grasped his shoulder, and said, was there anything they might do, and expressed their gratitude to their host and hostess.
Assured 'em that he intended to be remet with 'em in college, in due course.
Then there was a deal of to-do over mourning-wear – and cards – and waiting upon hearing about the funeral –
And another telegram from Father to say would call the morrow to see Lord Peregrine –
He had already opened somewhat of his intentions to Grigson and Cretia. Grigson gave his small smile, and said, thought the best place for this interview would be the library – no, would not in the least be displacing Miss Jupp –
Not in the least, said Cretia with a sigh, sure there is a deal of correspondence upon my hands – apologies for occasions I must now decline to attend – replies to the condolences that have already started arriving – and you know, Grinnie, we must go call at Trembourne House this very day.
Quite so, he responded, we should certainly not delay going to Mama and Myo.
So here they were at Trembourne House, and receiving condolences from Lady Undersedge – her husband being in the Nuttenford mining districts – and Lady Eleanor. What an exemplary woman was Lady Undersedge – Averdale had taken her in great admiration, quoted A perfect woman, nobly planned, to warn, to comfort and command, one might imagine her the lady in some castle of the Middle Ages, ruling it and defending it whilst her lord was off crusading – it must be entirely the best thing for Mama and Myo to be here.
Mama sighed and said, it was the way of things that she had had so little to do with Talshaw after his infancy – much more so than with you and Lucie – being reared as the heir – but –
She appeared about to say more and then glanced over at Myo and seemed to think better of it.
Myo was looking in health – quite blooming, in fact – Jimsie very attentive –
They hoped that he would come to Worblewood in the summer? They would be very quiet there, and that splendid chap Chilfer was going to come about excavating the Roman villa. Surely there could be no objection?
A very attractive prospect!
It was entirely less heavy a rencontre than he had anticipated.
But he did not look forward to seeing his father.
It has been a most strategic notion of Grigson to suggest the library; putting the encounter as 'twere on Grinnie’s ground. Surrounded by his old friends arrayed upon the shelves.
He was already there, perusing Rasselas, when his father was shown in. He stood up and bowed. Did not expect any manifestations of emotion – no handclasp, no embrace – and was proved correct. His father nodded. Peregrine.
That chair is the most comfortable, he said, going to ring for a footman to fetch – what would his father desire at this time o’ day?
Ah. Brandy. That would account for that unhealthy flush – sure he was looking his years! – Grinnie nodded to the footman and desired coffee for himself.
His father looked around and commenced upon crying up the library at Roughton Arching, that had been writ up in The Speculum – Grinnie doubted his father often visited it but of course that was quite the accolade.
Once they were settled with brandy and coffee, and appropriate sentiments exchanged, he decided to take the Nelson line and sail straight ahead by declaring his intention to complete his final term at Oxford. Somewhat to his surprize, his father conceded this without too much grumbling – showed a very meritorious desire to finish what he had started, a proper seriousness.
No doubt that was a contrast to his late brother, everything by starts and nothing long.
He would, alas, have to decline the fellowship – but was coming about to perceive that one might pursue learning beyond college walls – from the corner of his eye he could see, piled on one of the small tables, the various classical works Vicky Jupp was at present studying. This chap Chilfer sounded entirely up to the mark in matters of archaeology – had not he and his set only lately quite basked in the erudition of Mr MacDonald and Sir Jacob Samuels? Was there not that quite shining example, Her Grace of Mulcaster? Offgrange was noted for his studies in botany - No, he need not renounce scholarship.
There was, of course, the proposition that he should spend the summer at Roughton Arching, a prospect that had filled Grinnie’s heart with positively Gothick gloom. Fortunately he was able to advance his invitation to Worblewood – will be living very quiet – Trembourne still in mourning for his father – Myo in a delicate condition – understand they have also invited Lucie –
His father slowly nodded. And you may ride over to Roughton Arching to meet with the stewards &C – there will fellows coming from Firkins over various matters –
Well, that could not be avoided, he supposed. Provided they did not arrive with a marriage contract ready drawn up! For while one saw that one would have to wed in due course, now that one was not going to live the life of a celibate scholar, one should like to look about a little first. Was it only so that one did not make some terrible mistake and be condemned to the cat and dog life that Rina had with Iffling.
These matters settled, his father did not linger.
It was only after his departure that Peregrine realized that his father had said naught about money and thus must still be in ignorance that he was a young man of means. Mayhap just as well.
CSFFA (The Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association) is proud to announce the 2025 CSFFA Hall of Fame inductees.
Clint Budd, fan, convention organizer, modernized CSFFA and created the CSFFA Hall of Fame Charles R. Saunders, author, journalist, and founder of the “sword and soul” literary genre Diane L. Walton, editor, mentor, and a founding member of On Spec: The Canadian Magazine of the Fantastic
Wot a saga, eh, wot a saga, first time I have ventured significantly forth these many years -
And to start with, MAJOR HEAT EVENT.
In anticipation, I had - or so I thought - prudently booked a taxi via taxiapp, with a certain amount of leeway, just in case -
- which turned out very prudent, as when I went to check the booking this morning the app was showing 'network error' and this was clearly on their end rather than mine, and a little looking about suggests that this is not their first rodeo server problem.
