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I'm of the opinion that books should never be censored. There should be books with casual sexism, hate crimes, religious persecution, etc, basically every aspect of human existence good or bad, even if the book is didactic and saying that such things are good and should be emulated. Obviously, if an author does any socially unacceptable thing in the real world, they should face the ire if society, but that really had nothing to do with writing at all. The only line I believe should be drawn is in the sale of inappropriate books to children.
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Feb 20, 2014 12:33
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I don't think anyone has proposed censoring books though? Some people have said they don't want to give their financial support to authors they consider bad people, but that's not censorship. Tom Kratman isn't obliged not to publish and readers aren't obliged not to leave his books on the shelves.
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Feb 20, 2014 13:01
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Piell posted:You can entertain without being racist/sexist though. You can write good novels without being bigoted, the two things are mostly unrelated! Anyways, here is the whole "some authors are shitlords" thing in a nutshell: 
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Feb 20, 2014 13:56
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Fried Chicken posted:
That's amazing. MartingaleJack fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Feb 20, 2014 |
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Feb 20, 2014 14:14
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That was one of the greatest things I've read in a while.
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Feb 20, 2014 14:35
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BananaNutkins posted:SF and F should be about entertainment. If you want to be socially progressive/regressive, fine, but the point of all this is to entertain. Well, and to envision a better future and map a course there, or think about the role of the individual in society, or... BananaNutkins posted:I'm sick of SFWA arguments and crappy authors acting all noble about their "art" and furthering society through their visionary writing. We write schlock. Even when it's really good, it's still schlock. Mmmaybe. I'm still not sure how I feel about this. I think a good fraction of quality SF/F is Real Literature of timeless value. Your readership numbers argument is silly - you're trying to couple the declining circulation of print magazines (a dying breed) for short fiction (a spectacular niche) to the quality of the material being produced. You propose the reason these readerships are small is because SF/F authors are trying to push agendas. But most of the action in short fiction happens online these days, and most of the relevant markets are free to read. You can't prove that readership is falling, can't prove that authors are actually sacrificing quality to push agendas (a false dichotomy if I've ever heard one), and you can't be sure that the current conversation isn't expanding the SF/F readership and the quality of its work. I generally think that's the way things are going. All writing describes and pushes politics; we just tend to treat some of those politics as invisible. Good writers need to think about the intentionality of everything in their work. That includes examining the invisible stuff. General Battuta fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Feb 20, 2014 |
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Feb 20, 2014 16:21
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Holy poo poo I really like The Quantum Thief. Besides Stross, where can I find more cool poo poo like this?
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Feb 20, 2014 17:07
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Nevvy Z posted:Holy poo poo I really like The Quantum Thief. Besides Stross, where can I find more cool poo poo like this? The Player of Games by Iain M Banks. The Golden Age by John C. Wright. Incidentally, he's totally bugfuck but this particular series is still good.
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Feb 20, 2014 17:49
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Nevvy Z posted:Holy poo poo I really like The Quantum Thief. Besides Stross, where can I find more cool poo poo like this? The Fractal Prince? 
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Feb 20, 2014 18:26
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Not sure if this is the place for it, but one of my favourite bands is making an album of songs based on Dune and have put half of it up for free: https://soundcloud.com/ego-likeness/sets/stoneburner-the-no-chamber
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Feb 21, 2014 01:03
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Blacklists are bad mmmkay? Just as without pain there is no joy, without bad there is no good, without banal pap there is no originality. In short, how would you know if you have nothing to compare against, if you know nothing else. Also, if you can't read what is available publicly and in the light, it will fester and spread rot in the dark. And when you shed hard light on it, the flaws and rot become obvious.
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Feb 21, 2014 05:29
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Nevvy Z posted:Holy poo poo I really like The Quantum Thief. Besides Stross, where can I find more cool poo poo like this? As someone above recommended, The Golden Age is probably the closest thing. It has a similar (if not sometimes actually higher) density of ideas and is an extremely imaginative far future vision of the Solar System. Don't read anything else by the author, though, and find out as little as you can about his opinions. I'm halfway through River of Gods by Ian McDonald and it seems comparable, also, in the way ideas are delivered and the pacing. Rajaniemi cites McDonald as a major influence so the similarity isn't a huge surprise. It's near future and more directly referable to our own world, though.
