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Baker, Daniel 2012, Why we need dragons: the progressive potential of fantasy,
Journal of the fantastic in the arts, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 437-459.

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436 · William A. Oram

Print.
—. The Subtle Knife. New York: Random, 1997. Print.
Why We Need Dragons:
—. “Writing Fantasy Realistically.” 2002. Sea of Faith Network. Web. 20 July 2012. The Progressive Potential of Fantasy
Quint, David. “Fear of Falling: Icarus, Phaethon and Lucretius in Paradise Lost.”
Renaissance Quarterly 57.3 (2001): 847–81. Print.
Raymond, Joad. Milton’s Angels. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. Print. Daniel Baker
Rogers, John. The Matter of Revolution: Science, Poetry and Politics in the Age of Milton.
Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1996. Print.
Rumrich, John. “Milton’s God and the Matter of Chaos.” PMLA 110 (1996): 1035–
46. Print.
Russell, Mary Harris. “‘Eve, Again! Mother Eve!’: Pullman’s Eve Variations.” Lenz
and Scott 212–22.
Saurat, Denis. Milton, Man and Thinker. London: Dent, 1946. Print.
Smith, Nigel. Is Milton Better than Shakespeare? Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2005. Print. We should meet the centaur and the dragon, and then perhaps suddenly
Sugimura, N. K. “Matter of Glorious Trial”: Spiritual and Material Substance in Paradise behold . . . sheep, and dogs, and horses—and wolves . . .
Lost. New Haven: Yale UP, 2009. Print. —J. R. R. Tolkien
Yeffeth, Glenn, ed. Navigating the Golden Compass. Dallas: Benbella, 2005. Print.
W HATEVER THE MEDIUM, FANTASTIC NARRATIVES NOW DOMINATE VAST
areas of the popular imagination. So entrenched that it has become “a default
cultural vernacular” (Miéville, “Editorial” 40), fantasy cannot be overlooked.
Abstract The popularity of Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and A Game of Thrones
This article connects Pullman’s His Dark Materials with two previous materi- indicates that the genre is a pervasive phenomenon, demanding critical
alist epics, Lucretius’s On the Nature of Things (de rerum natura) and Milton’s evaluation of its emotional appeal and its political implications. Fantasy’s
Paradise Lost. Like Lucretius and Milton, Pullman creates a world in which increasing presence in the marketplace, together with the genre’s potential
there is no spirit separate from matter, and in which all creatures, including for progressive socio-political representation, indicates the genre’s aesthetic
angels and the dead, are material beings. Like Lucretius, Pullman attacks the power. Indeed, as a communicative method, fantasy’s ever-widening audience
idea of a life after death: the long journey through the underworld in The implies an increasing burden on the genre. We, as writers, readers, academics,
Amber Spyglass presents idea of an afterlife as unnatural, a hindering of the must ask and continue to ask: what is fantasy communicating? What are its
natural tendency of atoms making up the dead to rejoin the rest of the uni- discursive objectives? Why should I read fantasy?
verse. One of the traditional functions of epic is theodicy—a defense of divine Kathryn Hume argues that realism “no longer imparts an adequate sense
justice. Like Lucretius’s poem, His Dark Materials substitutes for this defense of meaning to our experience with reality” (39), that the realist strategy does
a defense of life lived fully in the world. He suggests further that immortality not, and cannot, fully engage the reader. By going past reality, by plunging
is a function of the stories that we live—and tell. through and beyond it, fantasy can offer an interesting, at times disturbing,
perspective. As Mark Bould suggests: “Marxist theories of fantasy and the
fantastic offer an opportunity not only to engage with extremely popular areas
of cultural production but also to better model the subject for political praxis”
(53). Be that as it may, Bould is vague on how fantasy best shapes the indi-
vidual subject for political praxis. Before continuing, this fundamental position
must be unpacked; political praxis and progressive potential carry heavy, ideologi-
cal baggage. Quite rightly: the concepts are linked. The progressive potential
of fantasy can direct the subject (reader) towards a new, radical, (perhaps)
emancipated subjectivity. Only after this process is complete will political
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praxis—action engendering changes to the dominant capitalist gestalt—be challenge: “No matter how commodified and domesticated the fantastic in its
able to develop. By affirming fantasy as a site that can potentially (re)direct various forms might be, we need fantasy to think the world, and to change it”
political praxis, Bould alerts readers to the exciting possibility of a social role (“Editorial” 48).
for fantasy. However, certain epistemological biases must be made clear. Terms like “progressive” and “utopia” are fundamental markers of Marx-
Brian Attebery sums up the problem succinctly in “The Politics (If Any) ist thought. This is not to suggest that they are exclusively Marxist (there are
of Fantasy” when he discusses the nature of fantasy’s most obvious impos- capitalist, fascist, even anarchic utopias), but that the basic idea of “bettering,”
sibility: anachronism. He says: “But the more important function—dare I say that we should progress towards an existence with as little repression possible,
political function—of creative anachronism occurs when you take a little bit has historically been assigned to humanist-socialist positions. Hume would call
of the Middle Ages and plop it down in the midst of freeways and shopping this “vision,” a vision that “aims to disturb us by dislodging us from our settled
malls. The contrast, the disjunction, transforms the present” (15–16). The sense of reality, and tries to engage our emotions on behalf of this new version
basic instance of disjunction, the novum of dislocation (if this is possible) is of the real” (56). The point is valid. Not only is the engine used to drive praxis
neutral. Transforming the present does not suggest transformation for the bet- identified as (fundamentally) emotional, but the aesthetic goal is not to leave
ter or for the worse. We can argue that any transformation is political but it is the subject “unsettled”: rather the goal is to create a “new version of the real.”
apolitical or, to put it another way, its political cloth has yet to be dyed. The By the simple act of constructing a “disturbing,” “weird,” “impossible” world,
transformative aspect of anachronistic disjunction is an aesthetic tool and its fantasy turns “real” into a category—a category that can be opened to radical,
uses can be many. While Bould and Jameson may want the fantastic to deliver progressive change.
revolutionary or progressive responses, there is nothing intrinsic to fantasy or In Fantasy and Mimesis, Hume expends much thought not only on what
sf that forces them into Marxist representations. When this article explores Tolkien wrote but what he wrote about his genre. In The Lord of the Rings,
fantasy’s progressive potential, it is with the full knowledge that the genre does Tolkien realized a vision of a world beyond (or behind) the mechanized, war-
not skew in that direction traditionally. Indeed, the writers later discussed are torn reality he knew. Though his stance is “much closer to ‘wouldn’t it be nice
not to be taken as wholly progressive fantasists; indeed, Gene Wolfe’s Book if this were true’ or ‘I would rather find this true than what I see everyday’”
of the New Sun, with its reworked Christianity, carries distinctly conservative (Hume 47), his medieval, honor-bound, deathless Middle-earth is not there-
notions regarding the role of the state, the nature of sacrifice, and the function fore less utopian, but a specifically nostalgic, golden-age, and reactionary uto-
of suffering in society. The ability to write the strange, the impossible, and the pian form. It becomes dangerously naive. The impulse behind it becomes not
unreal is a means to many ends. so much a desire to create a “better” world but to escape into a pre-industrial
Miéville asserts that to “claim that fantasy is in some systematic way landscape: it turns aside from the deep-rooted structural problems of post-
resistant to ideology or rebellious against authority is, and anyone who knows global conflict modernity in favor of the perceived simplicity of pastoral Hob-
the genre can attest, laugh-out-loud funny” (“Cognition” 242). The comment biton, colonial Gondor, and immortal Valinor. This impulse is reactionary and
recalls a long tradition of reactionary fantasy. Tackling arguably the best- therefore problematic. As the progenitor of “sword-and-sorcery,” Tolkien set
known fantasist, J. R. R. Tolkien, it is possible to see how fantasy can be seen the great majority of the genre on a seductive path, a path to the status quo.
