A friend was asking the other day for books in which no bad things happen, because with politics, pandemics, and polar vortices, sometimes you want your reading to be all upbeat. But yet, there arent many books where nothingbad happens. Myself, when I want comfort reading, Ill settle for everything all right at the end which leaves me a much wider field. Nothing bad at all is really hard. I mean, you have to have plot, which means conflict, or at least things happening, and once you have obstacles to defeat theres almost certain to be something bad.
Keep reading, because I do actually think of some.
Childrens books, suggests one friend.
Ha ha, no. Apart from the fact that some of the scariest things Ive ever read have been childrens booksCatherine StorrsMarianne Dreams and William SleatorsInterstellar Pig for exampleI realised some time ago that I am never going to be able to read Louise Fitzhughs Harriet the Spy without crying. I mean I am never going to be grown up enough to get over it, there is no mature state in which I am still me where I will be able to read Ole Gollys letter without bawling. Gary Schmidt, a childrens writer I discovered recently, is absolutely wonderful, but terrible, terrible things happen in his books, and its not even reliably all right at the end. Hes the person who made me think you have to earn your unhappy endings just as much as your happy ones. And William Alexanderagain, terrific writer, terrible things happen.
There are some childrens books that almost qualify. One of my comfort reads is Arthur Ransome. He wrote a long series of books about kids messing about in sailboats on lakes in England in the 1930s, and nothing actually bad happensexcept theres a fog on the hills once, and theres the time when the boat sinks in Swallowdale and John is so humiliated, and there is the scary bit where they get swept out to sea in We Didnt Mean To Go To Sea. (And its the 1930s, so their father in the Navy is going to be in WWII, and every adult in the books is complicit in appeasement and there are terrible things happening in Germany already) But just on the surface, thinking about that little sailboat sinking, it makesme think you have to have bad things to overcome or you have no story.
So how about picture books for tiny kids?
Nope. In Martin Waddell and Barbara Firths Cant You Sleep, Little Bear?the Little Bear cant go to sleep and the Big Bear consequently cant settle down and read his book, and all this is because Little Bear is afraid of the dark. Being scared of the dark is a bad thing, even if it gets happily fixed by the end of the story. In Penny DalesThe Elephant Tree the elephant gets sadder and sadder on his quest to find his tree, until the children make a tree for him and make him happy. Dont even think about Dr. Seuss and the terrible anxiety of having your house turned upside down by the Cat in the Hat or being forced to eat icky things by Sam-I-Am. (I dont believe he actually liked them. I used to lie like that all the time when forced to eat things as a kid.) Then theres Raymond Briggs The Snowman, which confronts you with mortality and the death of friends, thank you very much no. When I think of the picture books that are actually fun to read, they all have conflict and bad things. They certainly come into my category of all OK in the end, but they definitely have bad things.
Incidentally, apart from the fact theyd be very boring stories, I think kids need those bad things to learn from, and sometimes those awful moments are the most vivid and memorabletheres a moment in Susan CoopersThe Grey King which will be with me always, and its a bad moment.
But there are some stories that qualify, I think.
Romance. Pretty much all genre romance is everything is OK at the end but bad things happen in the meantime. But some Georgette Heyer has plots that work because bad things seem about to happen and are avertedthis is different from everything being all right in the end, the bad things never occur, they are no more than threats that pass over safely. Cotillion does this. Two people are separately rescued by the heroine from iffy situations that could potentially become terrible, but they dont. I think this counts. (Its funny too.) That makes me think of Jane AustensNorthanger Abbey in which the worst thing that happens is somebody exaggerates and somebody else has to go home alone on a stagecoachthats really notvery bad. Right up there with the bear who cant go to sleep.
Then theres Good King Wenceslas. Somebody notices an injustice and sets out to redress it and succeeds. (OK, the page gets cold, but that also gets instantly fixed.) Zenna Hendersons Love Every Third Stir is a version of this, though what the story is about is discovering the magic. Im sure there are also old clunky SF versions of this. I want to say ClarkesFountains of Paradise. But I think there are others: person invents thing, everything is solved. Mostly more sophisticated versions of this are it creates new problems.
