SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Oleksandr wrote: "Just to give you folk a flavor, what can be problematic on the other side of the globe so to speak. There is not a lot of race or gender or sexual preference problems in the modern post-Soviet lite..."

Yikes. I can see how that would be extremely hurtful. And that's a really powerful example of how sometimes just not helping someone flourish at all is itself a loud (and I imagine sometimes difficult!) form of protest. Thank you for sharing that with us.

Oleksandr wrote: "Just to give you folk a flavor, what can be problematic on the other side of the globe so to speak. There is not a lot of race or gender or sexual preference problems in the modern post-Soviet lite..."

That was extremely helpful in giving us a picture of what’s going on elsewhere in the world. We Americans often get too wrapped up in what’s happening here and ignore everyone else. Thanks, Oleksandr.

Allison wrote: "We've all been there. We're happily consuming some media, really pleased with it and how it makes us think or feel...and then we learn the creator did something we morally oppose.

What is your pro..."

To the initial question, having seen enough trials, jury and otherwise, and how different testimony can be (from witnesses, experts, etc.), I don't make a judgement as soon as there is an accusation. Given how social media jumps on stuff and expounds ad nauseum it's way too easy to get caught up in a frenzy before anyone really knows what is going on, if they ever really do.

I also don't care about 'celebrity' lives. I just don't.

If a/my fave was truly "guilty" of doing "x," -- I'd probably think WTF, and move on.

M.L. wrote: "If a/my fave was truly "guilty" of doing "x," -- I'd probably think WTF, and move on. "

For me it would depend on what "x" was. Garden-variety jerk is one thing, but pedophilia or animal abuse, for example, would probably be deal-breakers for me.

Interesting article about the problems of the romances of Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series.

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/problem...

interesting article and I tend to agree with the author

I was about a fourth of the way into a Terry Goodkind book which was cringeworthy on similar grounds. I looked him up and found out he’s a disciple of Ayn Rand, so it made sense and I returned it.

Mostly though, I read a lot of older literature, so I keep it in the context of the time it was written and when the author lived. I enjoy a lot of Victorian literature, and much of it has discriminating and imperialist parts to it. Even Oscar Wilde who was one of the more forward thinking Victorian writers had antisemitism in Picture of Dorian Gray.

I agree with most people here. I draw the line at things like pedophilia and people like Woody Allen. Also, if they contributed money and/or time to human rights abuses. Without spelling it out too much in the interest of not getting too political, I boycott films with Gal Gadot, or at least ones like Wonder Woman where she was top billed, or I may stream it for free (which I did), but not pay to see it. Also films produced by Arnon Milchan for the same reason.

Usually though, if it’s a question of the author/artist’s personal beliefs, I evaluate it individually. I’ve done library work in the past and am starting a new library job next week, so I try to read a variety of authors so I can be more well informed in my work.

One author I dropped in disgust is Ralph Peters. Peters writes military thrillers which are well written in terms of knowledge of military matters and weapons, but his books are marred by strong whiffs of racism and misogyny. My last call on his books was The War in 2020. Finding a book more racist would be a hard job.

Robert wrote: "Interesting article about the problems of the romances of Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series.

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/problem......"

It gets some of the details wrong and fails to take into account the fact that the 1960s and 1970s were a *vastly* different time. When viewed through the lens of the era, McCaffrey was actually fairly progressive. Not perfect, but definitely progressive.

I remember when the husband of one of my teachers died suddenly, which was probably early in 1977. At the time she seemed old to me, but I realize now she was probably a good 20-25 years younger than I am today.

For weeks afterwards she was barely there, which is understandable, but at the same time three of the male teachers were regularly absent from school. Every Monday the math teacher was missing. Every Tuesday the history teacher. Every Thursday the science teacher. We had substitute teachers, which was equal parts fun and annoying, but after a couple months things went back to normal.

Then someone asked the history teacher why they’d been absent and we found out what happened. When our teacher’s husband died, for all intents and purposes she ceased to exist. She became a legal non-person.

