Utopias, Dystopias, and Somewheres In Between: Utopia, The Blazing World, We, The Hunger Games, Divergent, and More

 

I've been reading more dystopian stuff than usual lately, not just in the news, but because I'm currently teaching a class on Utopias and Dystopias. I'm also teaching my Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy class, and depending on who you ask, Plato's Republic is a utopia, dystopia, or both.

What's the point of utopias and dystopias? Utopias seem, well, utopian and unobtainable. And boring, but I think the "boring" label is more a result of lack of imagination than anything inherent to utopias. I think we'd still have plenty to keep us busy if everyone's basic needs were met--we could finally go about figuring out what this whole human experience is supposed to be. But I digress.

Dystopias are either never going to happen, or depending on where and when you look, have been or are already happening. Especially as I write this on Indigenous Peoples Day, I'm reminded of a comment from Indigenous creator Dale Deforest at a panel at Worldcon in August that a lot of Native Americans have been living in various states of dystopia for hundreds of years and still today (I'm hoping for a swift and effective response to a typhoon in Alaska that has affected mostly Indigenous people).

But I think the "could it happen?" question is the wrong question, or at least not the most interesting question to ask. (Not that this stopped me from asking this last week when I showed my students an episode of The Handmaid's Tale). Sure, dystopias might remind us that things could get worse, and utopias might remind us that we could do better, but I think they do something even deeper.

As Mary Midgley said in her essay "Practical Utopianism," utopias and dystopias show us possibilities, often quite exaggerated, of where we could go, roadmaps of roads we may never travel, all to change our sense of the terrain. And I'd like to think this type of story can also expand our sense of possibility as what Ursula Le Guin called "realists of a larger reality."

Exploring the terrain of dystopias and utopias helps us to explore what we think about ourselves, our societies, and more, to find the many utopias, dystopias, and somewheres in between.

Toward that end, here are my reviews of some of the terrain of utopias and dystopias that I've been exploring lately: Utopia by Thomas More, The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish, We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, The Hunger Games by Susanne Collins, Divergent by Veronica Roth, and Authority by Jeff VanderMeer.

If you are ever stuck in a dystopia or an ambiguous utopia, dear reader, may the odds be ever in your favor!

Floating in the Dream-Sea: The Great and Secret Show by Clive Barker

 

I first read Clive Barker's The Great and Secret Show about 30 years ago. It always stuck with me. Not so much specific plot points or even all the major characters, but certain ideas, scenes, and turns of phrase. I'm glad I decided to read this again. I loved it every bit as much, if not more, than I did the first time.

Like much of Barker's work, this might properly be called dark fantasy rather than horror, per se, although there are plenty of horror elements. 

It's also, as the introduction to this edition informs us, a result of Barker's engagements with philosophy. As an academic philosopher, I was amused by Barker's distain for "philosophical equations" encountered in university philosophy courses (a fair criticism of much of what we in the biz call analytic philosophy). Instead, Barker has been intrigued by Big Questions about belief, imagination, and mind--a point which makes a lot of sense of his work, especially when you combine it with some Lovecraftian sensibilities and Barker's own gnarly imagination.

And when it comes to The Great and Secret Show in particular, Barker tells us that Carl Jung was a major inspiration. The idea of a collective unconscious is too fertile for artists and storytellers like Barker to pass up, and I can see why, especially when Barker creates something as interesting as the concept of the dream-sea of Quiddity as his own riff on Jungian ideas.

But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. What about the plot?

We meet a man named Jaffe who works in a dead letter office in Omaha, Nebraska in 1969. He begins reading letters about something called the Art, a secret, more real world beyond our own, and a sea of imagination and dreams called Quiddity. He embarks on a quest to control this other realm for himself (first step: murder his boss). This part of the novel goes a bit quickly, but somehow Barker makes it work as Jaffe goes from miserable postal employee to megalomaniacal murderer in a few dozen pages.

But the real story picks up a few years later in town of Palomo Grove, California. Jaffe and an antagonist of sorts called Fletcher become something more than human, and draw the town into their machinations, which result, in complicated Barker dark fantasy fashion, in the birth of several babies with both human and nonhuman fathers.

