I have a pair of friends who are regulars at Readercon. Some year I will blackmail them into putting me up for a few days so I can attend. First my children have to get old enough to either come along or survive without me though.

Attention: link-y text-y problem in the above post!

I have to question the premise of the descriptions of a couple of those panels.

First, the idea that, say, Catholicism is going to be so abhorrent to secular humanist me that I have to make a physical effort of will to read Gene Wolfe.

Second, the idea that science and rationality, on the one hand, and faith, on the other hand, are inevitably in conflict.

Mitch, I suspect that Patrick is near bursting with the urge to bring up that second point on the panel.

I expect having either Nielsen Hayden on either of those panels will result in fireworks.

The description of that second panel:

Campbellian SF made the assumption that the rational, scientific worldview would come to dominate the irrational, religious one, a tacit prediction that turned out even less well than those of flying cars and personal nuclear powerplants. It’s quite possible that we can never arrive at the glowing science-fictional future that we all grew up dreaming of without fighting and winning a sort of Cold Civil War between the forces of reason and superstition. What works of speculative fiction have dealt with this?

I'd say the answer to that last question is, definitively, "The Gernsback Continuum," but I don't think that's the answer the author of that blurb is looking for.

I just finished a short-story in which the villain is an evangelical minister. Later, I had the hero make a serious statement about his own beliefs in God. The story is just a slight bit of fluff--but, still, I don't want to be accused of attacking all religion and religious people.

As to the description of the first panel:

There are some novels that can seduce us with their worldviews despite our intellectual opposition to the deep authorial philosophies that inform them. One can argue that the secular humanist reading Gene Wolfe or the free-market conservative reading China Mieville becomes, for the duration of the novel, a Catholic or socialist in at least some small recess of their brain. What exactly is going on here between text and reader?

I haven't read any China Mieville. I've read some Wolfe, and enjoyed it a great deal; my reaction to reading that description is: "Wolfe's a religious Catholic? And it's all over all his fiction? Huh?" Oh, I have no doubt that it is true if the author of that blurb says so--but if it is, Wolfe has done such a good job skiffying it up that I didn't notice it.

In general, I have some core beliefs that, if violated, will cause me to throw a book across the room angrily. I won't read a book where the author seems to be advocating bigotry, or belitting or excoriating some group that I consider myself to be a member of (like, for instance, liberals--I don't consider myself a liberal anymore, but I do have liberal cooties. If somebody hates liberals, they probably hate me.)

Other than that, I can read just about anything if the story is good enough, and if it seems to me that the author is writing with a good heart. Case in point: I'm told that Vernor Vinge is a hard-core libertarian. His fiction certainly seems to come from that viewpoint. I consider libertarianism to be silly--and I use the word silly only because the Libertarian Party is so ineffectual; if they became effective they'd be downright dangerous. However, Vinge's books are goodhearted, and so I'll go along with his libertarian universe for the ride. And it doesn't take much effort, either, no moreso than any of the other stfnal ideas in his books (bobbles, Slow Zones, the Singularity, etc.).

Local supply notes:

1. Closest supermarket--Roche Brothers, Cambridge Street/3A south of the hotel, about a half a mile, open until 10 PM, reopens at ?? AM in the morning.

Directions -- turn right (east) on Mall Road out of the hotel parking lot. Turn right (south) onto Cambridge Street/3A at the next light. Go under 128. Go through the traffic light when it is green at the intersection with 128 ramps on the other side of 128. Go through the next traffic light when it's green. The traffic light after there, there is a car dealer on the right and a large strip mall on the left. Get in the de facto left lane and when it's possible to turn left with the light green (no separate left turn signal and a lot of northbound traffic...). The Roche Brothers is at the eastern end of the strip mall, next to the shoe store which is straight ahead. The supermarket has a hot food bar serving full meals and has a sushi chef, and an in-store bakery. It's significantly pricier for fruit and such than e.g. the Market Basket (see below) or the Shaw's (see below)

2. Second closest: Shaw's, it's about a mile north or so. Open until 11 PM, opens at 7 AM I think.

Go right from the hotel parking lot and go left (north) at the traffic light on 3A. Stay on 3A past several lights, past Burlington Center, past Building 19, turn right at the major intersection at the bottom of the hill downslope from Building 19 and then turn left into the Shaw's parking lot.

Next to the Shaw's is Busa Liquors, which has free wine tastings Friday nights between 4 PM and 7 PM.

Shaw's has a prepared food counter and in-store pizzaria I think, the prepared meals though are mostly not hot ones, there are some things I think that can be cooked hot--pizza, fried chicken etc, stir fry maybe, etc. It has an in-store bakery. The fruit and vegetables tend to be less expense that Roche Bros, but more expensive than Market Basket.

3. Trader Joe's, hours sometime AM to 9 PM M-Sa, closes at 7 ? 9 ? PM on Sundays

The fastest way is get onto 128 headed east from the hotel (south onto 3A and then immediately up the ramp onto 128i), get off at the next exit (3 North/Middlesex Turnpike) onto the Middlesext Turnpike exit, go left (south) from the exit on the Middlesex pike, go under 128, go through several traffic lights, past the power substation on the right, and it's on the left, past a gas station on the left, adjacent to a Bed, Bath, and Beyond, off a center turn lane -before- where there is a fork in the road with a gas station and Friend Lumber to the left of the fork, and a mallish area on the left.

4. Market Basket, hours 6 or 7 AM to 9 PM M-Sa, closes at 7 PM on Sundays

Follow the direction to the Trader Joe's but keep going straight and turn left at the light for the big parking lot with the pseudo-mall. Market Basket is at the near end of the complext.

The store has no in-store bakery, and hot foods are limited to in-store barbecued/rotisseried chicken and pork and such. Fruit and vegetables and potables are less expensive there than the other stroes, sometime by 50% or more.

5. Stop & Shop, Woburn Closes Saturday at midnight and reopens Sunday morning, closed Sunday night at 9 PM and reopens Monday morning. Open the rest of the time.. if you want to get something at 3 AM Saturday morning or feel like reading the latest Harry Potter novel all night, go to the Stop & Shop.

Get onto 3A south, go under 128, go up the entry ramp onto 128 east. Get off at the route 38 exit, about two miles (two minutes)--go past the Winn Street exit. Follow the traffic circle going left under 128, go 3/4s of the way around it, and go north on 38. At the traffic light, which is the first left north of the traffic circle, take a left left and head into the large parking lot, the Stop & Shop is at the far end on the north side of 128. There is a liquor store at the north end of the strip mall.

To get back to the hotel, either got back to 38 and go the additional quarter of the traffic circle to turn right and get back on 128, or go onto the road that's runs parallel to 128 just north of 128 out of the Stop and Shop parking lot and stay on it for the mile until it intersects perpendicularly with Winn Street. Turn left when the light allows and the turn right to go up the entrance ramp to 128, and drive to the next exit, and go across 3A back onto Mall Road and left at the next light back to the hotel.