as an “escape” from reality, thus affirming dominant ideology. Historically, Hume says of Tolkien imitators:
the great majority of genre fantasy, those “sword-and-sorcery,” multi-volume
series and mass-marketed franchise fiction, have been ciphers of Marcuse’s Trashy though many adventures are, they encourage belief in the possibility
“affirmative culture” at best, blatantly nationalistic at worst. of meaningful action. They deny that the individual is worthless, a negligible
Suvin asks, “why should Tolkien or the Conan stories or the frenziedly rac- statistic. Even at the lowest valuation, this reassurance has psychological
ist Lovecraft not be legitimately usable by neo-fascism” (“Considering” 236)? value, for people who cannot believe in themselves have trouble engaging
It is a valid and important question that should always be repeated by those themselves with life in any fashion. (68)
exploring (and writing) fantasy. Fantasy (and sf) can be used, and used dif-
ferently in different cultures: literature will always be contextually framed. In The problem in this case is that “meaningful action” in an affirmative fantasy
the West, the vast majority of fantasy, those multi-volume mega-series, have invariably correlates with self-sacrifice, xenophobia, and some form of nation-
been reflections, if not products of conservative politics. This article argues alism. The individual derives worth by “pulling his/her” weight, sublimating
the need for a progressive change and takes up the sentiment of Miéville’s individuality in the name of liberty, freedom, or a nebulous “good.” The status

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quo is maintained because the reader feels no need to change as “evil” has frightening and dissatisfying than that?
been vicariously defeated by the text’s hero and the need for social change Dissatisfaction is a perfect starting point for fantastic incisions into real-
effaced by nostalgic recollection. This is a tenet of affirmative literature; it ity. Fredric Jameson’s introduction to Archaeologies of the Future is encased
“lulls and flatters the reader rather than challenging and contradicting them” by dissatisfaction with the modern, hegemonic, capitalist state. Conceivably,
(Hume 84), assuring that dominant ideology is reinforced. This is a form of the “fantastic narrative,” a narrative defined (no matter its science fiction
stagnation and a function that fantasy needs to shed. or fantasy label) by its impossibility, is best suited to “open up,” “uncover,”
Opposed to Tolkien’s conservative use of the past, progressive fantasy can or “reimagine” the places of desire that are often ignored and/or repressed.
use the genre’s ubiquitous temporal dislocations to expose how history informs Furthermore, the fantastic’s representation of the impossible or unreal logi-
the present and the future, rupturing reality to re-imagine the then for the cally brings the discussion to utopia as a site of ideological interrogation. The
benefit of the now and the nows yet to pass. In this light, the concept of “pro- fantastic’s preoccupation with the impossible, with expressing the “dark areas”
gressive potential” suggests a direction the genre can and should take. Using of reality, can be defined as that which is impossible within the author’s social
China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station, Gene Wolfe’s Shadow of the Torturer, totality. In other words, socialist utopia is impossible, is unnecessary and ideo-
and Samuel Delany’s Tales of Nevèrÿon as examples, this article will argue logically repulsive, because capitalism has already provided its own gratifying
how fantasy can take up that direction. Importantly, these three texts, from ideal, its own utopian consumerism: you can buy whatever you want, whatever
the wide range of fantasy in the market, are framed by an intrinsic political it is you need.
concern: the ways in which fantasy can represent, interrogate, and alter real- In Marxist Aesthetics, Pauline Johnson states that the fundamental func-
ity. Taking up the past and the future, this article will highlight how these two tion of Marxist aesthetic theories is to “give an enlightening capacity to art”
categories are intertwined, how one influences the other, and how a fantastic (1). This Lukácsian position suggests that an artwork should not only map the
interruption of history can radically alter the reader’s understanding of the “daily life” of capitalist reality, but emancipate the individual’s consciousness
then, the now, and after. from that daily life. Johnson’s reading provides a perspective from which to
Recalling Attebery’s understanding of the power of creative anachronism, judge Jameson’s utopian aesthetic, which consists of recognition, demystifica-
fantasy’s access to the past, its creation of secondary worlds bubbling with a tion, exhaustion, and (possibly) re-creation.1 At a basic level, Jameson builds
melange of past culture, practice, peoples, and ideas is extremely important. on the model of cognition used by Lukács: the artistic text (in Lukács’s case,
Of course, we must remember that anachronism is not in itself progressive: it realism) is a complete map of society that necessarily includes that society’s
is a single tool in fantasy’s aesthetic arsenal. However, the ability to re-write dominant subjectivity and the “gaps” this subjectivity creates. This utopian
and re-cover history is something fantasy can and should attempt, though it aesthetic is concerned with the illumination, then exhaustion of dominant
must be done with care. We see and hear history’s traces, its echoes, but as it ideology.2 In other words, literature does not simply illustrate the subject’s
speaks to us, we cannot truly understand its voice or comprehend its face, nor everyday social existence as “bad” or “corrupt,” but enters into dialogue with
can we completely reach back to grasp the past. Tolkien’s escape to the Middle the subject’s “everyday thinking.” This dialectic demonstrates the falsity of
Ages becomes not so much a reach to bring back some truth but a retreat such thinking or, more to the point, demonstrates how such thinking is a
from the true struggles of his extra-textual world. Attebery speaks to the chal- product of capitalism’s fetishization of daily life.
lenge of unearthing what must not be lost: “Texts from the past no longer We should note that this “cognitive” function, as the basis for his utopian
speak to us as they spoke to their original audiences, but they still lurk in our aesthetic, is the basis for Jameson’s selection of sf as the exemplary fantas-
libraries, challenging us to provide them with new voices and new meanings” tic medium. The determinant in this case, the factor that separates sf from
(“Politics” 16). New voices and meanings seem to be, regardless of political fantasy, can loosely be called extrapolation. Sf is sympathetic with realism
frames, something intrinsic to a genre bulging with the impossible. Attebery (Lukács’s seminal aesthetic) because it projects the ideological content of a
suggests taking the past and inscribing old and forgotten voices with a fresh “now” into a “future”; it cognitively maps the social totality, extrapolating it
perspective. Considering that the present (and future) are inexorably dictated to a logical end.
to by the past, should we not return there if we find fault with present reality? Are we, as Hume suggests, “only dully aware of everyday life” (84)?