Utopiasomebody visits utopia and it really is. So Mores Utopia and Bacon, and CallenbachsEcotopia and other early naive utopias of this nature. Which makes me think about Kim Stanley Robinsons Pacific Edgebut the way that book works without being naive is to have the actual story be sadthe softball team loses, the boy doesnt get the girl, the old man dies in a storm. The worst thing that happens is gentle regret, but thats bad too. But check out older utopias.
And now, my one actual real solid in-genre example of a book where nothing bad happens!
Phyllis Ann KarrsAt Amberleaf Fair is about a far future where people have evolved to be nicer, and theres a fair, and a woodcarver who can make toys come to life, and there is sex and love and nothing bad happens and everything is all right. Its gentle and delightful and I genuinely really like this odd sweet little book, and unless Im forgetting something I dont think anything bad happens at all.
If you have any suggestions please add them in commentstheres at least one person actively looking for them.
Jo Walton is a science fiction and fantasy writer. Shes published two collections of Tor.com pieces, three poetry collections, a short story collection and thirteen novels, including the Hugo- and Nebula-winningAmong Others.Her fourteenth novel, Lent, was published by Tor in May 2019. She reads a lot, and blogs about it here irregularly. She comes from Wales but lives in Montreal. She plans to live to be 99 and write a book every year.
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Books in Which No Bad Things Happen - tor.com
- Travel & Resources: HONG KONG - Gay Asia and... - Utopia - December 8th, 2016 [December 8th, 2016]
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- Utopia (book) - Wikipedia - December 8th, 2016 [December 8th, 2016]
- Who is authorized to bind your family business to contracts? - Lexology (registration) - February 7th, 2017 [February 7th, 2017]
- Meanwhile in Canada Things Are Just as Bad - New York Times - February 7th, 2017 [February 7th, 2017]
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- JME Will Play Himself In A New Movie About A Vegan Utopia - The FADER - February 7th, 2017 [February 7th, 2017]
- 'Stellaris' Utopia DLC Gets First Trailer; Will Introduce New Buildings And Perks - iDigitalTimes.com - February 7th, 2017 [February 7th, 2017]
- Utopia Pipeline project to bring 300 temporary jobs to New Philadelphia - New Philadelphia Times Reporter - February 7th, 2017 [February 7th, 2017]
- With violin in hand, Mark Menzies finds hope for the future in the past - Los Angeles Times - February 7th, 2017 [February 7th, 2017]
- The village aiming to create a white utopia - BBC News - February 7th, 2017 [February 7th, 2017]
- Brooklyn's A/D/O Co-Working Space Is Building a Utopia for Creatives of All Kinds - Artsy - February 7th, 2017 [February 7th, 2017]
- Revolution: Russian Art review from utopia to the gulag, via teacups - The Guardian - February 7th, 2017 [February 7th, 2017]
- A notable show BAMPFA's 'Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia' - Berkeleyside - February 9th, 2017 [February 9th, 2017]
- In praise of utopias, not dystopias: Salutin - Toronto Star - February 10th, 2017 [February 10th, 2017]
- British Airways Concorde 'Alpha Foxtrot' Arrives at New Bristol Home - AirlineGeeks.com (blog) - February 11th, 2017 [February 11th, 2017]
- The Bannon-Trump Arc of History | The American Spectator - American Spectator - February 13th, 2017 [February 13th, 2017]
- Plotting 'No-Place' in 'Utopia Neighborhood Club' - Seattle Weekly - February 15th, 2017 [February 15th, 2017]