The Stop & Shop has an instore bakery, in store food bar, in-store pizzeria, etc.

Closest liquor stores

1. Busa's next to the Shaw's,

2. a package store on the Middlesex Turnpike just should of 128 on the eastern side of the road

3. package store at the north end of the strip mall the Stop & Shop is in.

Closest bookstore-- Barnes & Noble, on the west side of Middlesex Turnpike just north of 128, it's two story B&N with the SF section in the back corner of the rear of the store on on second floor.

Nearest movie theaters:

1. AMC or whatever the name is, up the hill from the Barnes & Noble.

2. Showcase Cinemas in Woburn, on the southwestern corner of 128 & 38, go a quarter of the way around the traffic circle and then turn right onto a street going past a hotel and take the next right into the cineplex parking lot. There's a big sign south of 128 but the trees next to it got even bigger than the sign is...

Nothing in the War of the Worldviews blurb begins to say that faith is inevitably in conflict with science and rationality. If the panel goes in that direction it will be veering completely off-topic. What the blurb says is that there is an irrational, religious worldview and that it is currently an impediment to rational progress (and that this was not foreseen by Golden Age sf). If only that weren't hugely and distressingly true. (Last time I looked, the Dalai Lama and the Reform Rabbinate were not exactly drowning out the fundamentalist right.)

Mitch, your second take on the first blurb is much closer to what the panel is supposed to be about than your initial complaint. The Catholic worldview is more obvious in some Wolfe novels than others (and always more so on a second reading). It's perhaps strongest in _The Book of the Short Sun_, which is also my favorite Wolfe novel. The panel simnply observes that (in this example) even someone who finds Christian theology abhorrent is beguiled, seduced, by a work of fiction that seems to have that theology as a central premise. It seems to us to be a phenomenon worth discussing. As a counter-example, I don't think it's possible to love Ayn Rand if you have as low regard for her philosophy as some Wolfe lovers do for Christian theology. So Gene is doing something Ayn is probably incapable of. We're curious as to what that is (and whether it's possible to emerge from Wolfe without changing, if even only subconsciously, one's attitudes towards his worldview).

The book that comes to mind is In The Ocean Of Night, as I take it that Benford named Alexandria after the library.

Surely that's at least been considered in criticism of Benford's work--I can't be the only one whose understanding starts there.

A Kaffeeklatsch? You wouldn't be planning to have one at L.A.con, would you?

Paula,
The Roche Brothers opens at 7am. I thought all supermarkets in the Boston area opened at 7am or later. Are you sure about the Woburn one being open all night?

Serge, I dunno, it depends whether they schedule us for one.

On the larger thread: Avram, normally so cogent, is in this case not reading my mind accurately. I'm not entirely certain what I want to say on that first panel, but I'm pretty sure it has to do with the correspondence--and sometimes lack of correspondence--of ideology (and/or religion) to sensibility. As to the War of the Worldviews panel, what Eric Van said.

When I read the first draft of the program, those were the three panels I most wanted to see, even before I knew the NHs were on them. Of course, they're all on Friday and I can't make it on Friday. Sigh.

Adrian--it's up to th3 cities and towns if they allow 24 hour operation of supermarkets. The Stop & Shop in Bedford I think is or used to be open the same hours that the Woburn one is, and yes, unless the Woburn store had changed its hours in the past several days, if you want to go food shopping at 3 AM except Sunday and Monday, it's open.

The in-store food bars do close at 9 PM, and package up stuff such as the unsold in-store-fried-chicken and put it out in the racks for self-service as prepackaged cooked food (Shaw';s says that the prepared meals are from food that was cooked by wasn't in the food bar case).

Back before Star Markets became past of Shaw's, there used to be 24 hour Star Markets.

The supermarket which had been in the Prudential Center in Boston, which closed when the Shaw's opened across the street from the Marriott, had had similar 24 hours most days operation. The Shaw's closes at 11 PM or midnight, though.

I have no little idea where the closest supermarket is over at the Westin in South Boston, where Boskone will be in February 2007.

Wish I could be at Readercon.

Eric Van/PNH - OK, I see your point about religious superstition vs. rationalism. I do think that the blurb can be legitimately read both ways.

What the blurb says is that there is an irrational, religious worldview and that it is currently an impediment to rational progress (and that this was not foreseen by Golden Age sf).

I can remember three Golden Age stories off the top of my head that did foresee it ("Trends", "If This Goes On...", and "The Long Tomorrow"), which, given my poor memory, probably means that you're selling the Golden Age a bit short.

On the subject of food supplies, I think it worth noting that the traffic on Middlesex Turnpike (where the Trader Joe's and Market Basket are) tends to be pretty bad on weekends - if it were me, I'd avoid that area. Roche Brothers is definitely the best bet if they're open, as they are much closer than any of the other stores (within easy walking distance from the hotel, at least by my standards).

Tim,

Don't forget Gather, Darkness.

There are a couple of back ways to get to the Market Basket and Trader Joe's. Since Trader Joe's is on Middlesex Turnpike, the back way one either still has to go on the Middlesex Turnpike, or walk a couple hundred feet to avoid it, going the back way...

I don't know the names of the streets, but the mallish area that the Market Basket is on, has a back entrance, off a street that runs southwest from a street that's south of 128 and parallel to it between route 3A/Cambridge Street and the Middlesex Turnipke, and the Middlesex Turnpike. Maps work... and the traffic really isn't -that- bad, it's just that there is that series of lights on the Middlesex Turnpike, the traffic going on/off 128 and US 3 north of 128, and mall traffic. But it's really that bad, it's not like being inside 128 on route 60 at going to work/coming home times, or on I-93, or I-95 through New York City, or Manhattan traffic, or LA traffic....

And that Shaw's isn't all that much further away, it's a mile or so.

Oh, I forgot China Merchandise, which is an Asian grocery store, it's about half a mile north on 3A on the right in a strip mall, across the stree from what I assume is where Burlington High School plays its football games. It's some hundreds of feet south of the center of Burlington.

Thanks, Patrick. If Gardner Dozois has a Kaffeeklatsch, I'll have to ask him about dinosaurs and sodomy. Unless of course that has come up with him once too many at a con, thus turning him into a frothing fury.

Now that we have the grocery directions -

is there public transit to the hotel area, such as a shuttle bus from the Anderson train stop or an express bus to the mall from downtown?

Jon:

The MBTA #350 bus runs to the mall and hotel from Alewife (Red Line). It isn't an express bus but is a zoned-fare bus. I don't remember the exact details of the fare, since on the few times I take it I just use my Combo pass.

I think there's also an express bus on weekday rush hours.

