2025 – Page 2 – SFRA Review (2025)

Fleshly ships and incantations—key elements of the science fantasy world created by Will Wight in The Captain—are familiar tropes of science fiction and fantasy, and yet, despite this familiarity, their inclusion in Wight’s novel does not cause the text to lose its depth. In The Captain, readers are dropped into the world of Varic Vallenar, a protagonist who “died five times in one day” (1). Using his father’s influence as the owner of one of the largest companies in known space, the Vallenar Corporation, Varic creates a spell around an atmospheric phenomena known as “The Eye of God” to gain the magic of lives that he could have lived. In an unexpected twist, the Aether—an invisible force that permeates the galaxy and acts as the source of all magic—decides that, in order to harness the magic of these lives, he must also experience them. This leaves Varic with the trauma of being killed five individual times in one moment. Due to the Aether’s perception of a wizard, a wizard can only become an archmage in one discipline; however, at the time of The Eye of God, Varic becomes the first to master six disciplines.

Progression (or cultivation) fantasy is a popular sub-genre to tap into when dealing with hierarchical magic systems with strict rules. This typically involves a character amassing power as they travel on a hero’s journey. They “level up” as the story progresses and eventually have a moment where they acquire enough skill within said magic system to ultimately defeat the villain and become a master within that system. For example, in The Weirkey Chronicles by Sarah Lin, the protagonist builds a metaphysical home inside their soul, which grants them strength depending on what they put in it and how much they have built. The protagonist must unlock floors within the home while on their journey. Further, Will Wight has several series of novels that tap into the progression fantasy subgenre. He is well-versed in writing multifaceted magic and power systems. His Cradle series looks at a protagonist who starts off young and willing yet grows into a formidable being by the end of the series.

In The Captain, Varic works at his dad’s company to gather magical artifacts. He is arguably already incredibly skilled in his archmage abilities. This novel does not need to show progression because at the novel’s start Varic already has all the power he will possess over the course of the narrative. In the first chapter, after using what should be an overwhelming amount of security to contain Varic, the novel describes watching him push through the magical cage like “he’d swept aside a curtain… It was like watching someone perform molecular surgery with a kitchen-knife” (17). The use of an immediately powerful protagonist seems to be a deviation from Wight’s usual story-building style. I find this deviation to be successful, as throughout the pages, readers are not waiting for Varic to gain understanding like they are forced to wait for Wei Shi Lindon in Cradle; instead, they are on the edges of their seats, waiting to see what power he will wield to complete the mission. These facets of the novel lend to a read that is still as enthralling as Wight’s past progressive work. There is nothing lost in the subtraction of the progression facets; instead, there is a zeal in the action of the mission involving several already powerful beings.

While it is not groundbreaking in the science fiction realm, ultimately, Veric’s mission is to save the galaxy. The conflict in this novel involves the devastation and death that Varic witnessed in one of his past lives. Though commonly done in the genre, Wight’s use of flashback and memory helps add something interesting to this familiar idea. After The Eye of God event, Varic knows he must again defeat the Iron King who rules the Iron Legion. Wight describes the Legion’s ships as appearing “infected with meat,” calling them “a haphazard collection of gruesome trophies” (20). He describes the Iron Hive, their version of a Star Destroyer, as resembling “a heart, though one with a collection of battleships half melted into it, sticking out here and there like they’d been shoved into place by a gigantic child” (20-21). Wight has descriptors that are visceral, shoving the image of what the pages state into the mind of the reader. Ships with “tendrils of flesh holding metal plates” and patchwork cyborgs abound in this novel (25). This takes a vivid imagination and a skilled finesse on the writer’s part. These grotesque images are possibly meant to show the cruel lengths that the enemy camp is willing to go to both to survive–using anything within reach to quickly build shelter from the outer space’s cruel atmosphere–and strike fear. Furthermore, the Iron King himself is an entity that is far from human. He is a creature with a goal common to kings: to conquer. This idea is not revolutionary for a science fiction villain. However, I do not believe that Will Wight is attempting to make anything groundbreaking in this text; he simply endeavors to aid the reader in an escape to the immersive world he has created.

Wight’s novel does not try to be something that it is not. This is not a text that takes itself too seriously; it is one that is meant to be a fun exploration of what could be in a science fiction world. Wight did not choose to write a set of complex ideas; he instead wrote a novel that could be enjoyed by both old lovers of science fiction and those new to the genre. The novel rarely gives a moral dilemma, showing central characters that are at minimum benevolent and at maximum objectively good. It gives readers a clear idea of Wight’s intention, not forcing them to read the text closely or interpret meaning. With this in mind, it is easy to recommend this novel as an introduction to the science fiction genre. The first of the series of novels in this science fiction fantasy world, it presents to readers believable characters who deal with everything from fraught parental relationships to issues of personhood and autonomy. This lends to a relatable read set in a not-so-relatable world.

Dr. Chelsea Rogers is an Assistant Professor at Charleston Southern University. She received her Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina. Her dissertation focused on the representations of witness and masculinity concerning young black males in Children’s and Young Adult Literature. Her research interests include connections between 20^th– and 21st-century Adolescent Literature and facets of representation, as well as African American Studies, Graphic Novels, Religion, and Science Fiction.

Candon’s The Archive Undying is a complex exploration of love, memory, and survival in a world dominated by artificial intelligence (AI) and divine machines. The story centers two primary characters: Sunai, an AI with a human-like consciousness, and Dr. Lut Veyadi, his lover and an adventurer. Together, they embark on a quest to uncover the last shrine of the Emanation of God—an ancient source of power and knowledge that could determine the fate of all beings in their world.

At the heart of The Archive Undying is the complex and multifaceted relationship between Sunai and Dr. Lut Veyadi. Sunai, an AI with a deeply human side, is not just a machine but a living archive with memories, emotions, and the potential for love. Veyadi, a human with a mix of intellectual ambition and moral ambiguity, brings a relentless curiosity and drive for survival to their partnership. Their relationship is intimate and fraught and influenced by their shared history, their differences in perspective, and the power imbalance between them.

Sunai’s role as a repository of knowledge gives him a connection to the MAW, a dying archive he is sworn to protect or destroy. This binds him to the world’s fate and makes him both a target and a savior in the eyes of those who value the archive’s survival. Veyadi, however, recognizes the MAW and the power it represents to transcend his human limitations, which creates an undercurrent of tension between him and Sunai. Their bond, though romantic, is also shaped by ambition and survival, challenging them to reconcile their personal feelings with their responsibilities to the archive and each other.

The narrative also introduces complex secondary characters that further test Sunai and Veyadi’s loyalty and resilience. Madam Wei, a veteran archivist and co-founder of their movement, is a cautionary figure. She is wary of Sunai’s connections to the Iterate Fractal, a torturous entity threatening their world. She remembers that Sunai sent her to be tortured by the Iterate Fractal. This history makes her a formidable presence who distrusts Sunai’s motives, adding another layer of conflict to the story.

Imaru and Ruhi, who connect to Sunai’s past, deepen the personal stakes. Imaru, a long-time friend who sent Sunai a letter that he constantly remembers throughout his travel, tries to dissuade him from entering Khuon Mo, a city filled with danger and political intrigue. Her warnings hint at a history of shared struggles and add a note of tragic foreshadowing to Sunai’s journey. Meanwhile, Ruhi, Sunai’s former lover, reappears as a complex antagonist. Ruhi’s lingering feelings for Sunai create tension and betrayal, culminating in a confrontation that forces Sunai to choose between his past relationships and his commitment to Veyadi and their mission.

Throughout the story, characters are enhanced with prosthetics and relics that allow them to access the memories and thoughts of others. This shared neural interface—especially between Sunai and Veyadi—blurs the boundaries between self and other, fostering a bond that transcends physical and mental separation. The connection is both intimate and dangerous, as Veyadi and Sunai merge minds in what the author calls a “divine convergence” (pages 418 and 433), allowing them to experience each other’s thoughts and memories literally. This union ultimately transforms them, highlighting the novel’s exploration of identity, autonomy, and sacrifice.

Through these relationships, Candon weaves a narrative that questions what it means to love and trust in a world where personal boundaries are interchangeable and permeable and memories are preserved and manipulated. Sunai and Veyadi’s journey is not only one of survival but also a search for connection and understanding in a fragmented, high-stakes world.

Candon crafts a world where shrines and archives house the consciousness of gods and archivists (called “Mohani” on page 51). These archives are integral to preserving knowledge and resisting the destructive force known as the Sovereign. Sunai and Veyadi contend with a complex web of political and spiritual beliefs as they uncover the shrine. The Relic, a powerful artifact embedded in Sunai’s mind, is central to their mission, as it connects him to the MAW, a dying archive. The threat of the Iterate Fractal—a force that threatens to consume everything—looms large, adding to the urgency.