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Feb 21, 2014 05:41
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GrannyW posted:Blacklists are bad mmmkay? Just as without pain there is no joy, without bad there is no good, without banal pap there is no originality. In short, how would you know if you have nothing to compare against, if you know nothing else. Agreed. I feel like blacklists are just a springboard away from government censorship.
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Feb 21, 2014 06:33
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GrannyW posted:Blacklists are bad mmmkay? so is quoting south park
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Feb 21, 2014 06:37
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andrew smash posted:so is quoting south park I've never seen South Park. Nor read any quotes from it. *shrugs* Not my style of humor.
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Feb 21, 2014 06:42
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GrannyW posted:I've never seen South Park. Nor read any quotes from it. *shrugs* Not my style of humor. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh7l8dx-h8M looks like it might be more your style than you thought!
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Feb 21, 2014 06:48
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andrew smash posted:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh7l8dx-h8M No thanks. Since I've been annoying people with it since before South Park was created, I'll just go with "South Park quoted me"  Now back to literature and writing and stuff.
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Feb 21, 2014 06:56
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Is there anybody who regularly gets called out for their repellant personal/political opinions where it isn't reflected and amplified in their works? An awful lot of Sci-Fi is less exploration of other ways of organizing society and other ways of thinking, and is straight up wish-fulfillment for the author insert. If I'm going to read somebody elses fantasy, I'd prefer it to be somebody who fantasizes about things I like, rather than things I really really don't. The only one I can think of who gets regularly, and I think unjustly, poo poo on is Robert Heinlein. People read a bit of Starship Troopers, and decide he is a fascist dickhole. Or Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and decide he was a libertarian kook, or Stranger, and decide he was a proto-hippy. That he could write plausibly on all of those different ideas on society I think speaks well of him, and it is possible that he'd be ok living in any of those constructed societies, but dude had several, rather than the same one again and again. His own personal work with the socialist End Poverty in California program doesn't reflect any of his big three 'political' books. Some of his writing definitely reflects a somewhat 40's and 50's dirty old man view of the world, but some of it also attempted to explore very different from 40's and 50's ideas on sex and sexuality (also dirty).
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Feb 21, 2014 07:05
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GrannyW posted:Also, if you can't read what is available publicly and in the light, it will fester and spread rot in the dark. And when you shed hard light on it, the flaws and rot become obvious. The gently caress does this mean? By refusing to read creepy poo poo we encourage it?
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Feb 21, 2014 10:25
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Darth Walrus posted:The gently caress does this mean? By refusing to read creepy poo poo we encourage it? Translation: If you try to ban it, say through a blacklist, it just goes underground and becomes harder to keep track of, and probably gets even worse through the magic of "positive" reinforcement loops. Coldforge fucked around with this message at 11:41 on Feb 21, 2014 |
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Feb 21, 2014 11:39
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Coldforge posted:Translation: If you try to ban it, say through a blacklist, it just goes underground and becomes harder to keep track of, and probably gets even worse through the magic of "positive" reinforcement loops. Right, and compiling a list of books with the notice 'hey, this poo poo's kinda sexist/racist/homophobic, so if you're not into that, you might want to skip it' is going to cause a thriving John Ringo black market because...?
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Feb 21, 2014 11:59
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Because apparently a lot of people can't comprehend the difference between consumer information resources from government censorship.
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Feb 21, 2014 12:14
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Darth Walrus posted:Right, and compiling a list of books with the notice 'hey, this poo poo's kinda sexist/racist/homophobic, so if you're not into that, you might want to skip it' is going to cause a thriving John Ringo black market because...? They weren't talking about a blacklist of Ringo/Card/Bell/Wright level crazies and bigots. (For one, there's just not enough somewhat-readable assholes to populate one. These four are the only ones I could come up with.) Their definition of racist sexist bigots to put on a blacklist expanded to everyone who's basically too old or conservative to have a Tumblr-level hard-on for identity politics. I'm a progressive myself, but this is seriously  .Like, go ahead, knock yourself out. It's not a free speech issue or is it going too far. It's just kinda sad and dumb and don't be surprised if most people will mock you for it even here on Something Awful.
