By this rule, the future becomes the place of infinite potential, the past stuck in sap.īut is it enough to render the world accurately when so much of our history, particularly the history of the marginalized, has been written in blood? Is it enough to trap atrocity in amber? Justice is typically a thing for the present. In this viewing of the past, we assume history is already written, and the purpose of the fiction is to get as close to that already written past as possible-with some light flourishes of fantasy, of course. We’d like to see how people lived before us, and, if possible, we want to share in their joys and tragedies. Historical fiction is another genre entirely, with its own aims, one of which being our desire to visit the past, even an imagined version of the past. Speculative fiction can also be a message of hope, offering a future that is a better alternative to where we might be headed. Speculative fiction is full of stories that are a warning to us of future calamities vividly rendered to appeal to our good sense. The fact that this nation never existed is a minor detail in comparison. How a nation of Africans, Europeans, East Asians, and African Americans rose to fight against the machinations of empire is absolutely the sort of story that needs telling. Everfair is a rich mosaic narrative about a revolutionary nation created in resistance to King Leopold II’s brutal colonization of the Congo Free State.

Everfair by nisi shawl