The house was in his name. So was the car. And the bank account. She had no access to any of it. She couldn’t make the mortgage payment or the car payment. Even though she had her own job she couldn’t even cash her paycheck.

When she tried to straighten this out, the old white men who ran the government and the mortgage company and the bank wouldn’t help her. At first they wouldn’t even meet with her, then they claimed they couldn’t deal with a hysterical woman.

I rather doubt she was hysterical, but she *was* grieving the unexpected loss of her husband and was, no doubt, becoming increasingly desperate. She stood to lose her house through no fault of her own.

I don’t know if she asked for help or they volunteered, but her male colleagues nonetheless stood up for their friend and started going with her to straighten this mess out. Which took weeks. The very fact she was in that predicament at all is ridiculous, but then for her to be dismissed as an overly-emotional woman on top of her grief is just cruel. Then needing a man to sit beside her simply to be taken seriously is wrong to the Nth degree.

That’s just one such story from that time. There are millions more. It took those sorts of things happening for people to change the system. When one looks at Dragonriders of Pern being written in such an era, it’s easy to see the very things McCaffrey was fighting against. We’re still fighting against those attitudes today.

I haven't read the Pern books since I was a kid, but I have it in my mind that it felt like the other radical attempts to normalize sex and open relationships a la Heinlein or Delany or Varley and the rest.

It's still super uncomfortable to read now, though, and I don't blame anyone for feeling that discomfort or deciding to avoid it. I don't think she is herself necessarily problematic, but from our current views of autonomy, sex, and power dynamics, her characters are, and her view on sex is possibly a bit unhealthy. It sounds, if you'll excuse me making wild assumptions, like she maybe had experiences that shaped her view of what was and was not acceptable that we do not like or condone today. Given the statistics, it's not unrealistic she was more or less writing what she knew with a spin on it to make it more comfortable than her reality. Again, I have no basis to pin this on except observation and the patterns I've seen.

That, or like with the Twilight and 50 Shades series, people are titillated by the taboo, and we never learn our lessons.

Trike, that's a tough story, I'm glad she had colleagues and friends to help her!

Bruce and Michael, that all sounds very reasonable to me.

Robert wrote: "Interesting article about the problems of the romances of Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series.

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/problem......"

Interesting. I disagree with most of it (I think Trike has a good point about putting it in context of when it was written), but it's an interesting viewpoint to hear about.

I'm with Trike here on this. The article gets enough of the details wrong that the conclusions it makes are suspect.

Lol like three times I typed out these big long responses and every time I just wiped it all out.

I'll just boil it down. If I have any objection whatsoever to a particular author, for personal or political beliefs, whether or not they put those beliefs in their work or otherwise display them in their public persona, I have zero problem dropping that author from consideration forever.

And the truth is, it's just not an aggressive or hostile thing with me. There are just far too many books I want to read to waste any time making room on my TBR list for people whose views I find problematic. Is it closed-minded? Perhaps. Do I care? Not even a little.

It'd be a different story if I were reading like 300 books a year and I could afford not to be picky. But in a good year I might read 40. I'll take any reason I can to whack stuff off my TBR.

Anne McCaffrey's books were very important in getting me into fantasy when I was young, and I recognize how influential her work was for the genre as well. I have a lot of respect for her (especially in contrast to many of the other authors we've discussed in this thread). At the same time, though, I wouldn't recommend most of her books to a young reader today, as one of the main things I remember about them, even years later, was how uncomfortable many of the relationships were for me to read about (F'lar and Lessa's in particular sticks in my mind). Even when I was a teenager, there were other authors writing sex-positive books about female heroines without the same cringey dynamics, and that's only become more true in the time since.

Joon wrote: "It'd be a different story if I were reading like 300 books a year and I could afford not to be picky. But in a good year I might read 40. I'll take any reason I can to whack stuff off my TBR. "

I do read a couple hundred books a year, and I still can't afford to waste time on authors or books I object to. There are just too many good books out there to waste time on authors I find problematic.