In Attebery’s idea is a revolutionary desire to reclaim history and give it the Jameson follows Althusser’s claim that by making visible the architecture of
ability to speak to us, here and now. What might it say? What might it think ideological superstructures, by tracing the social totality they construct, the
of historical progress? Perhaps there has been no progress—and what is more actualities they deny, repress, or efface, literary portrayal can demystify and

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deconstruct. Necessarily, the underlying focus of the utopian aesthetic is with a forward-looking vision. At the moment of anticipation—the creation
predicated on the idea of making visible dominant subjectivity, “making us and appropriation of a militantly progressive subjectivity—literary representa-
more aware of our mental and ideological imprisonment” (Archaeologies xiii). tion can lead to political praxis. As Johnson summarizes, this is the point of
Inherently then, the extrapolation of ideology to its logical terminus is directed a progressive literature: a site that “presents not merely an alternative stand-
toward the de-alienation or “freeing” of the individual subject. Utopian point but specifically acts to effect a change in the recipient’s consciousness”
representation, predominantly dystopian in Jameson’s sf canon,3 illustrates (1). Effect a change is the key, for, as Andrew Milner suggests, “the whole point
the depredations and deprivations of Western modernity, illuminating their of utopia or dystopia is to acquire some positive or negative leverage on the
“invisible” workings. This is the source of sf’s connation with a warning: do present” (“Utopia” 221). It is an active program geared towards some form of
something about your present to avoid this future. This is the goal of the Marx- praxis.
ist aesthetic: to represent reality as it truly is, cutting through the perception In an interview for Gothic Studies, China Miéville suggested that Jameson
of “daily life” to shock the subject, and open them up to the potential of a new had been blinded by “the overwhelming tsunami of post-Tolkien fantasy—
subjectivity. For it is only by defamiliarizing readers from their preconceptions what’s sometimes called EFP: Extruded Fantasy Product—and taken it as a
of what is real and possible that new realties and possibilities can deck their definitional to form” (63). Of course, the same argument (an argument Jame-
thoughts. son himself acknowledges) can be thrown at mass-market sf. The problem
Logically, Jameson’s image of the utopian aesthetic is colored by his insis- then, is one of quality. Be that as it may, the most strident criticism of fantasy,
tence that it is best expressed within (Western) sf. Considering that the genre outlined in Darko Suvin’s Metamorphoses of Science Fiction, is based on cogni-
(through Heinlein, Huxley, Pohl, Dick, Gibson, Bacigalupi, to name a few) tion: fantasy does not map material and historical realities, it ignores them.
possesses a strong strikingly dystopian tradition, the utopian aesthetic, what For Suvin and Jameson, sf cognitively maps social totality. They argue
Jameson refers to as a “remedy,” must “first be a fundamentally negative one, that, via extrapolation (including not only advanced technology and shad-
and stand as a clarion call to remove and extirpate” (Archaeologies 12) the owy organizations bent on world domination but also intergalactic conflict
repressive ideologies of the capitalist state. and post-apocalyptic landscapes), sf maps the present and estranges it, mak-
Nevertheless, this is only a part (albeit an important one) of the pro- ing visible the repressive, destructive nature of dominant ideology. Where
gressive character of a utopian aesthetic. While it is pivotal that dominant sf is generally argued to be a representation of the socio-historical totality,
ideology be “frozen” through a cognitive map and its “gaps” pried open, this fantasy, with its ubiquitous secondary worlds, magic, and archaic temporal
primarily deconstructive approach is not progressive per se: it demystifies with settings, appears as a denial, at the very least a dodge, of that same totality:
the intent to remove, but does not instill a new subjectivity in the individual. hence fantasy is non-cognitive. The inference is that sf holds a monopoly on
It is primarily deconstructive rather than creative. It exhausts the ideological cognitive representation and is therefore the only site for utopian expression.
space via extrapolated “future” landscapes without implementing new, radical Put another way, for Suvin and Jameson, only sf operates with “a totalizing
subjectivities. Rupturing dominant ideology’s organic totality is not enough. perspective . . . able to recognize the falsity of the representation of reality
While it is an important step, if we consider Althusser’s position that ideol- which appears at the surface of society” (Johnson 26). What then, according
ogy mediates between reality and the individual subject, then demystification to this logic, does fantasy actually do? Suvin readily denigrates fantasy as a
or deconstruction is somewhat sterile: a new subjectivity requires a degree of “tool of the reigning ideology” (“Sense” 234). Fantasy becomes just another
replacement, a form of re-imagining. Indeed, Johnson suggests that any eman- “surface” to be overcome, seen through, and shattered: it is false consciousness
cipatory success relies on a correlation between artistic expression and the masking the true, repressive nature of reality.
“recipient’s own felt dissatisfaction” (5). Brian Attebery suggests that all fantasy “begins with a problem and ends
Jameson’s rhetoric here is florid and active: utopia is a “clarion call” to with resolution. Death, despair, horror and betrayal may enter into fantasy,
“remove,” “extirpate,” and “remedy.” Implied is a new perspective beyond but they must not be the final word” (Strategies 15). This inherently “happily
critical negativity: it denotes activism. In this regard, the merit of any uto- ever after” understanding underscores Suvin’s pejorative reading where fan-
pian text should be found in its generative potential: utopian representation tasy is considered affirmative in a Marcusian sense: an obfuscatory vessel of
should ultimately be transformative, seeking to modify, correct, and/or replace and for ruling ideology. However, paraphrasing José Monleón, Miéville puts
fundamentally oppressive systems (Archaeologies xv). Simply, there exist in forward the idea that fantasy should be “understood as a genre of modernity
Jameson’s utopian aesthetic the tools needed to dissect ideology, combined that is formed at the same point that (indeed as part of the process by which)

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(proto-) sf is formed” (“Gothic” 62). Here, as both writer and theoretician, degrees—demonstrate the ways reality is constructed and related to through
Miéville is able, historically, to place fantasy and sf, not in opposition, but subjectivity. In other words, by mimicking the absurdity of capitalist moder-
alignment. Nevertheless, the initial insertion of the “fantastic moment” where nity, fantasy transposes reality as category; if the reality of capitalist modernity
the impossible is possible, is the “starting point of radical alienation from actu- is subjective, then fantasy’s representation of the impossible can be something
ality . . . that both ‘sf’ and ‘fantasy’ share” (“Gothic” 64). Whatever connota- of critical value. Fantasy does not escape reality but exposes, subverts, and
tive qualifications are attached to the impossible are irrelevant: the impossible creates it.
is always culturally illuminating. Attebery, sharing a similar sentiment, feels that without a mimetic ele-
Manipulation, propaganda, persuasion, argument—call it what you will, ment fantasy “would be a purely artificial invention, without recognizable
fantasy and sf, like any literature, is always “something done with language by objects or actions” (Strategies 3). Like all literature, fantasy is a response to
someone to someone” (Miéville, “Cognition” 235). That fantasy and sf make use context: the material, historical, social, political reality of the author. There
of the unreal and impossible should not undermine the integrity or urgency is no creative vacuum. Attebery’s assertion dispels any notion of regressive
of the images they produce. Most importantly, they treat their impossibili- escapism. But escapism is not the problem, not really, not anymore.
