Comments on: There is nothing but red flags for locomotives that get off their tracks

By: pierre

pierre — Mon, 18 Oct 2004 17:04:59 +0000

And why are these miracles denied to the people who need them? Because “muggles” can’t take the responsibility? Yes, exactly. In just the same way, I deprive the neighbors of my taste in house furnishings. I can see the poor devils suffering from the unremitting ugliness of their personal environment without really understanding why, but Prime Directive and all that, you know.

By: nnyhav

nnyhav — Sun, 17 Oct 2004 00:15:37 +0000

What it brings to mind is the old joke about Soviet leadership on a train in Siberia, which stops when the rails suddenly come to an end: Lenin: We will lay down new tracks and go irresistably forward! Stalin: Shoot the conductor! Khrushchev: We will take up the tracks from behind and put them in front, and then again, and again … Brezhnev: Let us all sit here and go ‘chugga chugga chugga chugga …’ Gorbachev (head out window): Hey, look! No rails!

By: Scott Martens

Scott Martens — Sat, 16 Oct 2004 19:17:42 +0000

I thought first of Heinlein’s The Roads Must Roll. Actually, I just finished reading Iron Council on the plane back from Canada, with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkhaban playing as the in-flight movie. It’s quite a contrast, the rather conservative fantasy of Rowlings verses the hard left one of Miéville. It occurred to me to wonder what Miéville might have made of Hogwarts. Think about it: At Hogwarts, they have pollution-free, environmentally friendly broomstick transportation, which is so safe they let children use them. They have potions that repair limbs and minor illnesses almost instantly. They have remarkable powers animate the inanimate, far superior to modern “smart” machines. And outside of Hogwarts, there’s global warming, the NHS in perpetual trouble, rampant disease in the third world, and masses crushed by dull, manual labour. And why are these miracles denied to the people who need them? Because “muggles” can’t take the responsibility? It seems that among the wizard bourgeoisie there is nothing but contempt for the inferiority of the mundanes. But nowhere in Harry Potter does anyone even question the system they find themselves in. If Miéville wrote the next Harry Potter, I imagine Hermione would lead the students on strike until the school hired only competent professors of defense against the dark arts, while Ron set up an underground newspaper exposing the elitism of magical segregation and Harry would betray them all to Ministry of Magic because his own fame, fortune and status is protected only by the existing system. :^)

By: chuchundra

chuchundra — Sat, 16 Oct 2004 17:00:01 +0000

When I read your description of Iron Council, I immediately thought of < href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060134216/qid=1097942205/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-2735392-1453655?v=glance&s=books">The Inverted World by Christopher Priest, the story of a city on rails that must keep moving forward to keep up with a theoretical "optimum".