In memory of Ursula K. Le Guin, a friend just shared with me this classic short story, “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.” Fresh off writing my fantasy dystopia, the main thing that strikes me is Le Guin’s critique of the dystopian imagination…the insistence that any apparent utopia must have its inescapable cost, its seamy underbelly; the “treason of the artist” that presumes pain is a more sophisticated topic for art than happiness.
“Now do you believe?” she writes, and I don’t. My sympathies are firmly with the walkers-away, and not just because I’m on Ivan Karamazov’s side when it comes to utilitarian thought experiments involving tormented kids. The hidden horror of Omelas is too contrived, its necessity impossible to believe. And I think about the reviewers of XoR who have asked, “Why can’t they just have a blood donation drive?”
There’s a reason, of course; and I hope when all’s said and done, the dystopia of Karagon hangs together better than Omelas. But I want to be careful not to slip into writing misery for misery’s sake, and I hope I can do more justice to happiness in future volumes. Rebels will never be a utopian work, but nor should it be a hopeless one.