ties, strangeness, and dislocation with the utmost seriousness: what the text Moving away from such divisive arguments, the issue is function. If fantasy
encounters, intersects, interprets, and desires to alter is reality. It is only by is purely, even predominantly, mimetic it faces great obstacles in expressing
contemplating the impossible, by journeying into utopian/dystopian alter- any progressive content. As this article will discuss, mimesis (mapping) is
ity, that the limits of our imagination can be found and the impossible enter not enough to effect the creation of an opposing subjectivity. It shows what
dialogue with possible. By juxtaposing the unreal with the real fantasy can is there, not what can or should be there. Be that as it may, Miéville (as a
familiarize former and defamiliarize the latter, changing both categories and theorist) makes an argument (both critically and creatively) that fantasy
offering new perspectives on what is possible that can ferment in the reader (especially his own) is a cognitive literature. Consequently, Miéville fulfills
and lead to alternate subjectivities. Attebery talks about a kind of “resistance” his own prophecy: “At the same sociological level at which SF and fantasy
in fantasy that allows it to shrug off attempts at orthodoxy. He claims that continue to be distinguished, the boundaries between them also—if anything
it “denies what everybody knows to be the truth. And, if you’re lucky, the at an accelerating rate—continue to erode” (“Cognition” 245).
untruth shall make you free” (“Politics” 25). Perdido Street Station may be read as an insertion of Lukács into fantasy: a
disturbing, totalized reflection of the capitalist society. A fully realized second-
Reflections of Reality ary world, Perdido Street Station is also, arguably, allegorically symbolic; that is,
How could we not see this approaching? What trick of topography is this, that lets while not an explicit allegory, the text is permeated by several artistic repre-
the sprawling monster hide behind corners to leap out at the traveller? sentations that are explicitly political symbols.4 Miéville’s aim is the complete
It is too late to flee. construction of a “bad” reality, a distilled expression of false consciousness.
—China Miéville, Perdido Street Station Reflecting the commodity fetishism, vampiric capitalism, authoritarian legal-
ity, and social alienation of Western civilization, the city of New Crobuzon
For Miéville, fantasy begins with reality—a subjective reality predicated upon appears dark, oppressive, and monstrous. Johnson spells out this strategy:
fetishized relationships to commodities and the reification of daily life. This “Lukács’ core thesis is that only a totalizing perspective which draws essence
is, understandably, a mode readily able to critique capitalist reality where real and appearance into a unity is able to recognize the falsity of the representa-
life “is a fantasy” (“Editorial” 42). If “reality” is an irrational, social, subjective tion of reality which appears at the surface of society” (26). As the narrative
construct, then realism can only be a depiction of this absurdity. What, then, progresses it becomes increasing apparent that the “story” is an explicit,
is fantasy? Is it better able to depict and resonate with real relations? Miéville political, “warning.” The distinction is subtle but vital: the theoretical design
posits that the fantasy is a viable alternative to realism for the modern world: is clear. This is not to suggest that such engineering detracts from the narra-
“Fantasy is a mode that, in constructing an internally coherent but actually tive, only that it directs the reader into very specific conceptual space. What
impossible totality—constructed on the basis that the impossible is, for this becomes starkly evident through this methodological focus is that Perdido
work, true—mimics the ‘absurdity’ of capitalist modernity” (“Editorial” 42). Street Station, regardless of what else it achieves, highlights fantasy’s ability
This act of reflection is vital for framing the fantasy’s critical importance. As a to represent ideological content in visible, meaningful, and critical ways. In
form intrinsically linked to world-creation, fantasy will inevitably—to varying slightly different terms, the city (New Crobuzon) and its denizens are rendered

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446 · Daniel Baker Why We Need Dragons · 447

in such a way as to appear singularly complete: a symbolic allegory of a capital- tially wonderful things in their own right, are intrinsically linked to the cor-
ist metropolis. ruption of humanity, the apathy of society, and the barbarism of civilization.
New Crobuzon is “this great wen . . . a conspiracy of industry and violence, They are society’s avatars; a direct commentary on decadence, highlighting
steeped in history and battened-down power, this badland beyond my ken” and enforcing the overarching mood. The Construct Council, a sprawling
(Perdido 5). This imagery is constantly repeated. Dankness, darkness, erosion, artificial intelligence built from discarded machines, is a novum expressing
effluence, and grime are continuously used to convey a particular, disquieting mechanization and rampant, technological consumerism. Furthermore, the
“mood” that pervades the entire text. Jameson rightly contends that “the aes- Council’s relation to humanity is shockingly and casually violent. It is calcu-
thetic is no longer a secondary hobby but rather goes behind creation to iden- lating and parasitic, using a human “mouthpiece” that recalls a gory zombie
tify the very sources of reality as such” (Archaeologies 44). Miéville’s “mood” tradition: “His skull had been sheered cleanly in two just above the eyes. The
speaks very strongly of an underlying discontent, an implicit decay, within the top was completely gone. There was a little fringe of congealed blood below
capitalist system; New Crobuzon is virtually anthropomorphized, alienating it the cut. From the wet hollow inside the man’s head snaked a twisting cable,
from the characters, making it strange, and alien. By using a specific concep- two fingers thick” (Perdido 549). The Council has invaded and supplanted the
tual vocabulary the author’s perceived reality is “reflected” into the fantasy man’s mind, transforming all that was conscious and alive into a mechanical
text as reality actualized. function. Dredging up images of lobotomy and rape, the man is an unthinking
Language dictates emotional reception and guides the reader’s contem- object used by the Council to further its own ends.
plation of the dark, twisting alleys and filthy ghettos, the city’s toxic river, Worshipped, the Council manifests as a deity and its senses, its power,
crumbling masonry, rampant crime, suborned justice, and brutally ruthless and its consciousness spread into the city as its “cables grow longer and reach
authority. The city is made the most visceral of monsters, nothing less than further” (Perdido 761). There is something cancerous here; a systemic growth
a malignant edifice, explicitly dangerous and alien to the individual. In “The inveigling its way into the city like a tumor. Irrevocably tethered to New Cro-
Conspiracy of Architecture,” Miéville discusses the ways in which capital- buzon, the Council’s willingness to objectify individuals, its callous, cold logic,
ism has produced an “aesthetic response to the peculiar alienated relation and its easy violence are synonymous with both the criminal element and the
between humanity and architecture” (2). Most notably this response has been governing body controlling the city.
rendered in works of Gothic horror: tales of architecture with apparent life Interestingly, Lukács describes the fundamental capitalist drive as one of
and, if not consciousness, then some form of affecting presence. Miéville’s own continuous, economic reproduction where “the structure of reification pro-
work echoes the idea, albeit with an exaggerated, fantastical sensibility: “Five gressively sinks more deeply, more fatefully and more definitively into the con-
enormous brick mouths gaped to swallow each of the city’s tramlines. The sciousness of man” (93). Symbolically, the Council is the calculating, inhuman
tracks unrolled on the arches like huge tongues. Shops and torture chambers face of capitalist ideology that permeates society and transforms individuals
and workshops and offices and empty spaces all stuffed the fat belly of the into mindless objects to be used, destroyed, and discarded.