Okay, the story really picks up 18 years later with the babies now young adults. And Jaffe and Fletcher are still around, but also not exactly human.

Things get, um, complicated from there. But every twist and turn along the way is worth the journey. We meet a washed-up Hollywood comedian. A journalist and his friend named Tesla, both of whom become vital to the story later, as are some of those 18 year olds (Tesla in particular is an awesome character). There's also an ape-human hybrid, a wizard residing in a pocket dimension, and a character from other Barker stories who shows up briefly in this one and (if I remember correctly) much more in the sequel, Everville (which I also plan to re-read). And eventually there are horrors from beyond...

And yes, this is Clive Barker, so there's plenty of gnarly violence and kinky sex (and plenty of gnarly sex and kinky violence).

I don't know if I could summarize the whole plot here if I wanted to, which gets complicated and involves a lot of surprises, but my recommendation is to enjoy floating on the currents in Barker's dream-sea.

But what about Quiddity? It's a beautiful and deep idea. Definitely one I remembered for the last few decades. It's Barker's riff on Jungian ideas, with his own special touches. Particularly beautiful is the idea that all humans swim in the dream-seas of Quiddity three times in their lives: once at birth, once when they sleep next to the love of their life, and again before death. It's the source of love and life and creation for human beings (and not just human beings).

It's also dangerous, at least in the hands of those who want to control it rather than be shaped and invigorated by it. I love this way of thinking through the deep mystery of the human creative process: what are we doing when we create art and stories? How is creativity tied to love and hope and meaning? Are there worlds beyond that which we can see and hear and touch? Are those worlds more real than we know? How would we know?

Reading this again makes me wonder if Barker was one of the authors that made me think the kinds of thoughts that led me to study philosophy. I'm glad he turned away from academia and became, well, Clive Barker. But I'm also grateful that he's still enough of a philosopher to write beautiful, deep, and complicated works like The Great and Secret Show. Barker may also have explored a form of philosophical idealism somewhat similar to Kashmiri Shaivism in classical Indian philosophy (all is mind, and mind is a type of creativity).

Like Quiddity itself, however, The Great and Secret Show is vaster than I can summarize here. My advice: take the plunge for yourself.

See also my Goodreads review.

Review of Reviews, May 2025: Andor, Sinners, and Books by Okorafor, Maas, King, Harvey, Hannah-Jones, Pargin, and Stanley

 

I have gotten behind on posting book reviews lately (I did get one last month), so I thought I should get around to that now that the spring semester is over and grades are entered.

And today just happens to be May the 4th, aka Star Wars Day (as observed recently based on the pun on the date), so I figured I would add a little bit about the latest season of the Star Wars show, Andor. Also, like many other people, I saw and had a lot of thoughts about Ryan Coogler's Sinners.

Books reviewed here: She Who Knows by Nnedi Okorafor, A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas, The Waste Lands by Stephen King, The 1619 Project, edited by Nikole Hannh-Jones, Orbital by Samantha Harvey, John Dies at The End by Jason Pargin, and How Fascism Works by Jason Stanley.

There is also a super secret Star Wars day review hidden in here...

Let the reviews commence!

Random Thoughts, Part 27: Trump 2.0, Sci-Fi AI vs. Real AI, Black Cats, Satanic Panic, Musical Time-Slippage, Conceptual Constructions of Politics, Sinners, etc.

 

My random thoughts continue, now with 27 parts with 801 total thoughts! With the second Trump administration driving us full-bore into making America less great several times every single goddamn day, I've had a lot of politics on my mind lately. And there are continuing issues about AI. I worry my random thoughts are not so random these days. But randomness doesn't rule out clusters of similar ideas. And you'll still find a few other things in there about my dental habits, listening to Nirvana, the Satanic Panic, the film Sinners, cats, and more. And of course, there are memes! Enjoy!

