Dangerous

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Son of Silvercon was full of interesting talk and cross-conversations, and conversations that mutated and changed and became now serious, now funny. — Talk was ongoing, wherever people from the con gathered. In fact because I often forgot the numbers of the rooms we were supposed to be in, I just followed the constant, babbling brook of voices — Funny things happened, like when I mentioned that every few years my blood pressure plumets and I end up in the hospital. This happens to my dad too, so it must be genetic. M. C. A. Hogarth said that I came from a line of fainting goats Caitlin Walsh (the artist who did Odd Magics) drew me like this:

Presumably, glasses removed for safety.

They weren’t actually making fun of me, as such, it was just that all throw away lines were cartoonified, since Caitlin has a drawing problem: she can’t stop doing it. So this was the only con with a continuous stream of funny drawings. At one point all of Holly Frost’s family became lions. Adorable lions who still looked like themselves, but also lions in Caitlin’s drawings.

Anyway, in a sudden serious turn, as we were sitting around and I mentioned the fastest and the slowest books I’ve ever written, and had to confess I’ve written a book in 3 days. (Though 2 weeks is more or less average. It’s the silence in between.) M. C. A. suggested that perhaps the silences are because I refuse to write a series that’s been nagging at me for 45 years, because I’m still trying to write saleable, or to market, even the market has changed.

Which is funny since, as I told Dave Butler, my main reason to remain indie right now, is that I want to finally write all the books that have waited this long, instead of subsuming them and writing whatever the house wants/needs instead.

But old habits die hard, and when you’ve worked all your life to fit in, and do the next book, it’s hard to break out of the frame of mind.

Is it what is depressing me? I don’t know. Heaven knows I’ve had plenty of other reasons to be depressed this year. Mostly deaths. I find a lot of us seem to be afflicted with a lot of deaths of family and friends, and yes, pets, in this last year. It would be easy to say it’s the time of life, but seriously, half of the deaths were of babies, either human or animal, or of young people.

Anyway– It is a possibility. Partly because — and this took me a time to explain — the series that is demanding to be written is also “dangerous” in many ways.

No, look, it’s not going to blow up. It is not — unlike The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress say — a blue print for revolution.

But it is dangerous for the perception of me among my readers. Like this: These days The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress would be dangerous for a writer’s reputation. While it is a love letter to America and the American revolution, it has all this plural line marriage stuff, and a bunch of things about how the marriage (Manny’s) was interracial.

People these days have become hardened. Okay, the left has been for a long time. But the right is hardening too. And I get it. Dear Lord, I get it. Because we’re so tired of being lectured. It’s hard to come across a female — or gay — character and not immediately ask the lecture on oppression and the finger wagging. So we flinch away, and we find excuses not to read on. “The writer has gone woke” or– “This person is now obviously leftist. I was wrong.” Or–

When in fact, a lot of SF worlds are just weird. If done right, science fiction is weird, and will have things that perhaps we know don’t work in the “real world” (Line Marriages) but might who knows work in other times and places and under special circumstances, because that’s what science fiction is all about: mind-experiments about the weird, the unusual and the edge situations. (No, I don’t think it would work, but Heinlein clearly thought so, and for the duration of the novel he SELLS it, which is the point.)

M. C. A. said that artists shouldn’t be tame. That something about us or our works should always make people a little uncomfortable.

Now, I disagree with the words in that previous sentence, but I don’t think that’s precisely what she meant. Yeah, okay, I’m going to quibble with the idea that I’m an artist. She is, but I’m basically a craftswoman, like someone who does cross-stitch (which I used to do) or paints rocks or something. In fact the process by which I make books is much like the process by which I make crafts, from the idea that won’t go away, till sitting down and actually doing it. But I’ll concede that what I call it might not be what others call it. Perhaps it’s all the same and artist or craftsman is just a different name for it.

However I really think what she means isn’t uncomfortable, precisely. Or I hope it isn’t. Look, “uncomfortable” is what the left keeps pursuing. Afflict the comfortable” and all that. You know? Pour epater les bourgeois.