So when, at designated time, taxi cameth not, I set out towards the Tube, not without some hope that a black cab might pass me on my way, but that Was Not To Be -
And on reflection, I should perhaps have waited for a Bank train, because getting out on Charing X platforms at Euston involves rather too many stairs.
However, Avanti kindly texted me the approx time my train would be boarding, and this all seemed set - although my (1st class) seat was aisle, backwards, there was nobody in the other 3 seats so I switched -
HAH.
When we reached Coventry, choochoo sighed and gave up, and we had to debouch and take the next Birmingham bound train - which was delayed....
At Birmingham New Street had considerable faff trying to discover a Way Out that would take me to a taxi rank.
When I finally arrived at hotel booked by conference organisers there was an immense performance trying to find the right group booking, as it was not under any title that I might have thought of but that of some hireling booking agency.
However, I am now in nice cool room and have had tasty room service snack. Even if I have had to wrestle with getting my laptop to talk to the free wifi...
I think one or two old Mythies might still be reading here; at any rate, these old friends had been on my mind this spring. Came back to discover that they died a week apart at the end of May/beginning of June.
They met in the very early sixties at the U of Chicago, where both were studying. Robert was a bit on the spectrum; he said, and he stuck with it, he would never date anyone who couldn't read and love Lord of the Rings, which had blown him away when it came out. In retrospect I don't even know how he stumbled across it because to my later knowledge of him he didn't read fiction. Maybe he thought it was a northern saga when he stumbled on the first volume? Anyway, his field was religion and Japanese literature, and I remember him sitting in his rose garden reading copies of ancient Japanese texts for pleasure.
She was also blown away by it, but not especially by him. But he'd fallen hard for her, and when she also loved LOTR, he wasn't about to give up. They married around 1963, I think; by the time I met them in 1967, they were living in West LA, he a professor of Religious Studies at USC. They used to host many meetings of the early Mythopoeic Society; he'd disappear while she socialized with us gawky teens. She was a great role model for us; she was a scholar, married to someone who respected her brains, which was tough to find during the mid and late sixties.
I was on hand to deliver both their kids, now middle-aged. He married my spouse and me in 1980. They became Quakers later; they were firm pacifists and human rights advocates.
Time is just so relentless! But they used theirs well, living gently and kindly, always loving beauty, grace, and laughter.
The audiobook of Spear is for sale for $4.99, July 1 – July 13
It’s for sale on Audible worldwide for two weeks, starting today; I’m not sure about other platforms. But I hope so, because I loved doing the narration and I’m proud of it, and the more people who get to listen to it the happier I’ll be. And that’s a great price!
A book has to really impress me to get a reaction before I've finished it, but Ada Palmer's Inventing the Renaissance has definitely done that. I had read some of Palmer's science fiction and been very impressed by it, and I knew before reading this that she is a historian, so when I first heard of this book, I immediately requested it from my local library.[^1] Not really knowing anything about it when I requested it, I thought it was a history of how the Renaissance came to be. Then I started reading it, and from the way she talked about historians creating the idea of the Renaissance, I thought it was a Renaissance equivalent of Norman Cantor's Inventing the Middle Ages.[^2]. Then I read on and saw that it's both of those things and more. It's also Palmer's academic biography, and an explanation of how academia works, and an exploration of the processes that created the Renaissance (and that created similar shifts in society at other times and places. It's the best history book I've read recently.[^3]
Besides the major historical themes of the book, Palmer has also included a number of interesting trivia and also Easter eggs for science fiction fans:
- The genetic changes in Europeans that makes the Black Death no longer the huge plague that it was in the Middles Ages took several hundred years to come about, and also caused Europeans to be more susceptible to "autoimmune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis, celiac, and (in [Palmer's] case) Crohn's disease."[^4]
- She refers to Florence in the Renaissance as a "wretched hive of scum and villainy."[^5]
- She uses the board game Siena as an illustration of how government worked in Renaissance Florence.[^6]
I particularly love this paragraph about the chronology of the Renaissance, and how it's exceedingly different depending on who you ask:
All agree that the Renaissance was the period of change that got us from medieval to modern, but people give it a different start date, because they start at the point that they see something definitively un-medieval. If we leave the History Lab a moment and visit my friends across the yard in the English Department, they consider Shakespeare (1564-1616) the core of Renaissance, while Petrarch's contemporary Chaucer (1340s-1400) is, for them, the pinnacle of medieval. When I cross the walk to visit the Italian lit scholars, they say Dante (1265-1321), despite being dead before Chaucer's birth, is definitely Renaissance, and often that Machiavelli is the start of modern, even though he died before Shakespeare's parents were born.
Reading this book makes me both sad and glad, in varying degrees at different times, that I never got my PhD and entered academia, depending on whether I feel at that particular moment that by having done so I would have been placing myself in cooperation or competition with Palmer. But leaving that aside, I'm exceedingly glad to be living in a time that I get to read this book, and I'm eagerly looking forward to getting to read more of Palmer's books.