Paula: well, the Fish Pier will be close, if you want fish. :-)

I tried using Google Maps to find supermarkets near the Westin Waterfront. Doesn't look too promising. I suspect the Stop and Shop in Southie is the best bet (without a car, the 7 bus will get you there or the SL2/3 will get you close).

The 352 is an express from downtown to Burlington - it looks as if the Route 128 stop is right at the 3A exit, in other words within a hundred feet of the hotel. The 354 also runs from downtown to Burlington, and stops fairly near the hotel (which is a block north and a block and a half east of the route's Burlington endpoint).

The only local bus service from Anderson appears to be MetroNorth Shuttle. This has a stop not too far from the hotel (Lahey Clinic), but it only runs during weekday commuting hours.

CHip--but one has to gut and cook the fish oneself...

--------------------

The express bus to Burlington is from City Hall Plaza in Boston and makes stops on the Middlesex Turnpike after it gets off 128 [95] when passengers press the strips that sounds an alert to the bus driver. It doesn't go on Mall Road.

The route number is 352 I think. There are maps and schedules at www.mbta.com I think it is, but they're really horrid and hard to get to PDFs.... that bus stop running at around 6:00, after that it's take 354 which crawls its way through Woburn en route to Burlington (the express to Burlington makes stops around the block that has Boston City Hall and some federal buildings, and then heads onto I-93 north, goes onto 128, and gets off onto Cambridge Street going north. The 350 bus has some variant routing that goes along Mall Road on some parts o the day. It also runs on weekends.

Middlesex Turnpike may be crowded during some weekdays, but it has been remarkably deserted since late June. Mall Road has also been close to empty.

I usually take the #350 bus, which connects to the Red Line after going through Arlington. (It stops in front of the Roche Brothers, mentioned upthread.) More important, it runs on Sunday. The #351 express bus runs weekdays plus Saturdays, and goes directly to Alewife. I recommend the Trip Planner on the MBTA website. You tell it when and where you're going, and it tells you what connections will work. It used to be a mess, but now it almost always works.
http://trip.mbta.com/cgi-bin/itin_page_dhtml.pl

More directions, mass transit style:

1. Boston is ithe transit hub for the area. Amtrak has a stop at 128 that's essentially useless for suburban transit, there is -not- circumferential mass transit. Instead, one has to go all the way into Boston. Back Bay Station I think might have a Green Line trolley system station colocated (or Orange Line, maybe? I don't know). South Station, which is the terminus of Amtrak rail lines coming into Boston from south and west and also where the commercial bus lines have a passenger terminal, there is a Red Line subway station, and subway cartrains from there go all the way to Alewife, don't expect it to take less than at least a half hour transit time, at -least-.

Park Street Under (as opposed to Park Street Double Under in A Subway Named Mobius is a Red Line stop with a Green Line station ontop of it, and the next stop headed toward North Station and Lechmere on the Green Line, is Government Center, which is at City Hall Plaza, which the express bus outbound to Burlington in the afternoon and early evening makes its passenger pickups driving around. It's usually not more than five or ten minutes if being slow, to get from Park Street to Government Center... alternatively, it's walkable, from Park Street, or even South Station, to one of the bus stops. The bus takes about 40 minutes or so. The bus from Alewife takes about the same amount of time, plus transit time to Alewife from South Station.

2. From Logan Internation Airport, take the Blue Line into Government Center to either get the bus, or change to the Green Line, and then change to the Red Line at Park Street (the Blue Line and the Red Line do not intersect) to take the Red Line to Alewife, and take the bus to Burlington.

Returning, take a bus to Alewife, or find someone heading Boston-ward who drove....

While Lowell is closer to Burlington than Boston is, and Lowell had commercial bus service, unless someone is a masochist or really likes doing things the involved complicated go-south-to-head-north fashion, don't try to get to/from Burlington via Lowell on mass transmit! Yes, it is POSSIBLE, but involved increased time, increase expense, and circumlocutions. On weekdays work hours, there are buses that go from Lowell and make at least one stop in Burlingon--yes, at least one, not necessarily anymore than that, and the last one leaves at 6 PM, and they one has to get -another- bus to get further into Burlington. Or, there's take the train in past 128, and then try to get some other mode that will get out to Burlington.. it might be possible to get to the Woburn transit center from Lowell directly, which transit center is out in "you really should be DRIVING land," two or three miles north of 128, off an exit off I-93 that had a new Raytheon building, a Target, various office parks buildings, and was built for the eastern equivalent of Los Angelenos... mass transit? WALK? You HAVE to be joking!... the train goes fruther north from there, to Haverhill or some such.... there used to be a stop as "Misawum" on 128, but various idiot politicians changed that.... Woburn and Burlington are next to one another, but the transit focus is on going radialy in/out to/from Boston and Cambridge...

Some notes on Paula's comment:

Back Bay has an Orange Line station colocated and a Green Line station (Copley) a short distance away.

From Logan, the SL1 Silver Li(n)e[1] bus goes straight to South Station. The Blue Line may be faster if the Ted Williams Tunnel is congested, but in general the fastest way to get to the Red Line from the airport is now the SL1. (Bus from terminals to South Station, change to Red Line; compare to shuttle bus to Airport Blue Line station, Blue Line to Government Center, Green Line to Park Street, change to Red Line.)

[1] It's not a "Line". It's a bus, and gets called the Silver Lie. Actually, it's two completely separate bus routes. One is the Silver Line Washington Street, which replaced the old Orange Line elevated seen in the opening credits of St. Elsewhere. The other is the Silver Line Waterfront, which runs through an expensive tunnel from South Station past the new convention center (and Boskone hotel), then either through the Ted Williams Tunnel (I-90) to the airport or down into South Boston.

As a counter-example, I don't think it's possible to love Ayn Rand if you have as low regard for her philosophy as some Wolfe lovers do for Christian theology.

Well, I'm an atheist who doesn't have low regard for Christian theology, and Gene Wolfe is one of my favorites of all writers, certainly my favorite sf writer of all, so I don't know that I could speak without bias to that question, but if forced to respond... I'd say the reason the above proposition is true is because Wolfe's writing is rich and full of life, but with Rand's writing, you couldn't make it lively and rich if you added a pound of butter and a heaping helping of blue-green algae to every page.

The phrase "Christian theology" is, I believe, the weakness in some of the argument in re Wolfe. There is, demonstrably, no longer a single such system of beliefs (one could argue various dates and events at which this ceased to be, but that's a side issue). To offer a single example, Fred Clark over on Slacktivist has, by way of a finely detailed analysis of the Left Behind books, provided an exposition of Pre-Millennial Dispensationism, a hypothesis (or perhaps hypotheology) that offers itself as theology. A large number of people who identify with the divinity of Jesus and the message of the Gospels* give PMD, and the diagram it rode in on, no more credence than the Moon as Moldy Havarti Hypothesis.