I don’t think that’s what M. C. A. does or I do. Or aim for. It’s more that we will do surprising things. Because we’re individuals. If we are not afraid of our own minds, afraid of saying/doing something that will get us cancelled, or whatever, the way our minds work, as people who like creating worlds, will naturally bring up one or two details or ways of putting things together that no one has thought of. Or at least not thought of that way and not recently. Or at least it just seems to happen naturally to me, and I suspect to her.

I mean, it’s not that we’re aiming to make people uncomfortable, or even surprise them, but that it’s guaranteed almost one thing per book will be “well, I’ve never seen that used THAT way.” And sometimes, sure, it will make people uncomfortable, though only because we live in diminished times. In the old days, or at least from my reading of a lot of pulp SF I surmise, making SF/F readers uncomfortable was normal. Not uncomfortable in the sense of being shocked, but in the sense of “Well, that’s an interesting idea, even if it offends me” or just in the sense of stretching your mind in a way you haven’t done before. Surprise them, might be closer, because there was often delight in it too.

Which brought me around by a weird way to some advice I got when I was first starting out and that I heartily disagreed with. “Reach for the third ending.” You know, you’re writing the story, and an ending presents itself, discard that. Then there’s another obvious ending, and you discard that too. And you reach for the third ending because that will surprise people.

The reason I disagreed with it, is that it often surprised everyone by not making any sense whatsoever, or simply by being the stupidest thing imaginable. Also because there is no particular virtue in balking the reader of the anticipated ending.

That’s when I realized that by then — 35 years ago — the minds of traditional science fiction houses were already closed enough that you really couldn’t write something intrinsically surprising just by virtue of being, well, different. That would be bound to offend one of the many shibboleths of the left, the received wisdom that must not be questioned, and which if accidentally shaken might send you to the hell of the quietly cancelled.

But people remembered when there used to be excitement and surprise, and they felt something was missing and that they should not expect all of it. Hence “reach for the third ending.” (It’s noteworthy that Baen never pushed for this, and while somewhat limited, in the sense you always are when interacting with the people that sell the stuff (ask software developers sometime) they are the most open-minded of houses, so there were other ways to surprise.)

I often say that things feel fraught because we are finally, after almost a century, fighting back. In the same way, now that we are finally able to fly solo?

Don’t reach for the third ending. Don’t reach for anything. Just let you, yourself, guide what you write, in all its profound weirdness.

If we have to re-teach people that not all books with female characters are going to lecture them, or that you can have a gay character without endorsing Marxism, or for that matter that some weird sort of social experiment in your book might not be something you endorse, let alone dream of, so be it.

We’ll teach by doing it.

Only the stultifying boredom of leftist science fiction is truly verboten. Not because it is in fact forbidden, but because you’ll fall asleep halfway through.

If you’re a writer (or a reader) go forth: Read, write, and be not afraid.

239 thoughts on “Dangerous”

  2. I heard a conservative Youtuber make an interesting observation the other day regarding dangerous art. I haven’t had time to verify, but he said prior to the Hays Code against ambiguous endings or endings where the “bad guys” won or “crime paid,” there was apparently a problem of young women reading torrid novels, getting themselves into trouble and throwing themselves off cliffs.

    Life imitates art?

    Like

    2. That sort of thing is overblown. Whenever a new art form becomes popular with the masses, the elites fret that it will alter the brains of the stupid people and cause mass social problems.

      It happened with novels.

      It happened with cinema.

      It happened with role playing games in the 1970s. (For a truly bizarre experience, find the Tom Hanks-starring TV movie Mazes and Monsters, where evil role playing games cause him to lose touch with reality and go wandering the sewers of NYC, a danger to himself and everyone he encounters.)

      It still happens to some extent with video games, but was much worse in the ’90s.

      The set of arguments is usually exactly the same, starting with the “some people won’t understand the difference between fantasy and reality and will harm others” trope.