You Americans like word "problematic" a bit too much. If it is a term for "all things that make me uncomfortable" then why don't you say it properly?

Also - the hex is fat-shaming? 0_o

Anyway, back to the topic.

If I do like some author's books and I know that our view on some subject don't harmonize - I will simply distance myself from their person, unless author is amazing asshat and it poisons otherwise a good book or somebody like mr. R.Hubbard.

problematic to me means I or a lot of people have a problem with the author and their behavior. Hubbard is a good example, but so is Bradley and she's been apologized for/condemned by her publisher, co-authors, multiple other SF&F authors and here's a look at The Mists of Avalon in light of the allegations:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/a...

I can't open the site, any other source?

Since this thread is active again, I would like to pre-emptively remind everyone to please be kind to each other! We don't all have to agree, but please respect opinions that differ from your own, and try not to belittle others' experiences. Thank you and carry on! :)

Navigator wrote: "I can't open the site, any other source?"

try these:

https://electricliterature.com/the-bo...

https://devicestrilogy.wordpress.com/...

Doesn't cover exactly the same topics, but this article talks about the allegations and response by others in the industry: https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...

and you can color me as one of those still conflicted. I wasn't a big Mists of Avalon fan, but I loved the Darkover series and still have fond memories of reading them. I haven't yet thrown them out - I was getting ready for a bir re-read of them when I found out about this.

CBRetriever - same here. I bought a lot of Darkover books after reading the Saga of the Renunciates, hoping to read the whole series. Luckily, I bought them all used, so I didn’t have much problem with simply removing them from my shelves/TBR. Knowing what I know, I would be reading a whole lot of nasty stuff into anything remotely questionable in the books.

As others have said, it’s relatively easy not to support those authors whose morals deviate wildly from the acceptable. Even those whose politics I find reprehensible it disagreeable (hello Puppies!) are pretty avoidable if you know their names/pen names. I’d much rather give my money to just about anyone else.

Yeah, I feel like some people hear "problematic" and assume it means "I don't agree with them." For me at least, there are lots of authors with whom I disagree on some things, but who aren't, in real life, doing harm to others. That's the "problem" for me--real harm to others from bigotry to fascism to supporting people who are bigots or fascists (and I'm sure other things, that's broad strokes!). As I think I've said elsewhere, "problematic" for me at least means "everything that I find so abhorrent that I cannot condone it, with a hope that the person doing it can learn and grow."

It's a soft way of saying there's an issue but hopefully giving folks a bit of room to do better, too. A lot of people get very, very defensive if they hear the word "racist" but if you say "this is kind of problematic" they are sometimes more willing to listen. I hate slamming a door when there's hope of making the world a bit kinder!

I think problematic is the perfect word to describe...well, an author who you have some problems with.

I usually don't cut an author off if I find them problematic, though. In all honesty, most of my faves are to the right of me, politically speaking. Not everyone can be Ursula Le Guin or China Mieville! And while I appreciate the distinction Allison is trying to make between general political beliefs and harmful activism, in this day and age that can be an extremely hazy line to draw. In my view, anyone who (for example) lives in the US and votes Republican is at the very least condoning a lot of pretty reprehensible stuff.

But while it may work for others, shutting these types of people out of my life isn't really feasible, and tactically, it's also not going to work. All I can do is talk about this stuff to anyone who will listen, like we're doing here, and let people know why various authors bother me, and yes, buy books used if a particular author is putting their money where their mouth is.

It's worth noting here that there truly is no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism.

Things that would repeal me from continuing to read a book would be: pedophilia (either promotion of or vivide description of sexual abuse on a child), so-called 'torture porn', hard promotion of racism, ethnic hatred and violence, slavery (unless it describes historical examples of it or put it in a historical context, like a book about the U.S. Civil War) and extreme expressions of mysoginy. Some books can be hard to read but still be legitimate books, like books on the history of the Holocaust, thus are not 'problematic' for me.