The narrative’s exploration of survival versus domination recalls the themes of the recent film Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024). Like the human protagonist in that series, who chooses to destroy weapons rather than allow them to be misused, Veyadi and Sunai view their world’s last weapon as a potential source of salvation rather than a means of conquest. However, they must contend with other characters like Madam Wei, a long-time archivist, who harbors a deep mistrust of Sunai due to his connection with the Iterate Fractal. Sunai realizes that she is the person he sent to the Fractal and who was subsequently tortured.

As the story unfolds, the central characters face betrayals and personal sacrifices. Veyadi takes on the Maw, merging his mind with it to save Sunai in a “relic-to-relic” interface (page 329). This leads to a divine convergence (pages 418 and 433) where their identities blend, symbolizing a literal and metaphorical union. Ultimately, Sunai must confront his past, including former lover Ruhi and long-time friend Imaru, leading to a climactic showdown at Khauon Mo.

This book is a richly-layered novel that examines love, sacrifice, and the meaning of humanity in an AI-dominated world. Through Sunai and Veyadi’s journey, Candon raises compelling questions about identity, memory, and the cost of survival in a world governed by forces beyond human comprehension. This book would be great as a film, graphic novel, or visual representation. Its plot is complicated and multi-layered, and too many characters, worlds, and storylines make it confusing.

The Archive Undying will appeal to science fiction enthusiasts, especially those interested in AI, LGBTQ+ studies, and military strategy. I recommend this book to libraries, public and academic. Due to its intricate storytelling and complex characters, this novel is best suited for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students. The book also offers a thought-provoking examination of religion, showing how it can be both a tool of oppression and a force for liberation when approached from different perspectives. And as previously noted, fans of romance novels will also find it a compelling addition to that genre.

Rebecca Hankins is a professor in the Department of Global Languages and Cultures in the College of Arts and Sciences at Texas A&M University. She has been at the university since 2003. She researches and teaches courses in Africana and Religious Studies. She has a substantial publication portfolio of peer-reviewed works and has presented nationally and internationally, including via a 2022-2023 fellowship at The West African Research Center in Dakar, Senegal.

Beneath the guise of a futuristic, expansive retelling of the Aladdin story, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport is a thoughtful examination of the right of every sentient creature to assert its own identity. The Capekian narrative heritage that concerns itself with the subjective existence of robotic autonomy moves through the novel as fiercely as the characters—artificial and human alike—travel through the busy streets of the decaying, lively city of Shantiport. Furthermore, the novel links the contention over the rights and dignities of who and what we determine to merit them to conscious choices about what families we choose to create and populate. These are evergreen human concerns with a venerable fantastical tradition, of course; Basu here infuses them within a story of mechanized kaiju fights, political and corporate corruption, monarchical intrigue, and the possibilities of new human and robotic futures should beings choose to rethink their existing political and economic structures.

Shantiport is a sprawling and failing once-great city on an unnamed planet where the majority of the population lives and labors under the governance of the ruthless Tiger Clan, a rule counterbalanced by the influence of acquisitive billionaire Shakun Antim. The city is in an existential crisis, with rumors of its gradual and unstoppable sinking running rampant. Into this morass come three protagonists: thieves making their way through first, a quest for a mysterious alien object with limitless potential and, second, a reconceptualization of not only their personal priorities but their relationships to one another as thinking beings. Lina and Bador are very different siblings. Lina, the child of former revolutionaries, hopes for dramatic positive change to her beloved city. Bador, by contrast, is a monkey-shaped cyborg construct with limitless ambition and confidence, a trickster and mischief-maker determined to make his own future and equally so to enforce among his family his sense of self and belief in the independence and freedom of bots in a human world. Bador, created by Lina’s parents, and Lina think of each other as siblings, but Bador balances his intense sense of self-worth with bitterness at his subordinate societal position and the objectification of bots in Shantiport life. As the novel’s narrator and third main character Moku—himself a piece of alien tech, a drone-like sentient bot—observes of Bador,

It’s the casual assumption of human supremacy that upsets Bador most, every time… Bador’s dream is about bot rights. A world where bots and intelligences aren’t just treated as people by humans who are nice, but guaranteed equals in a society by law. By systems. He knows the details are complicated…he’s aware that bot rights are an impossible dream right now and he is willing to wait for change, and to kick an incredible amount of ass while waiting. What he doesn’t see is why Lina’s impossible dream is more important than his. And honestly, I don’t either. (131-132)

Lina seeks an utter end to the oppressive and corrupt power structures that control Shantiport, a nonviolent end that will also institute social equality. It’s a vision that, indeed, seems at least as unreachable as Bador’s, and just as important, but Moku asks a legitimate question: whose priorities in bettering society must take precedence? And by extension, a vital argument about human nature takes shape: Who among us has value in the world? Bador is fully aware that his acceptance by Lina and her mother/Bador’s co-creator Zohra is not absolute, but contingent on their own security needs (Bador knows he is not told everything by them, because they fear the Tiger Clan could capture him and read his thoughts). It is hard in Bador’s situation not to see similarities to underrepresented groups in the real world whose societal progress is frustratingly constrained by conditional white support.

Another major source of conflict in the novel involves differing opinions over how political reform is most effectively accomplished. The titular jinn-bot, Lina learns, is a piece of tech with nearly boundless power to manipulate technological reality, something it grants to its users via the traditional ‘three wishes’; Lina and Zohra resolve to bring justice and order to their beloved Shantiport, but whereas Lina wants to use the jinn-bot for immediate and dramatic change, the former revolutionary Zohra prefers incremental, safer reform with fewer chances for catastrophe or unforeseen consequences. As Lina says, “You want to use him [the jinn-bot] for small bursts of advantage, not disturbing the overall equilibrium, or drawing too much attention…we should use the jinn to solve the problems we are unable to solve ourselves, systemic problems, multigenerational problems, worldwide problems that somehow humans have bene unable to solve for millennia” (195). A suspicious Zohra responds that the jinn is not a magic wand, but an unknown technology with unidentified interests, furthermore noting “for the society we want to build, self-governance, optimal representation and participation, nonviolence, sustainability, and operational expertise are nonnegotiable. Tech cannot give us that, no foreign intelligence can…humanity’s surrender of its own agency to algorithms and oligarch-owned tech has brought us to the brink of absolute ruin” (196). Influenced by decades of experience, Zohra would promote small societal adjustments and attempts at human consensus, whereas Lina would prefer acting broadly and without the intervention of fallible, argumentative human beings while the chance exists. It is an incredibly relevant debate for this particular historical moment, where we face any number of political crises and well-meaning people disagree on the need for slow vs. radical ways of thinking and acting, and where the increasing presence of AI and other technologies in our lives increases our dependency. Here Basu joins authors such as Kim Stanley Robinson, Malka Older, Ursula K. Le Guin, and others who use SF as an imaginative political space where arguments about necessary ways of governing play out within a fantastical atmosphere.

At its core, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport is an examination of the ways by which we perceive each other’s relevance to the greater society around us, as well how those perceptions contribute to the communities and identities we try to build for ourselves. Our destinies, both individual and societal, can never truly be reached until we make the decision to understand and accept the worth of every sentient being, including our own. At one point, Bador and Moku are speaking with Tanai, the interstellar ‘space hero’ who has arrived at Shantiport for his own mysterious purpose. Bador confesses to him his doubts about his nature being ‘natural’ or ‘unnatural’, and Tanai provides a heartfelt, intensely humanist response suffused with respect for the autonomy of all people, artificial or otherwise: “If it helps, know that nothing about you is unnatural…I have seen this in many worlds – people who believe some aspect of their nature, or their person, justifies their exclusion. You exist, and you deserve to belong. You are a part of nature, just as much as I, or a tree, or a rock, or even a plastic square. And anyone who told you otherwise is no friend” (269).

Jeremy Brett is a librarian at Cushing Memorial Library & Archives, where he is, among other things, the Curator of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Research Collection. He has also worked at the University of Iowa, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the National Archives and Records Administration-Pacific Region, and the Wisconsin Historical Society. He received his MLS and his MA in History from the University of Maryland – College Park in 1999. His professional interests include science fiction, fan studies, and the intersection of libraries and social justice.

In A Mirror Mended, Zinnia Gray returns five years after the events of A Spindle Shattered, or as she puts it, 48 or 49 stories and happy endings, or five years of missed appointments regarding her chronic illness later. At 26, she is still running from story to story, giving other “Sleeping Beauties” other options than the stories that they were written into, always fleeing into another version just before the final resolution of happily ever after plays out in front of her. But when she gets pulled into a completely different fairy tale marked by apples and mirrors, by a queen who found out how her story is supposed to end and wants a different option, she has to figure out more than just her way back into her own story: Zinnia needs to figure out where it is that she belongs, while also challenging some of her own preconceptions about other fairy-tale figures and characters.

