Justin Lee Anderson’s new book, The Damned King, is out this week (Tuesday 19 August, to be precise). It’s being released into a world in chaos; Justin’s written this letter to the world reflecting on creating art when the very act is under threat.
What a time to be alive.
Fascists on the rise, genocide in Palestine, invasion in Ukraine, AI stealing our work to create garbage to “compete” with us while burning the planet, and the climate crisis getting visibly worse every year, while we’re told to focus on the real problems, like starving brown people in inflatable dinghies and trans women who need to pee.
I mean, fuck this timeline, right?
As a Gen X, I’ve been watching this sorry saga unfolding my whole life, and man, the longer you live, the more you see the patterns in human society. I once read that historians are doomed to watch history repeat itself while nobody listens to them, like Cassandra screaming into a hurricane. And… yeah.
I remember hearing about the climate crisis in the 80s, and even then, scientists were shouting “We need to change, now!” and most people stuck their heads in the sand and decided it was too difficult to fix and probably wouldn’t be all that bad, and even if it was, they’d probably be dead by then.
(Photo by SHAUN WADHAM on Unsplash)
The internet was supposed to bring about a new enlightenment. To give us access to limitless information and connect us to different cultures across the globe, fostering greater understanding. What we didn’t see coming was it connecting all the conspiracy theorists, nut jobs and bigots, festering in dark corners and spreading like mould, right up until one of them bought a social platform by accident and turned it into the world’s biggest Nazi bar.
In a time when the very act of creating art is under threat, and truth is treated as malleable, I think it’s more important than ever that we write books that deal with our reality through a lens of escapism.
-Justin Lee Anderson
Right now, it’s extremely challenging to be a sane, decent human being with a need to be aware of the world. Especially if, like me, you already had mental health challenges to start with. I am pretty much angry all the time and it is genuinely exhausting. (If you follow me anywhere on social media, this will not be a surprise).
And there are always threads to connect that get us to where we are. A ‘story’, if you will.
For example, when Bill Clinton was US President, he repealed the Glass Steagall Act, which separated commercial and investment banking. That lack of regulation greatly contributed to the global financial crash of 2008, caused by the sub-prime mortgage scandal in the US.
(Photo by Luis Morera on Unsplash)
In the UK, that crash largely contributed to Gordon Brown’s Labour government losing to David Cameron’s Tories in 2010 (along with the lie that Labour “spent all the money”—which persists to this day). Nick Clegg’s failure to understand the political weight the Lib Dems had in that moment not only put the Tories in a position to implement devastating austerity, which made the economy palpably worse, but he also managed to squander our best chance at proportional representation in a generation, something which could genuinely have changed the face of the UK forever.
In 2015, Cameron assumed he would be forced into coalition again, and so offered up a referendum on EU membership to appease the ‘Eurosceptic’ grifters on the Tory right, believing he’d have to give it up in coalition negotiations with the Lib Dems. Except he miscalculated just how thoroughly Boris Johnson’s firehose of bullshit about the EU and Nigel Farage’s constant braying about foreign invaders on the BBC had embedded itself into an England suffering from 5 years of Tory ideological austerity and a chronic case of nostalgia for a past that never existed. And Ed Miliband fumbled eating a bacon sandwich.
Thus came an unexpected Tory landslide, Brexit, and Cameron’s exit, pursued by a bear market.
Then more financial hardship. Brexit was an unequivocal disaster, just as so many said it would be, taking billions out of the economy and leaving us politically isolated when the inevitable result of Murdoch’s Fox News rage-baiting machine across the pond produced a populist fascist in the highest office of the country that once thought it was a “shining city on a hill”. (I wonder how often Obama thinks back to that Washington Correspondents’ Dinner speech roasting Trump?)
And so here we are, in the greatest age of information the world has ever seen, bearing witness to the death of truth and yet another rise of authoritarianism, partly because Bill Clinton removed some banking regulations. History is a story.
(Photo by Liam Edwards on Unsplash)
You might be wondering, what the hell does all of this have to do with Justin’s new book?
Fair question.
The Damned King, out on 19 August, is the third of four books in the Eidyn Saga. I conceived of this series not only as a way of writing something I’d enjoy reading, mashing up two of my favourite genres—fantasy and thriller—but also as a metaphor for modern politics and society.
While each book has specifically addressed one over-arching ‘topic’ of the way I see the problems of society and global politics, it also dives into discussions of humanity, prejudice, existence, religion, morality, and truth, amongst others.
In a time when the very act of creating art is under threat, and truth is treated as malleable, I think it’s more important than ever that we write books that deal with our reality through a lens of escapism. That we examine the issues we face with the clarity that comes from the unfamiliar.
So, yeah, I’m writing a series that is an epic fantasy based in a kingdom I created from the history of my hometown of Edinburgh, using characters that were once part of an RPG campaign I played with some of my best friends (and my wife!). But more than that, I had things to say. Things that have been screaming to come out of me and begging to be heard.
Eidyn is my rebellion, my contribution to the resistance. To take the absurdity of the present, strip it of the weight of context and hand it back naked and ugly to the world.
I hope it resonates with people. I hope it means something. I hope, if nothing else, if you find yourself screaming in silence at the news every morning, maybe I can provide a moment of solace—of “Hey, me too.”
Maybe sometimes it just cuts the right bastard’s head off.
And if none of that helps, maybe a few hours of escapism will bring the screaming down to a tolerable volume.
With love and solidarity
J
The Damned King is out on 19 August through Orbit Books.
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