I however do find 'problematic' loud readers who complain about certain books simply because their own intolerance, bigotry or extreme religious/political views are causing their rants, rather than any real problems with the books themselves.

Allison wrote: "I hate slamming a door when there's hope of making the world a bit kinder! "

Spot on.

that's why I preface a lot of posts on the Amazon help forums with:

unfortunately

there have been some posters in the past who immediately slam people looking for help...

Bryan, I agree with just about everything you said, although you’re probably going to get at least some angry comments. Hahaha 😸

Many of mine are to the right of me also, but I read a lot of Victorian and earlier books too, and even some who would be considered more tolerant, such as Oscar Wilde, had extreme bigotry, such as his depictions of Jewish people in Picture of Dorian Gray. H Rider Haggard was obviously the most bigoted, but he wrote entertaining stories. Arthur Conan Doyle is my favorite, and he could probably be said to have a mixture of views, both traditional and bigoted, but some that were forward looking.

I’m also more willing to make allowances for older authors than more recent ones. I won’t go anywhere near Ayn Rand, both for her content, but also her non literary work.

Michel, I wouldn’t call some of those problematic, although I agree. I don’t like books with rapey content either. In a case like that, problematic would be if they had rape or racist content and the author were saying it was a good thing. I do think too many recent authors have graphic abuse content though. I can see if it’s someone’s autobiography, and they’re describing it so the reader will understand, but fiction sometimes become a chore rather than a leisure activity when it dominates a book.

I do like to separate authors from the work where I can. In most cases I remain blissfully ignorant, because I like to evaluate the art as art. Where I find the art itself repugnant, I throw it away, regardless of the author.

THAT SAID when I am blissfully ignorant, it is easy to read things as just an interesting story and/or take on the world. When I know some of the awful things the author says and/or does, I read things differently, and an artwork that wasn't repugnant to me before suddenly becomes repugnant, because I read different things into it.

My example is a Rolf Harris song "Clock of Life" about everything trying to reproduce. There's a line about "come on honey and help me wind the clock".

This line was hilarious to me until . . . Rolf Harris was convicted for child sexual abuse of his daughter's friend. Now that line is not funny to me at all. It makes me feel sick. I can't listen to that song without wanting to throw up.

Yet I can listen to some of his other songs, because I can forget who he is. The words don't reflect the disgusting things he has done at all.

I can listen to them, but I can't buy them. I can't bring myself to support a person who did what he did, especially as most of his songs are for children.

So it seems that I don't separate the artist from the art very successfully at all.

Michel wrote: "Things that would repeal me from continuing to read a book would be: pedophilia (either promotion of or vivide description of sexual abuse on a child), so-called 'torture porn', hard promotion of r..."

I so agree. I just read the book, I don't really want to know about the author.

I will stop reading a book if it has too much violence, unpleasant acts of sex ( eg paedophilia, torture, sadism) buts that is because I find that uninteresting and there are so many more books to read.

I don't dislike a book just because of how long ago it was written, in fact I often enjoy older books so that I can smugly say how lucky I am not to live in those days or countries.

Sometimes it is good to realise that people have changed attitudes, eg Trikes story. I lived through these times. Having to take my father with me to get a loan, having a male colleague have to go guarantor for a small loan that I had 3/4 of the money for a house and a well paying job.

People need to be conscious of just how hard people worked to change these attitudes.

Then again to me reading is for entertainment. Not for me to stand on a soapbox , I am not going to change the world by refusing to buy a book , or refusing to read an author's work.

if I felt really strongly about something I would be out there protesting, supporting people who need help etc, like I did in the 70's

Kateb wrote: "if I felt really strongly about something I would be out there protesting, supporting people who need help etc, like I did in the 70's"

Spot on :)

I do not have any authors that I am unwilling to read categorically, but there is certainly content I am unwilling to read -- anything gratuitously pornographic, for example.