New Little Kings: You Like It Darker by Stephen King

 

Stephen King has been publishing short story collections since the 1970's, and they often include some of his best work (my favorite is "The Jaunt" from Skeleton Crew). I don't know if any of the stories in You Like It Darker are destined to rank among my favorites, but I really loved a few of these stories and I think they're all at least pretty good. I'm happy to report that Uncle Stevie has not lost his Shine when it comes to short stories. 

Zones of Dogs: A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge

 

My initial reaction to Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep: a lot of really cool ideas, but something in the execution failed to grab me.

The cool ideas: 

The zones of thought are really interesting, although I'm not quite sure I completely understood the concept. In certain zones of the galaxy, some types of consciousness and technology are possible, while in other zones they are not. And "possible" in the sense of physically or scientifically possible. Logical possibility remains the terrain of science fiction, after all! And the borders between the zones can and have shifted, and nobody knows if they are natural or artificially created by mysterious aliens eons ago (perhaps as a way to keep the riff-raff in line?).

The main aliens, the Tines, are dog-like creatures who form "packs" of several individuals to form something like hive minds, which is a cool way to think about intelligence. Is this personal fusion? Or is each pack an individual person in some sense? You'd think this would give them an ability to work together in a way lonely individually-minded humans cannot, but the conglomerations can't get close to each other due to interference of the (maybe sonic?) methods they use to bind together. 

There are some cool ideas there about how we individuate minds, maybe even somewhat along the lines of the Buddhist philosopher Ratnakīrti's exploration of the coherence (or lack thereof) of the very concept of a single discrete mind separate from the rest of existence.

There are also some plant-like aliens who get around with technological assistance from a shadowy group of other aliens in the distant past. Very cool!

There's also something like a galactic internet discussion board that shows how such a system is vulnerable to misinformation, which is especially prescient for a book published in 1992.

What didn't work as well for me:

The plot starts with children being stranded on an alien planet. We learn about their struggles to survive among the Tines and the adults who embark upon a rescue mission. This is all cool. 

But then we spend A LOT of time in something approaching a Game of Thrones level of political intrigue among the Tine societies, which is interesting to a point. It also suffers from the science fiction writer's Eurocentric fallacy of assuming that the particular history of one small part of Earth (Western Europe) somehow determines the parameters of technological and social development for the entire galaxy (you also see this frequently on Star Trek, for example).

Anyway, all this intrigue became a bit too much for me, and I wanted more time exploring the cool ideas and less on all the quasi-Medieval European drama. In general, I feel like more could have been done with the cool ideas (like at one point an alien on the message board wonders whether the zones of thought have a moral meaning... and then this idea is dropped). Maybe more was done with the ideas in the other books in the series that I haven't read yet.

But your zone of thought may vary!

See also my Goodreads review.

Your Own Personal Dittos: Kiln People by David Brin

 

I met David Brin (the author of Kiln People and many other novels) at a signing about a decade ago. In our small talk (awkward for me; natural for him), I mentioned that I was a philosopher and he recommended Kiln People, which I soon picked up ... and somehow didn't read until now. (If only I had some dittos to get through my to-read pile!)

The idea is really fun and philosophically interesting when it comes to the issue of personal identity (What makes you you? What is a person?). But the plot never really engaged me, and the novel falls into a common SF problem where the societal changes of time and technology are under-explored, which made it hard for me to really buy into the whole concept of dittos.

Frank Herbert Beyond Dune: The Eyes of Heisenberg and The Godmakers

 

I still intend to write more about Dune Part Two (beyond my initial non-spoilery thoughts here). I've seen it a few times, and I've loved it more each time. I hope to see it at least once more in full-size IMAX before trying to wrangle some of my many thoughts into something resembling a comprehensible blog post. Please accept the following post for now!

It's easy to forget for those of us who love Dune and its various screen adaptations, but Frank Herbert wrote a lot of novels that are neither Dune nor its sequels. I've read a few of them over the years, including The White Plague a few months ago.

The good thing about Herbert's non-Dune work is that it's fun to explore a favorite author's other work. The bad thing about exploring Herbert's non-Dune work is that none of it is Dune. 

