It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end. (Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness)
The field of Speculative Fiction is often accused of being “escapist” as though that’s a bad thing. We all need escape every now and then, and escape to female utopias, the gentle embraces of vampires, or walks in the beast’s garden are necessary — now more than ever. So, in case you missed it, here’s the last cycle of the sun’s orbit in Changing the Map.
The master of the city, Jean-Claude, invited us, we gave consent, and followed him and his lover Anita Blake down from the mountains of Transylvania through the lands of Noir, sojourned through valleys of Romance, and arrived at one of our favorite guilty pleasures, the city of St. Louis.
The journey of the White Witch to the Beast’s Garden is a fraught and perilous trek through the beginnings of the realm of Faery, starting out at the dawn of humanity, with the first feminist fairy tale, that of the Animal Bride/Groom, in which, according to noted folklorist Terri Windling, “a human man or woman is married to an animal, or an animal-like monster” and “the animal spouse might be a shape-shifter, or an ordinary mortal under a curse, or a creature of mixed blood from the animal, human, and/or divine realms.”
Join us on our trek through the recording of Faery, culminating with the arrival of the White Witch (Angela Carter) in the Beast’s garden.
Smack dab in the middle of the speculative fiction universe, a parochial planetary empire somewhere to the right of the Cyteen System in firm Space Opera territories, lies Barrayar. Ruled by an emperor, Barrayar is primitive, patriarchal, and flat out backwards in the viewpoint of one of its most famous ladies — Countess Vorkosigan — Captain Cordelia Naismith of the Beta Colony system.
Some writers create worlds on the map, others universes, or lands of imagination. Here we’re taking a road trip on the Connie Willis Scenic Parkway, with stops in the Country of Awards, including the states of Nebula, Hugo, and Locus, among others.
Examining the weird/gothic landscape through eyes firmly embedded with set of rainbow lenses, Tanith Lee erected severely Weird Gothic Towers and Spires throughout the map, starting with her debut novel, The Dragon Hoard in 1971. Her edifices are constructed using the building blocks of fairy tales, myths, standard fantasy, vampires, and just plain strangeness, and are adorned in proper Gothic tradition with themes of loneliness, fear, and isolation; embellished with Weird elements of journeying from comfort to discomfort, from reality to the surreal.
How do you get to the wondrous realms of speculative fiction?
Why, you open a door and fall into another world, or pass through a gateway, one of which is the “The Jane Yolen Memorial Gateway to the West” — the arch through which you step, tentatively at first, elated but nervous, into the map.
Let’s sail through the Icy Seas, around the Poles of the world, to the Blazing World, whereupon we shall frolic with the Bear-Men, and the Fox-Men, and those wise beings of a Grass-Green Complexion — let us journey to a Fiery Sphere of feminism.
Let’s gird our swords and prepare our spells as we journey through vengeful and vindictively verdant forests effused with purple passions under the tutelage of the most seductive, skilled, and practically perfect leader of the land of Joiry, none other than Jirel herself. Jirel, arrogant, beautiful, and skilled, has a wide background in defeating demons while looking impeccable, and will be assuming the leadership position as we traverse the mysteries of Joiry and the evolution of sword and sorcery.
The great thing about the metaphorical map of speculative fiction is the sheer variety of landscape. Some stories are great mountain ranges, enormous peaks of books that you ascend, book after book, hiking over hundreds of thousands of words. And then there’s the land of Anthologia, located in the realm of Short Fiction, where you can take a stroll, or a quick jog, through the fantastic.
Are you ready for a summer vacation? I sure as hell am, but since we’re all confined to our yards, let’s take a trip to paradise, to a female utopia that is plague free, where the men are timid (and excellent cooks), and Calcutta is a garden paradise governed by sensible women. Let’s get the heck outta Dodge and visit…LADYLAND!
When I take you to the Valley, you’ll see the blue hills on the left and the blue hills on the right, the rainbow and the vineyards under the rainbow late in the rainy season, and maybe you’ll say, “There it is, that’s it!” But I’ll say, “A little farther.” We’ll go on, I hope, and you’ll see the roofs of the little towns and the hillsides yellow with wild oats, a buzzard soaring and a woman singing by the shadows of a creek in the dry season, and maybe you’ll say, “Let’s stop here, this is it!” But I’ll say, “A little farther yet.” We’ll go on, and you’ll hear the quail calling on the mountain by the springs of the river, and looking back you’ll see the river running downward through the wild hills behind, below, and you’ll say, “Isn’t that the Valley?” And all I will be able to say is “Drink this water of the spring, rest here awhile, we have a long way yet to go and I can’t go without you.
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