      It’s mostly bullshit that gives whoever is in power an excuse to persecute their lessers, and as a bonus, artists, for dangers to “the social fabric”.

      Liked by 1 person

        1. Well, it’s true that The Sorrows of Young Werther was responsible for a lot of suicides, because suicidal people are pretty suggestible. Same thing with some of the infamous suicide-encouraging songs. They didn’t create the problem, but they weren’t necessarily helpful.

          Certainly there are styles of romance, adventure, etc. that seem to encourage stupid people to do stupid things.

          But… all that said, people do have free will, and they don’t have to sing “Gloomy Sunday” four hundred times a day, until they kill themselves.

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          1. The Sorrows of Young Werther was not “responsible” for any suicides, the young men who took their own lives were responsible.

            And the rumors of an “epidemic” of them seem to be poorly founded in fact:

            The fear of an epidemic is examined in the article, and although a few imitation cases can be seen, the evidence for an epidemic cannot be said to be convincing. So, contrary to popular belief, it seems that a suicide epicemic did not arise after all.

            https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13811110301568

            “A few” imitation cases just means that the hysterics had more than one to point to, and thus started a panic, as they often do.

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            1. I am really, really tired of all the Hysterical Hyperbole being screamed at me from multiple mouthpieces.

              Falsely calling some social, political, economic or criminal problem ‘An Epidemic!!’ does not make it one. We don’t expect the police to cure cancer; why does the CDC insist on sticking its long, long nose into issues of law enforcement and criminal justice?

              Liked by 2 people

              1. Basically why I pushed back on the notion.

                New art form arises. The “elite” who have gained control of all the other art forms (and usually killed them) try to delegitimize it, until they have killed it, made the public at large dismiss it, or taken it over.

                Comic books are another, and the individual responsible for that panic, Frederic Wortham, tried to repeat the success he had on horror movies, to less thorough effect. I wish I could believe in hell, because he should be roasting there.

                And if a mass panic starts, so much the better, because the form will then carry that stigma for decades, if not longer.

                It is a very consistent pattern.

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                1. Well… obviously Wertham was wrong in his approach.

                  OTOH, there were indeed some very skeevy things going on in the US comics industry at the time, which were also coming out on the page, in comics marketed to the child demographic. And the editors weren’t doing much to deal with that.

                  And the same thing in horror movies, sf books, and so on.

                  Obviously some kind of moral crusade against Marion Zimmer Bradley — or at least a persistent and nosy neighbor who called the police — was needed. But while people thought that “it’s just about her writing lesbian/gay love stories,” or “her husband was bad, not her,” the really bad stuff went unnoticed.

                  Not to be super-paranoid, but I think there’s a pattern of “people putting mildly racy things into art” or “putting mildly politically daring things into art” being used to cover up for themselves or other people having a significantly darker agenda. (And the same thing in other industries.)

                  If nobody objects strongly enough to X, you can quietly start pushing Y and Z and L and W, behind the scenes. And meanwhile, everybody thinks that X is the only thing going on.

                  Art and culture are just the areas that are more noticeable than, say, religion, psychologists, teachers, etc.

                  And yet, there’s nothing intrinsically with horror, etc., and a lot of good, because it’s cathartic to face fears. Goosebumps certainly showed that there’s a place for children’s horror, if campfire ghost stories didn’t.

                  In some ways it is a blessing that today’s wokies are so incompetent at entertainment; I just wish they weren’t ruining so much stuff while showing it.

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                  1. Case in point: the man who was shot “in a home invasion,” the day after mocking the idea crime was rising was apparently shot by the teenaged boy he had been blackmailing and grooming for years…all the while complaining and campaigning against the idea that “guys are pedophiles.” He was an activist, of course.

                    Liked by 1 person

                    1. Oh, that’s horrible.

                      And it’s worse because, of course, most men are not pedophiles, and most young men do benefit from having older men as relatives, friends, co-workers, etc.

                      Divisiveness and fear, vs. actual wolves in sheep’s clothing. There’s no way to deal with it easily, and without paying attention to other people’s business. But how far is reasonable care? Clearly we need to figure that out.

