Utopian fiction is not an easy thing to write. Too often it's corny and about as believable as, well, utopia. Anarchist fiction also isn't easy because it's such a slippery thing. Margaret Killjoy did both and did them with a skill I've never before read. I cried, I laughed knowingly, and I was literally reading on the edge of my seat for most of the last 50 or 60 pages. The characters are thoughtful and flawed and the story is as imaginative as it is epic. I probably won't read anything even close until she writes a prequel. ( )

https://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2021/04/2021043-country-of-ghosts-margaret.html ( )

"When we speak of freedom, we acknowledge that freedom is a relationship between the people of a society. This relationship of freedom is created by means of mutual respect, the acknowledgment of one another's autonomy, and the ability to hold one another responsible for their actions. All people are free and all people are responsible to themselves and to one another."

Margaret Killjoy, thank you so much for that! ( )

It has already been said, but this is in some respects a steampunk rethink of News From Nowhere with some generous nods to Ursula K. Le Guin. I enjoyed it a lot as a narrative while also liking the care put into showing this imagined utopia without it becoming “preachy.” I might agree with most of the views, but that’s always a tricky balance in this kind of project: to make the world-building part of the narrative rather than exercise unto itself. That’s strong here.

If you’ve already read Margaret’s Danielle Cain series, this is a bit different. Both have “serious” thoughts in them (I know, so does everything...), but it feels more overt in A Country of Ghosts, or as much as I hate phrasing it this way, it read like it was calling on the reader to pay attention and take this seriously. Often literary works do that by making things intentionally difficult (almost “slow down, here, where it’s hard, and pay attention”), but for Killjoy I think it’s by making moments particularly beautiful (instead, “slow down here, where it steps outside of plot to description, and pay attention”). The writing, obviously for a different audience here than the Cain series, has all the clarity of genre prose while also keeping the beauty of small press literary work. That’s also a hard balance, and it really works. ( )

This is, essentially, an apologia for anarchy, an exploration of how an anarchic culture might go to war if it were threatened by an imperial power. I can't say it wasn't interesting, but it failed to hit some of the sticking points I always have with anarchy (namely, you don't need government for minority voices to be treated badly, and how do you handle it when that happens), so I didn't find it particularly enlightening, either. ( )