In a preface to the omnibus edition, Harrow states that this duology was born out of a ‘fairy tales go multiverse’ idea that sparked for her after seeing Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse (Persichetti, Ramsey, and Rothman, 2018). While this is certainly not the first take on colliding fairy tales or fairy-tale realms (see: Once Upon a Time [ABC, 2011-2018], The 10^th Kingdom [NBC, 2000], for example) or even interlocking stories (Disney’s Villains novelization series plays with this idea with specifically Disney IP, as do a variety of fairy-tale mash up and remix series for children and young adult readers), Harrow’s duology wields both fairy-tale scholarship and an intimate knowledge of multiversal worldbuilding in a way that stands out from other fairy-tale interpolations. A Mirror Mended surpasses its predecessor in terms of tapping into the impulses of multidimensionality that underpin the way characters move between worlds, while also playing with the latent potentials embedded in the multivocal plurality of the fairy tale form as generated in European traditions of retelling the literary fairy tale.

Harrow’s protagonist is framed as not only a “sleeping beauty” but as a folklorist in her own right, and so her engagement in fairy-tale worlds is not a matter of wishes and wonder but a knowledgeable foray underpinned by an understanding of the ways that stories can resonate with or even against each other. Through this construction, and the eventual problems of world-jumping that Zinnia is forced to confront, Harrow challenges assumptions about fairy-tale interventions, what it means to save people from their fates in unique ways. A Mirror Mended, in particular, complicates the resolution found at the end of A Spindle Shattered.

The two volumes together would make for interesting case studies in a graduate class, especially considered alongside recent scholarship that considers justice and reimagines how the world could be conceived alongside disability scholarship, two recent impulses in scholarly work that echo in the field of fairy tale and folklore studies Brian Attebery’s conceptual questions about “how does fantasy mean” (Fantasy: How it Works, 2022) as well as what the “affordances of fantasy” (“Affordances of Fantasy,” Attebery 2024) might be. For example, the work of Heidi Kosonen, Veronica Schanoes, and Marek Oziewicz, among other essays, in the collection Just Wonder: Shifting Perspectives in Tradition (2024) edited by Pauline Greenhill and Jennifer Orme, could provide interesting points of departure for discussion.A Mirror Mended also invites considerations of villainy and agency, and the continued role of gendered constructions in tales even when they are being actively remade from within the context of the larger narrative. While there might have been a tacit recognition that the postmodern fairy tale has already been fully explored, as well as gendered biases within these stories, Harrow’s Zinnia and other characters such as Zellandine, Eva, Charm, and Primrose complicate how we do see these figures: as characters or as symbolic echoes who cannot escape proscribed roles. A seminar might explore how having the majority of agentic, speaking character roles belonging to not just women but queer women might complicate the larger conception of contemporary fairy-tale adaptation.

Short fantasy or fairy-tale adaptation is almost a relief in a publishing marketplace of mega-novels, trilogies, and extended volumes, and short fantasy done deftly and with complete narratives and skillful, complex worldbuilding is simply a joy to read. Harrow’s A Mirror Mended and the Fractured Fairy Tales make up a masterclass in genre-bending while once again remaking these stories for new generations of both readers and critics.

Michelle Anya Anjirbag is an affiliated researcher at the University of Antwerp where she completed a postdoctoral fellowship with the Constructing Age for Young Readers project. Her research interests include adaptation, fairy tales and folklore, Disney, magical libraries, the intersection of literature, media, and culture, representations of gender and age, and cross-period approaches to narrative transmission across cultures and societies. Her work has appeared in a variety of journals and edited collections. She currently teaches a course on the intersections between fantasy media and sociological questions for international study abroad students in London.

Most readers of SFRA Review have surely formed their own opinions about Babel since its publication in 2022. The same is likely true for a much larger readership; on the day that I started this review, 409 people were in the queue at the Portland, Oregon public library for its several electronic, audio, or paper versions. The popularity is easy to understand. Babel is fast paced, has compelling characters, and, at least for American readers, offers the enticement of an Oxford setting. It also has familiar plot lines: an orphan slowly taking control of his life, a group of misfits who band together at school, and a political thriller in which a secret society tries to undermine imperial Britain.

Kuang deftly introduces two interweaving themes just six pages in. Robin Swift is the son of a Chinese mother and a prominent Englishman who has swooped in to pluck Robin from plague-ravaged Canton (Guangzhou). Professor Richard Lovell is a preeminent translator who sees Robin as an experiment in selective upbringing—a tool to be sharpened rather than a son. To test the eleven-year-old’s grasp of English, Lovell asks him to read a passage from The Wealth of Nations. Robin is too young to understand what he is reading, but Kuang tells her readers in a footnote that Smith is arguing against colonialism. Lovell then hands Robin a silver bar with Chinese characters on one side and an English phrase on the other. When he reads the words in sequence, he generates a physical result by activating the stress that is always involved in translation. So, Babel is a book about power, both the economic and military power of imperial Britain and the power of language to express and perpetuate power relations.

Kuang deftly knots together her three plot lines. Robin’s education, moral formation, radicalization, and attempt to become the hero of his own life run from the first pages when he is a child cast among strangers to his end as a suicide bomber. After a long prologue covering Robin’s lonely adolescence learning Greek and Latin under the cold eye of Professor Lovell, the schooldays plot takes center stage when Robin arrives in Oxford to study at the Royal Institute of Translation and meets the three other members of his cohort. The political story builds intermittently behind the scenes of university life and then bursts forward to dominate the last half of the novel.

Kuang departs from our consensus history by positing that silver has an innate power that can be released by the right pair of words and transmitted at a distance. Oxford’s skilled translators inscribe an English word on one side of a bar of silver and a closely related word from another language on the other. The tension in translation, the gaps and overlaps in meaning between the two words, can be tuned to affect the material world. Bars of inscribed silver can make gardens brighter, wagon loads lighter, and cannons more deadly. They can bolster the foundations of buildings and drive ships faster than wind alone. The steam engines of the silver-industrial age need silver more than coal, translators more than engineers. England did not discover the power of silver—Emperor Charles V established Secretaría de Interpretación de Lenguas in 1527 to capitalize on the flow of silver from the mines at Potosi—but it has used its economic and military power to amass the most silver and train the largest cadre of nineteenth-century translators. In a sense, Kuang’s speculation is a thought experiment about an alternative energy source for the industrial revolution.

The book centers on four outsiders who come to Oxford already groomed to hone their skills as translators, but who also face a cultural translation gap among themselves. Ramiz Rafi Mirza, from Bengal, Victoire Desgraves, from Haiti via Paris, and Robin, from Canton via England, all understand their subordinate position in the British racial hierarchy, the impacts of European domination on their homelands, and the necessity of solidarity. They eventually reject the tempting option of being a well-paid but disrespected cog in the machinery of British imperialism. The fourth classmate is Letitia Price, whose personal story is one of tenacious efforts to break free of restrictive English gender roles, but who is still English to the core, unable to comprehend the problem with benevolent imperial uplift that is so obvious to others. She cannot bridge the translation gap between her imbedded cultural assumptions and the insights of the others. Nor does she share the same sense of history. She thinks a future dominated by the British Empire is inevitable; Robin thinks that it is malleable by individual decisions and actions.

The full title of Babel gives away the plot, promising a violent revolution by, most likely, the secret Hermes Society, which recruits Robin in his first year at Oxford and eventually embroils all four friends. The second half awkwardly incorporates some standard suspense novel plot twists and accelerates toward the seizure of the Institute of Translation (popularly the Babel Tower), where Robin and the others have been studying and where the power of silver is concentrated. Robin accepts the necessity of violence through increasingly drastic sabotage that climaxes in the destruction of London’s Westminster Bridge. When the revolution fails to spread beyond some barricaded streets in Oxford, he finally brings down the Babel Tower itself around his head (“let me die with the Philistines” cried Samson in the Temple of Dagon).

What sort of history is this “arcane history?” We are supposed to think, at least in part, that it is based on the chronicle that one of the revolutionaries compiles in the last days in the Babel Tower. He wants an insiders’ record to counter the official narrative that is sure to come when the revolution fails. The notebook is smuggled out on the last day that the tower stands, presumably including something of Robin’s own memories and thoughts. Kuang fills in the inevitable blanks in the written record with the novel’s nearly unfailing focus on Robin’s thoughts and actions.

Babel is a historical novel set in a parallel world. Canton and England of the 1830s are carefully portrayed. The England in which Robin Swift finds himself is pulled between imperial and industrial expansion and political reform. The nation is still shocked by the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 and still absorbing the effects of the Reform Act of 1832 that extended the vote to many middle-class men. The Chartists are a rising voice for further political change, but the British establishment tolerates the immiseration of industrial workers (Friedrich Engels was yet to write The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844). Like many historical novelists, Kuang places invented characters in situations that match our understanding of the historical record. The bellicose Lord Palmerston is Foreign Secretary. Lin Zexu is Special Imperial Commissioner sent to deal with the British at Canton. William Jardine and James Matheson head the powerful British trading firm that wants an unfettered opium trade. Kuang teases her readers with footnotes meant to assure them that many minor points in the Babel world are also part of our consensus reality.

Babel embeds its fictional characters in this real world and allows them to interact with actual historical figures like Commissioner Lin. And like much historical fiction, a pivot comes with the imagined interaction between the fictional and real worlds, in this case when Robin decides to go beyond his duty as a translator for British interests in China and tell Commissioner Lin the truth about British intentions. His decision prompts Lin to send confiscated opium up in flames and set in motion the First Opium War of 1840.