- Bruno Ganz on New Film About Last Days of East Germany: 'This Is a Subject That Will Never Let Me Go' - Variety - February 16th, 2017 [February 16th, 2017]
- Utopia releases its next version of master data governance solution for enterprise asset management - SDTimes.com - February 16th, 2017 [February 16th, 2017]
- Drought-crazed utopia flushes away common sense - NewHampshire.com - February 16th, 2017 [February 16th, 2017]
- New Barbarians: Inside Rolling Stones' Wild Seventies Spin-Off - RollingStone.com - February 16th, 2017 [February 16th, 2017]
- Katy Perry's New Music Video Might Just Be Her WILDEST Yet - TeenVogue.com - February 18th, 2017 [February 18th, 2017]
- Lenkom Theater: From Soviet utopia to post-modern dystopia - Russia Beyond the Headlines - February 20th, 2017 [February 20th, 2017]
- Utopia Opera Presents THE GRAND DUKE, 3/3-3/11 - Broadway World - February 21st, 2017 [February 21st, 2017]
- Chuck Huckelberry: Pima County sees the world as it is - Arizona Daily Star - February 21st, 2017 [February 21st, 2017]
- Mardi Gras brings on the fun - Tullahoma News and Guardian - February 22nd, 2017 [February 22nd, 2017]
- Anglea Henderson-Bentley: New take on Jack the Ripper an idea whose 'Time' has come - Huntington Herald Dispatch - February 23rd, 2017 [February 23rd, 2017]
- Knowledge can fight ignorance: New speakers series will shed light on Yemen - Detroit Metro Times - February 23rd, 2017 [February 23rd, 2017]
- Utopian sci-fi survival horror game, PAMELA, enters Steam Early Access on March 9th New Screenshots - DSOGaming (blog) - February 24th, 2017 [February 24th, 2017]
- Reese Witherspoon on New Zealand: 'You can't capture it in pictures' - Newshub - February 24th, 2017 [February 24th, 2017]
- $168000 headphones to go on display - The New Paper - February 24th, 2017 [February 24th, 2017]
- A peek inside the Downtown Project with Aimee Groth - Las Vegas Review-Journal - February 25th, 2017 [February 25th, 2017]
- Utopia is coming, with a basic income for all - The Times (subscription) - February 27th, 2017 [February 27th, 2017]
- Government shakeups and political unrest are coming to Stellaris in its Utopia expansion - PCGamesN - February 27th, 2017 [February 27th, 2017]
- The board hoard: your guide to the best new board games - The Guardian - February 28th, 2017 [February 28th, 2017]
- Tempted To Move Out Of The U.S.? New Zealand Wants To Help ... - Forbes - February 28th, 2017 [February 28th, 2017]
- New Utopia | Prometheism.net - Part 4 - February 28th, 2017 [February 28th, 2017]
- Utopia expansion for Stellaris coming in April, new trailer - PC Invasion - PC Invasion (blog) - February 28th, 2017 [February 28th, 2017]
- THE SOUND OF MUSIC to Welcome New 'Georg von Trapp' on Tour in Hershey - Broadway World - March 1st, 2017 [March 1st, 2017]
- At BAMPFA, 'Hippie Modernism' Proves the Fight for Utopia is Far from Over - KQED - March 1st, 2017 [March 1st, 2017]
- Watch brutal Xenomorph attack in new 'Alien: Covenant' trailer - CNET - March 1st, 2017 [March 1st, 2017]
- Stellaris: Utopia Path to Ascension release date trailer - Gameplanet - March 1st, 2017 [March 1st, 2017]
- Utopia Frozen Yogurt and Coffee House | Ellensburg, WA - March 1st, 2017 [March 1st, 2017]
- Stellaris Utopia Gameplay Expansion Out In April - Attack of the Fanboy - March 2nd, 2017 [March 2nd, 2017]
- Dr. John to headline Utopia Fest in final year at Four Sisters Ranch ... - austin360 (blog) - March 2nd, 2017 [March 2nd, 2017]
- JUSTIN JOHNSON: It's a TRAP! - SCNow - March 2nd, 2017 [March 2nd, 2017]
- Want utopia? Start with universal basic income and a 15-hour work week - Wired.co.uk - March 3rd, 2017 [March 3rd, 2017]