[^1] Apparently a lot of other people had also heard of it, because I only got it about a week ago.
[^2] Although much more fun to read than Cantor.
[^3] I almost said "easily the best history book I've read recently," but I'm also currently reading Geoffrey Parker's Global Crisis: War, Climate Change & Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century, which gives Palmer some serious competition. But since I feel compelled to write a pre-completion reaction to Palmer's book and not to Parker's. . .
[^4] p. 116. All the MAGAts who keep yammering on about herd immunity with regard to COVID need to know that, but they probably wouldn't listen anyway.
Flora and Hannah were quite in agreement that Mr Thornton seemed an entirely eligible prospect as tutor – had not shown at all discomposed by their medley of orphans, was a promising sign, had shown very proper respect to darling Verrie –
Really, said Flora, that is a very good set of young men, who would have anticipated the like around Saythingport’s son?
Hannah gave a little wistful sigh. Perchance 'tis the like case to Milord – for thus, among themselves, they spoke of Gervase Reveley, the late Lord Raxdell, Beatrice’s father – that Lord Peregrine observes his father and wishes to take an opposite course?
You may be right, my love! What a pity that he is not the heir, rather than that inebriate lout.
That might come with irksome responsibilities, not that they seem to bother young Talshaw –
Flora groaned. Would that dear Beauf was not so conscientious filial in the matter, one sees that he finds it exceeding tiresome and yearns for Nitherholme. Sure one is glad that Bobbie Wallace now follows in his father’s footsteps and is no longer a trifling idler, but one could have wished he had remained His Grace’s secretary.
Hannah smirked and remarked that even so, she fancied that Beauf and Flora had found some compensations in his presence in Town.
Flora blushed, reaching to take Hannah’s hand. You do not mind, dearest?
Oh, poo! Here we are nearly at Attervale – she glanced out of the train window – and I hope you will not mind do I manifest a certain affection towards Lady Emily.
For somewhat to her amazement, what had begun as rather in the way of a passing flirtation, had become an enduring devotion that ran happily alongside their other loves. Indeed, Hannah was like to suppose, was best thus: could not quite imagine living with Em, that rose extreme early of the morn to tend to hawks and horses – was mostly preoccupied about those and the estate business of Attervale – entirely accepted within local county society –
Whereas Hannah was a creature of Town to her very bones.
So here they were at last at Attervale – so that Flora could convoke with Lalage Fenster over village education, and Hannah, besides having the opportunity to see Em, intended to go visit Sir Hobday Perram in her capacity at Bibliophilia, to write up his collections for The Speculum.
What they had not at all anticipated was that Bella would also be a guest at Attervale. Hannah bit her lip – doubtless the girl would be hanging out after Em in positive heroine-worship, exceeding ennuyant.
Though seemed curiously subdued: one heard she had been smitten with a chill after that matter of being bolted with by a skittish mare during a visit to Hackwold, but seemed in perfect health now – no worrying matter of coughing or sniffling –
But although she rode out on their morning ride – for Em was quite able to mount her guests – and tended to The Gascon on their return as had been well-trained in doing by Belinda Penkarding – instead of hanging about the stables and the mews all day, after breakfast – and one observed she made a hearty breakfast! – went recline upon a sopha with a deal of reading matter. Most odd.
After Em had showed off her hawks, along with the owl and the raven, all in excellent good health, to Hannah, they went take coffee in Em’s room that was part office and part sitting-room and part study. For Em, that would claim that she had been brought up an entire ignorant miss – Milly was a darling, but we were sad inattentive pupils – came about to be considered quite the authority upon horseflesh and its ailments and quite the savant concerning hawks, and had a deal of correspondence upon those matters.
So, said Hannah, putting her feet up upon a convenient footstool, what is ado with Bella? Surely no young woman that eats as much as she does can be in a decline.
Law, said Em, looking up from sorting the post that had just arrived, for they were old enough friends not to stand upon ceremony, 'tis give out that she was badly shook up by that business at Hackwold. Sure Leah and Inez go make a deal of a sensational melodrama out of it, alleging that there was some plot afoot to make Thessaly, that was well-known a skittish creature, bolt, so that Blatchett could effect a daring rescue – as if Bella was not entire capable of rescuing herself, indeed she kept her head, found herself in familiar country and ended up at Jupp’s farm, where The Lady and Gertie Jupp were in residence.
Hannah put down her cup a little too hard and coffee splashed into the saucer. Blatchett, you say?
Had been showing marked interest in Bella. But although she came off unharmed from this adventure, Quintus Ferraby apprehends that there was some shock to the nervous system and that she would be better for recruiting a little out of the whirl of the Season.
Hannah said Good Lord, that was not what one anticipated at a Hackwold party –
Em responded that she heard that Sir Antony and Lady Mary had been called away – some matter of a sick relative – leaving the party with an aged spinster aunt and that awful creature Mr Mortimer Chellow to host.
O, one might expect some tragedy like unto The Mistletoe Bough in that case, or perchance some scandal involving cards, mayhap billiards!