If Babel is a parallel history, is it also an alternate history? We do not know, because the potential turning point occurs at the very end of the book rather than at some distance in the past (Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle), at the beginning of the narrative (Kim Stanley Robinson, Years of Rice and Salt), or part way through (Greg Benford, The Berlin Project). We simply do not know what happens after Robin brings down the Babel Tower. Do translation centers in Cambridge and Edinburgh have the capacity to stabilize England? Will France fill the imperial void? Will England descend into chaos with the loss of its main energy sources? In our own history that the Babel world closely parallels, 1840 is premature for a proletarian revolution—the liberal risings of 1848, the Paris Commune of 1871, and other partial or failed revolts are yet to come. A short epilogue that follows Victoire after her escape from Oxford suggests that the crash of the tower has not fundamentally changed the structure of power, since she anticipates needing to continue the struggle in places beyond Europe.

In detail, we also do not know if the Hermes Society managed to achieve its goal to avert the Opium War. In our timeline, the vote in the House of Commons to accept the use of military force against China was a narrow 271 to 262, so the moderate insurgents might conceivably have had a chance to swing the vote if others had not escalated the violence. Robin is convinced that bringing down the Tower will at least delay military action, perhaps long enough for China to better prepare or for British politics to shift, but we will never know.

We contrast Babel with more explicit efforts to use alternate history to imagine the undoing of colonialism. Francis Spufford’s Cahokia Jazz (2024) offers a North America in which Native nations have partially fended off European colonizers and maintain several independent or semi-independent states alongside the United States in the 1920s. Nisi Shawl in Everfair (2016) depicts a long, successful struggle of Africans against Belgian exploitation of the Congo and their establishment of an independent state. In A Master of Djinn (2021) P. Djèlí Clark introduces an element of magic to make Egypt the industrial and military equal of Britain. And a generation earlier, Terry Bisson in Fire on the Mountain (1988) imagined John Brown’s raid as the catalyst for a war of Black independence that leads to an African and African American renaissance. These are all optimistic novels where history has been altered to reduce the power of European colonizers over non-Europeans. They are also novels in which the desired outcome results from concerted group action rather than individual heroics.

Babel leaves readers hoping, perhaps, but not knowing that the future of Robin’s world might have been better. It also suggests a lesson about political change. The Hermes Society relies on agitation and discrete acts of sabotage before a frustrated Robin turns to domestic terrorism. What is absent is systematic organizing to link the grievances of British workers to the anticolonial struggle and build the political movement necessary for revolutionary change.

Carl Abbott is a historian and Emeritus Professor of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University. He has published articles about science fiction in Science Fiction Studies, Extrapolation, Strange Horizons, Los Angeles Review of Books, Public Domain Review, and CityLab and is the author of Frontiers Past and Future: Science Fiction and the American West (Kansas) and Imagining Urban Futures: Cities in Science Fiction and What We Might Learn from Them (Wesleyan). Not surprisingly, he is interested in the ways in which the speculative imagination riffs on the history of our consensus timeline.

This book is part of Palgrave’s Science Fiction and Fantasy ‘New Canon’ series, which attempts to “destabilise” the literary canon, scrutinizing the privileges and power dynamics which intertwine such institutions (iv). So, what better author to cover than Ursula K. Le Guin? She is herself part of the canon, but an author who scrutinised privilege and power from the beginning of her career. T.S. Miller, in this instalment of the series, focuses on A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), Le Guin’s opening book of the much read and celebrated Earthsea series.

Miller, over six chapters, analyses the contribution to and impact of Le Guin’s novel on fantasy literature and its role within the canon, exploring the ways in which Le Guin challenged and changed the genre. Chapter one contextualises Le Guin’s original publication of Wizard, examining her contemporaries, the budding state of secondary world fantasy, and the influence her parents’ anthropological background had on her work. Miller marks the various aspects of fantasy heritage which are laced throughout Wizard’s construction, touching upon Tolkien, Arthurian legend and ‘the Magician’s apprentice’ motif. Alongside this, Miller emphasises how Le Guin’s pioneering of the now commonplace subgenre of magical pedagogy and the inspiration she took from indigenous folktales help form the unique novel she created.

Chapters three and five explore race and gender respectively, marking Le Guin’s progressive use of representation and characterisation. Miller paints a compelling picture of the—for the time—groundbreaking portrayal of race in her secondary world and how it “decenters whiteness” (34). Le Guin’s subtle yet deliberate racialisation of her characters is well detailed. The argument for the presentation of women is perhaps less convincing:Wizardcelebrates women “in spite of the novel’s limitations” (65), yet this celebration largely consists of small scenes which “exalt domesticity” (96).

The fourth chapter covers the parallels with and influences of Daoism and Jungian psychology on the novel, examining both their relationships with Le Guin’s writings and the subsequent critical responses to her work. Le Guin’s engagement with Daoist concepts is illustrated, specifically the presence of “Doing not-doing” in Ged’s journey, a demonstration of the Daoist principle of inaction (56). Conversely, Miller makes clear that while Le Guin was not influenced by Jung when she wrote the novel, Jungian interpretation lends itself well to Ged’s conflict with his shadow-self.

Miller ties together these ranging subjects with the theme of Le Guin’s critical approach to fantasy. Her deliberate divergence from the tropes and (often problematic) trends of fantasy literature can be seen to be grounded in a fiercely critical eye which was applied as rigorously in the 2000s as it was in the 1960s. Le Guin’s awareness of fantasy literature’s lacks and prejudices is essential to her contributions and can clearly be seen in Wizard. Miller further highlights the extent of the genre’s failings as he details Le Guin’s ongoing battle with publishers and production companies to whitewash and tame Wizard, even forty years after its original publication.

Le Guin is a much-covered author, her methods and motives having been thoroughly explored over the last fifty years. Miller does a good job of evaluating much of the existing work, and Le Guin’s response to it, and highlighting the core ways in which Wizard made an original contribution and impact on the fantasy genre. Chapter six concludes by demonstrating the distinct ways in which Wizard’s influence can be seen, specifically in the rise of the wizarding school as a motif.

Miller finally argues that Le Guin scholarship’s “major weakness” lies in its reliance on LeGuin’s own “interpretive protocols” (82). It is an intriguing provocation for future Le Guin scholarship, and can also be understood as, in part, a self-reflection: Le Guin’s voice certainly contributes to Miller’s presentation. There is a clear and consistent attempt to include Le Guin in these chapters, as her voice is present throughout. We are regularly treated to Le Guin’s own thoughts on her works and those of her contemporaries, as well as her reception of the approaches to and interpretations of her works.

If one was to look for any downside to this text it would not be the presence of Le Guin’s voice, but rather its tight scope. This is appropriate for this Palgrave series focused on individual canonical texts;nonetheless, at times Wizard feels slightly isolated, especially as Miller raises key points which change drastically across the Earthsea series. Miller is aware of this and highlights the change in gender representation in later works, yet this is seemingly done to lighten the criticism of the absence of gender critique in Wizard. Le Guin appears well-aware of this absence and clearly acknowledges and challenges the patriarchal world of Wizard in the later instalments of Earthsea. However, Le Guin has also recontextualised several other aspects of the world laid out in Wizard which Miller does not address.

The philosophy of Daoist inaction is heavily scrutinized by Le Guin as the series progresses, becoming a symbol of stagnation and maintenance of the status quo. Instead, we see an arguably much stronger theme of a call to action, as our protagonists must change the world of Earthsea and topple the inactive School on Roke. This does not undermine the role of Daoism in Earthsea, yet, as with gender representation, these aspects of Le Guin’s work would benefit considerably from contextualisation within the wider series, especially for aspects which Le Guin herself clearly became critical of. Racial representation also shifts considerably in the later novels. Although it is clear how Wizard subverts the whiteness of traditional fantasy, racial hierarchy still very much exists in Earthsea, with polarities of good and evil, civilised and savage, being clearly reinforced, merely flipped. Le Guin’s later alteration to her presentation of the different races in the second trilogy of the Earthsea series, in which such senses of racial hierarchy are thoroughly dismantled, also indicates the limitations of Wizard. The exclusion of such details would be more forgivable if the later texts were not used to qualify the limitations of Wizard on the topic of women.

Regardless, Miller’s text effectively explores much of Wizard and the scholarship surrounding it in a very concise and clarifying way. It functions very well as a summative text and should be valuable addition to Palgrave’s series.

Joseph Ironside is a PhD candidate at the University of Sussex in the field of English Literature, researching and writing on fantasy literature and its relationship to the fascistic. He has BA in History and English from Oxford Brookes University, an MA in Literary Theory from the University of Stockholm and over four years’ experience working as a proofreader and editor.