"Christian theology" is not a monobloc. I would, without any denigration meant, offer that "Roman Catholic theology" and even "Southern Baptist theology" aren't either. People who do not hold monobloc beliefs are likely to present them in ways that will disturb the true believers, and the believers' fiction -- whether the belief is theological, political, or whattheheckever, very often leaves outsiders at least a bit puzzled.

*All of which are subject to variation among people who profess belief, but again, that's a different issue.

I'm still boggled by the idea that Wolfe's Catholicism is so obvious that atheists are supposed to dislike his fiction. That's as insulting to Wolfe as it is to atheists.

"Christian theology" is not a monobloc.

That, Mike, reminds me of a discussion I had in 1990(?) with a co-worker who was a regular reader of Asimov's. If I remember correctly, we were both amused by a recent editorial that started with a letter from a reader expressing a wish for more stories with a Christian slant. The editor's response was "Sure, but which kind of Christian slant?" and went on to list the various flavors of Christianity, some of which do not recognize the legitimacy of the others.

I haven't read any China Mieville. I've read some Wolfe, and enjoyed it a great deal; my reaction to reading that description is: "Wolfe's a religious Catholic? And it's all over all his fiction? Huh?" Oh, I have no doubt that it is true if the author of that blurb says so--but if it is, Wolfe has done such a good job skiffying it up that I didn't notice it.

I've read one or two essays by Wolfe that made me slightly uneasy, not because of religious content but because there was a reactionary whiff of "things were better in the past when everyone knew their place" -- that, and a peculiar sense that he knows what the past was like, dammit, and no modern historians are going to convince him otherwise. See this appreciation of Tolkien, for example.

But I've never gotten such vibes from any of his fiction; my feeling is that Art is far more important than Ideology when he's writing fiction.

I don't think anyone's called Park "Park Street Under" since Lovecraft days. (But watch out for shoggoths.)

From Logan one can also get on the Silver ("but, it's a bus!!") Line at the airport terminals, which connects with the Red Line at South Station.

Missed earlier Silver comment, sorry.

I dislike both Wolfe and Miéville, having read samples of both, for different reasons. None of those reasons had anything to do with their theology or ideology, unless you count Miéville's attitude that the world is just a depressing place, and the only appropriate emotion to feel is despair, and if you don't feel utter despair you're just not thinking.

My experience with Miéville's work is limited to Perdido Street Station, so apply appropriate saltgrains. But that book is completely free of sympathetic characters (well, except maybe the bugheaded woman, and something really terrible happens to her, of course), which tends to kill any enjoyment I have of a novel. They're all lowdown dirty scumbags, and reading it I kind of hoped bad things would happen to them.

Is this what they call "British Miserablism"? Brian Aldiss is the same way.

I've read more Wolfe. The New Sun tetralogy and Peace and a bunch of short stories. The New Sun wasn't totally boring, though I think it's kind of an ODTAA; Peace left me wondering why I read it, why it was published (I figured that one out) and why he bothered to write it. I kept waiting for something to happen, and nothing did. Ever. There are no significant events of any kind in that book. It's just an old man, waiting for death, reminiscing about his completely uninteresting life. A mainstream literary novel, and not a very good one, shelved with the SF to fool dumbasses like me into buying it.

Please note: nothing in either of these cases points to the ideology or theology of either writer. In fact, Miéville's novel is a socialist anti-utopia; I approve, but I hate reading anti-utopias, so there you have it.

Peter Erwin - I've read one or two essays by Wolfe that made me slightly uneasy, not because of religious content but because there was a reactionary whiff of "things were better in the past when everyone knew their place"

I read that essay the way you do.

I've often wondered why I don't care for high fantasy--Tolkien and just about anything else with a medieval setting just plain leaves me cold. Even science fiction set on medieval worlds is a chore to get through.

I think perhaps one of the reasons is because, like Isaac Asimov, I know that, in an class-based society, me and my fellow Jews are at the bottom, living in ghettoes, and occasionally lynched for sport.

There are no significant events of any kind in that book. It's just an old man, waiting for death, reminiscing about his completely uninteresting life.

This is one of the reasons I like Wolfe. There are I think something like five grisly deaths in Peace but you need to pay attention to catch them. Peace is a canonical unreliable narrator book - very much indeed happens in it. And I think, but am not sure, that the narrator has murdered all of those people.

On the larger question of Rand v Wolfe: first, Wolfe writes explicitly fantastic stories, and we as genre readers are quite comfortable in adopting a set of rules for second worlds as part of the given of the story. Rand's stories weren't set in second worlds, they were set in ours, and she hits us over the head with the fact that THIS IS HOW OUR WORLD REALLY WORKS. And so it constantly breaks the reader out of the story when that comes into conflict with, you know, reality.

I have had a similar reaction as Peter to Wolfe's non-fiction essays, though, and even once in a while in his fiction do political (but not theological) arguments come through that get my hackles up. E.g., the argument for gun ownership in Operation: ARES or the third "Long Sun" book. Partly disappointing because it is boilerplate American conservative talking points, and I expect more from Wolfe.)

In re: Return of the prime minister, it seems to me that fantasy hasn't even begun to exhaust the possibilities that monarchy offers. Even just looking at late medieval or early modern Europe, there were many variations on the theme of monarchy. For instance, a larger share of the population of Poland could vote for king than could vote for Parliament in Great Britain. The Holy Roman Emperor was also elected, as was (at various times) the Hungarian king. Then you have your prince-bishops, as Wuerzburg, Salzburg, Bamberg and more. Plus your states ruled by the heads of sovereign military orders -- Malta or the Teutonic Knights. Also your sovereign in one place (say, Prussia) who is vassal of a rival in another place (say, to the King of Poland for his holdings in Pomorze). Plus your unified spiritual and temporal rulers, as Byzantium or early Ottoman caliphs. (If I knew more history, this would probably be a very long list indeed...)

I think that monarchy is more feature than bug for many (though clearly not all) readers' expectations. Given that, though, why do we get warmed-over England so often? Do other fictionalized settings not sell as well? Do authors not write them?

"It is good to be the King."
- Mel Brooks

There is one very real sense in which the Dark Ages were the brightest of times, and it is this: that they were times of defined and definite duties and freedoms.

That is classic right-wing Catholicism (take it from one who's been there).

I've re-read LOTR more times than I can remember, and I'm not sure I haven't read Wolfe--but I was unable to get through that essay and it certainly would not send me looking for any fiction by the author (considerations of style as much as content put me off).

There is one very real sense in which the Dark Ages were the brightest of times, and it is this: that they were times of defined and definite duties and freedoms.

Har, har, Investiture Conflict, har, har.

OK, I feel the need to amend my previous post about high fantasy and Jews, because I'm feeling the ghost of PNH breathing down my neck, getting ready to launch a terse remark that will reduce me to a dust that is of extreme fineness, because it consists of my component molecules.

