ALAS, SHE HAS MY HEART BEGUILED: So I’ve lately been reading a truly exceptional X-Men fanfiction novel.

It’s a sequel to The Aphanes, which is basically, if you want a lame description, X-Men action plus recovery from severe depression. It starts in the eerie territory staked out by Caryl Churchill’s play The Skriker and Conrad Aiken’s “Silent Snow, Secret Snow”; it swerves into Canadian politics, funeral games, and the purpose of art.

This piece, The Heart’s Landscape (named after a poem from John Paul II), describes a Catholic life in a cruel country. It keeps the character focus and the focus on small, bureaucratic humiliations. Little darknesses. It’s beautifully written. It’s basically a science-fiction novel you get for free. I’m pretty sure that everything you need to know about the X-Men can be summed up thusly:
1. There are these people who have genetic mutations.
2. Nobody trusts them.
3. Professor Xavier is a telepath who is okay with mutants.

Yeah–I think you have what you need, now, to read The Aphanes and what we have so far of its sequel. Really, it’s awesome. There’s a very true-to-life (and not prettified) picture of life according to roughly Catholic-Worker-esque principles. There are many, many fascinating characters. Seriously–I know some of you all read Catholic science fiction. You should be reading this. It’s beautiful and provocative.