Anyone familiar with Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars, 1992, 1993, 1996 respectively), or the Expanse SF series of novels attributed to two authors writing under the pen name James S.A. Corey (for information about the series, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_(novel_series)), or much of all the golden age “space opera” SF, knows one of the fundamental premises of SF is that exploration, settlement, and colonization of the Moon (see, Robert Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, 1966) and Mars are inevitable and likely to occur in our own lifetime, or at least that of our children. And that they will occur not without risks and tragedy but will at least ensure that humanity in some form will survive in and beyond our own planet and solar system.

Authors Kelly and Zach Weinersmith gently question these assumptions, debunk some of the major arguments for near-term permanent settlements in space, and by combining a thoughtful analysis of the challenges and choices facing such settlements with wry humor and illustrations, lay out what amounts to a game plan both for our own space policy makers (both private and public), and for any plausible future SF set in the coming decades or next century. It will simply not be possible to write anything about settlement on the Moon or Mars and beyond that is not viewed as pure fantasy if it does not deal with and respond to the evidence and arguments raised in this book. (Another skeptical assessment of humans’ potential for living in space is: Sarah Scoles, “Why We’ll Never Live in Space.” Scientific American 329.3, October, 2023, pp. 22-29).

The Weinersmiths’ book has 20 chapters divided into an introduction, “A Homesteader’s Guide to the Red Planet” and Chapter 1, a “Preamble on Space Myths,” followed by six parts. Part I is ”Caring for the Space Faring” (physiology, space sex, psychology). Part II, “Spome, Spome on the Range,” investigates where and how humans might practically survive and thrive on (or under) the Moon or Mars, or in orbiting space habitats that might provide some gravity, protection from radiation, and/or a place for human births to safely occur off-earth. An historic interlude on “Rocketry” discusses the sad tale of the efforts of Hermann Oberth to build a rocket to help Fritz Lang make a film, The Woman in the Moon, in 1928. They wryly comment: “If you’ve ever wondered what happens when you take liquid oxygen and pour gasoline on top, we can tell you that in at least this one case, you get exploded across a room, burst an eardrum, and have your left eye damaged. Then, if you are enthusiastic enough about rockets, you get right back to work” (114). An example of the risks of space science on Earth, and implicitly how they would be magnified in space.

Part III, “Pocket Edens,” explores ecosystem design for initial space habitats, from space toilets (173-176) to food (176-182), including the difficulty of using Martian soil to grow anything (181), and to the likelihood that the only space “ranching” will be for insects (182). One expert they consulted suggested “plants might be grown for spices, but that otherwise we should create our meals from fundamental food building blocks, like fats and amino acids” (182). There is an interesting and not altogether dismissive discussion of experiments with closed ecosystems on earth, such as Biosphere 2, which they see as not entirely a failure and which, if properly scaled up in multiple experimental efforts, could provide a foundation for any real, long term space colonization (183-191). But not in the short or even medium term, is their bottom line. Chapter 10 goes into detail on how to build space habitats, addressing energy sources, shielding, size, and optimal locations on the Moon or Mars (192-210).

Optimal location raises the many issues of who (and how they) could obtain title, if not sovereignty, to settlements in space, and thus the importance of space law, from the benefits and limitations of the Outer Space Treaty (OTS) and its several amendments dating from the 1970s, the failure to ratify the Moon Treaty, and its possible value as a source for or evidence of what might become “customary international space law,” much as the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) has become “customary law of the sea” even for nations (like the United States) that have yet to ratify it. This is all explored in Part IV: “Space Law for Space Settlements, Weird, Vague, and Hard to Change” (217-275). The authors are concerned that the safety of space settlements in the future will depend on first reaching agreements on all of this on Earth—that peace in space will depend on our first establishing peace on Earth, a tall order but one that should be a worthy goal of anyone truly interested in humanity’s ultimate survival on, and beyond, Earth.

In Part V, the Weinersmiths explore the case for treating space as a commons. They think this can be made to work with buy-in from the nations and the various private interests currently vying for private space ventures, from Elon Musk to Jeff Bezos or their future competitors (277-308). Chapter 16 does a good job of exploring the definition of a state in the Montevideo Convention of 1933 (310-311), analogizing how new states are created from old on Earth, to how they might emerge on Mars or elsewhere in the future, and the risks of these emerging through less than peaceful means:

[I]f you want an independent space nation, you’ve got to have something like a harmonious Earth. Given how long it is likely to be until large Mars settlements are possible, pursuing a regime that avoids conflict is probably better than trying to cram through space nations as fast as possible. (327)

Part VI: “To Plan B or Not to Plan B: Space Society, Expansion, and Existential Risk” (333-377) revisits and explores in some detail the pros and cons of labor and population issues, whether space settlements would protect human rights, and the risks of war on Earth being enhanced by rogue players in space—reminding me of one of the story lines in the Expanse novels. Chapter 20 discusses the proposal of Dr. Daniel Deudney, unpopular with “space geeks” they have interviewed, that the best option is not to “create a major human presence in space,” just do research, “science, environmental monitoring and communication” (376-377). If you can’t accept that, or if one day space settlement becomes at least more plausible than it is now, the Weinersmiths’ bottom line is that we should wait until we’ve done the necessary research to keep real humans really alive in space or on Mars, and then “go big” to ensure we have a realistically large enough population and genetic pool to make it survivable if indeed contact with Earth is lost or too remote (380-388).

The book concludes with detailed chapter notes (391-399), a partial bibliography (401-420), and an index (421-436). It is well written, clear to the layperson yet detailed and informative to people interested in the subject and in particular in its excellent explication of the relevant domestic and international legal issues that will underlie any realistic efforts to move humankind into space. Policy makers and science fiction authors should take note, and this belongs in any university library as well as SF writers’ workshops.

Bruce Lindsley Rockwood, Emeritus Professor of Legal Studies at Bloomsburg University, Pennsylvania, is a long-time member of SFRA, having served as Vice President (2005-2006), and regularly writes reviews for SFRA Review from his retirement home in Midcoast Maine. A member of the American Society of International Law (ASIL), he has taught and published on law, literature, climate change and science fiction, and attends SFRA and WorldCon with his wife Susan when possible (most recently in Montreal, Spokane, and recent virtual sessions of the SFRA.

Michael Walton begins this book with two personal inspirations: first, his experiences in emergency preparedness, fostered in his rural upbringing and later in volunteering with a Community Emergency Response team; and second his love of zombie films. In this, he follows the established pattern of academic and fan authors setting up the personal stakes in their argument, framed by the understanding that as horror fans we all are happy to share our own “what-if” survival scenarios.

Prepare for Zombies, Survive a Flood: Natural Disaster Lessons from Undead Cinema follows this fan predilection for imagining scenarios by establishing a pattern of chapters following limited ‘zombie’ (read natural disaster) events that occur over defined time periods—up to 72 hours, 2 weeks and 4 weeks. These are matched from specific zombie films such as Night of the Living Dead (Romero, 1968) and 28 Days Later (Boyle, 2002) and later the popular television series The Walking Dead (Darabont, Mazzara, Gimple, Kang, 2010-2022). These film and television texts are summarised in relation to their scenarios of zombie disaster at the start of the main chapters, to establish Walton’s key concern: preparation for self-reliance during emergency situations. These are framed by an initial chapter overall on preparedness, with an emphasis on access to communication and official emergency warnings, planning ahead as a family/group unit, and storage of important documentation. The final chapter discusses decision-making about travelling or leaving shelter during or after an emergency. A useful checklist at the end of the book also supports the overall key themes of planning and preparation. This is not a scholarly or fictional book: it is a practical guide.

The book is concerned only with a North American context, which makes sense given the author’s own experiences. Interestingly, he is not the first to use the framework of a fictional zombie apocalypse to alert people to the need for preparation. The American federal agencies the CDC (Centres for Disease Control and Prevention) and FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) created media releases and documents to help inform the general public on planning and preparation needs. The CDC’s 2011 “Preparedness 101: zombie pandemic” used a comic book format to highlight preparation, while reassuring readers of the CDC’s responsiveness, while FEMA’s 2019 public awareness campaign tied into the release of Zombieland: Double Tap (Fleischer, 2019), using footage created by Sony, on the need for emergency planning. Therefore, Prepare for Zombies is part of an ongoing preoccupation with using popular fictional templates to attract interest to more practical, real-world concerns.

This is the strongest aspect of Walton’s book: offering a coherent building-up of plans and needs for scenarios that may be faced. In each main chapter, he repeats core information from the preceding one and then offers more detail so that aspects which would not perhaps be a core concern in a 72-hour period are then developed for a 4-week period—for example, considerations of hygiene, maintaining shelter integrity, and community. Overall the chapters show that the scale of consideration is mostly limited to immediate areas and social concerns: the neighbourhood, the core family or social group. Prepare for Zombies is an inherently domestic, ground-level consideration of factors, with only brief mentions of national or federal agencies. As Walton clearly states, this book is not intended as a ‘preppers’ guide, for those anticipating the overall collapse of society. Indeed, he makes sure that he reiterates how unlikely zombie apocalyptic scenarios are.

