"It's the most politically incorrect work of art I have ever seen. It's also hilariously funny and scathingly insightful."
-- Karen Selick, Canadian Lawyer Magazine
"Takes the reader over the edge of the politically unthinkable and unsayable. It may be a nightmare into which we plunge, but it is a poignantly contemporary nightmare. This book just may wake some people up--if anything can."
--Kurt Preinsperg, Vancouver Community College
"Fair New World is that rare thing: an entirely independent-minded book that is fearless in its satire of existing orthodoxies, no matter which direction they come from . . . It is also great fun to read, making us constantly stop and think as we trip over its hilarious extrapolations from the everyday craziness that surrounds us."
--Daphne Patai, University of Massachusetts
"Tafler brings into play an abundance of invention, verbal ebullience and wit. These, together with an eye for and relish in the absurd and ridiculous, serve his anger as he satirizes the excesses of feminism and political correctness of the contemporary scene."
--Kaye Stockholder, The University of British Columbia
"Swiftian in the savagery of its humor, which is directed at the very real and present dangers inherent in radical feminism and political correctness running amok."
--Donald Todd, Simon Fraser University
Book Description
Lou Tafler's Fair New World offers a tonic for toxic political correctness. The novel portrays two dystopias--Feminania and Bruteland--and a utopia, Melior. Most of the action unfolds in Feminania, a polity governed by feminism-run-amok, steeped in denial of the social consequences of sex difference, and obsessed with changing human nature by inane legislation. Bruteland, a backlash state, is run by violent male chauvinists. Melior, Latin for "better," outlines Tafler's vision of political, social, and sexual sanity.
As reviewer John Frary observed, Tafler set out to write satire, only to discover that he was writing prophecy. When Fair New World first appeared in 1994, the cancer of political correctness was still confined to academe. As Tafler warned, if left untreated political correctness would spread--as indeed it has--to governments, corporations, K-12 education, media, and society entire.
His direst prophecies are highlighted in this edition's Introduction by professor Daphne Patai, who avers: "The world has not heeded Tafler's warnings, nor taken his wit to heart. Instead, readers of Fair New World on the 25th anniversary of its original publication need only look around to see how much the abandonment of wisdom, commonsense, and sanity has flourished in the intervening years."
Readers who cherish our formerly unalienable rights and defend our hard-won freedoms will revel in Tafler's merciless mockery of the delusional radicalism and totalitarian ideology that has usurped them. Lou Tafler is the pen-name of philosopher Lou Marinoff, a stalwart defender of individual liberty, and a relentless opponent of identity politics.