My point is that I think that reading medieval fantasy--which usually acknowledges and even celebrates the feudal class and caste system--requires a muscle that allows the reader to put himself in the place of someone at the top of the hierarchy. The reader imagines him or herself as a knight, prince, princess, lady, king or queen. Whereas I can't get around imagining myself as a Jew in a ghetto; it is deeply ingrained in me.

I know that modern Western Democratic Republics in general, and America in particular, are the only places in history where Jews can be free and equal citizens, subject to only a trace of anti-Semitism.

Note that I'm not saying all manner of crazy things. I'm not saying that if you like high fantasy, you're an anti-Semite, or anti-American, or any nutty thing like that. Indeed, I have never had an unpleasant encounter with high fantasy fans or writers, and I count some of them as my favorite people in the world.

High fantasy is wish-fulfillment literature. Which is fine, but it's just not my preferred flavor of wish-fulfillment. I'm currently enjoying the Sharpe movies on BBC-America--Richard Sharpe is an army officer in a society as class-rigid as a medieval fantasy; he's an officer in Regency England, specifically in Wellington's army in Spain, fighting against Napoleon. Sharpe succeeds despite his class, not because of it, and that's a big part of the fun of the stories; Sharpe is constantly running up against snobbish gentleman-officers whom Sharpe eventually puts in their place.

Wolfe writes:

There is one very real sense in which the Dark Ages were the brightest of times, and it is this: that they were times of defined and definite duties and freedoms. The king might rule badly, but everyone agreed as to what good rule was. Not only every earl and baron but every carl and churl knew what an ideal king would say and do. The peasant might behave badly; but the peasant did not expect praise for it, even his own praise. These assertions can be quibbled over endlessly, of course; there are always exceptional persons and exceptional circumstances. Nevertheless they represent a broad truth about Christianized barbarian society as a whole, and arguments that focus on exceptions provide a picture that is fundamentally false, even when the instances on which they are based are real and honestly presented. At a time when few others knew this, and very few others understood its implications, J. R. R. Tolkien both knew and understood, and was able to express that understanding in art, and in time in great art.

I see no reason to support this assertion. Quite the contrary; The Golden Age of Feudalism was invented after the fact, by Renaissance writers and, later, Romantics, and, still later, people like Tolkien and Wolfe, who were romanticizing the past. The real Dark Ages was an era when monarchs and nobles ruled with relatively little check on their authority. Mark Twain had the right of it. The Dark Ages was rule by Tony Soprano.

Wolfe himself writes:

And in the end, poor Sam rises in the estimation of the Shire because of his association with Frodo, and rich Frodo sacrifices himself for the good of all the Sams.

Note that Wolfe does not say that Sam rises in the estimation of the Shire because of Sam's own good works. After all, Sam did everything Frodo did, and went everywhere Frodo did, except Sam had to carry all the crap, too, the Elvish bread and, I dunno, clothes and laptop computer or whatever (it's been many years since I read LOTR). Still, Sam isn't considered a hero in the Shire because of his good works, he's considered a hero because Frodo--one of the Cool Kids--was willing to let Sam sit at his lunch table.

This is why I've always preferred Trek to Star Wars. In SW, Luke Skywalker is the hero because he's a prince in hiding, he has the right blood. On the other hand, Captain Kirk is a hero because he works hard, is smart, and virtuous. (Well, also because chicks dig him--even green-skinned chicks.) Kirk is just a farmboy from Iowa who made good. McCoy is (as he's constantly reminding us) just a country doctor. There is a nobleman on the bridge of the Enterprise--Mr. Spock, son of a respected Vulcan ambassador--but he works for the Iowa farmboy. People in the Trek universe get ahead because of who they are, not who their ancestors were.

Well, Mitch, do you prefer fiction where Jews are on top (or running everything from behind the scenes), and can kill anyone they want to with impunity? 'Cuz I know some of that exists...wait, no, we defined fiction a while back, and those are presented as fact by their authors...that makes them lies, not fiction.

The best fantasy heroes, in my opinion, come from the bottom of the social order. I don't understand why a Jewish writer hasn't written one where the hero keeps having to sneak out of the ghetto to investigate something, or where he has to save his friend from lynching, or where the community is accused of kidnapping a Christian child, and the Blood Libel means the situation is getting increasingly explosive, but the fact is the child ran away from an abusive home/was taken by the Elves (and the Jewish hero finds a way to get him back). Kabbalistic magic, guilty acceptance of assistance from the Asherah, stuff like that.

I think that'd be cool. Not being Jewish myself (much less a Kabbalist, which is the bigger hurdle), it would take me a whole lot of research to write such fiction, but I'd sure read it!

cmk:
I've re-read LOTR more times than I can remember, and I'm not sure I haven't read Wolfe--but I was unable to get through that essay and it certainly would not send me looking for any fiction by the author (considerations of style as much as content put me off).

I feel I should point out that I was genuinely rather shocked when I read that essay, because it didn't reflect his fictional writing in any obvious fashion. I've read a number of Gene Wolfe books (the Book of the New Sun series, Soldier in the Mist, the first half of the Book of the Long Sun series), found them strange and resonant and quietly beautiful, and never picked up any sense of reactionary preaching from them.

That essay doesn't reflect the way he writes fiction, at least in my experience, and I'd urge you to give his fiction a chance; it's some of the best work this field has produced.

(Just noticed Alex Cohen's comment on the third Long Sun book, so I should note that I haven't gotten to that one yet...)

Well, Christopher, when you take a long time to write something you should see if the person you're addressing has responded to your points before you made them.

I still think I raise some valid points myself in my previous post though. Maybe I WILL look into that (under a pseudonym, of course; Jewish-oriented fiction written by a guy named Christopher would automatically be suspect).

Xopher: Well, Mitch, do you prefer fiction where Jews are on top (or running everything from behind the scenes), and can kill anyone they want to with impunity? 'Cuz I know some of that exists...wait, no, we defined fiction a while back, and those are presented as fact by their authors...that makes them lies, not fiction.

Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Took me a minute to get that. Some days I'm smarter than on other days.

To answer your question seriously (or as though it were serious): I can easily imagine a high fantasy where the dominant religion is Judaism, either explicitly or thinly veiled. And I don't think I'd enjoy that either, because I still would have difficulty imagining myself as one of the aristocrats.

The best fantasy heroes, in my opinion, come from the bottom of the social order.

Can you give me some examples? I might well enjoy 'em.

I don't understand why a Jewish writer hasn't written one where the hero keeps having to sneak out of the ghetto to investigate something, or where he has to save his friend from lynching, or where the community is accused of kidnapping a Christian child, and the Blood Libel means the situation is getting increasingly explosive, but the fact is the child ran away from an abusive home/was taken by the Elves (and the Jewish hero finds a way to get him back). Kabbalistic magic, guilty acceptance of assistance from the Asherah, stuff like that.