                      Liked by 1 person

                    2. @Suburbanbanshee

                      I think there was a typo there. He was arguing that GAYS are not pedophile groomers. He was a guy activist.

                      Puts a different twist on the irony.

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            2. Okay, I gotta read that article.

              Although with all the people shooting themselves over debts, getting into suicidal duels, deliberately getting into horse accidents, and so forth, I wouldn’t be surprised if “melancholy” were a leading cause of death in certain circles.

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          2. Theme song from Mash

            Suicide Is Painless Lyrics By Johnny Mandel

            [Verse 1]
            Through early morning fog I see
            Visions of the things to be
            The pains that are withheld for me
            I realize and I can see

            [Chorus]
            That suicide is painless
            It brings on many changes
            And I can take or leave it if I please

            [Verse 2]
            The game of life is hard to play
            I’m gonna lose it anyway
            The losing card I’ll someday lay
            So this is all I have to say

            [Chorus]
            Suicide is painless
            It brings on many changes
            And I can take or leave it if I please

            [Verse 3]
            The sword of time will pierce our skin
            It doesn’t hurt when it begins
            But as it works its way on in
            The pain grows stronger, watch it grin

            [Chorus]
            Suicide is painless
            It brings on many changes
            And I can take or leave it if I please

            [Verse 4]
            A brave man once requested me
            To answer questions that are key
            “Is it to be or not to be?”
            And I replied, “Oh, why ask me?”

            [Chorus]
            Suicide is painless
            It brings on many changes
            And I can take or leave it if I please
            And you can do the same thing if you please

            Which is such a defeatist attitude that I’m grinding my teeth in 2×4 beating aggravation before the end of the song.

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      2. I had the misfortune to be a young geek during the Satanic Panic. My hyperprotective mother wouldn’t let me within a mile of anything D&Dish, and that movie Did Not Help. (My husband’s description, years after the fact: “Sweet as pie, but your mother thought Mazes and Monsters was a documentary.”)

        Liked by 1 person

        1. AFAIK, there was ONE case of a college student, at the University of Michigan, who got lost in the steam tunnels and died. He had played D&D (this was probably late 1970s), so they ascribed what happened to his losing touch with reality because of the game. I don’t even know if they had actual reason to do so beyond correlation, but I doubt it.

          And yet, the stupid fuckhead panic-mongers won to the extent that normal people STILL go “You play RPGs? I didn’t think you were weird before…”

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          1. The snarky, ‘splody geek in me wants to reword the penultimate sentence: “You play with RPGs?” The ultimate sentence will be left as an exercise for the student, presumably one at a .mil institution.

            D&D came out as I was graduating from U of Redacted, and I never got into it. Closest exposure was the computer adventure games, mostly ADVENT and the HP employee-written WARP. (I’d love to find the source code, but it was very tightly held, and the only executable I’ve encountered was on the HP-3000 sort-of-mini-mainframe.) A year or so into the game, the developers (on their own time, officially…) encrypted the source to keep nosy players from getting an edge.

            Liked by 1 person

              1. James Dallas Egbert III was at MSU early, as a prodigy, was taking drugs (including meth), did not have a lot of friends, ever, suffered from suicidal depression, and apparently had other mental problems, IIRC.

                His D&D group was the most normal thing in his life.

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  3. I don’t know that inter-racial marriages would “offend” today’s Conservatives.

    But a story world where “race wasn’t important” (which was Moon’s) that would “offend” the Left. :wink:

    Liked by 1 person

      1. More and more the crazies are, or at least perhaps, just perhaps appear to be ’cause they shout loudest, the vast majority.

        & there there’s the old saw/saying….. ‘cepting ….