O, quite. The old hen collapsed in spasms and went demanding a physician: those naughty nieces of mine will enact her. Em sighed. Really, that pair. First they go acquire most respectable, though one must admit, exceeding dull, suitors – entirely enviable partis I daresay – well, I should not care to have that tittering imbecile Lady Gabrielle as a sister-in-law, but who knows but that she may marry herself? – and appear to go sober down remarkably. Positively unnatural – and then Lord Gilbert comes back trailing a romantic history of duels and love-affairs with opera-singers in Vienna and Buda-Pesth &C&C and they both go yearning after a younger son that is, one hears, entirely dedicated to his career in the Diplomatic and has no intention of marrying. O, one dares say that did he have a wish to wed, there is some Mulcaster estate or other he might look after – mayhap go into politics – but would be very tame for one that has, one hears, ridden with Cossacks, gone wolf-hunting and a deal of other adventures.
Hannah responded that Lord Gilbert certainly had a touch of the brooding Byronic strain about him but one did not hear that he emulated the late poet in other particulars.
Why, she wondered, had she – and Flora – not known about this incident at Hackwold? She could not suppose that Clorinda, Flora’s beloved Tiger, had not known the all almost before it happened. There had been time and occasion for her to communicate the matter to Flora.
One had to ponder whether there was more behind than the tale put about by the young ladies: and knowing what she and Flora did of Blatchett, she wondered whether the plot had had more to it than performing a mere daring rescue.
She had no immediate opportunity to convoke with Flora – went to pay what she anticipated would be a first call, leaving her card, at Perram Place, but was received with great enthusiasm by Sir Hobday, that declared having heard so much about Miss Roberts from Her Grace and Mr Davison would not stand upon ceremony and convention –
'Twas all entire fascinating, and would, she fancied, work up into a deal of possibilities beyond a staid account of his library and collections for The Speculum – one might pass on a few hints to Sybil Vernall as seeds for tales!
But the upshot was that by the time she returned to Attervale Flora was already about dressing for dinner, that they took at country hours.
La, my love, I may bustle into a very suitable gown! Do not fret.
Flora sat at the dressing-table, brushing her unruly curls into some degree of order. She looked over her shoulder with a grin, saying, she did not really suppose that Sir Hobday had kidnapped Hannah to be an odalisque in his hareem!
And how did you pass the day?
Flora made a moue. O, Lady Isabella takes a sudden whim to be interested in politics, and has been interrogating me about various matters in Aspasia’s columns – sure there are a deal of allusions that one needs to be informed to make sense of.
Really? Hannah shook out the skirts of her gown, and looked in the pier-glass, wondering mayhap her corals, since they would be in company? To relieve the severity? She did not say aught about the Hackwold business or Blatchett?
Flora twisted right round. What?
Hannah disclosed what she had learnt from Em.
Flora growled. Hah. I am very like to suppose there was a good deal more behind – but I had heard nothing. Tiger has been entirely mute upon the subject except to mention that Bella had been rather knocked-up by her wild gallop in a chilly sleety night.
Oh! She stood up, clenching her fists. She has no confidence in my discretion – I know I was a foolish careless creature who did not reckon with the consequences of speaking out about free love and preventive checks and how that would affect my ability to work for other causes –
She sighed. Hannah went over to put an arm around her. It was a grief to Flora that her work for village education and certain other causes had to be conducted by informal convocation by way of conversation with friends, as there were those would not wish to be associated with that scandalous Miss Ferraby.
Did she suppose I would immediately be about publishing denunciations of Blatchett? And mayhap being sued for libel? No, these days I am good sensible prudent Flora, even would I desire to eat his heart in the marketplace and would at the very least consult Mr Geoffrey Merrett upon the state of the law in the question.
And Beauf has kept this secret too! she cried.
The important thing, Hannah pointed out, has been to protect Bella’s reputation – have you not spoke of the wicked fragility of female reputation?
Flora gave a little sob. ‘Tis so, and one sees the reason, but meanwhile that monster roams free.
Free, but these days somewhat shunned of the herd, one hears.
They looked at one another. Flora gave a gulp, and straightened up, and managed a little grin. Is’t not possible that Tiger herself has some device in play? Sure I should not wish to blunder in.
The English-language rulebook and supplements for Broken Tales, the tabletop fantasy roleplaying game of upside-down fairy tales from Italian game publisher The World Anvil Publishing.
Sorry, finally getting around to this. It was a busy weekend.
So the short story is we loved it. It is hugely entertaining, and I think it works well for both hardcore Gilbert & Sullivan nuts and people who have never had the pleasure. On the surface it seems weird that there should be an American following for Gilbert & Sullivan at all, given how self-consciously British they all are, and how much annotation is sometimes required for basic cultural transference to be possible. The one thing that I think explains it is that G&S were very very good at one thing: being extremely silly without being stupid, mean* (*exception to be discussed below) or tedious. This production preserves that quality, even though it makes a lot of other changes, presumably in order to appeal more strongly to modern American audiences.