Hmmm... funny you should mention that. I'm right now writing a fantasy story, sort of Brust meets Sharpe meets noir meets NYPD Blue. My hero is, like Sharpe, from the bottom stratum of society, sneered at both because of his birth and because he makes no attempt to even act like a gentleman. Why not make him a Jew?

Meets Lovecraft. I forgot that part.

xopher,

I don't understand why a Jewish writer hasn't written one where the hero keeps having to sneak out of the ghetto to investigate something, or where he has to save his friend from lynching, or where the community is accused of kidnapping a Christian child,......

i have read a book like that, a murder mystery set in something like 1500 spain, where all the heroes are crypto-jews with the odd crypto-muslim. it wasn't fantasy though. i could see a fantasy book on the subject being really cool.

....i also have no memory of the title or author, sorry.

on a related note, i just read ivanhoe for the first time. not only does it contain suprisingly mild anti-semitism for a book of its time (the time when it was written, let alone the time where it was set), it seems quite anti-church. is that just because the church in question is the catholic church?

(i "read" it on audiobook. it was a pretty animated reading, with the only real drawback being that the reader decided a medieval anglo-jewish accent is arabic crossed with zero mostel.)

The best fantasy heroes, in my opinion, come from the bottom of the social order. I don't understand why a Jewish writer hasn't written one where the hero keeps having to sneak out of the ghetto to investigate something, or where he has to save his friend from lynching, or where the community is accused of kidnapping a Christian child, and the Blood Libel means the situation is getting increasingly explosive, but the fact is the child ran away from an abusive home/was taken by the Elves (and the Jewish hero finds a way to get him back). Kabbalistic magic, guilty acceptance of assistance from the Asherah, stuff like that.

Mitch: Can I read it when you're done?

Xopher said: The best fantasy heroes, in my opinion, come from the bottom of the social order.
Mitch Wagner asked
Can you give me some examples? I might well enjoy 'em.

Barbara Hambly does a nice line of such heroes;
Biker/airbrush arteest Rudy from Time of the Dark, Nora Blackstein, maid and liberal Irish widow of a Jewish servicman (c. 1924) in Bride of the Rat God. Also note the nerdy, diminutive, computer programmer Joanna in The Silent Tower*. There are others, more ambiguously from nifty, yet lower classes (early hollywood cameraman, mercenary leader, retired nun, mideaval history grad student, tribal warrior, fat effeminate emperor-type, hallucination-prone elderly witch, disgruntled merchant's daughter, etc.) which doesn't include anything from her historical mystery series or historical fiction.

In many of her stories it is pretty standard for wizardly types to be persecuted, viewed with suspicion, alleged to eat babies, etc etc. Not too much of a stretch in some of the stories to read the Jewish medieaval experience there. (e.g.the wizardly ghetto in Tower.)

Unfortunately it seems the market is unfavorable for sequels of any of these. I don't suppose anyone here could do something about that, could they?
-r.

*which really needs a cosmetic update to include the term beowulf cluster and some more explicit bashcode. Some of the technical concepts in Tower are still common currency for the Slashdot crowd, but the hardware's changed - it really was a rather foresighted book. Though I shudder to think of Antryg speaking l33t.

Mitch, lots of good examples above. I was thinking of "A Thief in Korianth" and its ilk. I want to read your story, too.

Dan, no I haven't, or heard of it, but I'll look it the hell up!

miriam beetle, thanks for that too. I'll look for it.

A Judgment of Dragons, by Phyllis Gottlieb, is hard(-ish) SF rather than fantasy (future, spaceships, and sapient cats instead of past, sorcery and, um, enchanted cats) but certain parts of it take place in a 19th C. Polish ghetto, and the various characters' Jewishness is central to the story.

I just don't see that Wolfe's second paragraph, in which he advocates courtesy and consideration to those less strong than oneself, respect for others, obedience to "legitimate" authority, and resistance to mere strength, necessarily follow from his first paragraph, in praise of a heirarchical society. These characteristics are not associated only with a heirarchical society. All these things can and do and should take place in an egalitarian society as well, and even better. One shows courtesy and consideration to others who might be weaker in one area than you are, or temporarily weaker, and expects the same in return; one respects the gifts of others, not their position or wealth; for a given value of "legitimate," one may willingly decide to obey an authority in a given situation; mere strength is always to be resisted. In fact I think his second paragraph would follow more logically from a first argument praising an egalitarian society! There is no determining if an authority is truly legitimate in a heirarchical society -- it either is or isn't above you -- it's only the egalitarian society member that gets to make the distinction based on real criteria of respect and trust.

Mitch Wagner, I really liked your comments on Star Trek. But I think Wolfe is off, and has led you off, on why Sam is respected in the Shire. He is a leader during the revolt that throws off the occupying thugs of Saruman, and this leadership (and his gardening talents in the service of re-greening the Shire) cause the citizens to elect him Mayor seven times in a row -- not his association with Frodo per se. His association with Frodo developed his leadership abilities, and may have made him more visible, but it was his own skills that won him the respect of his fellow hobbits.

Xopher: Jewish-oriented fiction written by a guy named Christopher would automatically be suspect

You should mention that to the folks from my alma mater's Hillel organization, who continue to send me fundraising requests so that other students can have "the same Jewish student experience you had". Er.

(Seriously.)

Good suggestions all. Thanks. And I'll be happy to let you read the work-in-progress--you can have it pretty soon, as a work-in-progress, or you can wait until it's done. Which might not be for a while.

rhandir - I love Bride of the Rat God, but it's not an example of what I was discussing above, simply because it's not set in any kind of feudal society. It's set in silent-movie era Hollywood.

Also, WRT the discussion of Jewish ghettos in fantasy: I think there was a Turtledove story with a werewolf getting chased into the ghetto. Ah, my Ghugle prayer answers: "Not All Wolves", in Departures.

why Sam is respected in the Shire

Frodo doesn't really get any respect at all, does he? He's seen as eccentric (like his uncle.) I think there's even a line about how the hobbits don't recognize what Frodo did to save them.

Janet Brennan Croft, it didn't hurt that Sam married into a well-respected and fairly well-off Shire family.

I don't understand why a Jewish writer hasn't written one where the hero keeps having to sneak out of the ghetto to investigate something, or where he has to save his friend from lynching...

Caldecott winner: Golem by David Wisniewski.

Someone else mentioned Guy Gavriel Kay. I'm certain that aside from folklore, I've read a couple of other stories along those lines, but can't think of what they are off the top of my head.

I don't understand why a Jewish writer hasn't written one where the hero keeps having to sneak out of the ghetto to investigate something, or where he has to save his friend from lynching, or where the community is accused of kidnapping a Christian child, and the Blood Libel means the situation is getting increasingly explosive, but the fact is the child ran away from an abusive home/was taken by the Elves (and the Jewish hero finds a way to get him back). Kabbalistic magic, guilty acceptance of assistance from the Asherah, stuff like that.

