We launch our book review feature with two fascinating books that appear to have some connection but in fact couldn’t be more different.
Professor Denise Baden recommends an intriguing book of short stories that, whilst they are fictional, offer some realistic ideas about fixing earth’s damaged ecosystems and climate.
In contrast, Chris Wilmott looks at the timeless appeal of a much loved fairy story, constantly re-imagined in different cultures and different times. However, it is clear from Little Red Riding Hood that both the horror of the story and the message it contains are as relevant today as when the tale was first written.
No more fairy tales: Denise Baden
My recommended book is an anthology of 24 short stories called No More Fairy Tales: Stories to Save our Planet. Much climate fiction is depressing, but this focuses on the solutions in a way that entertains and inspires. I was flattered and excited to be asked to edit this, and the process involved teaming experienced writers such as Kim Stanley Robinson (of Ministry for the Future fame) with climate experts.
The stories adopt a range of genres such as whodunnit, family drama, romance and tragicomedy, each with one or more climate solutions at their heart.
One of my favourites is Efficiency by Paolo Bacigalupi. Bacigalupi is usually known for his dystopian fiction, but this presents us with a positive vision of what a sustainable city might look like if we did things right. The story is a father-son drama, but in the background, we see a city powered by renewable energy, on-demand public transport that’s so good cars no longer make sense – think Uber meets electric self-driving buses. There’s also a wonderfully ambiguous AI character that reflects our current hopes and fears.
The stories present us with a range of climate solutions. Some are nature-based, such as the wonderfully poetic Come Help Me where a Russian biologist and American fisherman fall in love and pool their knowledge to discover the carbon capture benefits of whales.
Some focus on technology. Frackers is a comedy drama set in Australia, and imagines using fracking technology to put out the endlessly burning coal fire seams which continue to emit greenhouse gas emissions. The dream is for the stories to inspire action and each link to a webpage that provides information on the ideas presented and how to make them happen.
The Pitch addresses both systemic and personal solutions. It begins with the protagonist’s failed pitch for a costing for nature accounting system. He then visits a couple proud of their wildlife garden. While sitting on their composting toilet, he has an epiphany about the power of personal actions in our own backyards. This story is developed fully in the novel Habitat Man, an eco-themed rom-com/cosy mystery.
In fact several of the short stories have been developed into complete novels.
For example, Penang Fairhaven: A Visitors Guide is now a novel, Fairhaven. This follows a Malaysian engineer as her team grapple with projects such as turning oil rigs to reefs and refreezing the arctic, culminating in the most audacious idea of all – giving nation status to the Ocean herself.
Another story Saving the Titanics was the inspiration for a new anthology Defying Futility which reimagines previous disasters, showing how they could have been averted. This has obvious implications for our actions now with respect to the climate crisis.
Death in the Citizens’ Assembly has been adapted as a play Murder in the Citizens’ Jury. It imagines eight people in a citizens’ assembly debating climate policies, disrupted by a murder. The script version won the 2024 Writing Climate Pitchfest and the novel adaptation Murder in the Climate Assembly is a combination of campus novel and whodunnit, setting out in fiction format a roadmap to a sustainable future.
No More Fairy Tales: Stories to Save Our Planet is available in paperback direct from Habitat Press, Amazon or can be ordered from bookshops. The eBook is available from all major online platforms and a discounted copy for Sussex byline readers is available here (requires log in).
Fairy stories forever – Chris Wilmott
Once upon a time … in 2024 … I read Jack Zipe’s book about the troubles that befall Little Red Riding Hood, The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood, originally published in 1993. The ideas that pervade the book also include the misfortunes that await the wolf.
As Zipes explains, Little Red Riding Hood – and the wolf – are a timeless tale, repeated over and over and over in different disguises. Timeless themes are part of my work, as a creative artist and researcher, hence my attraction to the book which is also due in part to my liking for fantasy literature.
My favourite character in all the stories is Little Red Riding Hood herself since, whatever happens, she is always reincarnated, reimagined or reinvented. Over centuries the Little Red Riding Hood story has taken on new forms to suit different creative purposes, these revealing a rich seam of possibilities.
The Little Red Riding Hood theme originated, in centuries long past, in the verbal traditions of peasant life, in southeastern France and northern Italy. Literary versions then became a fairy tale that engaged French aristocracy in the 17th century, with cautionary stories of the dangers that may befall an unwary young girl.
Subsequently, over later centuries many different forms of Little Red Riding Hood’s tale emerged in Africa, Asia, China, Korea, Japan, and Western Culture. From this global reach I understand that Little Red Riding Hood’s tale embodies themes that appeal to families, women and young girls across diverse cultures, irrespective of language.
In the multiple versions that have global appeal, Little Red Riding Hood is constantly mutilated by a wolf, saved by fairies, grandmothers, fathers, wood cutters, and gamekeepers. The wolf is shot by an automatic, is a victim of slander or even marries Little Red Riding Hood.
Adaptations of the story have been related to counter-cultural movements arguing against the extinction of the human species in the name of technological progress, albeit this was a protest about nuclear technology, not artificial intelligence. Little Red Riding Hood has also explored psychoanalysis, promiscuity, and animal and gay/lesbian rights. It has even been used to sell soap and French cars.
The timeless nature of the tale is reinforced by the variations that have continued in the years since the publication of Zipe’s work. The wolf builds a time machine in Disney’s Redux Riding Hood (1997) to go back in time to complete his foul deed of consuming Little Red Riding Hood.
Little Red Riding Hood appears as a villainess in Shrek the Third (2007). In 2024, Netflix sets the story in dystopia where people enter virtual reality to avoid the real world. Perhaps in 2025 someone may use Little Red Riding Hood to deal with misogyny, a 21st century theme which lurks beneath the bed covers of past Little Red Riding Hood tales, but that is another story.
Zipes is a distinguished literary scholar and this comes through in in this book. I recommend The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood to creatives who seek inspiration for their work. In which, forever, inspiration always begins … once upon a time.
The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood
By Jack Zipes, Psychology Press, 1993.
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