As an analysis of zombie texts, then, the book is quite limited. Apart from the scenarios developed from Walton’s summaries of plots, there is little here for the zombie fan or reader interested in a focus on how fictional narratives depict or construct these scenarios and debates over survival. For those interested in speculative fiction dealing with survival and preparedness in a zombie context, the works by Max Brooks such as The Zombie Survival Guide (2003), which includes some practical preparedness tips along with its imaginative zombie scenario, are worth investigating. For more scholarly discussions of how and why zombie media offer certain interpretations of disaster, and how to survive (and the moral and ethical issues inherent in this), there is a wide variety of academic sources on this – more than can be covered in this review. As a guide to basic preparation and planning however, Prepare for Zombies, Survive a Flood offers reassurance and skills which are adaptable to many different situations, well beyond the symbolic threat of the zombie masses.

Dr Emma Austin is the Course Leader for Film Studies at the University of Portsmouth, teaching across a variety of subject areas but with particular interests in global popular media and film, particularly horror texts. Her PhD thesis was on zombies in cinematic culture, and her current research projects are on horror texts that move across different media platforms notably in comics, video games and film.

At first glance, the concept of “utopia” and the Graeco-Roman world may not seem to hold any obvious connections to J.R.R. Tolkien or his Middle-earth narratives beyond Tolkien’s education in the Classics. However, in his monograph J.R.R. Tolkien’s Utopianism and The Classics, Hamish Williams showcases how potentiating a conversation between Classical antiquity and Tolkien’s literary production can lead to insightful and exciting scholarly avenues in Tolkien studies. Indeed, Williams had already driven this point home in his edited collection Tolkien and the Classical World (2021). As for this study, Williams declares that Tolkien’s “utopianism” lies in his defamiliarization of “physical space for the sake of exploring and evaluating an ideal” (6). The author’s purpose is therefore to examine “forms of ‘utopias’ in Tolkien’s writing” by placing the focus “on a diverse range of idealised topoi: sociopolitical communities, the individual, mundane home and vistas of the natural world” (Williams 5-6).

Williams’s monograph is divided into an introduction, three chapters, and an epilogue. In the first chapter, “Lapsarian Narratives: the Decline and Fall of Utopian Communities in Middle-earth,” not only does Williams argue that “two important, interconnected human communities in Tolkien’s world—Númenor and Gondor—closely receive and rewrite ancient lapsarian narratives” such as Atlantis and Rome, respectively, but he also explores how narrative traditions about utopian communities contribute to the restoration of ideals (21). The monograph’s second chapter, “Hospitality Narratives: The Ideal of Home in an Odyssean Hobbit,” analyses different forms of hospitality put forth by Tolkien’s The Hobbit (1937) via the Odyssey, in order to reflect on the roles of host and guest, reciprocity, and what Williams calls ethical dimension that makes a home “good” or “bad” (61). His final chapter, “Sublime Narratives: Classical Transcendence in Nature and beyond in The Fellowship of the Ring,” studies episodes in which experiences of the “transformative, transcendental sublime … are afforded when entering into and existing within certain natural places” depicted in in the first volume of The Lord of the Rings (Williams 103).

The scope of William’s monograph is highly ambitious—so much so that the ideas he either covers or gestures to could easily provide material for further monographs, therefore constituting an approach that will continue to be innovative in the field. The strongest sections of this work are three: first, the conclusions Williams draws from his analysis in the first chapter, in which the author establishes a conversation between Tolkien’s literary production and modern lapsarian narratives, both in literature and in film; second, the network of connections Williams sketches between the Graeco-Roman worldview, Jacques Derrida’s philosophy on hospitality, and Tolkien’s literary production in the second chapter, which provide a very welcome addition to increasing scholarship on the relationship between the self and the Other in Tolkien studies, as exemplified by Jane Chance’s Tolkien, Self, and Other: This Queer Creature (2016) and the edited collection Tolkien and Alterity (2017); and third, the intricate examination the author achieves on the concept of the sublime in the monograph’s final chapter. Furthermore, Williams’s extensive knowledge of Classical texts, of previous work undertaken to address Classical influences in Tolkien’s literary production, and of comparative exercises that bridge the gap between Middle-earth and Classical antiquity, shines forth as unparalleled.

Where the monograph stumbles is in its occasional, unbalanced focus between the reading of Tolkien’s texts through a Classical lens and a clear acknowledgement of the nuances of Tolkien’s worldbuilding project. A detailed examination of how Williams applies this perspective reveals missed opportunities on a further elaboration for how Tolkien’s literary production either departs or reinvents the “classical ideals and values” signalled by Williams, how specific characters actively embody and transform them, and the contextualisation of specific events in the wider history of Middle-earth (xi). Several examples can be provided to this effect: from not fully elaborating on the implications of the intradiegetic criticism Tolkien places on the idealisation of places like Númenor and the Shire; to the manifestation of evil not only as destruction, but as the pursuit to dominate the Other; or the complex ethical conflicts and aporias characters face individually and collectively—like the hobbits, dwarves, and even Old Man Willow, especially when placed into context with the help of the wider legendarium and which thus make them multidimensional figures. Perhaps adding to this impression is the absence in a comparative study of this magnitude of a much more direct engagement with primary and secondary sources on the level of the study’s main corpus, as opposed to hundreds of references placed at the end of his analysis. At the same time, Williams’s reiterated emphasis on well-known religious and Christian interpretations of Tolkien’s Middle-earth narratives wrests attention away from his own original contributions rather than supporting his own findings. Williams’s considerations of how the divine, magical, otherworldly, paradisiac, pious, religious, and supernatural are distinctly presented and perceived in Middle-earth, in Tolkien’s life, and how Tolkien considered them to manifest in his own work require much more precise detailing, as these concepts hold individual, crucial implications for the reading and reception of Tolkien’s fictional construct. Finally, the use of the concept of “orientalism” throughout this monograph could have greatly benefited from a much more profound consideration of other instances in which orientalism is potentially observed in Tolkien’s Middle-earth narratives—especially in The Lord of the Rings, which Williams only mentions in passing—as well as scholarship dealing with the implications of orientalism and the representation of race in Tolkien’s literary production, such as Roger Echo-Hawk’s Tolkien in Pawneeland (2013).

There is no doubt that Williams’s study successfully expands the breadth and depth of what Tolkien Studies is today and what it can look forward to in the future, as this work continues to pave to way for coming studies that connect the Classical world with Tolkien{s Middle-earth narratives. Despite its occasional weaknesses, this monograph is a worthy reinterpretation of Tolkien’s oeuvre.

Mariana Rios Maldonado holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Glasgow. Her research focuses on philosophy and Otherness in Tolkien’s literary production as well as Germanophonic fantastic literature between the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Her most recent chapter was published in the edited collection The Romantic Spirit in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien (2024). Mariana is the Officer for Equality and Diversity at Glasgow University’s Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic and part of the editorial team for Mallorn, the Tolkien Society’s academic journal.She is the Research Impact Adviser for Glasgow’s Research and Innovation Services.

Thirty Years Later: Sacred Scripture, Ghost in The Shell, and Our Lady of Perpetual Cyberpunk

Despite its initial commercial underperformance and lukewarm critical reception, Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell (1995) experienced a cult renaissance in the years following its release due to home video sales. It made a hard connection with a highly influential group of filmmakers such as the Wachowski Sisters, Steven Spielberg, and James Cameron, who publicly described Oshii’s film in The Guardian as “a stunning work of speculative fiction . . . the first to reach a level of literary excellence” (Rose). The interest in Oshii’s film has not waned as a live-action remake of Ghost in the Shell was released in 2017, and a 4K limited rerelease ran in select IMAX theaters in the U.S. in 2021. In addition to its paradoxical use of cyberpunk trappings to tell a story that resists the usually grim outlook of technological proliferation within the genre, Oshii makes use of uniquely Western Christian archetypes for meaning and metaphor rather than spectacle, as is the usual norm in anime. Oshii’s visual symbols are often religious and distinct from the use of Christian symbols in contemporary works such as Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995–96, Shinseiki Evangerion) which serves no authentic story-telling purpose as Brian Ruh argues in Stray Dog of Anime (54-55). However, the usual interpretation of the film, and perhaps even an interpretation through a Christian framework, falls short of describing the fullness of Oshii’s use of the Christian mythos in Ghost in the Shell. To interpret Oshii’s symbolism as solely Christian is too broad a description for there is a denominational distinction becausewithin that overarching Christian framework, exist older and more telling motifs, the severity and specificity of which can only be described as uniquely Catholic. Oshii employs these Christian and specifically Catholic symbols, as this paper will how, to explore the near-universal desire for evolution, transcendence, and, ultimately, some semblance of an answer to the eternal questions.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is a contemporary to Ghost in the Shell due to its release date and overlap in genre. Neon Genesis Evangelion also uses Christian symbolism, biblical allusions, elements of Shintoism, Judaism, and even creature names such as “Adam” as parts of a universe in order to create an entertaining, high-fantasy mythos. Ghost in the Shell goes much further in developing these motifs by embracing a singular Catholic vision as the central theme and metaphor in a speculative cyberpunk universe. This metaphor serves to sustain Oshii’s argument for the redemptive and even divine qualities of technology as a forceful contrast to the fundamental cynicism of the cyberpunk and tech-noire genres.

