I was one of those people who adored Legends and Lattes (by Travis Baldree) when it came out. Like many, I re-read a lot of comforting books and watched a lot of comforting TV during Melbourne’s extended lockdowns (although my comforting may not match anyone else’s… see: my re-watching of Fringe.) So I have found the ongoing discussions about “cosy fantasy” really interesting

In fact, I often find discussions of genre and categories fascinating (at least, when it’s coming from a place of love rather than hate…). In this essay, Dove Cooper looks at the relatively recently named sub-genre of cosy (or cozy) fantasy. In particular, Cooper interrogates the question of whether Robin McKinley’s 1993 novel Deerskin ‘counts’ as a cosy, given that it involves some difficult themes. In doing so, she explores what can be ‘allowed’ in a cosy fantasy, and what that says about the genre.

This month’s essay looks at the 2023 Hugo Novelette winner, Hai Ya’s “Space Time Painter.” Not translated into English as far as I (and the author of the essay, Christine Yunn-Yu Sun) know, this essay aims to discuss the story’s details, explain its connection to Chinese history and art, and put it in a wider science fictional context. Hai Ya’s story uses a significant period in the 11th century AD, and in particular two spectacular pieces of art, as central pillars of the narrative. Sun explores how Hai Ya uses those within his story of ghosts and apparent time travel.

Please note; we are aware that the 2023 Hugos had significant controversies. This is not the place to discuss those issues; this is an essay specifically examining this one story.

Why do authors bother to reference music in a written text? Sure, some references are ubiquitous in the time they’re published - but those are going to date as badly as adolescent slang. And what about inventing new songs or genres wholesale?

These are some of the questions addressed in this month’s subscriber essay by Mary Fan. Both a musician and an author, Fan looks at some instances of music in a variety of SFF settings, and then explores the reason for its existence in her own work.

In today’s essay, Tansy Rayner Roberts’ series on Pratchett’s Men takes us to the dark side. And even if you’ve never read a Discworld novel, I think you’ll find this analysis of what makes a villain - including ruthlessness, single-mindedness, and a certain flair for bureaucracy - insightful and intriguing. And a refection on the real world as well. Plus, of course, the age-old question: is Vetinari a villain?

I am one of the many people who fell in love with Gideon, and Gideon the Ninth, way back when it was published in 2019. A necromantic gothic lesbian space opera, it’s not to everyone’s tastes - and that’s okay! (And it just got weirder with Harrow the Ninth, and THEN there was Nona the Ninth … I can’t even imagine what the final (??) book, Alecto the Ninth, will do.) I do admit to being unable to really explain my love of the books. After all, most of the characters die - or at least seem to, ish - and the entire system of magic is necromancy, which is unpleasant. And that’s before you discover that God’s power came from destroying a planet. Enter Paula Aamli’s essay, and the concept of cosy catastrophe, and suddenly things started to make more sense. You see, I love watching disaster films, and I think it’s for the same reason. As Aamli notes, things are going completely sideways but nonetheless the characters have the opportunity and the wit to not be completely overwhelmed. Aamli explores the utility and joy of this experience in her essay, and it resonated very deeply with me.

In today’s essay, Amy Salley tackles a pressing modern issue: the question of cancellation and redemption. Beginning with what it looks like in fiction - when done well as well as when done badly - she then offers a way for us to think about redemption when we’re confronted by the bad behaviour of a beloved celebrity. This isn’t an easy topic, by any means, and it’s specifically about how we as science fiction and fantasy fans respond to creators who disappoint us (and not about personal experiences of such behaviour). I hope it will help readers to think through how to respond in future when there are, inevitably, more revelations about frustrating behaviour.

And I for one will never look at A Christmas Carol the same way again.

This month Tansy Rayner Roberts is back, with an essay about how Terry Pratchett writes about - and deconstructs - fantasy heroes, in an essay which may well change the way you think about modern portrayals of heroes, and especially superheroes, in general. She pulls apart some of Pratchett’s male characters who could potentially fit into the fantasy hero mould… but most of her energy is directed to Cohen the Barbarian, that cranky old man. It’s fair to say I had to go and re-read The Last Hero after reading this essay.

This month’s free essay is longer than the normal SI essay, but Rjurik Davidson just kept on adding fascinating ideas:

• Identity as narrative

• Time travel’s connection to the experience of, and coping with, trauma

• Life as a series of bets - and what it means when your opponent is yourself

• Individual history, agency… and time travel

• Large-scale history and time travel

… you get the idea. It’s a wild ride through psychotherapy, science fiction and theories of history. Yes, Marty McFly is discussed. We’re also reprinting a short story he wrote for the anthology The Time Traveler’s Almanac, “Domine” - depending on whether you read it before or after the essay, you’ll get a rather different experience.