As far as language goes, I am not in full agreement based on experience with some of the assessments here.

Allison wrote: "Yeah, I feel like some people hear "problematic" and assume it means "I don't agree with them."...It's a soft way of saying there's an issue but hopefully giving folks a bit of room to do better, too."

The people I interact with actually do use "problematic" to mean "I do not like the content," which is even broader than disagreement with the author. I have often heard it used to suggest that there is objectionable content while absolving the person in question of any need to precisely articulate what it is. In these cases explicit charges (e.g. racism) would actually be more productive. (Again, all this is limited to my social circles).

To make this concrete by means of a recent real-life conversation with an acquaintance: "A Song of Ice and Fire is problematic because of the whole white savior Daenerys thing."

What does that mean? Did GRRM do something wrong? Is there truly a "problem" that needs to be solved; if so, what? Is the content objectionable morally or simply complicated (i.e. literally problematic) in a way that merits further examination or dissection? Do we mean "problematic" in the sense that GRRM has thrust a challenging narrative scenario onto us so that we may wrestle with it or in the sense that he bought into racist tropes unwittingly and that is bad (or neutral), or something else entirely?

The term is just used so broadly by some that it actually work against meaningful and incisive analysis.

Baelor, the difference is between the book and the author. The content of the book may be problematic, or the author may be problematic. Or both, but what we're discussing here is when the author has views we disagree with, and what we do with their books, and how we feel about reading them.

correct:

I don't like Kushiel's Dart but don't have a problem with the author

I liked Marion Zimmer Bradley's books a lot but I and a lot of other people consider the author very problematic including her publisher who is now donating all income from her books that they receive to the Save the Children charity, and a few of her co-authors who are also donating the money they receive from co-authored books/stories to other charities that deal with children and rape and abuse issues.

As long as people adhere to rule 4. at the beginning of this thread I don't have any problem with this thread. If people abandon rule 4 and try to peer pressure others into boycotting certain authors that would be censorship.

ACLU: "Censorship, the suppression of words, images, or ideas that are "offensive," happens whenever some people succeed in imposing their personal political or moral values on others."

Excellent point, Bobby!

I remember when I was in an urban fantasy phase, I was really into a series by Rob Thurman. She wrote another series that wasn't nearly as entertaining, and the sales of it were pretty poor. She went on a public rant condemning her fans for not supporting the mediocre second series. She was pretty ugly about it. Anyway, that really alienated me. I stopped buying her work. Incidentally, her publisher dropped her shortly after her tirade, and that seems to have been the kiss of death for her writing career. I do not look up personal lives of authors intentionally. I happened to look her up to see when the heck the next in the series was to be published and found all of this nonsense.

Michelle wrote: "Excellent point, Bobby!

I remember when I was in an urban fantasy phase, I was really into a series by Rob Thurman. She wrote another series that wasn't nearly as entertaining, and..."

Good to know - I had those on a Maybe wish list and after finding out that the series will most likely never end, they're off it.

it reminds me of the author who shamelessly manipulated the review process.... I can't for the life of me remember who that was

CBRetriever wrote: "Michelle wrote: "it reminds me of the author who shamelessly manipulated the review process.... I can't for the life of me remember who that was"

Do you mean Lani Sarem of Handbook for Mortals "fame" ? XD

Anna wrote: "CBRetriever wrote: "Michelle wrote: "it reminds me of the author who shamelessly manipulated the review process.... I can't for the life of me remember who that was"

Do you mean [author:Lani Sarem..."

no, it was a male author

There was a female author doing it, too. I can't remember her name, and it's not Lani Sarem. Hopefully it will come to me.

it was definitely a male and I remember reading an interview with him, where he defended gaming the system that way

Thank you, Anna, for pointing me to this thread. There is a lot of thoughtful discussion that has helped me to come to my own conclusions.

