“The last thing I want to say about escapism… is kind of against the literati, the borderguards’ accusation that we [fantasy readers] are escapist because we like books about dragons.  The most escapist work of cultural production out there - I hesitate to call it art - …at the moment is The West Wing.  This invidious, disgusting programme that allows American liberals to think [that] if one of theirs who is well-educated enough, and a good, decent man, gets into power, that he will wring his hands and shed a tear when he orders the bombers over Sudan, [and] this somehow represents an alternative world.  This is the most rank, disgusting, reactionary, utopian drivel I have ever seen.  And I would defend Tolkien over it a thousand times, but with their categories they can’t understand that as escapist.  In fact they think it’s tremendously political.” - China Miéville, circa 2004