Writers of political near-future or alternate-history fiction often file the serial numbers from our world, mix in chop-shop parts hocked by radicals and heretics, and call it a new thing. It can be surprising to realize that, after consuming fiction for so long, we're open to ideas we would have thought too radical if we'd considered them directly. Phillip K. Dick's Man in the High Castle is just such a book…
Read more about Social Justice Worlds? HBO's Confederate Dystopia vs. Man in the High CastleEver since the Red Wedding, I have seen George R. R. Martin as the God-killer. God is integrally linked to the part of our brain that perceives holistic meaning from the chaos of life. And the hero is the individual who makes order from chaos, creating an order that proves divine blessing by the order that it creates. God is the narrator of the cosmos. But when heroes die, divine blessing is lost and a story becomes meaningless…
Read more about George R. R. Martin Gets Religion, Forswears Grimdark