So that's the short story. The longer story is behind this cut tag, and it will discuss:
The changes that transform The Pirates of Penzance into Pirates! The Penzance Musical, and my opinions on same
My ambivalence about the show's final number, "We're All From Somewhere Else"
Generosity as part of the spirit of live theater, with particular reference to the stage door line
[[MORE]]
So to be clear, we chose to see Pirates! because as soon as I said to PJ, "Hey, they're doing some kind of remix of Pirates of Penzance with Jinkx Monsoon as Ruth," he underwent a small explosion of enthusiasm. Though we don't watch RuPaul's Drag Race, PJ as a trans teenager is familiar with Jinkx Monsoon and PJ did also greatly enjoy Jinkx Monsoon's appearance as Maestro in the Doctor Who episode "The Devil's Chord." PJ was further excited to find out that the Pirate King would be played by Ramin Karimloo, who has had a long career on Broadway and is one of the more beloved of the 21st century Phantoms (as in ALW's Phantom of the Opera). This didn't mean much to me because I am really not a fan of Phantom of the Opera, but I was glad PJ had a further delight to look forward to.
So, briefly (as I so often say, lyingly, before I summarize something), The Pirates of Penzance in its original form is a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta about a young lad named Frederick who has grown up largely on a pirate ship and is now approaching the end of his 21st year. Big changes are coming, because Frederick's apprenticeship will soon be over, and he is about to leave the profession and turn law-abiding citizen. See, Frederick always does his duty; and just as it was his duty to loot and pillage when he was a pirate's apprentice, it will be his duty to thwart and arrest pirates once he's no longer apprenticed. Frederick's former nursemaid Ruth, whose fault it is that he got apprenticed as a pirate in the first place, has also been along for the ride on the pirate ship and is now engaged to Frederick, who since joining the pirates has literally never seen another woman and therefore believes Ruth's claims about her youth and beauty. Well, once ashore, Frederick catches sight of the female chorus, excuse me, the daughters of Major-General Stanley, and is undeceived. Repudating Ruth, he immediately falls in love with Stanley's daughter Mabel.
Just as Frederick is about to help lead the local constabulary to defeat the pirates, the Pirate King and Ruth show up and tell him they've found a loophole. The articles of his apprenticeship indicate that he's bound until his twenty-first birthday, not his twenty-first year. Frederick was born on February 29 in a leap year, which means he has only one birthday every four years. Technically, his time won't be up until he's 84. Devastated but determined to do his duty, Frederick says a tearful farewell to Mabel and returns to the Dark Side. Ultimately, the craven constables are no match for the pirates; but just as they are about to be defeated, the sergeant hits upon the idea of charging the pirates to yield "in Queen Victoria's name." The pirates are so affected by this appeal to their patriotism that they give up and allow themselves to be arrested--until Ruth points out that these pirates are all actually "noblemen who have gone wrong," after which Major-General Stanley pardons them all. The conflict is resolved, Frederick marries Mabel, the male chorus of pirates marries the female chorus of Stanley daughters, and all is well.
So. Pirates! The Penzance Musical is set "in a theater in New Orleans." The metatheatrical conceit is important to the show's aesthetic (the set design is intentionally 2-dimensional and eye-catchingly unconvincing) and also makes room for some charming little metatheatrical moments within the show. Talking to the audience is a G&S performance tradition; this show just makes it a little more obvious. It is explained, in a very funny little pre-curtain speech delivered by "W. S. Gilbert" himself (actually David Hyde Pierce of Frasier fame, who also plays Major-General Stanley), that Gilbert & Sullivan have decided to revise the show so they can incorporate some of the exciting things they've discovered about American musical and theatrical idioms. So, Gilbert explains to us, the play is now set in New Orleans, and words and music have been revised to reflect that.
Musically, for most people, that change is going to be a win. Unless you are an absolute diehart purist who wants everything to sound exactly like your old D'Oyly Carte recordings, you cannot but be charmed by some of the changes. I especially appreciate the fact that Mabel is no longer a coloratura soprano. Lowering the range and going jazzier in the orchestration gives Mabel's music a new warmth and depth which to me made her richer and more interesting. In general the musical ensemble is less like a symphony orchestra and more like a band. This was true for the 1980s version I saw with Ronstadt and Kline, but I think this production made that shift much more successfully. The 1980s version basically tried to sound like 80s pop music, and I got very tired of the electric guitars and the synthesizers. This version seems to be trying to engage in a more thoughtful way with New Orleans's extremely rich musical history, so there's a lot of jazz and folk styles worked in. Again, to me this was an improvement, especially when it came to the Stanley daughters. The fact that Stanley has about a dozen daughters all more or less the same age is explained in the original in a throwaway line about the daughters all being "wards in chancery" (i.e., not his biological children). In this production the daughters occasionally point out that they were "born all over the world," but that Major-General Stanley decided to raise them all in New Orleans because of its diversity and because of America being the land of opportunity. So this Major-General would appear to have had a lot of girls in a lot of ports, more or less simultaneously.
Anyway, it was interesting to me that the main romance is preserved more or less intact (apart from a running gag about how hot Mabel is for Frederick and how fast she's moving on him). "Modern Major-General" is unchanged except for the joke about rhyming "strategy" (again, to my mind, an improvement on the original). All of the biggest changes involve the pirates and Ruth...and the ending.
