Cover image of Volume 36 Issue Number 2 of the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts
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JFA 36.2 – Table of Contents
Afro-cosmicism: On the Craft of Seizing Speculative Reparations
Chris Campbell, Hartwell Award Finalist
Anarres: Where Women Hold Up Half the Sky
Natalie Fourmyle, Hartwell Award Finalist
Magneto’s Power to Survive the Holocaust: Examining the Fantastic Relationship Between Character and Setting in Greg Pak’s X-Men: Magneto Testament
Alexander Banks, Hartwell Award Finalist
Parasitism, Coexistence, and Colonialism in Animorphs
Miranda Miller, Hartwell Award Winner
Creative Think Piece: Frank Belknap Long Letters, Written to Michael E. Ambrose, 1976-1979
Katherine Kerestman
Is Dracula Anti-Semitic?
Steven Brehe
Mapping Magic in Fantasy Novels: Magic Systems and Thematic Undercurrents in Mark Lawrence’s Book of the Ancestor
Finley Dunn
Economics in Frank Herber’s Dune and its Use as a Storytelling Tool
Amelia Kerns
Creative Think Piece: What One Can Become on the Verge of Global Unity
Tracy Ross
Historical Fantasy and History
Jared van Duinen
Faith, Dogma and Vision in Mr. Pye: A Quest for Synthesis
Ruchira Mandal
“I’m Dead, I’m Dead, It’sGood to Be Dead!”: The Uncanny Epiphanies of Ray Bradbury’s “Jack-in-the-Box” and H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Outsider”
Misty L. Jameson
REVIEWS
Maia Gil’Adí’s Doom Patterns: Latinx Speculations and the Aesthetics of Violence
Rev. by Alexander Banks
Charles L. Crow’s California Gothic: The Dark Side of the Dream
Rev. by Karin Beeler
Julie Wosk’s Artificial Women: Sex Dolls, Robot Caregivers, and More Facsimile Females
Rev. by Ashley Perry
Abstracts
Steven Brehe
Is Dracula Anti-Semitic?
This essay questions the widely accepted critical opinion, now in circulation for thirty years, that Bram Stoker’s Gothic novel Dracula (1897) is in some sense anti-Semitic, reflecting caricatures and stereotypes of the nineteenth century, and that Dracula’s appearance and actions reflect such prejudices. The essay calls attention to Christianized religious and popular ideas about the Devil that are central to Stoker’s characterization of Dracula; some of those ideas have also been used for centuries to mischaracterize Jews. These ideas explain the perceived similarities between anti-Semitic stereotypes and Stoker’s independently created character, similarities that may have distorted some readers’ views regarding the book and its author. This essay argues that Stoker’s writings and his personal and professional associations indicate that he was not anti-Semitic and that his book does not reflect or advance anti-Semitic ideas; Dracula does, however, reflect lore about the Devil that may not now be widely understood.
Finley Dunn
This essay argues that magic has the potential to become a notable site for critical explorations within fantasy studies because of the ways in which magic contributes to the major themes of the text. In particular, when fantasy literature thematizes environmental concerns, it often does so through the dramatization of the environmental implications of magic use. A better understanding of how patterns of magical potential and magic’s use by characters may work in fantasy will make analysis of these kinds of environmental messaging clearer. This essay proposes that magic and magic systems in fantasy operate on two core mechanics. The first is the location of the magic source. The second core mechanic is the condition of using the magic source. An aim of this essay is to suggest a heuristic approach to magic through provisional categories: intentional magic, spiritual magic, wild magic, and hybrid systems. Using textual analysis of key examples, the objective is to demonstrate that magic in fantasy can be broadly categorized through its conditions of use, as a way of approaching the questions of what magic is, how it is constructed, and what might it be doing. This essay illustrates patterns of magical potential by examining the ways in which magic constructs and supports thematic and narrative interests in Mark Lawrence’s Book of the Ancestor series, demonstrating that magic is present not just as an instance of wonder but as a constructed element of a consistent fantasy world. As a constructed element within a consistent framework, magic can be grasped systematically and analytically. This essay recasts magic as a critical tool and presents provisional categories as a potential aid to fantastic analysis.