Blatant self-promotion ahead: My novel The Alchemist's Door is kinda like that. No elves, though.

Linkmeister sez: Janet Brennan Croft, it didn't hurt that Sam married into a well-respected and fairly well-off Shire family.

They were well off, but still farmers, not gentry like the Baggins family.

And Laurence, you're right, Sam does say he feels bad for Frodo because he doesn't get the respect he deserves for his sacrifice.

No elves, though.

When she wrote her new book, Lisa Goldstein did say,
"It's sorta like that, with the Jews, in a way."
But she then went on, and was forced to admit
That elements of elvishness she did omit.

"No elves, no elves, no elves, no elves!
There are no elves in the book I have writ!"

Mitch Wagner,
yeah, I know, not a feudal society. mea culpa. Sorry. I am such a fanboy that I couldn't resist inserting it.
-r.

Heroes from the bottom of the social order - Elizabeth Moon has done some. In the fantasy vein, the series of Sheep Farmer's Daughter, Divided Allegiance, and Oath of Gold, along with companion book The Legacy of Gird, is a good read.

Interesting, her SF series tend to feature outsiders or outcasts as protagonists, but they always have well-to-do backgrounds.

Mitch Wagner, try looking at The Skewed Throne by Joshua Palmatier

There is no determining if an authority is truly legitimate in a heirarchical society -- it either is or isn't above you

That's exactly the way hierarchical societies determine whether the authority is legitimate--if it's above you, you do what it says.

"Having the power of high, middle, and low fantasy . . ."

Hmm, not quite.

"One will come after unto like another one, and the one -- the new one, not the old one -- shall, being one that comesths after yon another one, shall be called tanist, an hword hof hour people meaning 'succedant' or 'not nearly drunk enough yet,' and beingth that when she finally makes her way through the Forest of Subordinate Clauses an bluidy well gets here, shall y-comme from down ye wind and with it, whistling, we shall clepe she to our hearts with houppelandes of steel as Tanist Lee."

A bit prolix -- though we do prolix in The Realm of Colourful Misprisions -- and the terminal joke arrives DOA.

"It is good to be the splooshy thud."

That's the one.

I don't think anyone's called Park "Park Street Under" since Lovecraft days.

Lovecraft died in 1937; A. J. Deutsch's "A Subway Named Moebius (where I first encountered the term "Park Street Under") was published in 1950. Possibly nobody \born/ after HPL so calls it, but I wouldn't bet even on that; native Bostonians can be very conservative about names. (I suppose that's true of natives anywhere renaming seems imposed; how many native New Yorkers do you know who call it "Avenue of the Americas"?)

*pouting*

I made horrible filkness and no one, not even Goldstein herself, threw ANYTHING at me.

*pout*

Merry Xmas, Xopher.

And Brian J. Cudahy's Change at Park Street Under: The Story of Boston's Subways was first published in 1972. Excellent book, though out of print (and inevitably not up to date). Cudahy is also the author of Under the Sidewalks of New York which is probably the best historical work on the NYC subway system (as distinct from storytelling books, like Jim Dwyer's, which is also great).

And I am not in the habit of throwing anything at the people around here, not that there haven't been such impulses, had an otherwise unneeded pie been to hand. Sometimes I throw verse at the wall, and occasionally it sticks, and I suppose the possibility of an Unofficial Making Light Snowball Conflict, at Boskone or WFC or Minicon, could not be ruled out.

...Wolfe's writing is rich and full of life, but with Rand's writing, you couldn't make it lively and rich if you added a pound of butter and a heaping helping of blue-green algae to every page.

I made at least two completely futile attempts to read something by Ayn Rand in college, when I was a lot less picky about what fiction than I am today, reading. I think that the above is a major part of why I found it unreadable.

Is this what they call "British Miserablism"? Brian Aldiss is the same way.

I burned out on that stuff around 1970 when I was in high school reading the Doubleday SF that showed up in the local library in the small city I grew up in... Cryptozoic, The Drowning World, The Crystal World, "The Heresies of the Huge God," etc. etc. etc., all downer stuff with the world ending/the universe ending/humanity doing extinct... ugh. Unpleasant stuff to someone who wanted to design starship engines and see the universe lightyears and lightyears away.

CHip:

I am a native Bostonian, my original birth certificate is filed in the records area of the bottom floor of Boston City Hall.

http://www.cambridgerotary.org/FellowshipNewsArchive.cfm?cn=41

ROTARY THIS WEEK - WEDNESDAY - JUNE 4, 2003
We will join with the Boston Rotary Club for a joint meeting at the Park Plaza Hotel at 12 NOON...Expensive parking garages and parking lots are in the area. Advice - Travel to the Park Plaza from Cambridge is easy. Take the Red Line to Park Street Under and change onto the Green Line. Get off the Green Line at Arlington Street and walk 1 block up Arlington to the hotel.

http://www.answers.com/topic/park-street-under

Park Street Under is also the original name for the Red Line subway platform at Park Street, which is literally under the streetcar lines that became the Green Line.

Mitch Wagner asserts:
rhandir - I love Bride of the Rat God, but it's not an example of what I was discussing above, simply because it's not set in any kind of feudal society. It's set in silent-movie era Hollywood.

I'm absolutely boggled at the idea that Hollywood isn't any kind of feudal society. It's a profoundly byzantine and feudal environment. Dynasties, barons, damsels (and not so damsels) in varying sorts of distress. People out to make a name for themselves, and become a part of the nobility...

I left out the package store in the shopping area that the Roche Bros is in, I think that it is the nearest liquor store to the Marriott Hotel that Readercon is in (I hadn't really aware of it, but noticed it when walking past it eight hours or so ago).

Mitch writes:

I know that modern Western Democratic Republics in general, and America in particular, are the only places in history where Jews can be free and equal citizens, subject to only a trace of anti-Semitism.

There wasn't really a concept of "free and equal citizens" there, but it's hard to argue that the Davidic, Israelite, or Hasmonean kings were victims of anti-Semitism.

Pre-Christianity, there were plenty places where Jews were treated the same as anybody else -- many of the cities of the Levant, Egypt, and Asia Minor had massive and prosperous Jewish populations not subject to any particular restrictions. Alexandria, for instance, had Jewish legions. There were Jewish Roman citizens, and aside from restrictions on conversions, before the political situation in Judea heated up, there wasn't much anti-Semitism in Roman law or practice.

Karaite Jews were recruited to be the personal bodyguards of the pagan dukes of Lithuania, Jewish communities in China and India never suffered much in the way of targeted oppression, and so on.

It's true that under Christianity (outside of the context of modern liberal states)the best Jews could hope for was something along the lines of "despised, but mostly ignored", and that under Islamic rule, the best Jews could hope for was along the lines of "recognized as second class citizens, but only a bit oppressed". But the pre-modern world was bigger than Christendom and the Dar al Islam.

