darkest doom, honey

...that it's always OK to write, draw whatever you want. You're not a bad person for liking any sort of problematic things in fiction.

I do! Also set in Oxford is Robert Robertson's Landscape with Dead Dons, and it is uproariously funny.

Obviously the premise of the campus novel relies on an American setting, but if we do take Oxford (bless it) as providing an insulated setting suitable to the requirements of the genre, Edmund Crispin's Gervase Fen novels would count. And Swan Song contains so many Wagner jokes... which I realize will only be a recommendation if you like that sort of thing (I do.)

Guillermo Martínez, The Oxford Murders, is (obviously) still in Oxford. It might be a shade over-clever for my taste, which I astonish myself by saying. Perhaps the problem is that it's written by a mathematician and I will take any amount of excessive cleverness dished out by my fellow humanists.

Sebastian Faulks, Engleby, is a dark and extremely intelligent mystery that starts at a university, and arguably would not have developed in the way that it did without the university setting.

Nayana Currimbhoy, Miss Timmins' School for Girls, is a satisfying classic mystery plot with a richly atmospheric evocation of the place and time (and monsoon season!) in which it is set.

Geoff Cebula, Adjunct, is brilliant, inventive, and will make you laugh-cry about the realism of its academic setting, I suspect, if you've ever been precariously employed at a university.

Carol Goodman, The Lake of Dead Languages, would count, I think, but I remember its prose (favorably!) better than its plot.

Elaine Hsieh Chou, Disorientation, is an academic mystery rather than the murderous kind, but no less satisfying as a classic detective puzzle for that, in my view.

Another book to recommend. (I lowkey feel like I turned into a book critic on here. 🙃) 

Nonetheless…here’s an intriguing crime-mystery novel.

“Change is never a smooth curve; it comes in leaps and jolts, plateaus and remissions. And in the periods after an old identity fades away but before a new one is fully installed, there is a certain sense of impunity. As if nothing quite matters. You are not quite yourself. You’re not quite anyone.” Who is Maud Dixon? is a clever debut novel that Alfred Hitchcock would’ve likely adapted to screen. 

It hurts content creators because it creates a toxic and paranoid environment in which everyone is too afraid to post anything in fear of being witch-hunted. It hurts victims as they can't express their feelings freely and makes them feel ashamed of their own, perfectly valid reaction to trauma, which at time entails graphic and intrusive thoughts. It hurts creativity as stories become more and more bland as a result of not wanting to insert problematic elements, which are essential to move a story forward.

But fictional pairings and fantasies are not equivalent to actual, real abuse. They are not responsible for crimes, nor do they endorse them, and nor do they brainwash people into forgetting their own moral compass.

Like everything, there's a possibility that the fiction could be used for harm, but that fault does not lie in the fiction itself, but in the abuser. By blaming the fictional content instead of the abuser, we make them escape accountability for their actions, giving them yet another shield to hide behind.

All of this to say that, no matter how much we may dislike, and even detest, what someone ships, their right to speak, draw and write about it should never be infringed upon, as censorship will never solve any of the issues that anyone might have regarding that particular ship or dynamic.

I do! Also set in Oxford is Robert Robertson's Landscape with Dead Dons, and it is uproariously funny.

Obviously the premise of the campus novel relies on an American setting, but if we do take Oxford (bless it) as providing an insulated setting suitable to the requirements of the genre, Edmund Crispin's Gervase Fen novels would count. And Swan Song contains so many Wagner jokes... which I realize will only be a recommendation if you like that sort of thing (I do.)

Guillermo Martínez, The Oxford Murders, is (obviously) still in Oxford. It might be a shade over-clever for my taste, which I astonish myself by saying. Perhaps the problem is that it's written by a mathematician and I will take any amount of excessive cleverness dished out by my fellow humanists.

Sebastian Faulks, Engleby, is a dark and extremely intelligent mystery that starts at a university, and arguably would not have developed in the way that it did without the university setting.

Nayana Currimbhoy, Miss Timmins' School for Girls, is a satisfying classic mystery plot with a richly atmospheric evocation of the place and time (and monsoon season!) in which it is set.

Geoff Cebula, Adjunct, is brilliant, inventive, and will make you laugh-cry about the realism of its academic setting, I suspect, if you've ever been precariously employed at a university.

Carol Goodman, The Lake of Dead Languages, would count, I think, but I remember its prose (favorably!) better than its plot.

Elaine Hsieh Chou, Disorientation, is an academic mystery rather than the murderous kind, but no less satisfying as a classic detective puzzle for that, in my view.