Ruth is an example of a G&S stock character that Mrs. P and I call The Heinous Alto. She is an older woman with a lower voice who is in love with the much younger hero, who is horrified by her interest in him. Her sexual desires are presented as ludicrous and terrifying. it's a foregone conclusion that this older woman can't possibly be attractive, to the hero or to anyone else, and she is often given a song in which she is forced to acknowledge her own ugliness (my least favorite is "Silvered is the raven hair" from Patience). Once spurned by the hero, she often becomes his antagonist, teaming up with whoever's on the other side of the conflict. The Oedipal overtones of this setup are particularly pronounced in Pirates, given that Ruth was Frederick's nurse.
So, this sounds pretty misogynistic, and it is. The thing is though: the heinous alto is also often the best role in the show. Precisely because she's disqualified from being the ingenue, she's often funnier, crazier, more assertive, and dare I say it sexier than the romantic heroine. This is certainly true for Ruth, who loves being a pirate; as disappointed as she says she is about Frederick, she seems quite happy being the Pirate King's right hand man. She's usually armed, and she takes the lead role in plotting to steal Frederick back. It's easy to see why Jinkx Monsoon, as one of the trailblazing trans performers on Broadway (Chicago's own Alexandra Billings, who we saw as Madame Morrible in Wicked a few years ago, being another), would be attracted to this part. It's also easy to see how, as a trans performer, you might not want some of the things that come with it, including the whole preying-on-the-youth thing and the obligatory song about how unlike a young and attractive woman you really are.
So there are two important changes that this show makes to Ruth's role. First, they cut almost all of the song in which Frederick repudiates Ruth ("O false one, you have deceived me"), during which he points out how "plain and old" she is, and accuses her of "[playing] upon my innocence." Cutting this not only skips the mockery of the aging female body but also saves Ruth from having to beg Frederick to stay with her ("Master, Master, do not leave me"). So with that out of the way, there's more room for the good stuff about Ruth. This is also the song that establishes Ruth's actual age--47--and therefore the 26 year age gap. In the film I linked to above (which is based on the 1980s Broadway production) Angela Lansbury is playing Ruth much older than that, with a gray wig and a granny bun. Monsoon's Ruth may be older or younger than 47; but she's not playing old. However old this Ruth actually is, she's vital, active, passionate, and in on every joke about her own character.
The other thing they've done is imported an aria from another G&S operetta so Ruth can have a solo. This is something the 1980s Broadway production of Pirates did--for Mabel. (In that show, Ronstadt sang "Sorry her lot" from HMS Pinafore). Giving Ruth a solo officially marks her as the 'real' heroine (Monsoon gets top billing in this production, whereas you would never know till you saw the program who's playing Mabel). It's especially interesting that the song they borrowed is "Alone and yet alive" from The Mikado. This is sung by Katisha, one of the truly great Heinous Altos and a character whose rage at being spurned becomes positively homicidal. So this is another way of strengthening Monsoon's Ruth. But also. The main thrust of the lyrics is: I wish that you really could die of a broken heart, but in fact we women are a lot sturdier than that, so instead we're stuck having to survive this emotional devastation. There's an ambivalence built into it: on the one hand, I am tough enough to survive this so go me; on the other hand, survival can be fucking exhausting. When it's sung by a trans woman in the year of our lord 2025, for me at least, that ambivalence really resonates. Yeah, I will survive this latest bullshit as I have already survived worse. But while surviving, I'm going to cry about how fucking hard it is--and you will listen to me do it and feel it with me and it will not invalidate my strength.
So Jinkx Monsoon's performance, and the changes made to her role by the producers, really transform Ruth and really bond the audience with her, and that change arguably has a bigger impact than the change of setting. I personally enjoyed this change, because I am the parent of a trans child with ambitions in musical theater and I felt like it was good for PJ to see that at least in this one instance, Monsoon's presence was strong enough to bend the conventions around her. Like it really mattered to me to see this production not just making space for Jinkx Monsoon's Ruth but actively supporting and augmenting her take on the character.
But probably the most dramatic change to the original libretto is in the last 5 minutes and it has nothing to do with Ruth. The move to the American setting completely nukes the original resolution, which relies on tongue-in-cheek appeals to Victorian patriotism. Because here in America we have no noblemen and also, what, NO KINGS (or queens). So instead of the appeal to Queen Victoria, there's an appeal to "liberty" (the chorale "Hail Poetry" is rewritten as "Hail Liberty"). I don't know exactly how the show gets there because I will say that I don't think they mixed the sound right and I often had trouble understanding the words, especially when they'd been altered. This leads to someone pointing out that one thing all the warring parties have in common is that we're all from somewhere else. After some discussion of how we are a nation of immigrants (I mean not in so many words but that's clearly the subtext), the show ends with everyone singing a song from HMS Pinafore which was originally called "He Is An Englishman," and has now been completely rewritten as "We're All From Somewhere Else."
