{"id":4692,"date":"2014-07-10T17:37:45","date_gmt":"2014-07-10T22:37:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=4692"},"modified":"2026-01-21T15:35:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T20:35:22","slug":"farthing-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/4692","title":{"rendered":"Farthing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Farthing<\/a><\/em> (2006) Jo Walton<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Farthing\"<\/a>I had forgotten how dark and depressing this this story is.<\/p>\n

Mind you, it’s good, but it has the feel of a dystopia without actually being a dystopia. <\/p>\n

It’s 1949, but not 1949 as we knew it. For England, World War II ended when England made peace with Hitler. Charles Lindburg is president of the US, and Hitler’s continental conquests remain at war with the USSR. <\/p>\n

That’s where all the dark comes from. Hitler rules Europe, there is not Israel, and the concentration camps remain open, being populated by the Jews and Gypsies and other undesirables in each new country Hitler conquers.<\/p>\n

The whole idea makes me feel uneasy and slightly nauseous, and that feeling remained even after I closed the book.<\/p>\n

The light parts are, oddly enough, the murder mystery and the half of the story told by Lucy, whose parents are the Farthing set, and whose mother controls much of English political policy through the various men in her life. <\/p>\n

Lady Eversley\u2019s political career had not been a thing of statistics, of positions held and relinquished, elections lost and won, but of influence, through her husband, her brother , her friends, her money. All officialdom recorded of Lady Eversley is that she was born, married, and had two children.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But Lucy isn’t a good Farthing child–she has gone and married a Jew, something for which her mother has refused to forgive her.<\/p>\n

So yeah. Maybe that part isn’t so light and cheerful after all.<\/p>\n

But there are so many marvelous lines, such as:<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that doesn\u2019t make it acceptable,\u201d I said at once. \u201cThe standard is not to be better than the worst thing available.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, it’s a very good story, that ends very depressingly, but still remains a very good book.
\nRating: 7\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n

Published by Tor Books<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Farthing (2006) Jo Walton I had forgotten how dark and depressing this this story is. Mind you, it’s good, but it has the feel of a dystopia without actually being a dystopia. It’s 1949, but not 1949 as we knew it. For England, World War II ended when England made peace with Hitler. Charles Lindburg […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,30,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alternate-history","category-british","category-reread"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-1dG","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":856,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/856","url_meta":{"origin":4692,"position":0},"title":"Farthing","author":"Michelle","date":"December 12, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Farthing (2006) Jo Walton Wow. That was far more depressing than I expected. It's 1949, and Great Britain remains independent after its \"Peace with Honor\" with Hitler. The war between Hitler and the Soviet Union continues on, but in Britain labor unions are starting to emerge to ask for better\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alternate History"","block_context":{"text":"Alternate History","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fantasy\/alternate-history"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/farthing.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4681,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/4681","url_meta":{"origin":4692,"position":1},"title":"Dangerous Women","author":"Michelle","date":"June 30, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Dangerous Women (2013) edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois \"Some Desperado\" (Red Country story) by Joe Abercrombie \"My Heart is Either Broken\" by Megan Abbott \"Nora\u2019s Song\" by Cecelia Holland \"The Hands That Are Not There\" by Melinda Snodgrass \"Bombshells\" (Harry Dresden story) by Jim Butcher \"Raisa Stepanova\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthology"","block_context":{"text":"Anthology","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/anthology"},"img":{"alt_text":"Dangerous-Women","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Dangerous-Women.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2266,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/2266","url_meta":{"origin":4692,"position":2},"title":"Hunger Games","author":"Michelle","date":"February 27, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Hunger Games (2008) Suzanne Collins I think what it comes down to is that I don't like dystopias. And The Hunger Games is a tremendous dystopia. Despite that, I couldn't put it down, because I had to know what happened. (Thus imagine my frustration when I discovered this was book\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/hunger-games.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1949,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/1949","url_meta":{"origin":4692,"position":3},"title":"Dark and Stormy Knights","author":"Michelle","date":"September 16, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Dark and Stormy Knights (2010) edited by P.N. Elrod I can't help myself--I love anthologies. And fantasy anthologies with writers who write their fantasy with a healthy does of mystery? Sign me up! All anthologies have high and low points, but overall this was a fairly strong group of stories.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/Dark-and-Stormy-Knights.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12402,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/12402","url_meta":{"origin":4692,"position":4},"title":"The Pill Bugs of Time","author":"Michelle","date":"January 19, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"The Pill Bugs of Time (2016) Angel Martinez What do I love about this story? \u201cShould get an Odo bucket,\u201d Vikash murmured. \u201cA what?\u201d Kyle chuckled into his coffee. \u201cSeriously, Carr? You never watched Deep Space Nine? My problem with this story is that I really hate time-travel stories. Time\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "7\/10"","block_context":{"text":"7\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/7-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Pill Bugs of Time","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/The-Pill-Bugs-of-Time.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":21550,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/21550","url_meta":{"origin":4692,"position":5},"title":"Open for Business","author":"Michelle","date":"February 27, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Open for Business (2016) Angel Martinez (Brandywine Investigations) After reading a dystopia, I needed something more comforting to read. The first story is far and away my favorite. Trigger Warnings: sexual assault, alcoholism, violence Hades is served with divorce papers, and so moves to the human realm. Told to find\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Open for Business","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Open-for-Business.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4692\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}