Leftist Fantasy?

[Hexen]

I wonder if there exists or is it even possible to have a (sword/magic/supernatural/etc) fantasy setting (high and low) that has leftist themes? Since there is already science fiction stories with such themes why not fantasy?

[synthesis]

Going by the title, I thought this was going to be about Inglourious Basterds.

This doesn't really answer your question, but I think Tolkien's politics are interesting in their contradictions. On the one hand, the Lord of the Rings is a racialist narrative. The story preaches "unity among the white races," and the "Men of the West" are called to defend their purity from the dark-skinned races, some of which are even obvious references to non-white invaders of the past.

At some level, I find it impossible to ignore the influence of his origins in South Africa, where the British and the Boers fought each other instead of the pagan hordes; "if only they united against the swarthy threat," Tolkien says, "they could advance the interests of Men of the West overall."

On the other hand, there are also elements of his work that strike me as incontrovertibly anarchist. The Shire is obviously Tolkien's idea of a perfect society, his fictional Merry England (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merry_England), where there is no King, no central authority exerting dominance over the majority populace. People are "voluntarily orderly" and disputes are handled as amicably as possible.

Tolkien said he eschewed allegory, but I think he might have been bending the truth just a little bit.

[x359594]

Two writers of Left themed fantasy are Fritz Leiber and Michael Moorcock. Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series and Moorcock's Elric of Melibone stories qualify as fantasy with a left view.

[RED DAVE]

Ursula LeGuin was/is some kind of Leftist. Her novel The Dispossessed in probably the finest utopian novel of the latter part of the 20th Century. Her sword and sorcery fantasy, The Earthsea Trilogy, while filled with good values, is not explicitly socialist although less elitist than, say Tolkein. And her major "good" characters are usually black and the evil ones are usually white.

RED DAVE

[Tatarin]

I don't know about classifying Lord of the Rings. On one hand, it could be a parallel to the second world war in where the nazis are the orcs, and in a way, the humans are allied with "other races" like dwarves and elves - even Aragorn gets together with an elf. I just see LotR as a fantasy adventure, since it is both fiction and utopian in a way, and I can't really see any distinct politics in it.

Except for books I can recommend a game (if you're into that): Thief 1, 2 and "3" (or "Deadly Shadows") in where you play as a thief in a fantasy/medieval liberalist setting, and where the objective is to steal from the rich (there is much more story than that).