It's difficult advice for Dune-obsessed nerds like me to take, but every time I read non-Dune Frank Herbert, I tell myself not to expect Dune. Because it never measures up. But failing to be one of the most influential and mind-expanding science fiction series of the 20th century shouldn't stop you from reading a novel, even if it is written by the author of that series.

So, here are my reviews of two non-Dune Frank Herbert novels I've read recently: The Eyes of Heisenberg and The Godmakers!

Review of Reviews: March 2024

 

It's time for another Review of Reviews! Since it's the last day of Women's History Month, I figured I'd include reviews of books by women authors. Is it too cheesy to call it "Women's Future Month" as I have before? I'll let you decide. Anyway, here are my reviews of The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson, Fevered Star by Rebecca Roanhorse, Houston, Houston Do You Read? by James Tiptree, Jr., and Primary Inversion by Catharine Asaro.

Sci-Fi Kant: The Thing Itself by Adam Roberts

 

The Thing Itself by Adam Roberts has been on my list for years, and a cold snap in January seemed like the best time to read it. As a philosopher and science fiction fan, I was already on board for science fiction with a Kant angle, but the obvious links to Lovecraft and John Carpenter's The Thing made it so much MY THING (itself?) that I'm shocked it took me so long to get to it. I'm sure I would have read it sooner if I realized it was so funny (not quite as outright zany as Douglas Adams or The Illuminatus Trilogy and not quite on an Iain M. Banks wavelength, either, but in some category of hilarity nearby). 

Review of Reviews: December 2023

 

It's the week between Christmas and New Year's, that blank time filled with cheese, sugar, and not knowing what day of the week it is. I've been having fun reading, but I have been somewhat remiss when it comes to writing reviews. Lest I disappoint the small handful of humans and bots who will read this, here are my reviews of some of what I've been reading lately: Transcendent by Stephen Baxter, The Chrysalids by John Wyndham, The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee, and Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. I also recently finished A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers, but I need more time to process how much I loved everything about it. I'm also returning to an old favorite, The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks, which I'm loving just as much if not more than I did when I first read it ten years ago. Anyway, on to this Review of Reviews: December 2023!

Random Thoughts, Part 20: Non-dualism, Tacos, Chattanooga, James Bond, and Such

I haven't made a "Random Thoughts" post since October, but rest assured: the random thoughts have kept coming. Here are a few of them! With memes!

So I Watched All the Oscar Nominees for Best Picture

 

I don't always care about the Oscars. I don't even watch the ceremony every year. But this year I happened to notice that I had seen a few of the nominees for Best Picture already, so I figured: why not watch them all? So I did! And here's what I thought about all of them in a series of mini-reviews!

Overall I have to say I was pretty impressed with this year's crop of Oscar nominees. I found something to like about all of them, and some of them I thought were really good. One film stands far and above the others for me, but overall I can say I'm glad I watched all of these. I kind of hate ranking things precisely, so below is sort of my order of overall preference. But really who cares what I think? I guess we'll see what the Academy thinks a few hours after I post this!

Upcoming Talk and Recent Indian Philosophy Blog Posts

 

I'm on sabbatical this semester, which means I'm spending more time on the research side of my job. Here are a few professional happenings on that front.

• I will be giving an online talk tomorrow for Rabindra Bharati University in Kolkata, India (details above; the talk is online, so I will be in my home office). The talk is called "Classical Indian Skepticism: Lessons for the 21st Century," and it will be on a lot of the topics I discussed in the conclusion of my book Three Pillars of Skepticism in Classical India: Nāgārjuna, Jayarāśi, and Śrī Harṣa.
• I recently published a few blog posts over at the Indian Philosophy Blog praising recent work by Sonam Kachru and questioning some of my own previous interpretations of the Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu.
• "Vasubandhu's Twenty Verses and Comparative Philosophy, Part One"
• "Vasubandhu's Twenty Verses and Comparative Philosophy, Part Two"

I have a few other things coming up in the new few months, including in-person conferences in Denver and San Francisco. The San Francisco conference will include the inaugural panel of the new Science Fiction and Philosophy Society!