Lee Murray is a New Zealand author, daughter of a New Zealand-born Chinese mother and a Kiwi-European father. I only mention this because her parents, and her upbringing, are relevant to her simultaneously personal and analytical essay, “The Curse of Culture and Context: Reflections of Madness in Speculative Fiction.” Murray uses examples from Korean, Chinese, Black American, Native American, and Māori writers to think about representations of mental health in speculative fiction. She looks at the connections between personal experiences, cultural expectations, and history, and how these things impact on - indeed, directly contribute to - a person’s mental health.

The essay contains, as may be apparent, explicit discussion of mental illness and the sometimes unhelpful reactions folks can experience. If this is something you’re not in the right space to read, come back to it later.

Solarpunk is a genre I have only recently become aware of. Indeed, it’s arguably beyond a literature genre and become a movement, focussed on real sustainability based in community action. In literature, I think the thing about solarpunk is that it’s hopeful - in particular acknowledging climate change and suggesting ways for humans to live with it, and mitigate it.

Phoebe Wagner’s essay this month looks at how American solarpunk stories use the motif of the garden, and how this harks back to biblical imagery as well as earlier American literature. It’s a challenge to authors to go beyond seeing the garden as an easy way of talking about sustainability. It’s also an excellent intro to the whole concept of solarpunk.

I am a sucker for folklore: I am endlessly fascinated by the stories we have told ourselves about the world. Maybe there’s a moral, maybe there’s not; maybe there’s a warning, or an explanation, or maybe it’s a weird little story that doesn’t seem to do anything other than make you look at the world a bit differently. This month’s subscriber essay is about Flemish folklore. (Flanders was a medieval territory which these days is split between Belgium, France, and the Netherlands; the Flemish language is a Dutch variant, and according to Wikipedia is spoken by ~60% of Belgians.) As an Anglo-Celt Australian, none of the stories told here are ones I know, although some certainly have familiar resonances. I won’t be letting any rabbits into my house (they’re anathema here anyway), and I’ll be keeping a close eye on my apple trees.

One of the things that Terry Pratchett has always done well is a large cast of characters. His stories generally have the key figures - Granny Weatherwax, Tiffany, Vimes - and a few secondary ones who are there throughout the narrative. But the Discworld is populated by a vast array of folks, and they are pretty much all interested in getting a share of page-time. In today’s essay, Tansy Rayner Roberts looks at Witches Abroad, and in particular examines the male supporting characters who help make the story work - even though, in some cases, they’re not actually on the page, and in most cases they don’t really get to talk. And two of them aren’t really men.

I am not a reader (or viewer) who insists on understanding absolutely everything about the story-world. I don’t need to comprehend everything about the magic system, or have a detailed explanation about how faster-than-light travel was achieved. Internal consistency is pretty much all I require - and believable human nature. This month’s fantastic subscriber essay, however, has forever changed how I view one of those space-opera stalwarts: the small-time space ship. My beloved Roci from The Expanse series, for example; Serenity, and Moya… . Nina Niskanen has now ensured that whenever I read about, or watch, a small crew on such a ship, I will be asking: are they taking shifts? How annoyed are they about those personal tics? Where is the wealth coming from??

I am someone who in theory is very interested in the idea of space exploration: on one level I really get the ‘because it’s there’ attitude, and I absolutely think that For Science is a good reason to do difficult things. On the other hand, the sheer amounts of money that are being and have been spent on getting a tiny number of people into space and keeping them safe are eye-watering; earthly health and education and public transport infrastructure all feel like a much (much) better idea. And so Andrew Dana Hudson’s essay about how and why space exploration is functionally dead right now feels timely, as does its question about why SF writers like to keep writing about it (to which there are many possible answers). Definitely something to ponder.

Today’s essay is Tansy Rayner Roberts’ second on Pratchett’s Men, and this time she’s taking on the men of Wyrd Sisters. This is another Pratchett novel I haven’t read in ages, and I admit that I had forgotten a lot of the Shakespeare roasting. Given that Macbeth is my favourite Shakespeare play, followed by Hamlet (I’m all about the tragedies; the comedies can largely go jump as far as I’m concerned), that’s quite the lacunae in my memory. Roberts is insightful in her examination of both kings and would-be kings, and what their relationship to the witches and to the concept of power tells us about them.