building . . .” (Perdido 79). This description of the titular station is indicative Where the Council is dehumanized computation, the slake-moths,
of Miéville’s portrayal of the city as a whole. There is something gluttonous unleashed by bureaucratic greed, are the predatory nature of self-interest.
and ravenous, animal and foreboding, about the buildings. They devour and Steve Shaviro summarizes that the moths are “capitalism with an (appropri-
disgorge, and, through this juxtaposition of the monstrous and metropolitan, ately) inhuman face. They are literally unthinkable; yet at the same time, they
Miéville creates an image opposing a mass-cultural norm. The city is not are immanent to the society that they ravage” (288). Conglomerates of insect,
security, not opportunity: it alienates and is alienated from its populace. It is human, and cephalopod, the slake-moths, while “unthinkable,” are always in
oppressive and disgusting, continually likened to a rapacious beast, filled with a process of representation.
beings that do not, and cannot, understand one another; Miéville constructs
a viciously grim, aggressively violent portrait of capitalist society. Using this He could not see its shape. Only its dark, glistening skin and hands that
reflective practice, the author’s reality is fantastically distorted to effect a clutched like a child’s. Cold shadows. Eyes that were not eyes. Organic folds
startling response: modern capitalism becomes an all-encompassing monster and jags and twists like rats’ tails that shuddered and twitched as if newly
where everything, as Lukács supposed, is “distorted by its commodity charac- dead. (Perdido 308)
ter” (93).
Creatures like the Construct Council and the slake-moths, though poten- The slake-moths are quintessential Lovecraftian horrors that portray the

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terrifying aspect of the capitalism’s unreal yet true nature. Indeed, the por- actions yet remain unable to act differently illustrates how the city’s ideology
trayal of the strange, dark, twisted, and invisible forces of the unseen, is an configures their relationship to society: lives are expendable.
example of how fantasy is able to bring to light “all that is hidden, secreted, Lukács might suggest that individual’s fate “is typical of society as a whole
obscured . . . [and] to dis-cover, reveal, expose areas normally kept out of in that this self-objectification, this transformation of a human function into
sight” (Jackson 65). By allowing for the impossible, by exposing the invisible a commodity reveals in all its starkness the dehumanized and dehumanizing
and obscured, fantasy (in Miéville’s example) takes repressed material and re- function of the commodity relation” (92). Interestingly, the characters fight
inscribes it as weird, nightmarish, and distorted: it transforms the “everyday” the avatars of their own predatory society to save New Crobuzon, returning it
familiar into the disturbing unfamiliar (Jackson 65). to the status quo. Miéville voices disquieting insight and blatant dissatisfac-
Drinking dreams, the “slake-moths are alien beings, creatures of sheer tion, but offers no alternative. A new subjectivity is not achieved.
excess” embodying “the depredations of an inhuman vampire-capital” (Sha-
viro 287). Effectively, Miéville is suggesting that New Crobuzon’s unconscious I turn away from him and step into the vastness of New Crobuzon, this tower-
content is unnecessary—symbolically, “vampire-capital” feeds on a very impor- ing edifice of architecture and history, this complexitude of money and slum, this
tant part of what makes us human. Not surprisingly, those who have been fed profane steam-powered god. I turn and walk into the city my home, not bird or
upon are literally drained of humanity: they become mindless zombies. While garuda, not miserable crossbreed. I turn and walk into my home, the city, a man.
Shaviro’s descriptions are apt they are a little one-dimensional. Granted, the (Perdido 867)
slake-moths (and the Construct Council) embody “inhuman vampire-capital,”
but they are only exaggerated ciphers, focused analogues of New Crobuzon’s Johnson states that cognitively mapping social totality to create a literary
social conscience. They are extrapolations of the city’s avarice, fear, and greed. reflection that brings together essence and appearance “allows the recipient
Completely misunderstood by the state, the slake-moths are smuggled into to recognize his/her own species character” (75). New Crobuzon transforms
gangland and used to create narcotics from digested dream material (literally individuals, alienates them from their fellow citizens, and shapes them into
stolen, imbibed dreams that are digested and defecated). Inevitably they break reflections of its own dark, rotting, gruesome, distorted, yet shockingly recog-
loose in a storm of terror and death. Becoming the locus of the narrative’s nizable metropolis. This is, perhaps, the first step in producing a progressive
“evil,” it is easy to read these allegorical creations as Miéville’s sole, theoreti- subjectivity in the reader. Transposing capitalist reality onto the dark, oppres-
cal concern. However, it is the transformative powers of the city itself that are sive streets of New Crobuzon reveals how monstrous the urban everyday has
truly disturbing. become or is becoming. Recognition sparks shock, then dissatisfaction, and
In many ways, the true indictment expressed in Perdido Street Station is the from dissatisfaction the desire to change, to build a better, progressive reality.
extent to which individual characters are molded to echo the twisted subjec- But in the end, Perdido Street Station seems to stop at dissatisfaction, offering
tivity of the Council and the moths, becoming microcosms of the city itself. no alternatives, suggesting acceptance, not action.5 If it instills a revolution-
While monsters and aliens can be read as representations of animalistic greed ary subjectivity, it is blind, lashing out in anger to tear down and destroy. A
or mechanistic logic, the text’s protagonists see themselves becoming monstrous progressive literature is capable of more.
as they are forced into terrible choices. To defeat the slake-moths, they abduct
an old, sick man with the intention of killing him: “He had begun to cry When Fantasy Goes Through the Looking Glass
halfway up. Derkhan had watched him and nudged him with the pistol, had Suvin asks: “Is Fantasy as a tradition and present institution a tool of the reign-
felt her emotions from very far away. She kept distant from her own horror” ing ideology of wars for profit, locking out cognition . . . or is it an induction of
(Perdido 720). In effect, Derkhan is alienated from herself, distancing action cognition, however partial and metaphoric?” (“Sense” 234). But we must ask
from emotion, by the city’s external influence: when everything is measured ourselves: is cognition the only measure for a progressive literature? Jameson
in terms of objects and cost, you must destroy a life in order to save others. As and Suvin hypothesize that cognition is the fundamental tool required to build
such a sacrifice, the old man is strapped to a jury-rigged, electrical generator, critical sf and is, therefore, the aesthetic basis to judge fantasy.