Amelia Kerns
Economics in Frank Herbert’s Dune and its Use as a Storytelling Tool
This evaluation analyzes the use of in-world economics in Frank Herbert’s Dune and its incorporation of financial principles as a storytelling tool. Herbert utilizes commodity and fiat currencies, the Law of Supply and Demand, and operations finance to create an in-depth world, give the plot depth, and enhance character motive and choice. Academic literature on Dune has mostly focused on economics’ relationship through the purview of politics, environmental concerns, and spice’s allegory to oil, drugs, or historical seasonings. In the scope of this greater dialogue, a study of Dune’s use of economics and finance and its corresponding impact on writing craft has yet to be fully explored. The economics presented do not exist in a vacuum, but are used in conjunction with political, religious, environmental, and social aspects of the novel. Scarcity plays a large role in both water and spice, which are then used as focal points to drive character action. In particular, the spice mining operations and their profits are of importance to the characters of Dune when numerical data is given. This analysis will use real-world financial models to determine these numbers’ validity, including a reconstruction of partial financial statements, five-year forecasts, and net present value calculations to bring further insight into character internality and action. This essay argues that Dune’s inclusion of specific economics and finance adds a rich layer to the narrative with benefits to writing craft by creating a world steeped in realism and characters with tools to act that subsequently drive the plot. Through its use within the narrative, Dune showcases that economics is a well-poised writing tool with broader implications for use in fantastic fiction works.
Jared van Duinen
Historical Fantasy and History
This essay engages with the historical fantasy genre from the perspective of a historian. It begins by looking at how historical fantasy’s close engagement with the received historical record has led some scholars to see in the genre a capacity for socio-cultural critique. It then examines the way in which historical fantasy’s purposeful ambivalence regarding real and unreal, or fantastical or mythical, aspects of the past serve as a useful reminder of the ambiguity inherent in the historical record and historical sources. Analysis of Mary Gentle’s Ash: A Secret History explicates this metahistorical aspect. The essay finishes by briefly discussing new developments in the field of history that adumbrate historical research that is more amenable to the fantastical and supernatural. This essay suggests new means by which myth and fantasy—core ingredients of historical fantasy—can be incorporated into the discipline of history, thereby introducing a new perspective of the purview of historical fantasy.
Ruchira Mandal
Faith, Dogma and Vision in Mr. Pye: A Quest for Synthesis
Published in 1953, Mervyn Peake’s novel, Mr. Pye, is about an odd but affable evangelical who arrives at the island of Sark to convert its population to his creed of love. This tale not only reflects the author’s ambivalent attitude toward Christianity but, as it becomes a discourse on art and artistic vision, examines the wholeness of human experience, as Peake perceived it. Reading Pye in reference to some of Peake’s other works, particularly the Titus Groan novels and the novella, Boy in Darkness, this essay examines the theme of shared human experience via the fantastic through the lens of a Jungian reading to address the question of why Pye’s evangelical mission fails, and what this failure to convert to religiosity says about the character of Pye, about twentieth-century concepts of Christianity in relation to human nature, and about the collective consciousness of mid-twentieth century colonial society. Pye is a microcosmic representation of the collective psychological fragmentation of the colonial world. This paper proposes that the failure of both Pye’s mission and Thorpe’s artistic visions is a result of this fragmentation; Pye’s journey in this novel and beyond is an attempt to find synthesis, first in the society of Sark and then within himself, just as Thorpe repeatedly struggles to find synthesis on canvas.
Misty L. Jameson
Ray Bradbury and H. P. Lovecraft are Weird writers whose works are not often studied comparatively. This essay analyzes Bradbury’s “Jack-in-the-Box” as a sequel to Lovecraft’s “The Outsider” and examines these stories for their similarities in plot, setting, characterization, theme, and use of the uncanny. These works have naïve protagonists whose narratives are structured around journeys and small discoveries that eventually lead to sudden, painful epiphanic moments triggered by a traumatic encounter with the abject. Using the American Gothic tradition in literature as a backdrop to understand parallels between these two narratives, ultimately, this essay reveals how Lovecraft’s focus on cosmic terror in the weird tale is transformed by Bradbury to an emphasis on the uncertainties and fragilities of childhood.