Fantasy and the Future

Many of the fantasy novels I'm so fond of reading include ideas that demonstrate that the author is concerned about the future of the world. The "Wool" trilogy is very clear about the capacity the human race has to destroy the world around them in a misguided quest for victory. "Metro 2033" ends on a tragic note: having finally realized that the "dark ones" wish to co-operate with the humans of the Metro, Artyom helplessly watches the missiles destroy them. I found his moment of tragic enlightenment especially poignant. Will humans realize, too late, that we are destroying ourselves?

The scientists of the world are adamant - human behaviours are hastening climate change - but at times it seems as though no-one hears. As I sit here in Christmas Hills, listening to the birds calming down from their morning chorus, I am horrified by the beautiful Spring morning. This weather is not due for another month. Records continue to fall - this has been the warmest winter on record, just like last winter. The pundits are predicting high fire danger this summer - my season of anxiety will be extended this year. (Perhaps I should start packing my evacuation bags right now, even though winter is only just officially ended.)

What will it take? When will the people in power start making decisions that will help our climate heal? Or will greed for money overpower common sense? Will we be able to create a sustainable future or simply be left to watch helplessly while the environment that sustains us is damaged beyond repair?

"Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize that we cannot eat money."

Humans have evolved intelligence and reason - why aren't we using it?

Vote Greens, Australia!

As I look at how this election campaign is being conducted, I fear for the future of democracy in Australia. On one side we have a party led by a man who considers constant repetition of "worst government ever" to be incisive political commentary. He doesn't confuse the electorate by backing up his statements with facts - he must know that the current government has actually done quite well.  Australia is travelling well when compared to the rest of the world - yet the Liberals continue to tell us we've never had it so bad.

His "opponent" is a man who has a reputation that would embarrass Ghenghis Khan. But then, you have to remember that something like 70% of Australia's media are owned by a man who is not even a resident of Australia and who has obviously encouraged a relentless anti-Labor stance in his publications. The press assassinated Julia Gillard, despite the good job she was doing, and now Murdoch wants to change our government. He knows he can trust a conservative government to protect his business interests - after all, the Liberals are clear about supporting business rather than battlers. Of course, they always add the rider about creating jobs, just to show they care for the little person.

There is an obvious solution to dissatisfaction with the major parties. Vote Greens! They have compassionate policies and a commitment to protect the environment. Their influence in our present "minority" government has moderated the major parties and led to some excellent legislation that has changed our country for the better. With so many people so dissatisfied with the major parties, a vote for the Greens will "keep the bastards honest".

Aargh!

This is hard. I'm aiming to write something twice a week or so, but things are so busy. I'm on the roster to help the Greens with various things over the next two weeks. And I've picked up some work - I feel nervous admitting that I miss being at work: people give me strange looks.

I finished reading "Dust" last Friday. It was a satisfying end to the "Wool" series. I'm envious in a way - I'd love to write a story that good. People tell me I write well, but I don't even try to keep my reader on the edge of their seats the way Howey's ripping apocalyptic yarn does.

There were times, though, especially in the first book, when I found myself recognizing Annie's nightmare tunnels in Juliette's silo.

Books versus Computer Games

The game and the book are like peas and corn. They are similar in some ways, very different in others, but both are favourite vegetables of mine. Although their growth habits are quite different, both are the seed of their plant. Preparing them as food requires differing techniques, but both taste great with a little melted butter. I do like a little salt as well with my corn-on-the-cob.

Games are a form of story-telling that can be extremely compelling when done well, but it is difficult for the game to give the detailed perspective offered by a book. While reading a book you do not have the sense of being involved that comes from controlling your character in a game. Both have the capacity to leave me wanting more.

Halfway through the novel, Metro 2033, Artyom has only once fired a gun. In the game he had fought monsters and killed men by this stage. While the game focusses on weapons and fire-power, the novel is a horror-story, creating a picture of a world where the boundaries between normal and para-normal may have been broken down by the very force of the holocaust. The game has simplified and changed the story, but I have walked every step of the way on Artyom's life-saving mission.

I suppose it's obvious that a game is going to lack the subtlety of a book, but to be honest I just don't care. My slippers and my walking shoes have very different functions, but I want to keep them both. When I'm awake at four in the morning I want to play a computer game that will keep me absorbed and fill the lonely hours until dawn. In the afternoon when my legs hurt, I want to lie on the couch and read a book that takes me away from the worries of the day.