I had to promise my university I would produce a book proposal for a new book project during my sabbatical (likely focusing on Vasubandhu and Ratnakīrti), so I may have details on that in a few months. Stay tuned!

Shifting Realities: Four Past Midnight by Stephen King

In my long-term quest to read all of Stephen King's books (a quest that feels about as attainable as Roland's Tower), I finally arrived at this classic. Four Past Midnight isn't up there with The Stand or Different Seasons, but it's solid middle-tier King, which is still good stuff. These are technically novellas, but I think The Langoliers and The Library Policeman might really be short novels for King (what would be average length novels for other writers).

Pandemic Journal, Part 23: Yet Another Pandemic Semester, Also: Dune

 

My increasingly exhausting pandemic journal continues with Part 23 (see the most recent entry here). We had a really bad surge in the late summer and early fall with record hospitalizations and I've had yet another exhausting pandemic semester, all while many people seem to be pretending the pandemic is over. And now things are getting better, but we have the omicron variant and the winter holidays... so it's not looking great. 

But on the other hand, Villeneuve's Dune was finally released in October, ushering in a new era of Dune memes for your enjoyment. Thus, this entry will consist, not quite entirely, but mostly of Dune memes. Thanks to the dedicated members of the Dune Sietchposting Facebook group for most of these, and to various friends and other online denizens for the rest.

Hugo Ballot 2021: Novels and Novellas

 

My 2021 Hugo ballot continues (see short stories and novelettes here) with novellas and the most high-profile category: novels. You can see the full list of finalists here.

As I've mentioned before, I've been voting for the Hugos for several years, and I rely on my Three Principles of Hugo Voting (but maybe not exclusively: I've been consistently inconsistent in the past and it would be inconsistent to change that now).

You'd think extending the deadline to November instead of the usual late summer time would help, but then you'd be underestimating my powers of procrastination and how busy a time November is in my academic calendar. I think I did pretty well this year considering how many categories there are. I was even more down-to-the-wire than usual this year, but it would be a full job in itself just reading all that stuff, so I'm not going too hard on myself.

So without further ado, here's how I voted!

Hugo Ballot 2021: Short Stories and Novelettes

 

I've been voting for the Hugos for several years now, and I always put it off until it's too late to finish everything. In my defense, there's a lot of stuff on those ballots. Ballots are usually due around July, but since Worldcon was postponed until December this year, ballots aren't due until November 19. You would think that giving me another few months than usual would help , but since November is a busy time in my academic calendar, this didn't help as much as you'd think. In fact, it probably hurt. I'll be rushing to finish the main fiction categories, and may not get to as many categories as usual. Oh, well.

But I did have the foresight to sit down and read all the short stories and novelettes over a few weekends in September and October. And here's how I'm voting, based on the Three Principles of Hugo Voting that I came up with several years ago. And see here to see the full list of finalists.

Foundations of Psychohistory: Prelude to Foundation by Isaac Asimov

 

I've read the original Foundation trilogy twice (once in my teens and once about 8 years ago), and I thought about reading it again with the new adaption of Foundation coming out on Apple TV. Or maybe I would read the later sequels (at least one of which I read awhile back). But then I found this latter day prequel on my shelf (that I had forgotten I bought!) and figured I'd check it out.

I can say I enjoyed Prelude to Foundation overall, although parts of it dragged on a bit. You probably have to have a soft spot or at least appreciation for Asimov to really like this. I read the original trilogy as a teenager, which maybe accounts for my soft spot for Asimov. Some people these days complain about Asimov's writing, but I think it's perfectly fine for what he's doing. Asimov was always mainly about the ideas, so if you're looking for in-depth characters or snappy dialogue or whatever... well, you're not going to get that here.

Pandemic Journal, Part 22: Pandemic... Ugh...

My ever-expanding pandemic journal continues, now with Part 22. I guess a lot of people have decided the pandemic is over, but alas, it is not. And now we're having a new school year with a worse pandemic and fewer protections, so that's... great. But at least the memes continue. In fact, this post is overstuffed with memes, so ... enjoy!