Some months ago, Jennifer Howard used a critical review of Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell to argue that fantasy should be about “high seriousness,” “magic that battles for the soul of the world,” and above all, “the epic sense of Good and Evil, of things larger than ourselves, that makes the best fantasy ...

These should be good times for the netroots, the loose coalition of bloggers, MoveOn activists, and online organizers that sees itself as the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. A Democrat is president for the first time in eight years, after using the Internet to organize volunteers and raise vast amounts of money. The Democratic ...