Fire and Snow

Marc DiPaolo is Assistant Professor of English at Southwestern Oklahoma State University and the author of War, Politics and Superheroes: Ethics and Propaganda in Comics and Film.

• Acknowledgments Introduction. Reclaiming Enemy-Occupied Territory: Saving Middle-earth, Narnia, Westeros, Panem, Endor, and Gallifrey 1. Star Wars, Hollywood Blockbusters, and the Cultural Appropriation of J. R. R. Tolkien 2. Of Treebeard, C. S. Lewis, and the Aesthetics of Christian Environmentalism 3. The Time Lord, the Daleks, and the Wardrobe 4. Noah’s Ark Revisited: 2012 and Magic Lifeboats for the Wealthy 5. Race and Disaster Capitalism in Parable of the Sower, The Strain, and Elysium 6. Eden Revisited: Ursula K. Le Guin, St. Francis, and the Ecofeminist Storytelling Model 7. MaddAddam and The Handmaid’s Tale: Margaret Atwood and Dystopian Science Fiction as Current Events 8. Ur-Fascism and Populist Rebellions in Snowpiercer and Mad Max: Fury Road 9. Tolkien’s Kind of Catholic: Suzanne Collins, Empathy, and The Hunger Games 10. The Cowboy and Indian Alliance: Collective Action against Climate Change in A Song of Ice and Fire and Star Trek 11. What Next? Robert Crumb’s "A Short History of America" and Ending the Game of Thrones Epilogue. Who Owns the Legacy of J. R. R. Tolkien? NotesBibliographyIndex

"Overall, Fire and Snow makes an important intervention in climate fiction scholarship, both by connecting aspects of environmentalism in the genre to Tolkien's and Lewis's genre legacies and in its analysis of how ecological messages are often overshadowed or lost entirely in film adaptations of environmental fiction—a point well worth further critical examination. The prose is clear and written in a way that would likely also engage readers from a non-academic background." — H-Net Reviews (H-Environment)"DiPaolo makes a convincing case that 'spiritually informed genre fiction' can play a vital role in shifting cultural, moral, and religious attitudes regarding climate change … Highly recommended." — CHOICE"This book is remarkably diverse in its literary, cinematic, journalistic, and graphics-media sources, and the writing is equally authoritative in all these domains. DiPaolo's prose moves deftly from a work of fiction to its film avatar, to the political and societal realities they address, and back again into other cultural manifestations and then into and out of the deep theory of climate fiction, literary scholarship, ecofeminism, religious tradition, and authorial biographies. It contributes considerably to all of these fields, and is indispensable for climate and environmental literature classes. It's also a must-have for general readers of the genre." — Jonathan Evans, coauthor of Ents, Elves, and Eriador: The Environmental Vision of J. R.R. Tolkien"I like it. No, I love it. This book is both broad and deep, and yet it remains both very readable and constantly interesting. It's the sort of book that can only be written by someone who is a good reader of both books and culture. As I was reading it I thought, this is like being at a party and meeting someone brilliant and fun, and finding that I'm enjoying that person's company so much that I don't notice the time flying by. It's not often that a scholarly book does that to me." — David O'Hara, Augustana University