August 2025

Thinking about what stories and poems are the most essential of a particular age and deserve to be preserved is both natural and essential. Such a process is exactly what canon-building is: not a top-down procedure, but people deciding what cultural artifacts cannot be replaced, that still have value outside the trends and tendencies of a particular era. This month’s essay contemplates what speculative fiction works have been elevated by the judgment of generations and how we can and should participate in that process.