Games and books - both have a valued role in my life.

Metro 2033

My daughter and I have an on-going discussion about the relative merits of books and computer games as the means for story-telling. I visited Cally yesterday and was talking about the game I was playing - Metro 2033. (Yes! I'm a middle-aged woman who plays games on her PC. Forgive me for being a sell-out but my children made me do it. When they taught me the card game "Magic - The Gathering" I found it to be enjoyable. So I let them introduce me to computer games and found that I enjoyed being immersed in the experience. I understood why they played these games. Have you ever tried them? Perhaps you should. Apart from my own enjoyment, I discovered a new avenue of conversation with my teenage son.)

As I explained to Cally that I was playing through the game again to try to see the alternate ending, her house-mate picked a book from a shelf and handed me a copy of "Metro 2033" by Dmitry Glukhovsky, the novel on which the game was based. I was stunned and grateful at the kindness in this house full of gamers, and pleased to know that books are still valued.

I've begun reading it. Twenty pages in and I am relishing the detail as the novel tells me more about the creaking, desolate tunnels of post-apocalyptic Moscow's underground railway. As I read I can see the figures from the game, huddled around fires for warmth as they guard their outposts against the mutant hordes.

I've enjoyed playing the game. Figuring out how to survive in the harrowing holocaust landscape was great fun.  But now I have to read and find out the details that wouldn't fit into the game.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

When Shakespeare described how our lives "creep in this petty pace from day to day" there was high drama at the Macbeth castle.  There is no high drama in my life.  Instead there is a sense of days stretching on to no purpose.  Taking a "break" from teaching, I suddenly find that my hours are not consumed by the need to prepare and correct, to spend time trying to figure out how better to reach my students.

Perhaps I should put on a pair of sandwich-boards and hit the streets shouting, "The end is nigh"?  But who would listen?  Record temperatures, extreme weather events, ice caps melting, oceans rising - why aren't we listening to the scientists?  The greatest disaster our society is facing is creeping ever closer, but we consistently fail to act.

Is it because power is controlled by the wealthy who have benefitted most from the violation of our environment?  Because vested interests are greedy for more?  Even though it may kill us all?

I just don't understand that any-one could be so blinded by self-interest.  Profits will mean nothing when crops fail and economies collapse.

But how do we change the way the world is run?

28/2/2009

I think I understand, a little, how it must feel to see your house burned to the ground.

It’s just wrong. There should be a house there, not a pile of rubble and twisted metal.

I stand in my house and it’s like some kind of bad dream. It’s my house, but the walls are black, everything is coated black, even “clean” dishes in the cupboards. Circles of clean, white melamine appear as the cups and glasses are taken out for washing.

My hoarding is exposed to the magnificent women who deal with a mess that appals me, the men who calmly try to clean furniture.

I search for more cupboards to empty out, more trips to the skip. Plastic is all stained and tainted, electrical equipment suspect. As I look into the bathroom I am surprised by the charred beams and holes in the wall and roof. That's not how it's supposed to look.

The house would not have survived if Nev had not arrived when he did.

We are so lucky. We have stuff left to throw out. And precious things that have been saved. And some primal part of my brain is still panicking because my nest has been disturbed. I cope with it most of the time, but when I walk into what used to be my home, my brain freezes.

It's been three weeks since the fire.

1/3/2009

Going into the house was easier today. The working bee that emptied, and either cleaned or sorted or threw out, had left an empty house than only bore a passing resemblance to my home.

After Nev and my tasks were complete, we headed into Yarra Glen for laundry and lunch. On the way down I detoured along Skyline Road. I last saw this road on the Sunday morning after the fires - Cody had wanted to see his dad's place. He was content to look from the road.

The fallen powerlines and trees still burning by the roadside were three weeks gone. The forest now stood, sticks of black with no leaves to shroud the views. Views of more black, patches of improbable green and houses that were no longer there.

The devastation put the stinking chaos in my home in perspective. There was still a roof and walls. It can be repaired. You can't repair a pile of rubble and a few twisted sheets of iron. You can only rebuild.

What sticks most in my memory of that drive are the view across to Steeles Creek, the black stain that had raced across the landscape, and the piece of salvaged sheet metal leaning against what I think used to be Leon's gate, an impromptu sign announcing, "COMING BACK".