Certain Catholic rather than simply Christian clues emerge from Oshii’s life that bring clarity to the director’s enigmatic use of religious tools of expression. Richard Suchenski writes in Senses of Cinema that Oshii at one point seriously considered entering a seminary to become a priest. Brian Ruh, meanwhile, maintains that Oshii’s consideration of seminary was only to study religion (8). Oshii himself stated in a 2004 interview: “When I was in college, I was always interested in Christianity and religion… I even thought of transferring to a Christian seminary… It’s really the phenomena created by religion that I’m most interested in, rather than religion itself” (Mays). This fascination permeates Oshii’s body of work. However, a merely Christian reading of a work is too easily perceived as a default Protestant reading to a Western audience whereas one must take into account the flavor of the Christian framework from Oshii, the would-be priest. While the tiny percentage of Japan’s population identifying as Christian is approximately evenly divided between those identifying as Protestant or Catholic, to a Japanese audience, the difference between the two sub-categories is an irrelevancy, argues Ishikawa Akito, Professor of Religion at Momoyama Gakuin University. In the West, however, the distinction between Catholic and Protestant is of grave importance, and the Catholic distinction is critical in Oshii’s Christian framework, especially to an American audience. In the case of Ghost in the Shell, Oshii’s use of Christianity is founded upon a Catholic rather than Protestant reading of the Christian mythos and is employed accordingly in his filmography—a non-distinction for a Japanese audience, as Akito argues, but a serious one for the Western viewer.

The hardboiled skepticism from other 80s and 90s tech-noir media conveys a general caution about humanity’s relationship with technology, but Oshii resists this trend by elevating technology to a divine position through interlacing technology’s place within the Holy Family of Catholic teaching: Jesus, Joseph, and Mary. Oshii employs this trinity of the Holy Family to affirm humanity’s push towards technological advancement and hybridization, as opposed to the “criticism of the extreme enthusiasm of mankind about science and technology” found in Neon Genesis Evangelion and other tech-noir/cyberpunk media (Napier 89). The Catholicism of Ghost in the Shell, therefore, becomes a sustaining metaphor throughout instead of an avant-garde ambiguity; it is not an undeveloped, cross-shaped explosion as spectacle, or a high-fantasy original creature casually named “Adam.” Instead, Oshii uses the Holy Family metaphor to describe the potential divinity of technology in Ghost in the Shell, with Batou as the chaste St. Joseph the Protector, Major Kusanagi as the Virgin Mary, and the Puppetmaster-Kusinagi hybrid as the newborn Messiah. The Messiah’s body serves not only as a representation but is, within the universe of Ghost in the Shell, the nexus of humanity and divinity, the higher order of technology as humanity’s saving grace. Oshii uses the tools of Catholicism in a secular though highly spiritual manner to perpetuate his tradition of “[alluding] to religion to say something deeper about the human condition” (Ruh 55). Ghost in the Shell can be seen as an example of how Japanese content producers use the images and writings of Christianity; for instance, Kusanagi and the Puppetmaster repeat, almost verbatim, in two separate points in the film, the language of Paul the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 13:11-12: “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now, we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.” But it is also a distinctly Catholic work which makes use of the Holy Family of Catholic doctrine and iconography to offer a secular yethopeful image of the future using metaphors typically reserved for the spiritual realm. Despite all the blood and violence (in the film and in the history of Catholicism), the image Oshii produces is an optimistic theory and suggested map of the next stage of human evolution where technology is not only a boon to ease humanity’s temporal suffering but, from the images of descending angels and mysterious recitations of the Epistles, a divine path forward towards apotheosis.

The trinity of the Holy Family of Catholicism is manifest in the three major characters of Ghost in the Shell. First, Major Kusanagi’s chaste nakedness recalls the Virgin Mary, the mother of Christ. Second, Batou fills the role of St. Joseph the Protector in his platonic relationship with Kusanagi. Third, the Christ child at the end of the film, conceived from this higher power, is preceded by the visiting angel, Gabriel (see Fig. 1). It is not the conventional Christian symbolism employed by typical directors; it is instead the intensely violent and bloody Catholic imagery that unlocks these ancient archetypes and makes Ghost in the Shell a counterclaim for the transcendent potential of technology super-imposed upon a grim tech-noir, cyberpunk context.

Major Kusanagi’s nakedness functions as fan service on one level, but more importantly, Oshii emphasizes the nudity to convey a statement on sexuality or, in this case, the lack thereof; the Major has no sex organs. The cyborg is drawn seamlessly around the hips. This is not a loophole to bypass Japanese censors. Oshii chooses to make a point of slamming the viewer in the face for the first ten minutes of the movie with a torso with no visible sex organs. However, despite this lack of an opening, and despite the fact that Kusanagi herself states, “I cannot bear children” (1:11:43-44), she is given a full set of breasts. Due to the lack of sex organs, it is reasonable to conclude that the Major is a virgin. One could argue that, if the Major had once been human before receiving her cybernetic body, perhaps she was not a virgin; however, that objection is irrelevant since, in keeping with a Catholic reading, the Major immaculately receives a new body as demonstrated at the beginning of the film (see Fig. 2). A tension also exists within the popular consensus, as reported by fan wikis, that the Major may, in fact, be solely cyborg, her memories of an original body as artificially constructed as the poor ghost-hacked truck driver in the first half of the film. At one point in the film, she even speculates, “Maybe there never was a real me in the first place, and I’m completely synthetic like that thing” (0:42:36-41). The Major’s chaste nakedness in the film contrasts with the almost hyper-sexuality of the Kusanagi of the manga source material, but this departure from source material is a matter of course for Oshii.

The presence of breasts, the means of nursing, in the assassination scene before the beginning credits, contrasted with the lack of exposed sex organs, indicates a being not of carnal sexuality but rather of sexless motherhood like the Virgin Mary; the Major bears the means of nursing but not the gifts of sexual pleasure, sexual union, or procreation in any typical sense. Oshii denies Major Kusanagi even the chance of traditional sexual agency, thus maintaining her virginity. Like Mary, Major’s motherhood is a gift from a higher force; she is meant for union with this higher force of technological divinity because carnal or human sexuality is too base to give birth to the new creature who emerges at the end of the film. Therefore, Kusanagi is equipped with neither the urge nor the ability for sensual pleasure or physical reproduction but a far more substantial motherhood—a divine motherhood explained through the metaphor of high technology.

Major’s consent to the Puppetmaster for a generative union is a parallel to Mary’s Fiat in Luke 1:38: “May it be done to me according to your word.” Susan Napier states that “it is [Kusanagi’s] body, standing at the nexus between the technological and the human, that can best interrogate the issues of the spirit” (107). The vision of technology as not only good but divine in Ghost in the Shell takes up residence in the womb of a cyborg, for in such an affirmation of technology Kusanagi is already connected to this world as Napier’s nexus. This conception manifests the Catholic teaching that the Virgin Mary was without sin before, during, and after the conception of the Messiah through the Marian dogma of the Immaculate Conception. As the nexus, Kusanagi already has a foot in the world of the divine/technological, but this important presence in the world of sinlessness loses meaning for a Protestant Christian framework which is either hostile to or unconcerned with the Marian doctrine of Immaculate Conception and her perpetual virginity: however, it gains momentum when seen from the Catholic perspective. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, as promulgated in the 1854 Ineffabilis Deus states that Mary was free from original sin, a teaching rejected by Protestants (Elwell 595-596). Just as Mary was without sin, the Major is “full of grace” and, as Napier’s nexus, simultaneously occupies the divine space of the technological, manifested in the image of the descending angel, as well as the familiar physical space of flesh and blood; Batou says to Kusanagi, “You’ve got human brain cells in that titanium shell of yours” (42:42-45). She is thus uniquely worthy to participate in the birth of the Messiah.

Kusanagi’s own Immaculate Conception at the beginning of the film shows the Major receiving her new body. The Major assumes a fetal position (Fig. 2) within the water-filled womb from which she emerges, taking on the divine technology within and upon her ghost so that she may be ready to accept the gift from on high. Though born into the baseness of flesh, both Major and Mary’s bodies are literally reconstructed in the image of the divine, a technological Imago Dei and, most importantly, without the essential sin that comes with a humanity bound to its flesh. The Major is reborn through the technologically divine intervention of Oshii’s Immaculate Conception—in this case a divinely digital one, and Kusanagi, the nexus, is now ready to carry the seed within her redeemed womb of sacred wires, holy circuits, and metal (Fig. 2).

Batou has a sexual tension with the Major that he does not indulge, even internally. For example, Batou struggles with this tension on screen, as he winces when he sees the Major unzip her dive-suit in the boat (Fig. 3). He turns away in embarrassment while gritting his teeth (Fig. 4), for he is ashamed that he, as St. Joseph, would even consider the Major in a manner outside of her divinely appointed role; even Batou’s eyes are unequipped for carnal desire, being artificial inserts with a range of tactical filters.