I started reading Celia Lake’s books just after she started publishing them, so a few years ago now. All of them are set in Albion: a society in the UK that functions parallel to regular society, because Albion citizens have magical abilities. Her books almost always combine romance, mystery, and historical fiction; Lake does a spectacular amount of research for each one (the weather on particular nights in World War 2; exact fashions in 1910…). They’ve been set from the late nineteenth century until (most recently) just post-WW2; she promises that stories set in the 1400s are also on the way (one day…). One of the things that fascinates me about Albion is the way that lives are, for most people, quite ordinary; magic helps with chores but doesn’t make doing them unnecessary. So when Lake sent me this essay about how she thinks about the place of magic in her society, I was very pleased, and it’s also made me think further about existing assistive technology in our world. (I can highly recommend all of her books; email me if you want a specific recommendation!)

There is a substantial amount of European medieval history in my literary DNA. I have read a very large number of King Arthur works, from Mary Stewart to Lavie Tidhar; I even did a subject on the Celtic origins of his mythology. So literary knights are something I’m familiar with. I’ve read my share of actual history involving knights, too, and unsurprisingly Joan of Arc has often come up. So when Joyce Chng offered me this essay, based on her Masters thesis - about the medieval representation of literary lady knights and how that affected representations of Joan of Arc - I was immediately intrigued. It’s quite different from the other essays that have appeared on Speculative Insight so far, its connections to modern fantasy perhaps more tangential. And yet Chng’s point at the start of their essay - that lady knights, or warriors, continue to appear in modern fantasy - absolutely make this an important issue. From the older (Joanna Russ, Tamora Pierce) to the newer (Ellen Kushner, Emily Tesh) (and where does George RR Martin fit) - how women are portrayed in this still-coded-masculine arena is deserving of investigation. Chng’s points are an excellent way to do that.

This month’s essay is not just about Star Trek.

Although I have held Star Wars closer to my heart for most of my life, I have never believed in that (largely imaginary) rivalry between it and Star Trek. For various reasons I never fell into The Next Generation, DS9, or Enterprise, but many years ago I set myself the challenge to watch all of the movies in order, and that was a largely enjoyable (if occasionally baffling) experience.

When Discovery started, I decided to finally get properly excited about Star Trek. And it was worth it - I love Michael, I love Georgiou, I love most of the cast and much of the story. I’m not saying there are no issues - of course there are - but it has been worth being excited about. Then there was lockdown… and I watched the entirety of Voyager in just a couple of months. No regrets.

Next was Picard - I followed Liz Barr’s advice about which episodes of TNG to watch beforehand, so I was up on the Borg - and Strange New Worlds; there’s Lower Decks and Prodigy, both of which I adore. Despite my recent viewing, though, I would not classify myself as a Serious Fan: I’m not engaging in the detailed discussions in whatever forum about all the minutiae, because I’m simply choosing not to. Liz Barr, though, is doing so. And she has a lot to say about Star Trek fans: their self-perception and their blindness, particularly in relation to their attitudes towards diversity.

This essay has a lot to say to all of us about acceptance, community, and how we treat each other. Inside and outside of any fandom.

When Octavia Cade first proposed this topic to me - what happens to economic predators in a post-capitalist society? - I was intrigued. I’ve watched my share of Star Trek, and read my share of utopian literature (which is not automatically post-capitalist), and done my share of fuming against capitalist strictures. But I hadn’t ever given thought to the question of what happens after capitalism to those people who have exploited it to the hilt, or who would if they could. Are they only a product of their society, and therefore not going to be a problem when the conditions don’t exist? Or will there always be people looking to take advantage, have more, and be generally exploitative? (I know what my answer to that question is.)

And so, Cade’s essay: it ranges from how humans treat polar bears to a novel and novella that confront human predators. It’s provocative and challenging, and I hope it gets you thinking.

I have been a fan of Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels for a very long time now, as have many millions of readers around the world. It always delights me to find the new and interesting and subversive things that he is accomplishing in his work: I never cease to be amused by the band names in Soul Music, and the Vietnam War-movie references in Monstrous Regiment (plus just the title and historical references of the entire book) make me giddy with joy.

Tansy Rayner Roberts’ essays on Pratchett’s Women were another revelation when, several years ago, she published them over a series of months. When I mentioned this journal to her, and she almost off-handedly mentioned her notes for a series of essays on Pratchett’s Men, I absolutely made grabby hands. I think I managed to say “gimme” in a more professional manner, but it was a close-run thing. And so, today’s essay is the first in a series from Tansy, looking at how Pratchett portrays some of his men, and how they relate to the women in the books. We start with a witches book…