Archangels of Evolution. "All This Is So: A Future History" by John F. Roe. [review]

Abstract

Much science and fantasy fiction is written in a predominantly realist mode. This is the most economical means of signifying the internal truth of its fictional worlds, no matter how strange its aliens, or how superhuman the powers of its heroes. A related convention of fantasy writing is to withhold the full explanation of the fantasy itself, or the nature of the imagined world, so that the reader must try and puzzle out the underlying system. John F. Roe’s fantasy novel "All This Is So" exploits both these conventions, the first more successfully than the second. It is a leisurely, even sprawling narrative, set in a post-industrial, post-technological and post-electronic world (its subtitle is "A Future History") inhabited by a number of different humanoid races.