turned into a conduit to attract the moths, and has his brain burnt out. Objec- For the most part, Miéville’s fiction and theory trend towards a norma-
tively, this action is monstrous even though it saves the greater population. tive function; the artwork protests contemporary society, expressing a desire
However, this sequence demonstrates that, within the text’s capitalist logic, for a “better” reality. Perdido Street Station is directed towards an enlightening
the ends justify the means. That the characters recognize the “evil” of their function wherein “the artwork provides a better and more convincing repre-
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sentation of reality than the perspective he/she has acquired from daily life” Gene Wolfe’s Shadow of the Torturer attacks the unity of character and the
(Johnson 1–2). It shows a truth, a dark, disturbing truth, in totality. Using objectivity of reality. Wolfe’s use of the first-person is deliberate, creating not
fantasy’s inherent dislocation, Miéville translates his extra-textual reality into only a powerful voice, but forcing the reader to question all representation.
the rot and slime of New Crobuzon; he takes the everyday and demonstrates Severian (the narrator) mentions that it is “my nature, my joy and my curse,
how strange, how dangerous it actually is. That Perdido Street Station fails to to forget nothing” (11); that he believes himself insane; and that there is a
produce an alternative subjectivity opposed to hegemonic ideology hints at the distinct possibility that “those memories were no more than my own dreams”
difficulty of creating progressive literature in a fetishized reality. Furthermore, (27). Consider further that Severian, when “writing” his tale, is the ruler of
it suggests an inability of totalizing reflections to engender political praxis the Earth. The reader is being manipulated. Is Severian’s reality a lie? A false
beyond general discontent. consciousness? The text is implicitly unreliable. As Attebery rightly states, this
The secondary worlds of fantasy (and sf) portray radical extensions, “conditional” understanding is something inherent to fantasy at its best where
extrapolations, dislocations and breaks from the real, implying dissatisfac- “reality is a social contract, easily voided; that the individual character is a
tion with realistic representations of daily life. However, while fantasy may conditional thing, subject to unnerving transformations into trees and axolotls
meditate on radical difference (social, historical, political, economic, sexual), and cockroaches and disembodied discourses” (“Politics” 24).
it remains to be argued whether this difference (understood in a Lukácsian Inherently post-structural, Shadow of the Torturer opens up, fragments,
perspective) posits a “better” representation of reality. and ruptures unity. Directly addressing the reader, Wolfe assures that the text
Fantasy is very deliberate in its use of space: the secondary world. Gen- is a translation—many of its words are “twentieth-century equivalents,” are
erally, this is a place (world, country, city) divorced temporally, historically, “suggestive rather than definitive” or “not strictly correct” (211). What is read
materially, and/or metaphysically from the extratextual world. Such displace- is not what was written, and genre fantasy’s traditionally realistic, objectively
ment is disarmingly simple yet allows for complex ramifications. Bould sug- presented representation (of solid, secondary worlds) is made subjective, shift-
gests: ing, and unreachable. Jackson might argue that this is the first step in undoing
“those unifying structures and significations upon which social order depends,
Fantasy fiction, in both its broad and narrow senses, draws upon this force, [that] fantasy functions to subvert and undermine cultural stability” (70).
this continual location and dislocation. Where fantasy differs from the other There is no reality beyond Severian’s perceptions and manipulations; what
forms of fiction is in the particular nature of its world-building. All fiction readers witness, what they know, is only what Severian knows or has chosen to
builds worlds which are not true to the extratextual world (itself an ideologi- tell. Combined with the claims of the appendix, itself a part of the narrative’s
cal—and, arguably, therefore a fantastic—construct), but fantasy worlds are metafictional apparatus, that the narrative is Wolfe’s translation of a text that
constructed upon a mere elaborate predicate: they are not only not true to our language cannot truly comprehend, there is a distinct flavor of unending
the extratextual world but, by definition, do not seek or pretend to be. (81) signifying chains—an inability to completely access the world of The Shadow of
the Torture. Wolfe seems driven to express fantasy’s “attempt to remain ‘open’,
Superficially, creating secondary worlds merits the escapist label. The term has dissatisfied, endlessly desiring . . . [where it is] most uncompromising in its
been used pejoratively: escaping is ignoring; impossibility equals impractically. interrogation of the ‘nature’ of the ‘real’” (Jackson 9).
However, it is only through discussions of impossibility that fantasy can inves- Ultimately, what is real is what we perceive, and what we perceive is fil-
tigate limits (of reality, of language, etc.) and undermine dominant ideological tered by subjectivity. Wolfe plays games. The reader’s perception of Shadow of
structures. By breaking with the real, the possible, fantasy can go beyond and the Torturer is Severian’s: there are gaps, suspicions, paranoia, misunderstand-
address subjectivity from differing perspectives. ings, and omissions. Reality is textual, reality is relative. Furthermore, Seve-
Particularly interesting are those metafictional texts concerned with how rian (and therefore the reader) continuously encounter obstacles, characters,
stories are told and read. In Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion, Rosemary actions, that are seldom (at least immediately) understood.
Jackson states: “By foregrounding its own signifying practice, the fantastic How are we to approach a text with hidden or held-back meanings? One
begins to betray its version of the ‘real’ as a relative one, which can only way is to fill in the blanks with our knowledge of the conventions and tropes of
deform and transform experience, so the ‘real’ is exposed as a category, as genre fantasy. Severian is the orphan become king, the quintessential fantasy
something articulated by and constructed through the literary or artistic text” hero: on the surface the reader is confronted with heroic fantasy. However,
(84). this generic frame is positioned only to be eroded. Initially the reader fills out
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the text as a bildungsroman because of Severian’s trajectory of learning a world ery, sexuality at a moment these are being naturalized through ideology. This
of swords, guilds, and strange creatures. The text is shaped by expectations of temporal gulf becomes the text’s primary fantastic, dislocation. There remains,
how a fantasy traditionally works. This is the danger of unquestioned adher- however, a conduit between past and present whereby identified “patterns” of
ence to the genre tag—the reader sees what they have been taught (by literary society (the use of slave labor, colonization, the transformative introduction
osmosis) to see. In other words, ideology works unconsciously on the subject, of money, and the repression of sexual desire for social security) are portrayed
unrecognized and beyond conscious control. Wolfe acknowledges this (in the and explored, affirming that “there is no just way in which the past can be
words of his narrator): “We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that quarantined from the present” (Said 2).
they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges” This is where the progressive nature of Tales of Nevèrÿon is manifest. The
(14). We are shaped by ideology. Wolfe’s metafictional strategy of departing text becomes a site where the deconstruction of dominant ideological struc-
from fantasy’s historical conventions inverts this relationship: it forces us to tures through their pre-historical relocation is aligned with counter-hegemonic
recognize what, as readers of fantasy, we have been taught to see. It is another representations of homosexuality, matriarchal societies, and revolution aimed
instance of defamiliarization: a point of recognition that opens the way to at liberation. It is at this nexus that fantasy (in this mode) can become a bridge
effect changes in the social subject. If nothing is stable, solid, objective, or where “the orientation of the past tends toward an orientation on the future”
above suspicion then the individual must draw their own conclusions about (Marcuse 19).
