In this first episode of “Fantasy for our Time,” fantasy author Nicholas Kotar explains his premise for the podcast. This isn’t a review podcast, though there will be discussions of fantasy books old and new. Using a framework developed on the Science Fiction podcast by Damien Walter, Kotar critiques works of classic and new fantasy (and occasionally, sci fi) rather than reviews them.
In other words, these stories that we read are more than our personal likes and dislikes (reviews). They have a capacity of affecting us at a profound level, for good or ill. So as Kotar critiques these stories, he will always consider how they reflect some aspect of our current society or what it means to be human in general.
To start off, Kotar discusses Tolkien’s wonderful essay “On Fairy Stories,” where Tolkien explains how the consolation that stories provide is one of the most important things we have as human beings. Far from being embarrassed by the escapism of stories, we should revel in it!
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Science fiction podcast by Daniel Walter
“On Fairy Stories” by Tolkien, found in The Monster and the Critics
Deathless by Catherynne Valente
The Impact of Electronic Media Violence: Scientific Theory and Research
Speaking of fairy stories, I get a lot of ideas for my own writing from Russian fairy tales. Today, I have a special invitation for you — I want to offer you a free copy of my essay, “A Passport to Russian Fairy Land”!
For me I guess the question remains of escape from what into what? From a place of grey and brown to a place of colour. From a place of machines and being a cog in a machine to real heart to heart connection where a person is more then just a means of productivity. It’s intolerable for most people but so many escape into violence, drugs, or sexually illicit pain killers which is just fifty more shades of the same grey. Like a colour blind person they don’t even know there is more. I’m looking for the escape that exists for those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. The right story provides that. I continue to train to one day be considered a “committed escaper” ;)“A committed escaper! One who never for a minute doubts that a man cannot live behind bars—not even as the most comfortable of trusties, in the accounts office, in the Culture and Education Section, or in charge of the bread ration. One who once he lands in prison spends every waking hour thinking about escape and dreams of escape at night. One who has vowed never to resign himself, and subordinates every action to his need to escape. One for whom a day in prison can never be just another day; there are only days of preparation for escape, days on the run, and days in the punishment cells after recapture and a beating….A committed escaper! It is for his benefit that window bars are set in cement, that the camp area is encircled with dozens of strands of barbed wire, towers, fences, reinforced barriers, that ambushes and booby traps are set, that red meat is fed to grey dogs.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
thank you for that quote!!!