This post was written by Friday blogger Annie Reid.
Check out the most esteemed China Mieville’s (The Scar, Perdido Street Station) list of “Fifty Science Fiction and Fantasy Books that Socialists should read,” over at Fantastic Metropolis. But I think he’s underselling the subject matter here. Really, it’s speculative fiction about politics, power and institutional decay, and includes books such as Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy, Toni Morrison’s Beloved (“It’s well known that Beloved is a superb book about race and slavery and guilt, but it’s less generally accepted that it’s a fantasy. It is.”) Gregoy Maguire’s Wicked (“Brilliant revisionist fantasy about how the winners rewrite history”), and the works of MacArthur Fellowship winner Octavia Butler, who I agree “brilliantly blends genre SF with issues of colonialism and racism.”
(Via Bookninja via BoingBoing.)
Also at Fantastic Metropolis: a lovely appreciation of Kelly Link, who deserves more of the same, by Jeffrey Ford.
(Update: If you’re a Kelly Link fan, Gwenda over at shaken & stirred has a whole crop of links and news, including Link’s inclusion in the next Best American Short Stories, edited by Michael Chabon’s genre-friendly hand.)