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Feb 21, 2014 12:38
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Slo-Tek posted:The only one I can think of who gets regularly, and I think unjustly, poo poo on is Robert Heinlein. People read a bit of Starship Troopers, and decide he is a fascist dickhole. Or Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and decide he was a libertarian kook, or Stranger, and decide he was a proto-hippy. That he could write plausibly on all of those different ideas on society I think speaks well of him, and it is possible that he'd be ok living in any of those constructed societies, but dude had several, rather than the same one again and again. His own personal work with the socialist End Poverty in California program doesn't reflect any of his big three 'political' books. Some of his writing definitely reflects a somewhat 40's and 50's dirty old man view of the world, but some of it also attempted to explore very different from 40's and 50's ideas on sex and sexuality (also dirty). Thank Christ. No surprise this comes from one of the forum's older members. INTERNET CLARIFICATION: I am also older and think exactly as you do
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Feb 21, 2014 12:52
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Cardiovorax posted:Because apparently a lot of people can't comprehend the difference between consumer information resources from government censorship. It's a slippery slope, man. A slippery slope. Look at how the BBB has caused all companies with substandard products and/or services to be banned by the government.
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Feb 21, 2014 13:14
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While I think a blacklist will probably lead to a list that includes every single writers in existence eventually (''I saw this guy at a con once, he made a joke that was sexist!''), I hardly think it's a free speech/censorship issue. Don't be daft.Tony Montana posted:Let me tell you which books you can read because of this moral structure I have in my head which is RIGHT because I'M RIGHT 
ravenkult fucked around with this message at 13:35 on Feb 21, 2014 |
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Feb 21, 2014 13:25
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Let me tell you which books you can read because of this moral structure I have in my head which is RIGHT because I'M RIGHT
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Feb 21, 2014 13:28
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Literally no one is calling for a blacklist of authors who are never allowed to be published again or to demonize authors who made a couple bad jokes. What some people are interested in is a list of authors who are extremely racist/sexist, so that individual readers can choose not to support those authors, voluntarily. This CENSORSHIP SLIPPERY SLOPE UNDERGROUND RACIST RAILROAD panic is weird as hell.
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Feb 21, 2014 14:30
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Authors should be compelled to use s pseudonym. That way they can do whatever they want publicly under their real name without worrying about some fascist reader trying to avoid buying their books by having any knowledge about the author. Otherwise, we'll never escape this Fahrenheit 451-style dystopia we find ourselves in today.
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Feb 21, 2014 15:04
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Piell posted:What some people are interested in is a list of authors who are extremely racist/sexist, so that individual readers can choose not to support those authors, voluntarily. This CENSORSHIP SLIPPERY SLOPE UNDERGROUND RACIST RAILROAD panic is weird as hell. How is it weird? Here's what will happen: 1. List is made 2. List consists of extremely subjective standard (as it must) of what is (for example) sexist. So you have everyone from John Ringo (obvious) to Issac Asimov (hardly any female protagonists). 3. Much gnashing of teeth and arguing about who is on the list and why and why not they should be there. 4. THE LIST comes to overshadow the books themselves. The existing system works fine. If you're really concerned that you might accidentally read a terrible book, then look up some reviews, ask a question here, and then get it from the library. THE LIST is just going to create a bunch of drama and potentially hurt some undeserving author's sales.
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Feb 21, 2014 15:05
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Seldom Posts posted:How is it weird? Here's what will happen: You are acting like the list will have any more impact than a review. This isn't the government, this is a thread of book nerds. If anything it will be even more impotent because reviews are free and SA is not.
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Feb 21, 2014 15:32
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I think our current system of talking about (and occasionally debating) who's a shithead works fine. A list feels too institutional. Asimov's biggest claim to creepiness was probably his behavior at cons - he was a terror.
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Feb 21, 2014 15:35
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Seldom Posts posted:How is it weird? Here's what will happen: Nobody owes a lovely person an obligation to read their books, no matter how technically "good" they are. If that means the genre will be thinned out of the worst scum, that's just a bonus. General Battuta posted:I think our current system of talking about (and occasionally debating) who's a shithead works fine. A list feels too institutional.