My ambivalence about this is not because it's not a logical or 'realistic' ending. The original resolution is equally nonsensical, and that's what people come to G&S for: nonsense. In fact I really appreicate the attempt to replicate the very specifically G&S brand of nonsense that closes Pirates, in which it's clear that the real reason everyone decides to stop fighting and get along is that it's time for the show to be over. The thing that's depressing about it is that producing this highly unrealistic moment of union around the idea of immigration as fundamentally American unavoidably engages the scariest and darkest part of what this country is going through right now. The audience applauds the sentiment, but it's not just a reflex action, the way the original pirates react to Queen Victoria's name. It becomes a statement. And there's something sad, for me, about that. It's sad that this needs affirming. It's sad that even as the audience affirms it I can only hear how violently and ruthlessly our government is denying it.
Anyway. More than you were probably asking for about this show; but before I go, point number three, generosity as part of the spirit of live theater.
In general, I am just really grateful to everyone who goes out there and leaves it all on the floor eight times a week. And my gratitude includes everyone from the marquee names to the smallest of ensemble roles. This trip, though, I had a lot of time to observe something that is not normally part of my theatergoing experience: the stage door line.
PJ always wants autographs. So after nearly every show we saw on this trip, PJ lined up outside the stage door and waited. We just watched from someplace nearby. Eventually, some of the performers emerge, in their street clothes, and go down the line giving people autographs. I watched this from pretty close up after Cabaret, and...I mean this production made a very queer show even queerer than it has to be, and there were a lot of young queer people in that stage door line, and they were just overwhelmed at getting to see the performers, even the non-famous ones. Including, of course, PJ, who was thrilled to get signatures from a lot of the Kit Kat dancers as well as Eva Noblezada.
The signature line is a lot. After working from whenever call is to whenever the show ends, the actors doing the signature line (not all of them do, and I don't know whether this reflects what's in people's individual contracts or not) then walk this gauntlet, smiling through their exhaustion, talking to a hundred or so total strangers, many of whom are in an advanced state of verklemptness. I hope they find it rewarding, but it seems to me like the rewards would probably diminish after the show's been running for a while. But these actors respond to their fans as if this performance, their performance, was as unique and special to the actors as it was to the fans; and I just appreciate the joy that this little moment of connection brings to PJ.
The signature line at Cabaret is tightly controlled, like everything else about that production. For a show that really tries to replicate that Berlin cabaret amosphere, they have a LOT of staff working crowd control. I have never seen people approach the intermission ladies' room line with this amount of ruthless military efficiency. By contrast, the stage door line at Pirates! is barely organized. For a long time I wasn't really sure this was even the right line. But anyway, PJ got in it and then Mrs. P and I went across the street to watch.
Naturally we turned our phones on again--having turned them off before the show--and immediately learned that Trump had bombed three nuclear sites in Iran.
This would have been terrible news on any night. Coming on the heels of watching this show with this cast, there was extra awfulness. I have not mentioned yet Ramin Karimloo's performance, which was amazing. He's an incredibly charismatic, charming, forceful, sexy, and very athletic Pirate King, performing feats of strength while singing his heart out. He made the whole "orphan" thing--the pirates never harm orphans, because they're all orphans themselves, and so everyone they capture claims to be an orphan, and the pirates always believe them--his own by engaging in the most elaborate and hilarious reactions every time the subject came up, at one point actually swallowing his sword in frustration. I didn't love some of the rewriting they did for his character, especially the retooled "O better far to live and die;" but all was forgiven when they did "With catlike tread, upon our prey we steal." The combat sequences were very impressive and very funny, and all in all Karimloo's zest for this part was just delightful. At the end of the show, the cast goes into the aisles tossing everyone Mardi Gras beads, for which everyone goes crazy. Karimloo is the only one who tosses them up into the balcony--probably because he's the only one with the guns to get them up there--and he looks like he's really enjoying it. Anyway.
Ramin Karimloo was born in Tehran and grew up in Canada; he's also worked a lot in London. And on the night our Asshole in Chief bombed Iran, after singing a happy song about how what makes this country great is how all Americans are from all over the world, he came out and walked the signature line and took a selfie with PJ.
Jinkx Monsoon came out afterward, with two security people following her. And like...I wish you could see PJ's face as Jinkx Monsoon came over to sign his program. I can, because Mrs. P took a photo at that moment. It was just...really, literally, worth the price of admission. For PJ and for us.
And this is what I mean about generosity. With all the stories about Patti LuPone's bad diva behavior floating around, I feel like it's important to say: she's in trouble for all that because it's not actually the norm. Most performers want things to be good for the other performers; most performers want it to be good for the spectator too. At a time when the tech industry is trying to direct us away from each other and into our screens, most perfomers put themselves through the agony of human connection, on a scale and at an intensity that most of us will fortunately never be called to imitate, night after night after night, and whatever money they make doing that, by God they've earned it.
Anyway. Long answer to a short question, but there it is. We loved it; it was a very funny and very poignant experience; I truly hate the particular historical context in which this particular performance happened; I am really grateful to all of these actors for giving PJ happiness.