reality. In “The Tale of Old Venn,” Venn relates a story addressing how language
Samuel Delany’s Tales of Nevèrÿon is similarly interested in the telling of has become a thing of difference, not inclusion in civilization. Detailing a
tales. One of his narrators says: “And slowly, remembering all my listeners’ primitive society’s (the Rulvyn) adoption of money, Venn expounds on the
reactions, I began to pick pieces from my own ramblings that they seemed to differences between the empire’s colonial capitalism and the Rulvyn’s primal
recognize as true or accurate” (90). Literature always has a target, always has commune. One of the most obvious differences appears in the treatment of
intent; language is always active, never passive. Johnson states that “ideologi- gender. Venn claims: “We say ‘vagina’ or ‘penis’ for a man’s and woman’s
cal conceptions have the general function of adapting people to their real con- genitals, while the Rulvyn say ‘gorgi’ for both, for which ‘male’ and ‘female’ are
ditions of existence” (117). Ideology is not negative, but necessary. It becomes just two different properties that a gorgi can exhibit—and believe me it makes
problematic when dominant ideology represses, oppresses, and dehumanizes all the difference!” (124). Here, the rational, scientific terms create a dualism
individuals while simultaneously obscuring this very fact. The first step of a that—throughout the narrative—forces value judgments (in this case, man
progressive fantasy should be to “dis-cover, reveal, expose areas normally kept over woman). Consequently, Delany’s “civilized people” have built their eco-
out of sight” (Jackson 65). This is the idea that Delany contemplates in Tales nomic base upon slavery6 and their ideology on colonization: the ruling empire
of Nevèrÿon. brings civilization and freedom to the barbarians via economic structures. This
Ostensibly, the narrative follows two paths: Gorgik’s rise from slave to freedom does not correspond with slavery’s dehumanization, and the reality of
freeman to revolutionary and the childhood and trading life of Norema. These Tales of Nevèrÿon is one predicated on creating and enforcing difference which
two strands, running in parallel and at times intersecting form the simple frame breeds anguish, violence, and dissent.
that allows Delany to expound on its political interests. Broken up into five At the text’s conclusion, Gorgik and his homosexual lover, Small Sarg, are
sections, Tales of Nevèrÿon places at its heart the idea of story-telling. Indeed, leading a revolution. Informed by his slavery in the empire’s mines, Gorgik is
the narrative seems aware that it is a careful fabrication, that it uses a sec- transformed into an emancipatory figure and his slave revolt steeps the nar-
ondary world for the purpose of understanding, criticizing, and re-imagining rative in blood. We may suggest that this visceral un-covering of violence is,
extra-textual reality. Gorgik’s time as a slave is rendered as a traditional tale in itself, a transgressive act. The direct and concrete violence in this (in any)
of boy introduced to the world and becoming a man, while Norema’s upbring- fantasy can draw focus to the invisible, ideological violence perpetrated on the
ing is marked by the stories of her wise-woman teacher Venn. Indeed, the individual by society. Storming a castle, Small Sarg massacres a series of guards
text is bursting with stories being told, with lectures and parables and myths in order to free slaves and a self-imprisoned, tortured Gorgik. What fantasy
that sit one atop the other like a layer cake of subtle and self-reflexive uses of accomplishes, via the immediacy of its (predominantly) hand-to hand conflict,
language. is the exposure of the barbarism that simmers just under the surface of what a
Furthermore, the text’s temporality (in a pre-historical, quasi-African/ matriarchal outsider (the warrior Raven) understands as that “rough, brutal,
Persian land), further displaced and vaguer than the standard, medieval back- inhuman place they called civilization” (Delany 143). Raven’s worldview is
drop, allows Delany to delve into the representation of language, empire, slav- indicative of the text’s series of reflective strategies. Tales of Nevèrÿon typically
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expresses the desire for something excluded—an “opposition to the capital- clothes. Where generic, post-Tolkienian “sword-and-sorcery” escapes, Tales
ist and patriarchal order which has been dominant in Western society over of Nevèrÿon refuses all escape; it makes its world strange and disturbing to
the last two centuries” (Jackson 176)—by bringing in its complete opposite. reorient the mind and demystify civilization. Delany displaces the present in a
Aboard a ship whose crew is dominated by men, Raven is the outsider looking pre-historical past, juxtaposing the effects of contemporary ideology with capi-
in. “You people, here in the land of death, you really are crazy, yes?” (Delany talism’s revolutionary counter. By confronting the alienating effects of hege-
154), she remarks, and her comment is more than idle rhetoric. What follows monic ideology, by investigating how such ideology works, Tales of Nevèrÿon
is her account of a radically different creation myth that sees humanity cat- opens up the reader to questioning daily life and how it is meditated. This is
egorically unified as Woman: Man is just a tortured, mutilated Woman pun- the transgressive, subversive, and eventually progressive power of fantasy; as a
ished for a misdeed. Besides pitting matriarchy against patriarchy, the woman’s serious space that considers its reality seriously, it fully understands that “the
revelations point at fantasy’s inherent ability to imagine extreme, new realities. less people take thought seriously, the more they think in conformity with
What her comment about the “land of death” suggests (at least in her mind) what the State wants” (Deleuze and Guattari 44). Unsurprisingly, the Tales
is a diametrically opposed social existence: she is from a land ruled by women, of Nevèrÿon, a narrative replete with the various ways humanity is enslaved
a land of life, where men serve women and the female population serve in (by money, by power, by language) concludes with the image of a dragon
traditionally male roles (warriors, leaders, etc.). freed from its captivity as it soars into the night. This is the image of fantasy
Unsurprisingly, Raven’s myth is met with derision and unease by the ship’s emancipated from the constrictions of convention and a fitting illustration of
male crew. Her own subjectivity seems too far removed from her colonial Delany’s revolutionary subject.
male listeners, too strange and uncomfortable. The same ideological violence
Delany presumably protests in the extra-textual world is reversed and actual- Where Dragons Fly
ized in the text: man is a beaten, destroyed woman forced into servitude by the I see our global horizons as at best a struggle lasting for several generations against
matriarchy. Here Tales of Nevèrÿon is subtle. The point is not that the world of the amok runs of global capitalism with a bestial face that rapidly spreads hunger,
Man is wrong and the world of Woman right, but that ideological forces used wars, drugging, brainwashing, and prostitution, and at worst a descent into full
to subjugate any individual are barbaric and disturbing. super-technoscientific barbarism.