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Feb 21, 2014 15:39
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How is it weird? Here's what will happen: 1. Recommended book list is made 2. List consists of extremely subjective standard (as it must) of what is (for example) good. So you have everyone from Isaac Asimov (obvious) to Rajaniemi (some feel his work not as deep as it appears). 3. Much gnashing of teeth and arguing about who is on the list and why and why not they should be there. 4. THE LIST comes to overshadow the books themselves. The existing system works fine. If you're really concerned that you might accidentally read a terrible book, then look up some reviews, ask a question here, and then get it from the library. THE LIST is just going to create a bunch of drama and potentially hurt some undeserving (read: bad) author's sales.
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Feb 21, 2014 15:40
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What's really getting weird about this debate is that people are arguing about a theoretical list that nobody's even drafted? One way or another this discussion has wandered a bit off-topic from SF&F specifically and is getting somewhat "meta" since people are arguing about what other people should & shouldn't argue about. It might be a good idea for someone to just start a thread of bad books/bad authors and move this particular discussion to there.
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Feb 21, 2014 15:44
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General Battuta posted:Asimov's biggest claim to creepiness was probably his behavior at cons - he was a terror. Do you have any stories?
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Feb 21, 2014 15:45
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Who's read James White's Sector General books? I'm working through the first omnibus and the alien biology stuff is great, but by god the sexism! Every (human) woman is treated as eyecandy for the (human) doctors, who are all male only because women's "pretty little heads" can't handle the Educator tapes. Also there are hilarious scenes where the doctors are forced to eat salad and it's excruciating for them and they wish they could just have a nice big steak. I'm surprised they're not all walking around smoking in the hospital too. loving 1960s.  edit: Anyway read these books if you want a more-sexist-than-Gregory-House House, in spaaaaace! Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 15:53 on Feb 21, 2014 |
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Feb 21, 2014 15:50
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Hedrigall posted:Who's read James White's Sector General books? I'm working through the first omnibus and the alien biology stuff is great, but by god the sexism! Every (human) woman is treated as eyecandy for the (human) doctors, who are all male only because women's "pretty little heads" can't handle the Educator tapes. Also there are hilarious scenes where the doctors are forced to eat salad and it's excruciating for them and they wish they could just have a nice big steak. Those are fun reads for what they are but yeah, sexist as hell. The funny thing is they were apparently considered really progressive/ liberal at the time because they were sci-fi about doctors helping people peacefully rather than war and violence and space invaders.
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Feb 21, 2014 16:14
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Having previously worked for Tor books for 13 and a half years, I find this SFWA blow up and subsequent discussion fascinating. I've been out of the industry for almost two years, but I'm completely unsurprised that the internal echo chamber of self importance and faux outrage amongst certain members of the community still exists. Christ, you should've heard the people who would be horrified if you called science fiction SciFi instead of SF, as if the prior somehow demeaned the genre. Anyway, the real reason I'm posting is to say that if you would like to read an awesome (and fun) fantasy series written by a really nice and engaging fellow, then check out the Vlad Taltos series by Steven Brust. Not only did I inhale every manuscript as soon as it came in to the editor, but I also had lunch with him one day. We shot the poo poo about music, books, liquor, and our mutual love of American Spirit cigs for a couple of hours. I was in marketing, so I generally tried to avoid contact with authors/agents, but I truly regret not being able to spend more time with Brust. Other really nice authors I hung out with (I'm not going into the assholes): Cory Doctorow, Ken Macleod, John Scalzi, and Carrie Vaughn. Feel free to read them and not have your mind corrupted. Slow Graffiti fucked around with this message at 16:28 on Feb 21, 2014 |
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Feb 21, 2014 16:24
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Hedrigall posted:Who's read James White's Sector General books? I'm working through the first omnibus and the alien biology stuff is great, but by god the sexism! Every (human) woman is treated as eyecandy for the (human) doctors, who are all male only because women's "pretty little heads" can't handle the Educator tapes. Also there are hilarious scenes where the doctors are forced to eat salad and it's excruciating for them and they wish they could just have a nice big steak. They are great stories, but as you say the sexism is rather grating. It gets a little better in the later stories (the ones with the ambulance ship) but is still noticeable. Also a weird dissonance for me since I can't help but read "Prilicla" as "Priscilla" so I keep thinking one of the major doctors was female all along. And I've mentioned before how heartily sick you get of the explanation of the category system and why humans are DBDGs because it's repeated in every single story because they were originally published separately.
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