- Extreme Channel 4 reality challenge Mutiny makes its sailors suffer - iNews - March 3rd, 2017 [March 3rd, 2017]
- Rutger Bregman: 'We could cut the working week by a third' - The Guardian - March 4th, 2017 [March 4th, 2017]
- March 4, 2017 - EDP Foundation - Utopia/Dystopia / Hctor Zamora: Order and Progress - E-Flux - March 4th, 2017 [March 4th, 2017]
- Utopia for Realists and How We Can Get There by Rutger Bregman ... - The Guardian - March 6th, 2017 [March 6th, 2017]
- A taste of 'Utopia' - Otago Daily Times - March 6th, 2017 [March 6th, 2017]
- Father John Misty references Taylor Swift in new song, 'Total Entertainment Forever' - EW.com - March 6th, 2017 [March 6th, 2017]
- 'Time After Time' delivers Jack the Ripper to modern-day New York - The San Gabriel Valley Tribune - March 7th, 2017 [March 7th, 2017]
- Father John Misty Explained The Taylor Swift Sex Line In 'Total Entertainment Forever' - UPROXX - March 7th, 2017 [March 7th, 2017]
- Why everyone hates the GOP's new health plan - The Week Magazine - March 8th, 2017 [March 8th, 2017]
- Hello Cuba, Adios Utopia: Cuban Art in Texas - Observer - March 11th, 2017 [March 11th, 2017]
- Why Canada will come to regret its embrace of refugees - New York Post - March 11th, 2017 [March 11th, 2017]
- Utopia in the Time of Trump - lareviewofbooks - March 11th, 2017 [March 11th, 2017]
- Whole of It: 'Free Cake at the Top' - Scottsbluff Star Herald - March 12th, 2017 [March 12th, 2017]
- Portugal's MAAT could become the world's most exciting venue for art and architecture - The Architect's Newspaper - April 8th, 2017 [April 8th, 2017]
- Stellaris Utopia DLC Review - Paradox's spacefaring grand strategy ... - PC Invasion (blog) - April 8th, 2017 [April 8th, 2017]
- The post-Brexit fantasy of a utopia of flammable sofas - New Statesman - April 8th, 2017 [April 8th, 2017]
- Why Open Borders Would Strengthen Our Economy | The Huffington ... - Huffington Post - April 8th, 2017 [April 8th, 2017]
- Best of the Week: Focal Utopia, Sonos Playbase, Sgt. Pepper reissue, new 4K Xbox and more - What Hi-Fi? - April 8th, 2017 [April 8th, 2017]
- Stellaris: Utopia review | PC Gamer - PC Gamer - April 8th, 2017 [April 8th, 2017]
- Utopia lost: Man wants Berrien 'town' on the map - Valdosta Daily Times - April 8th, 2017 [April 8th, 2017]
- Psych Ward: The Hulk - Marvel (press release) (registration) (blog) - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]
- Men Are from Mars, Wonder Woman is Also from Mars - VICE - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]
- Jordie Bellaire: Vision Visionary - Marvel (press release) (registration) (blog) - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]
- The Dark Side of Globalization - American Spectator - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]
- China's next 'city from scratch' called into question - Financial Times - June 7th, 2017 [June 7th, 2017]
- Wonder Woman's dueling origin stories, and their effect on the hero's feminism, explained - Vox - June 7th, 2017 [June 7th, 2017]
- Introduction: Open Utopia | The Open Utopia - June 7th, 2017 [June 7th, 2017]
- Paperback Row - New York Times - June 8th, 2017 [June 8th, 2017]
- NEXUS pipeline revved and waiting - News - Times Reporter - New ... - New Philadelphia Times Reporter - June 8th, 2017 [June 8th, 2017]
- MAVI Museum of Visual Arts - E-Flux - June 9th, 2017 [June 9th, 2017]
- World-famous author has found his writing utopia outdoors, under a tarp, in Davis - Sacramento Bee - June 9th, 2017 [June 9th, 2017]
- Let's break down the incredible Black Panther trailer - The Verge - June 10th, 2017 [June 10th, 2017]