        & I’m not so sure about you. ;-)

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      2. But MIAHM was written inter racial marriage were certainly still quite controversial. Loving vs Virginia (the case that repealed Virginia’s miscegenation laws) only hit the Supreme Court dockets in 1966/1967, Moon is a Harsh Mistress was published 1966. I would be unsurprised if RAH knew of the Loving case at some level, he seems to have devoured news and other information and I think that case was well noted in the various media (especially newspapers)of the period. In 1968 George Wallace took 5 states (and 46 electoral votes) in the presidential election with a third party that had retaining racial segregation as a platform plank . I don’t think ANY third party since has ever gotten electoral votes other than by faithless electors. The North American Government of MIAHM clearly reflects the period in which RAH wrote it in that respect and certainly would have been a finger in the eye to many in that period. As our hostess has noted this has changed radically in 60 some odd years contrary to the statements of many of the modern race hustlers (some of whom were alive in the mid 1960’s and should know better).

        Liked by 1 person

    2. Maybe not offend in and of itself. But I know that there are conservatives who knee-jerk view fictional mixed race couples as diversity inserts. They’re so used to having “diversity in action” shoved in their face that they automatically analyze everything as if it is diversity in action, regardless of whether that was the intent of the author or director.

      Liked by 1 person

      2. Taken in context of when Heinlein wrote TMIAHM, Interracial Marriage was a big deal, as in more than a few states illegal. Let alone Line Marriage concept, different but similar to polygamy, also illegal in every state, then and now.

        Liked by 1 person

      3. I’ve just about got to that point. I’d say everybody who’s aware of the left’s woketardery is probably getting there. There’s a reflexive flinch, a “here we go again” sinking feeling, and it happens over and over again, because it’s been done to us over and over again.

        There’s a great series on Netflix, The Last Kingdom, about the struggle between Saxons and Viking invaders in the late 9th century; 5 seasons, and it’s capped off by a movie. (It’s all based on the excellent Saxon Tales series of novels by Bernard Cornwell.) Anyway, I finished watching the movie today, and I got that sinking feeling — and almost walked away — when they went into a gay sex scene between young King Aethelred and a devious Dane. But I stuck it out because the whole series had been good to that point, and I’m glad I did, because it didn’t actually sink the ship and actually — miraculously — contributed to the plot without letting in any woke moralizing.

        But that reflex won’t go away. You can’t trust anything or anyone anymore. Too many previously good series and franchises have been woke-raped into disaster. The list of things I just won’t risk spending my time and money on is growing so fast it’s almost safer to assume everything is crap.

        Well, not quite everything; there’s a good reason why I buy books from people who hang out here.

        Liked by 1 person

      4. These days, who cares? Even the progs apparently haven’t noticed Justice Thomas’ wife, even when they’re harassing her.

        So, if it’s A Big Deal, you’re likely about to be lectured.

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    1. There are worse problems to have. I’m addicted to buying movies on physical media, the highest resolution possible. It’s an expensive monkey to have on my back, even though I’m careful to wait for sales and such. :D

      Liked by 1 person

  5. Speaking of the lefts shibboleths. Their “the right is anti-semetic” one is sure crashing the fuck into “the Palestinians should kill all the Jews” one.

    Liked by 3 people

      2. You know, when the one name someone’s willing to drop to prove right wing anti-Jew stances is someone where the response is “who?” and the results are a wikipedia that basically explains “small time podcaster,” and if one is willing to believe it, still a small-time podcaster/youtuber, and the only actual quote is that way back when he said something about media being controlled by the globalists, kill the globalists, when he was justifying that Muslim views aren’t covered by the first amendment….

        Well, ‘twenty something shitposter shockjock who was big on MAGA and claimed followers trying to be outrageous” is not exactly impressive even before the article is literally about a twit-storm. Congratulations. Someone found something worse than trying to insist Alex Jones is right wing, rather than just Out There.

        Finding the equivalent of, say, that idiot congresskritter who objected to a judicial candidate because she was an observant Catholic is dead easy on exactly one side.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. There’s also a certain white supremacist who (successfully, IIRC) ran for office as a Republican in Louisiana back in the late ’80s (a friend there at the time told me that most of the votes Duke got were due to the locals telling the rest of the country to mind their own business). He’s no longer a Republican, but he’s still linked to the Republican party due to his time in office. And it didn’t help that he endorsed Trump in 2020 (Trump repudiated him, of course).

