Here’s the second sci–fi set in San Francisco I’ve read in as many books—completely by coincidence. This one’s set in 2050, 10 or so years after an extreme–right–wing–christian faction coupled with a mega–corporation has taken over much of the United States, Saint Frances having resisted and splintered off. The city and surrounding area has become an eco–haven. Something I’ve always wanted to do—tear out the cement streets and replace them gardens—was the spark in the initial resistance. (Really, if we just knocked out every other street both directions in the grid would it be that bad? I think it would be awesome. But sucks for the people who have to live on the street as opposed to the greenway.)
I think I saw a quote from this book in Garbage Warrior, and so I called it up from the library. I was greatly skeptical when I saw it was written by a certain Starhawk—not that I knew who she was, my callousness judged her solely on the fact that she’d named herself Starhawk. But it was really a good book, judging by the fact that I read it pretty much straight through: 100 pages one night and the remaining 400 the next day. A few notes:
Otherwise how could she sound so cheerful, tossing her flame–red hair and smiling as she talks of despair? 234
This is my vision, she thought; if I believe it, if even a kernel of me believes it and trusts it, I must speak for it. “I support what Lily is saying Many years ago, the poet Diane di Prime wrote a line that comes back to me now: ‘The only war that counts is the war against the imagination.’ I often wondered what she meant by it, but now I think I understand. All war is first waged in the imagination, first conducted to limit our dreams and visions, to make us accept within ourselves its terms, to believe that our only choices are those that it lays before us. If we let the terms of force describe the terrain of our battle, we will lose. But if we hold to the power of our visions, our heartbeats, our imagination, we can fight on our own turf, which is the landscape of consciousness. There, the enemy cannot help but transform.” 238
Here are two ideas mentioned that for all I know are completely fictional, a quick google isn’t turning up anything. But they’re just as likely real and I should look further into this.
Usefulness. Sustainability—meaning that it must generate or save as much energy as it consumes and doesn’t depend on nonrenewable resources. Beauty. Healing for the earth, or at least not being destructive. Nurturing for the spirit.275
“Who says you cannot heal the past? Time is only a construct. Everything that ever was exists now.” Lily, 444
…what she had always done: pull the tail of the beast, and when it growled, stand her ground. 483
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