Underground railroads and related resistance

Guide to oppressions & intersections in SF
Basics: Classism Racism Nationalism, colonialism, xenophobia Religious intolerance Antisemitism Sexism Homophobia & heterosexism Size & beauty standards Disability & ableism Ageism
Manifestations: Institutionalized, systemic, structural Unconscious Conscious Internalized Power relations
Responses: Activism: Antiracism, feminism, etc. Consciousness-raising Redress & affirmative action Diversity & representation
SFnal treatments: Race and feminist SF Race-and-gender stereotypes in SF
See also: Women of color in SF Queer women in SF Women Make SF
About the GOI

The underground railroad that people in the United States used to escape from slavery has been a model system for people working together to resist State oppression. SFnal representations of or references to underground railroads include:

Recommended

• Farthing by Jo Walton (an underground railroad that helped Jewish people escape oppression and murder in Europe) Farthing is a 2006 alternate history novel by Jo Walton.

The novel is an English murder mystery, in particular a country-house mystery, akin to those of Agatha Christie, but set in an alternate 1940s England. In this timeline, England made peace with Hitler rather than continuing World War II. Germany is involved only in a one-front war with Russia, and has overrun the European Continent: Jews are being persecuted and murdered throughout Europe. In England, a creeping accommodation with fascism and anti-Semitism has overrun the country. Jews are perhaps more tolerated in Great Britain than in Europe, but their position is not strong.

The story follows the "Farthing set", the wealthy right-wing group of associates who negotiated the peace with Hitler. The man who was centrally responsible for the negotiated peace is murdered, and the circumstances appear to point toward Jews and revolutionaries, but Scotland Yard's detective feels the story is a little too pat. The murdered man is clearly based on Oswald Moseley, an historical British Nazi sympathizer.

The story is told primarily from two perspectives: Scotland Yard Inspector Peter Carmichael, who is homosexual, and Lucy Kahn, spoiled daughter of the Farthing set, who has married a Jewish man, to her family's dismay. A variety of characters are gay, Lesbian, or bisexual. Amusingly enough, the Farthing set calls gay people "Athenian" and bisexual people "Macedonian". Lucy Kahn turns out to have hidden depths, and an admirable ability to stand up to her family's values and expectations.

Recommended

A strong female protagonist confronts anti-Semitism, classism, fear, and oppression in an alternate history.

Reviews and commentary

• IROSF 2007 review by David Soyka
• group SF read discussion of Farthing, LibraryThing
• The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (discussion toward the end of an underground railroad that helped women and other oppressed people escape Gilead)
• The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez (a network of safe houses that the vampires could use to escape persecution in near-future USA)

Of interest

• The Boiled Frog Syndrome by Marty Rubin (an underground railroad that helped gay people escape homophobic and anti-AIDS persecution in the US)