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          1. So?

            Figuring out how to game the system is basic politics.

            Deciding that “game the system” means “carpet bagging idiot shockjocks get to define the beliefs of a section that literally has official platform statements” is stupid, although not quite as stupid as thinking twit-storms are sincere expressions of actual individual views.

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            1. You talk as if I think his existence causes me to believe that conservatives are racist. I suggested no such thing. I’m merely noting that there are other individuals out there who will be brought up as examples of “Republicans are racist!”

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            1. IIRC, the state Republican Party repudiated him right away. He was running against one of Louisiana’s interminable line of Edwardses, a notoriously corrupt one, and there were bumper stickers that said “Vote for the Crook – It’s Important!”

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              1. John Treen, who was being smeared with deliberate conflation with the child sex charges against his brother, and claims he’d basically been just as bad a racist as the guy who was literally yet another Democrat KKK leader.

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        2. I don’t know Foxfier there are a few R that show obvious antisemitism. The most vocal (and idiotic) of these would be Marjorie Taylor Greene one of Georgia’s House Representatives (R). Her “Jewish space lasers”, nonsense was fodder for the left and much of her other stuff has that taint of belief in “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”. None of that is a good look. Is this common on the current R side of the Aisle? I’d say no, certainly not as prevalent as the anti-zionist/pro Palestinian flavor of antisemitism is on the other side of the aisle where as far as I can tell even the nominally Jewish politicians are affected by that viewpoint. Certainly the old Northeast based Republicans had the antisemitic taint from their WASP centric source material that had that antisemitic strain from their Anglophilic tendencies but that part of the party is a dying breed rarer than Jedi after Order 66. Oh and yes that strain of R was just as anti catholic as it was anti semitic, again going back to the English roots.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. So, to recap, someone with an R once before election posted a media proclaimed conspiracy theory that included a Jewish name, that’s anti-Semitism.

            Vs multiple currently seated folks with a D and/or currently active recognized progressive folks openly justifying slaughter of infants as well as rape and torture because they are in Israel is totally the same kind of thing.

            I think MTG is a media-seeking idiot, however even Snopes had to fact-check the “jewish space lasers” thus:
            In a now-deleted Facebook post, Greene suggested that laser beams from space may have started the 2018 California wildfires, and that among the entities behind this conspiracy were former California Gov. Jerry Brown, Pacific Gas & Electric, and Rothschild Inc., an investment firm frequently targeted by anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists.

            specifically,

            She said that Roger Kimmel, who was on the board of PG&E, was also “Vice Chairman of Rothschild Inc,” and “If they are beaming the suns energy back to Earth, I’m sure they wouldn’t ever miss a transmitter receiving station right??!! I mean mistakes are never made when anything new is invented. What would that look like anyway? A laser beam or light beam coming down to Earth I guess. Could that cause a fire? Hmmm, I don’t know. I hope not! That wouldn’t look so good for PG&E, Rothschild Inc, Solaren or Jerry Brown who sure does seem fond of PG&E.”
            https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/greene-jewish-lasers-wildfires/

            Please note that applying this standard also requires that anyone who is skeptical of the goals of the World Economic Forum be identified and shunned as an anti-Semite.

            You got taken in by a “Trump told people to drink bleach” level media spin-up.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. An example of the contrast between either “even the progs at Slate say he ran a dirty campaign and squeaked in, almost thirty five years ago”, a youtube shockjock’s claimed fans on twitter, or “posted something that suggested possible ill of anyone connected with something that has the name Rothschild involved,” we have stuff like this:

              https://tbdailynews.com/boston-5th-grade-teacher-leads-crowd-in-chant-of-f-the-police-state-america-was-never-great-while-calling-jews-parasitic/

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            4. Haven’t checked the alignment of the folks they claim are calling for a cease-fire; anyone taking bets?