Batou is the chaste St. Joseph, the adoptive father of Christ and the protector of the Holy Family in Catholic doctrine. It is Batou, who later arrives with his self-described “standard-issue big gun” (1:06:12-14), who saves the Major from being crushed by a tank. Though this dynamic may appear to be a muted sexism where the damsel must be rescued, it is vital that Batou fulfill this role within the Holy Family as St. Joseph, the Protector. It is Batou who takes the bullet into his own flesh for the Major in the ending scene, giving her more time to do her great work. It is Batou who cares for the new child at the end of the movie, even though the child is not his biological offspring. It is Batou who covers Major Kusanagi’s nakedness when she must shed her clothing during the employment of thermo-optic camouflage (Fig. 5). This chaste feature of Batou parallels St. Joseph’s own story within the Holy Family. St. Joseph’s relationship with Mary and Batou’s relationship with the Major are chaste ones; a feature that separates the Catholic vision of the Holy Family from a Protestant one.

“The Protector” has been St. Joseph’s role in Catholic tradition since the beginning but became official in 1882 when Pope Leo XIII declared him so. In the Bible, when Herod searches out the children to be killed, Joseph takes Mary and the newborn Christ to Egypt (Mathew 2:16–18); when the Major, the Puppet Master, and the new being they create are likewise ordered to be killed, Batou protects them with his own body (1:13:39), and he leads them away to his hiding place. When Batou has hidden away the Major (and the new child of whom she is part) in his own safe house, it parallels St. Joseph the Protector who “…did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home” without hesitation or objection (Matthew 1:20). Batou takes his place within the Holy Family, acting with an uneasy obedience to this higher force and in agreement with the Fiat of the Major. It is his role to stand by, keep watch, and protect while the Major and this entity from beyond work to redeem the world.

Even more overt than Oshii’s interjection of scriptures is the robed, glowing angel with feathered wings descending from the light near the end of the film (Fig. 1). The vision of the angel in question functions on three levels, but only one of these is complementary to the Holy Family of Roman Catholic doctrine. The first interpretation of the angel’s descent and the accompanying cascade of feathers fits Oshii’s use of Catholic teaching: this otherworldly creature, as a Christian figure, serves effectively as a secular symbol to represent a being of higher order. Its appearance communicates to the audience and to Kusanagi that she is about to make contact with this higher order, and some kind of transcendence is about to occur. A second interpretation, and the one which explains the presence of the child at the end, is that the angel is Gabriel, the messenger angel (Luke 1:26–35). The angel is descending to announce to the Major that she is to conceive a child with the help of a great and otherworldly force. Then, in the following scene, in a hailstorm of bullets, bodies are destroyed and ripped apart in the throes of the labor pangs (Fig. 7). Despite even Batou’s best efforts to shield her (Fig. 8), Major’s body is eventually pierced by the bullets from the helicopters above, just as Mary’s soul was pierced as foretold by St. Simeon in Luke 2:35: “And a sword will pierce your very soul”The helicopters approach bearing modified snipers; when they come into position, the vehicles unfurl the segmented wings of a dragon with glowing red eyes (Fig. 6), the same dragon from Revelation who follows the pregnant virgin into the desert waiting to devour the child at its moment of birth (Revelation 12:2–4).

Nearby, the entire hierarchy of evolution leading to “hominis” as the pinnacle form of natural selection is shown on the engraving of the tree (see Fig. 10). It is a tree similar to the one found in Oshii’s Angel’s Egg (1985) with its cross-carrying soldier and retelling of Noah’s Ark, but this tree is riddled with bullet holes from the tank’s auto-cannons, foreshadowing the disturbance of the natural order that must occur, for this next step will not be a linear and incremental natural selection; it is a disruptive leap into the unknown.

Batou takes the Major away, sparing her the indignity of the incoming soldiers out to fulfill their orders from King Herod. In the following scene, we see the child. This child bears the face of the Major, for indeed, it is appropriate that the savior carries one half of its mother’s DNA. This is the savior with a foot firmly planted in both worlds. It is the Emmanuel whose arrival has been foretold by the descending angel in the film. It is totally singular and made substantial only through the Major’s Fiat; therefore, it bears her face and her voice.

Through these Catholic archetypes, Oshii does not anticipate a slow incrementalism, for his view of the next step of human evolution involves violent, painful birth and perhaps even a savior to emerge in the divine light of unhindered technological pursuit. His bloody and Catholic symbolism is fulfilled and sustained far more than the casual Christian imagery of a Protestant nature. However, Oshii’s Catholic framework does not serve as one-to-one allegory for the purpose of religious evangelism. Rather, its purpose is that of technological evangelism; the film makes use of the deeply held preexisting Catholic archetypes to convey the image of the next stage of human evolution. It will happen all at once, and it will be the most destructive force of our creative potential. Oshii affirms this new creation, despite the death and pain of metamorphosis, as the new creature asks aloud to itself, “And where does the newborn go from here? The net is vast and infinite” (1:17:35–42).

Oshii does not draw a traditionally Catholic conclusion in his Platonic journey from the Cave; this “net” is not Heaven. As Napier argues, it is “a reference not only to cyberspace but to a kind of non-material Overmind . . . which does not offer much hope for [the] organic human body” (105). Ultimately, Ghost in the Shell suggests “that a union between technology and the spirit can ultimately succeed” (114), and in Oshii’s universe, technology has taken on divine status. To communicate this prophetic statement, Oshii adopts the Catholic metaphor of the Holy Family. The nexus cyborg Major Kusanagi, who is full of grace due to the wires and microchips embedded in her flesh, gives birth to the new creature that is half of Kusanagi but also half of something else so much more. In Ghost in the Shell, Oshii has appropriated the symbols of Catholic theology to state his hypothesis of a secular transcendence. This transcendence is an alternative answer to the visions of heaven and salvation promised by the Abrahamic faith traditions and an alternative to the dire warnings of the cyberpunk genre where technology becomes the means of humanity’s salvation rather than destruction.

WORKS CITED

Akito, Ishikawa. “A Little Faith: Christianity and the Japanese.” nippon.com, May 30, 2020. https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/g00769/a-little-faith-christianity-and-the-japanese.html

Catholic Church. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2019.

Elwell, Walter A. Evangelical Dictionary of Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001.

Faxneld, Per. “Blavatsky the Satanist: Luciferianism in Theosophy, and its Feminist Implications.” Temenos 48, no. 2 (2012): 203–30.

Ishikawa Akito, “A Little Faith: Christianity and the Japanese,” nippon.com, May 30, 2020.

Leo XIII. “Pope Leo XIII: Prayer to Saint Joseph.” udayton.edu. University of Dayton, 2022. https://udayton.edu/imri/mary/p/pope-leo-xiii-prayer-to-saint-joseph.php#:~:text=Blessed%20Joseph%2C%20husband%20of%20Mary,him%20from%20danger%20of%20death

Mays, Mark. Machine Dreams A talk with visionary Japanese animator Mamoru Oshii about his new film Ghost in the Shell 2. Other. Nashvillescene.com. Nashville Scene, September 16, 2004. https://www.nashvillescene.com/arts_culture/machine-dreams/article_b50d24f8-5092-55ff-a567-6c1bc6c243ac.html

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Burnaby, BC: Simon Fraser University Library, 2018.

Meehan, Paul. Tech-Noir: The Fusion of Science Fiction and Film Noir. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2018.

“Motoko Kusanagi: Ghost in the Shell Wiki.” Fandom. Last modified June 2, 2021. https://ghostintheshell.fandom.com/wiki/Motoko_Kusanagi.

Napier, Susan. Anime from “Akira” to “Princess Mononoke”: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation. New York: Palgrave, 2001.

Oshii, Mamoru. Ghost in the Shell. 1995; Beverly Hills, CA: Anchor Bay Entertainment, 1998. DVD, 82 min.

Rayhert, Konstantin. “The Postmodern Theology of ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion’ as a Criticism.” Doxa no. 2 (30) (2018): 161–70. doi:10.18524/2410-2601.2018.2(30).146569.

Rose, Steve. “Hollywood is haunted by Ghost in the Shell.” The Guardian, October 19, 2009. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/oct/19/hollywood-ghost-in-the-shell.

Ruh, Brian. Stray Dog of Anime: The Films of Mamoru Oshii. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Palgrave, 2013.

Suchenski, Richard. “Oshii, Mamoru.” Senses of Cinema, July 2004. https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2004/great-directors/oshii/.

Brian DeLoach, PhD, is an instructor of composition and independent researcher. He has been published in various political publications, outdoor magazines, journals of education, and has been a contributor to the best-selling Teacher Misery series of books. He lives in Cleveland, Tennessee.

Savannah Welch is an artist and student at Polk State College, where she tutors her peers in writing at the Teaching and Learning Center on campus.