Somehow I forgot to mention that Pirates! also imports a number from a different G&S musical for David Hyde Pierce's Major-General Stanley. Iolanthe, a show I've seen and enjoyed but about which could not tell you literally anything about the plot at this point, includes one of the best-beloved pattersongs in the G&S repertoire, "Love unrequited robs me of my rest," or as it is called in the Pirates! program, "The Nightmare Song." It's a rapid-fire description, in rhyming verse, of a nightmare which just jumps from one surreal, awkward, uncomfortable, bizarre situation to another. It works just as well for Major-General Stanley, who is out in the family graveyard in the middle of the night because of his remorse at having lied to the Pirate King about being an orphan, as it does for the judge in Iolanthe who's up with unrequited-love-induced indigestion. Unfortunately for the adapters it incorporates a lot of English place names because it's funny how hard they are to rhyme, so there was some editing done on the lyrics; but it's still a tour de force and it's still cool to watch David Hyde Pierce, who looks kind of frail but is incredibly sharp, nail it.
How is it the end of June already? Where did it go?
And tomorrow I have to travel to Birmingham for a conference.
I am telling myself that I survived the Hot Summer of 76 in an un-airconditioned office where, if one opened a window in came the noise and fumes of a heavily traffic-polluted thoroughfare.
Of course, I was Much Younger in those days.
I see that it is supposed to get somewhat cooler (and wetter) on Weds.
A South African video game studio (not a phrase I think I've ever typed before) has created a game called Relooted, a heist game where the objective is to rob museums and steal back African artifacts. I'm pretty sure my computer isn't powerful enough for me to be able to play it once it's released, but I love the idea and I look forward to seeing more games like this.
I recent listened to Green Day's latest album Saviors (édition de luxe) for the first time. I liked the whole thing, but I've especially latched on to "Fancy Sauce." The chorus is like a Russian nesting doll of Easter eggs: The tune of the chorus is like a greatly slowed down version of the can-can song (Offenbach?), while the lyrics of the chorus contain call-outs to Suicidal Tendencies ("I'm not crazy, you're the one that's crazy") and Nirvana ("stupid and contagious"). Enjoy!
2003: PM Blair embraces hilariously transparent lies to justify the invasion of Iraq, two million Britons reveal the power of public outrage when they protest the Iraq War to no effect, and the Coalition of the Billing (UK included) faces an occupation of Iraq that will no doubt be entirely without unforeseen challenges or consequences.
The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson 32 (53.3%)
Bold for have read, italic for intend to read,, underline for never heard of it.
Which 2003 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read? The Separation by Christopher Priest Kiln People by David Brin Light by M. John Harrison The Scar by China Miéville The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson
Between finally getting off of Keppra (with its side effects of lethargy and sleepiness) and finally starting to get caught up on all the things I fell behind on during my long Keppra-induced nap, I feel like I'm finally starting to get back into my usual life again. Barring unforeseen events (which is never a safe thing to do, and yet I persist on doing it anyway), you should start seeing me around here more often, hopefully even reading and commenting on your posts.
* SAVE OFTEN, especially in the early game when you may be very fragile and the game's auto-save is infrequent.
BUT -- don't reload from a save unless you actually die or otherwise hit a "game over."
This game is about failing, and it rewards you for playing forwards through failure. Some of the best moments in the game come from failed checks. There are always alternative routes and ways forwards. If you tried to savescum it, you would miss most of the game and all of the point. Embrace failure.
Okay there are those two specific checks where failing is so emotionally devastating I would not judge anyone for savescumming. But apart from those.
* You can just pick one of the Archetypes for a starter build, and leave messing around with custom character creation until you've seen the stats in action and understand how the system works. Don't stress about it. Or, if you want, you can throw yourself into custom character creation despite not having a clue how it works, and you will also have a fun time. Your initial build and your later choices about what you put points into will radically change your experience of the game, but you can't do it "wrong"; there are no optimal builds which are "better".
* Press tab to highlight objects you can interact with, or activate "detective mode" in the settings to do it automatically. Yes I know this is the sort of thing that is probably obvious to people who have played video games before.
* If your Health or Morale (displayed on the lower left of the screen) fall to zero, you have about 5 seconds to apply a healing item (if you have one) by clicking the cross above that stat.
This is the one timed element in the game, and also the one mechanic that some of us initially have trouble grasping.
With all the other mechanics in the game, you can not only learn them by flinging yourself in and floundering about, this is IMHO the best and most enjoyable way to learn them. No idea what the Thought Cabinet is or what Internalizing A Thought means? Try it and find out!
* Perhaps the most important tip of all:
If you feel you are flailing around and failing on most of the checks you try and you've just been informed you have acquired a Thought you can internalize in your Thought Cabinet and you have no clue what that means or maybe you just had a heart attack and died before you even got out of your hotel room or you had a nervous breakdown because a child insulted you and you have no idea what you're doing and it's been three days and you still haven't got the body down from the tree --
THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU ARE PLAYING THE GAME "BADLY". THIS IS IN FACT THE UNIVERSAL DISCO ELYSIUM EXPERIENCE AND MEANS YOU ARE PLAYING THE GAME CORRECTLY. WELL DONE.
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