I think that with an issue like this that is bound so closely with individuals' morals it is natural to be very reactionary when we discover that a creator we like seems to have "betrayed" us. The decision of whether or not to continue enjoying their art reflects on how we view ourselves and how we perceive that others will view us if we continue to have positive view of their works.

I very recently discovered that an author I have read considerably was accused of some pretty terrible things. My instant reaction was one of revulsion and I resolved to dispose of all of their books that I currently own. To have praised this author in any way now felt objectively morally wrong and I wanted to scratch out all association I had had with them. If I could continue to like the books, what did that say about me? The fact that these books had been a go-to for comfort felt like a particular betrayal.

But then my husband said something I thought very wise: especially with books, not everything comes from the author. A good part of the book, the world, the characters, exists only in the reader's head. That can't be taken away from you. Imagination is a powerful thing. You choose, subconsciously or otherwise, how to interpret a story you are presented with. Your experience is still the story, and you have the choice and the ownership to make part of it your own.

Of course it makes a difference if the author's objectionable viewpoints are being espoused in the text but in my case it was particularly shocking precisely because the author-in-question's stories are so far removed from what they were accused of.

Your feelings are still valid. However you felt about a book when you first read it, that is still ok. If there is one thing I have understood by reading right the way through this thread, it is that we are all trying to do the right thing but there is no single definition of right.

I will keep this author's books and the happy, cosy memories I have from them, because they have given me positive things. Of course, how I view the author will forever be changed, but in this circumstance I choose to separate artist and art.

Beth wrote: "I will keep this author's books and the happy, cosy memories I have from them, because they have given me positive things. Of course, how I view the author will forever be changed, but in this circumstance I choose to separate artist and art."

You've spent the money, they got their royalty, so you can't make much of a statement by disposing of them. Buying more by that author would.

This is a personal decision for each reader. I too have books by authors who have behaved badly and I won't be buying more. I probably have books by authors who have behaved badly but I haven't heard about it.

Michelle's comment reminds me that I often think about companies or people I'm boycotting but I don't remember why! :)

Beth, your post reminds me of a quote from Neil Gaiman, “No two readers will ever read the same book, because the reader builds the book in collaboration with the author.” In the same essay he talks about how sometimes when we read a childhood book as an adult, it’s a very different experience because we are different. I think this perspective in terms of the topic of this thread is really interesting. It does help me to reconcile my earlier positive experiences with certain texts when I later found out things that made me not want to support the author anymore. I wonder, too, if this also makes it hard to re-read or read new works by those authors for some of us. We can’t unlearn the information about the author, and now we bring that is when we read.

Kaia wrote: "In the same essay he talks about how sometimes when we read a childhood book as an adult, it’s a very different experience because we are different. I think this perspective in terms of the topic of this thread is really interesting. It does help me to reconcile my earlier positive experiences with certain texts when I later found out things that made me not want to support the author anymore.I wonder, too, if this also makes it hard to re-read or read new works by those authors for some of us."

YES. For me, it definitely has. Not because this author is necessarily problematic behaviorally, it's just that despite his attempts and implied desires to be more socially progressive, his writing tends to be dated and out of touch and very disappointing. And so, despite having been a lifelong fan, his books are pretty much a no-go for me at this point. Re-reads disappoint because I see them differently, and new books disappoint because he hasn't grown enough to write them differently.

There are a lot of paranoid maniacs on social media posting lies and accusations. Accusation in not conviction. I have no idea who the author is and do not particularly care. I do care about lunatics besmirching people for the sense of power it gives them.

It is not only social media: that just makes it worse, and also more obvious. In some academic fields, particularly those associated with religion, sociology, and politics, personal animus has produced accusations concerning the life style or professional ethics of opponents.

One medievalist accused a deceased colleague, a refugee from Nazi Germany, of being a Nazi at heart. Part of the evidence was that the cover design of one of his books included a form of the swastika, which at the time had no particular association with the Nazi party.

I would like to remind everyone that Allison posted a few pointers on how to engage with this topic in the first post of this thread. Please make sure you've read them!