              I know one idiot running for R-Potus has said some stupid stuff…and been promptly condemned as the idiot he is.

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              1. This is interesting in part because:
                12/17/2008
                (San Francisco) – PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG) today elected Roger H. Kimmel, 62, to the holding company’s Board of Directors, as well as the Board of its subsidiary, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, which provides utility service for 15 million people in northern and central California.

                Not long after that:
                PG&E & Start-Up Solaren Corp. Plan To Beam Solar Power From Space
                April 14, 2009 by Jeff Shepard
                Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E) revealed that it has signed a power purchase agreement with California-based startup Solaren Corp., to buy up to 200MW of solar space energy, according to PG&E’s blog, “NEXT100.” The solar power will be captured on satellite solar panels hovering in earth’s orbit and transmitted via radio frequency.
                eepower dot com/news/pge-start-up-solaren-corp-plan-to-beam-solar-power-from-space/#

                I can’t find when governor Jerry Brown was hired on to Rothschild, Inc. (Involved because they own/owned PG&E, it’s an investment company.)

                It was stupid because they didn’t have any actual satellites; the facebook post was probably to get folks to notice there was a contract with, ahem, very obvious conflict of interested.
                solarenspace dot com/2021/01/29/facebook-post-referencing-solaren-space-solar-setting-the-record-straight/

                And finally found an image where you can actually read the text:
                https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Es1qO14W4AAnX_Y

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      4. I have noticed that whenever I pushed against racist remarks in the Instapundit comment section, eventually it becomes clear that the racists are strongly authoritarian.

        And at that point, I declare them to be Democrats, and likely even plants to try to make conservatives and libertarians look bad.

        Liked by 1 person

    3. Oh my ghod, don’t get me started on that. I’ve been chewing the carpeting over that since the 7th.

      The Left have -forever- forfeited any claim the moral high ground, real or imagined. Mad dogs.

      Not to mention our Prime Minister exceeded all previous efforts at beclowning himself and this country with that “Israel blew up a hospital!” freakshow, which according to blogs they tried to scrub from social media, but still haven’t taken down off the government website.

      Liked by 3 people

      1. Because to them one convenient lie is worth more than a hundred inconvenient truths.
        ———————————
        “We can be punished severely for lying to the government, but there are NO penalties when the government lies to us — which appears to me much the more serious offense. The government’s lies do far more damage than any of us could do by lying to them.”

        Liked by 2 people

        1. “Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday [yesterday] that Canadian officials are still reviewing evidence about the Gaza hospital blast that killed and maimed many Palestinian civilians and he’s not prepared to say who’s responsible.”

          Meanwhile the bomb damage pics are all over the net, and you can clearly see that something landed in the freakin’ parking lot.

          This is The. Government. Of. Canada. we’re talking about here. Is this how people felt in Germany, in 1933? That everyone and everything had gone utterly insane?

          Liked by 2 people

          1. And from the lack of significant crater, landed may be correct.

            And if something landed there with enough force to “demolish the hospital”, it would almost have to be big enough for a crater.

            Liked by 2 people

            1. Looking at the photos there’s some shrapnel damage to the buildings, but the cars in the car park are only burned. Nothing exploded there with enough force to shred a car or make a crater, that alone tells you that it wasn’t the IDF.

              Which is why the NY Times ran a picture of a completely different blown-up building in their disinformation piece the other day. The actual hospital building is intact, with fire damage.

              And they wonder why we all stopped listening to them.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. “And they wonder why we all stopped listening to them.”

                Every so often, I keep encountering the statement “No matter how much you hate the media, you don’t hate them enough.”

                And he’s right. My hatred of their lies hasn’t been enough to risk the jail time for stopping them.

