Fiction doesn’t have to present a radically different world to be speculative. In fact, as James Albon’s A Shining Beacon shows, sometimes a subtle shift can be the most powerful one.
A Shining Beacon is a graphic novel set in a country that isn’t real, but that which seems all too familiar. The names of people and places, the look of the landscape, even the tone of the language is unequivocally British.
Yet this isn’t Britain, at least as we know it. This is a modern dictatorship, where the government strictly stifles dissent. Uniformed wardens patrol the streets ensuring that people comply.
Our window into this world is provided by Francesca Saxon, an artist and loyal citizen. Summoned to the capital to create a grand piece of public art, she experiences the heavy hand of the government first-hand, even as rebels try to use her for their cause. Excitement gives way to uncertainty as she struggles to create.
A Shining Beacon is a powerful evocation of totalitarianism in a Britain that could be. It’s all the more unsettling because it stays to close to the world as we know it. This capital could so easily be London that the small differences become far more chilling, the breaches from a peaceful normality all the more shocking. It feels real, so it hurts.
This is a beautifully created book, a watercolour story that uses soft techniques to send a hard message. One of those soft techniques is unsettling the familiar, taking our world and shifting the boundaries in just a few ways, speculating without running wild. Its people are us, but not.
Grand, sweeping speculation can be a powerful thing, but a more subtle style can be too.