It is only after this alternative worldview is expressed that the final story —Darko Suvin, “Considering the Sense of ‘Fantasy’”
of the text appears and the central protagonists of the slave revolt re-inserted
into narrative. Explaining their existence, Gorgik and his lover Small Sarg Suvin’s view may very well spark an artistic rupture, a backlash, the warning
equate their sexuality to revolution. that rings alarm bells. Conversely, such a harsh reality could easily provoke
the most idealistic or conservative escapism; the place where orphans become
“We are lovers,” said Gorgik, “and for one of us the symbolic distinction kings, war is glorious, and morality loses all shades of grey. In either case fan-
between slave and master is necessary to desire’s consummation.” tasy is important as a symptom diagnosing affliction and as an imagining of
“We are avengers who fight the institution of slavery wherever we find it,” potential curatives.
said Small Sarg, “in whatever way we can, and for the both of us it is symbolic This thought should not be taken up as a banner for the disempowered. By
of our time in servitude and our bond to all men and women still so bound.” its very nature, fantasy has been marginalized, its ruptures ignored and largely
(Delany 239) contained. Nevertheless, fantasy’s increasing popularity invites us to consider
the potential for progressive (and an awareness of the conservative) content
Appropriating the symbol of their servitude, they identify themselves with native to the genre. No longer providing only contemplation or interrogation,
their group and their class and so begin their emancipation. Gorgik acknowl- a truly progressive literature should seek to express its own impossible borders,
edges that he is entrenched in dominant ideology; however, in the very next model its own reality in its characters, and effect change in the reader’s sub-
sentence, Small Sarg announces that that very acknowledgement—the con- jectivity. This change must take the form of emancipation of the individual
sciousness of their oppression—enables them to combat the forces that breed from surplus repression, leading to a point where work becomes play and the
it. individual is no longer alienated from the natural world and its inhabitants;
Using its secondary world, the narrative lays a thin veneer over extra- a place where sexual desire can be expressed and gratified without the need
textual reality, retaining all its gaps and ridges while giving it new, shocking for continuous sublimation. These are the radical human needs—true liberty,
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equality, cooperation, gratification—that must be recalled and portrayed war, approaching a fully mechanized, exploitative existence, where individu-
through utopian content. als are alienated from the world and from one another. Acknowledging this
Jameson comments that “consumerism which, having become an end in problem is the first step towards recovery.
itself, is transforming the daily life of the advanced countries in such a way as When dystopian sf projects reality as a totality completely known, it
to suggest that the Utopianism of multiple desires and consumption is here removes the impossibilities and contradictions of existence and makes it bland.
already and needs no further supplement” (Valences 413). This psychological In contrast, according to Hume, fantasy “is not bodiless; like a living creature,
imprinting, insidious as it may sound, only highlights the need to demystify it is affected by the limitations of the particular body it inhabits” (150). By
and replace fetishized consciousness. We must recognize that utopia is deeply opening itself up to utopian content, to progressive rather than reactionary
ideological and understand the necessity of ideology itself. Only then can we visions, fantasy can do more than grow, it can evolve. Acknowledging its own
argue for the necessity of a serious, progressive utopian literature, a utopian impossibility—the very “fantasy of fantasy” (Bould 84)—fantasy becomes not
politics that transforms “ideology into an instrument of deliberate action on un-real but, as Le Guin says, “surrealistic, superrealistic, a heightening of real-
history” (Althusser, “Marxism” 232). ity” (84). It is dislocated, strange, improbable, fictional, shocking, intoxicating,
Jameson’s utopian aesthetic focuses not on the future but on the present. laughable, impossible, alien, terrifying, but at all times true. Now more than
It is an indictment of how far dominant ideology has shaped the individual ever this identifies fantasy’s importance. The impossible must appear before
and social consciousness. That sf does not portray the future but displaces us magnificent and other, frightening and impossibly true. It must ask those
the now raises a very interesting problem that speaks to the necessity for a questions that may never have answers but whose purpose is to make us stop,
militant subjectivity. Sf, perhaps conscious of its own discursive limitations, to make us think. That is why we have always needed and will always need
is a self-referential literature that brings the recipient to his/her imaginative dragons: sometimes to breathe their flames and burn us, sometimes to carry us
limitations. on their wings so we can see our world anew.

[I]ts deepest vocation is over and over again to demonstrate and to dramatize
our incapacity to imagine the future, to body forth, through apparently full
representations which prove on closer inspection to be structurally and con- Notes
stitutively impoverished, the atrophy of our time of what Marcuse has called 1. Echoing Darko Suvin, Jameson limits his utopian aesthetics to dystopian sf
the utopian imagination, the imagination of otherness and radical difference: which he understands as the combination of a cognitive map of the author’s social
to succeed by failure, and to serve as unwitting and even unwilling vehicles reality extrapolated into the alterity of possible, if not plausible, future settings.
for meditation, which, setting forth for the unknown, finds itself transformed 2. Throughout, the term “ideology” refers to a series of representations geared
into a contemplation of our own absolute limits. (Archaeologies 288–89) towards mediating individuals with their social and material reality, and “subjectivity”
to what is mediated through ideology.
If this is the case, if utopia is method rather than goal, its function becomes 3. Most notably, this canon includes the works by Philip. K. Dick (seventeen of
the rallying cry. Once the limits of the fettered imagination are reached, once which are referenced throughout Archaeologies), Swanwick, Le Guin, and Arkady and
they have been recognized as constructions of ruling ideology, utopia becomes Boris Strugatsky.
something that “can only be applied” (Metamorphoses 52) to the present, 4. In this respect, Perdido Street Station is not alone; Miéville’s fantastic oeuvre
extrapolating from reality to portray dystopia. Such sf futures are seldom bright: follows similar patterns. From The Scar to The City and the City and Embassytown, the
they are warnings and acknowledgements of necessary change. Such change repeated concern is one of taking a concept of reality and reflecting it in a fantastic
will be affective—a need to reclaim the full expression of human desire. Such mirror. Although both The City and the City and Embassytown do this with an imagina-
Socialist Humanist subjectivity can only be realized by first understanding, tive scope seldom seen, only in Iron Council is this pattern skewed (but not broken)
deconstructing, and demystifying social totality and its constitutive ideological towards the realization of progressive, utopian content; but like the titular train, the
structures. goal remains ever visible, ever out of reach.
By making visible reality’s dehumanizing aspects, its gaps and obstacles, sf 5. This is true when Perdido Street Station is read on its own. However, when
becomes a locus for dissatisfaction. Society must change, and change for the the milieu is expanded to include The Scar and Iron Council, a revolutionary air is
better, because it is under the control of shadowy forces, in a constant state of noticeably generated. Indeed, this trilogy’s thematic trajectory, something beyond the

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confines of this article, may very well be a powerful revolutionary aesthetic. —. Perdido Street Station. London: Pan, 2011. Print.
6. The fact that slavery begins giving way to a more advanced monetary, market Milner, Andrew. “Archaeologies of the Future: Jameson’s Utopia or Orwell’s
system only emphasizes the way the past lives in the present, breathes into the future. Dystopia?” Historical Materialism 17.4 (2009): 101–19. Print.
However, the intricate relationship between the rise of a capitalist system and Gor- —. “Utopia and Science Fiction Revisited.” Bould and Miéville: 213–30. Print
gik’s slave revolt should not be overlooked. For an introduction to this discussion, see Said, Edward. Cultural Imperialism. London: Chatto & Windus, 1993. Print.
Freedman. Shaviro, Steve. “Capitalist Monsters.” Historical Materialism 10.4 (2002): 281–90.
Print.
Suvin, Darko. “Considering the Sense of ‘Fantasy’ or ‘Fantastic Fiction’: An
Effusion.” Extrapolation 41.3 (2000): 209–47. Print.
Works Cited —. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre.
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JOURNAL OF THE FANTASTIC IN THE ARTS
JOURNAL OF THE FANTASTIC IN THE ARTS