Things to think about #17 - The Land Trap, The Dragonlance Chronicles, Revelation Space, and Canadian Short Fiction

It’s been a while since I did one of these, which means I have plenty of material for your enjoyment. The Land Trap, by Mike Bird, a journalist at The Economist, is my most recent non-fiction read—or listen, via Audible—and I enjoyed it. Bird’s book puts into words an idea that has rattled around in my head for some time. If we were to reinvent capitalism today—with everything we know from the past few hundred years—we would likely treat land and real estate very differently from a financial and economic perspective. More specifically, we would not allow the speculation, securitisation, and eventual concentration of ownership in land and housing that are core features of capitalist societies today.

Of course, we are unlikely to reinvent capitalism from scratch anytime soon, and in that respect Bird’s book is an important and engaging look at how we got here, as well as the paths not taken that might have led us in a different direction.

The first part of the book is by far the most compelling. Here, Bird explains why land is a special asset. Its supply is fixed, giving rise to Mark Twain’s famous investment suggestion: “Buy land, they’re not making it anymore.” Land is not fungible. A shortage of land, relative to demand, in one part of a country is not alleviated by a glut elsewhere. This location-specific nature of land also means that owners in prime areas accrue positive externalities from the surrounding public and private infrastructure. This is an important economic insight. Much of land value is socially created, yet those gains fall disproportionately to landowners and can, in the extreme, generate negative externalities for the wider commons through the owner’s ability to exclude others from land made desirable by shared investment. Land also does not depreciate in the same way as buildings or other capital. Indeed, it often appreciates over time, except in cases where it is subject to erosion or other natural forces. Finally, and crucially, land serves as critical collateral for the expansion of credit in a modern capitalist system.

Bird then revisits the economic tradition associated with David Ricardo and later Henry George, offering historical examples of attempts to question the role of land in modern capitalism. In doing so, he effectively highlights two land traps. The first is the traditional imbalance of land ownership and rights embedded in a feudal system, while the second arises as land ownership becomes democratised and diffused into the middle class. The second trap follows from attempts to escape the first, which is one of the book’s most profound insights.

Land, with its unique economic attributes, is capitalism’s awkward inheritance from feudalism: a scarce, privately owned foundational asset which, once embedded within a modern market system, becomes a driver of boom-bust cycles, political strife, and economic inequality. Because land cannot be produced and gains value from society itself, it generates wealth without production and power without innovation in all but a few capitalist systems—for example, Singapore. Its ownership benefits from an immense positive externality, mirrored as a negative externality for the wider economy as ownership becomes more concentrated. Every era rediscovers the need to reform land, yet struggles to do so for precisely the same reason these lessons keep resurfacing through time.

The Dragonlance Chronicles

I also recently made my way through Dragonlance Chronicles by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, which was a pleasant trip down memory lane after devouring these books in my teens. They form part of what is now an immense body of work set in the Dragonlance universe, itself inspired by the Dungeons & Dragons universe.

These books were written for teens and young adults, which is noticeable when rereading them as an adult, even one who was once a devoted fan of both the setting and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. But fantasy often offers simple worlds with clearly identifiable heroes and villains, so expectations should be set accordingly. Even so, I still think these books and their characters—which continue in the Dragonlance Legends series—can hold their heads high alongside The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and the like. They were written in the 1980s and 1990s, but in my view they have not aged badly at all.

Revelation Space

Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds is my most recent fiction read, and I suspect it marks the beginning of a long love affair between me and Reynolds’ books. If the Dragonlance novels are fantasy/science fiction for younger readers, Reynolds’ work is decidedly for adults. This is hardcore sci-fi, and I have now become acquainted with the genre of “space opera.”

Revelation Space, Reynolds’ debut novel, is difficult to stick with at first, and its level of scientific detail—much of it, naturally, imaginative fiction—will be too much for some readers. But Reynolds clearly knows his subject matter well enough to build a credible universe, and the book rewards patience. I loved it, and I have already started Redemption Ark, the second book in the series. The plot of Revelation Space is difficult to follow in the first half, where it cycles through three separate storylines, but once those threads collapse into two, and eventually one, the novel comes into its own. It helps that Reynolds manages the pace towards the climax—decidedly geeky though it is—with just enough breadcrumbs to keep the reader going.

Canadian Short Fiction

My wife’s family—who are Canadian—absolutely aced my birthday present last year with two books: The Penguin Book of Canadian Short Stories and Best Canadian Essays of 2026. I love short story anthologies, especially thematic ones, and essay collections, and I do not think I could ever have enough of them.

I have only dipped into the stories so far—which is exactly how such books are meant to be read—and I am looking forward to reading more. “The Professor’s History” by Claire Messud was my first selection from the collection. The story follows a French historian travelling to Algeria in an attempt to uncover the truth—and physical location—of the so-called Dahra cave massacres (1844–45), in which French troops trapped Algerian civilians in caves and lit fires at the entrances, suffocating hundreds, perhaps more than a thousand.

It is an introspective tale about how the historian thinks about this event and his own role as he journeys towards the caves, and about how to record and illuminate the past while respecting locals who know the story but are loath to speak of it. It is a story with a profound, though subtle, message about history: who tells it, who remembers it, and how those are not the same people.

In the essay collection, meanwhile, I first came across Cynthia Gralla’s “I’m Childless, Not Kinshipless,” in which the author reflects on her childlessness—or perhaps rationalises it. I will have more to say about this essay in future writings on global fertility and the role played by feminism; if you can find it, read it.