It's true that much of what's called "High Fantasy" is set in some version of parts of Christendom, thinly disguised or otherwise. And, as such, problems of identification and so on. It's just the overly broad statement that I quoted that I'm disagreeing with.

Alter Reiss - OK, you're right. My hyperbole got carried away. Still, if you substitute "in the last 2,000 years" for "recorded history," I think I can stand by my earlier post, and still have plenty of hyperbole too.

My only problem with the idea that the "Dark Ages" amounted to "rule by Tony Soprano" is that this is even more true of most of classical antiquity. For a lot of people in Europe, feudalism represented social progress.

It's certainly true that a lot of fantasy romanticizes the Middle Ages. However, the very term "Dark Ages" is an artifact of the romanticization of the slave empire that was Rome.

Cryptozoic, The Drowning World, The Crystal World, "The Heresies of the Huge God," etc. etc. etc., all downer stuff with the world ending/the universe ending/humanity doing extinct... ugh. Unpleasant stuff to someone who wanted to design starship engines and see the universe lightyears and lightyears away.

Weren't most of those books by Ballard, not Aldiss, Paula? But I know what you mean. As for Ballard, I remember when Spielberg's adaptation of his Empire of the Sun came out in the Eighties. I was living in Toronto, my wife was working at the Judith Merrill Collection (then called the Spaced-out Library).Someone had arranged for Ballard to come and have a chat there. It was interesting, but one comment I remember was Ballard saying that the urge to explore was something left over from the prehistoric days. Or words to that effect.

And the god-king absolute monarchies typified by the French "Ancien Regime" were a step backward, and not feudal at all.

Actual feudal systems of government are characterized by:

1. differing legal rights and responsibilities by social class


2. defined social classes with defined transitions between them (an income of 20 pounds per annum makes you a knight, sorts of thing)


3. bottom-up political structures; if the top is tier 1, and the bottom is tier 4, the guy in tier 1 has no access or direct connection to anyone in tier 3, never mind tier 4


4. definition of social hierarchy by public oaths before witnesses; generally this involved (at least in legal theory) the voluntary submission of one equal to another.

Pretty much no one writes fantasy in a feudal setting. It's a pity.

(Geoff Chaucer is of course an exception, but then again he lived in one.)

Mitch:

It's still not a true statement, but it's a lot less false. It might even be sufficiently less false that I wouldn't argue with it. I mean, it's true that there are counter-examples I can point to, but they only were for tiny percentages of the Jewish people at any time; that a few hundred Jews in Kaifeng weren't subjected to any form of antisemitism is interesting, but doesn't really define the treatment of Jews in the fifteenth century, for instance.

(You might want to cut at least a few hundred years off that number, though.)

i have read a book like that, a murder mystery set in something like 1500 spain, where all the heroes are crypto-jews with the odd crypto-muslim. it wasn't fantasy though. i could see a fantasy book on the subject being really cool.

miriam beetle, I read a book that almost matched that description, but it was set in Georgian/Regency England...A Conspiracy of Paper by David Liss, and it was phenomenal.

I'll also second the recommendation Guy Gavriel Kay; he's one author I've seen who really does take different monarchical structures and transpose them to fantastical worlds. I like to play a game of figuring out which historical period he's mimicking, and which countries. He wrote one duology that is obviously set in a mirror image of Byzantium, but I can't remember the title.

I actually work in Burlington, but have nothing to add to Paula's excellent descriptions of stores, public transit (or lack thereof-- I have to drive to work every day and it's killing me), etc. Except to add that the Burlington Mall has lots of good stores, but the Waldenbooks in it is pitiful; stay away.

He wrote one duology that is obviously set in a mirror image of Byzantium, but I can't remember the title.

The Sarantine Mosaic. The individual titles are, um, [checks shelves] Sailing to Sarantium and Lord of Emperors.

--Mary Aileen

Speaking of food in Burlington - the restaurants tend to fill up in the evenings, but the Naked Fish in Billerica is a Cuban-flavored seafood place that is usually almost empty around dinner. It's a little spendy, but very tasty.

I think this is a business lunch restaurant that doesn't get mall traffic because it's north along a road that makes people think "it can't possibly be this way!"

Xopher -- Is it too late to throw anything? I just caught up this morning. (One kosher pickle, headed your way.)

*wipes pickle juice off side of head*

Thanks! I feel much better now.

And, coming late to the discussion of LOTR -- what exactly does Frodo do to make a living? He lived on Bilbo's dragon treasure for a while, but he says that was gone (can't remember whether this was at the beginning or end of LOTR -- anyway he goes on with the same standard of living at the end). And what did Bilbo do before the dragon treasure?

Xopher: [...] Miéville's attitude that the world is just a depressing place, and the only appropriate emotion to feel is despair, and if you don't feel utter despair you're just not thinking.

Wow, where are you getting this?

I've read all four of Miéville's published novels, and a collection of his short stories, and some non-fiction essays, and what comes through in most of them is not depression, but anger. Miéville thinks the world is a depressing place, and he's furious about it.

Also, he thinks the world is a complex and interesting place, and that comes through in his bizarre inventiveness. And there's humor too, and hope; I don't want people thinking his work is all sadness and anger.

Lisa G, I think the Bagginses were wealthy landowners.

Lisa Goldstein: what exactly does Frodo do to make a living?

He sells stuff on eBay.

RE, Hobbits with No Visible Means of Support:

I asked the same questions when reading Bleak House. And other Dickens' work. All these rich, kindly benefactor types . . . I like to think they were all getting money from selling opium.

Avram, I only read Perdido Street Station, as I said. There's damn little humor (except the "look at the stupid people not noticing that they're about to get killed" kind, which leaves me cold) and no hope at all in that book. If you find hope there, great. Point it out to me. I saw none.

I'm not saying he's a bad writer; far from my opinion, far from the case. I'm saying he's a depressing writer. For me. I'll never go to another Lanford Wilson play, either.

Stefan, remember that a person's "income" in that time was what came in from interest on old money and rents on property they owned, and so on. None of it was wages; above a certain class, actually working at anything we'd recognize as a job was just "not done."

Avram suggests that the Bagginses were wealthy landowners. I wonder if the Shire wound up with an equivalent of Marx. Karl, not Groucho.

I liked Perdido; it didn't seem particularly dark or light to me, just an engaging horror-tinged adventure story in highly imaginative (if a bit Viriconium-ish) dress. The exception was the gratuitously unhappy ending, which left me feeling a bit cheated (just as gratuitously happy endings do).

But I like Aldiss and Ballard a lot, so calibrate accordingly.

(Aside: North Dallas Forty is my canonical example of the g.u.e.; it turns from romp to tragedy on a dime in what seems like a desperate bid for signifi