                Liked by 2 people

      2. The Left have stolen their playbook from 1984 (or perhaps more correctly Mr. Orwell noted the facist/stalinist/communist playbook and exposed it in 1984). This is doublethink at its finest. They say “The Israelis have always mistreated the Arabs/Palestinians since 1948″ even though every fact mitigates against this” and “These thing (if they happened and we don’t say they did) are no worse than the mistreatment the Gaza Residents have received” even though they have data otherwise. At this point I can’t decide if they are intentionally evil or if their sense of reality is so warped and their conscience so scalded that they can’t see it. In reality it matters not which the effect is the same an amoral nonsensical posture (effectively bent over with our corporate gluteal fundaments spread wide) that only nudges us closer and closer to Conjecture 2 of Mr Fernadez’ three conjectures. It doesn’t take Cassandra or Nostradamus to know this will not end well

        Is their point of view true? Not even remotely. Until recently their control of the western equivalent of Minitrue had been highly effective. But like the internet things started to route around the damage and the data has been leaking through. The Party and Minitrue then starts screaming “It’s Russia/Israel/Trump/Emmanuel Goldstein’s fault”. This has worked for a bit but even the dimmest of people (unless properly “trained” like our Ivy league schools seem to do) can handle this level of cognitive dissonance for very long.

        It’s not like this hasn’t been going on for a long while. Many actions by the Party’s fellow travelers such as the Holodomor, the Great Leap Forward etc. ad nauseum have been hidden by a friendly press in Minitrue. Various attacks on the west by the peace loving followers of Islam (see here from my blog https://tregonsee.blogspot.com/2017/04/ok-was-reading-declination-and-ran-into.html in 2017 about the death of Ebba Akerlund) have been downplayed as far back as the bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beirut. In particular hiding the fate of those poor souls on 9/11 that chose jumping off the two towers vs death by fire. Those images and videos are well hidden, but the ones coming out of 10/7 are not yet totally redacted by Minitrue. Perhaps the Proles (I.E. normal folks without the training in doublethink) will see those and start changing things but this has been going on to one degree or another throughout my 60+ years and except for brief glitches the Party seems to have maintained control. I see few choices and like none of them.

        Liked by 1 person

    4. Remember, everything to the right of Lenin is Fascist, thus Trotsky is Right Wing as are other hard-socialists.

      If you are not a barking-moonbat-marxoid, you are Fascist/Right. Also if the wrong pitch of moonbat barking, or wrong tempo.

      Liked by 1 person

    5. They are trying to decide if it is 1918 or 1933. In any case, their television only has one channel and it only has one Pogrom.

      Liked by 1 person

    6. I have to confess, I just don’t grok antisemitism. I barely understand why Mohammed has a hate relationship with Jews from their politics. Which obviously hasn’t changed over the centuries. And as for “Christian” hatred of Jews for the death of Jesus, that just drives me to distraction. Finally, general hatred of Jews because of historic business success is just plain envy and greed, which I can understand, but still makes me want to puke because those dolts never see how it can be turned against them.

      Like

      1. Let us not forget that they were forced into certain businesses such as banking because Christians weren’t allowed to lend at interest. So the folk in power cultivated Jewish lenders so that their monarchies could borrow from time to time, and let all the hate for tax policies etc. fall on the Jews.

        Liked by 1 person

  6. I quite agree with M.; it’s good for art to make one a little uncomfortable, to shake one’s beliefs and perceptions, to make one at least wobble a bit in if not knock him out of his well worn rut.

    Doesn’t always have ta, won’t necessarily everyone. Epiphanies are few and far between but such can be generated by an artist’s brush/computer/instrument.

    Not all art, not all artists can or should make one a wee bit unconformable, though sci fi/fantasy is an especially fertile field for such that can and would to plow.

    Like

    1. I warn people I talk to. I will make you think. I am dangerous.

      I know I am here for a purpose. Returning to my car from picking up a new prescription yesterday, I glanced down. Saw what looked like a $20. It was. 3 of them.

      Called the church today. Asked if she knew anyone who needed $60. She did. Dropped it off in an envelope marked “A gift from God”. God just invites me to join His plan. I live a divine adventure. I have fun.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Hrm… a t-shirt that reads [LEAVE ME ALONE] paradoxically invites interfering rascals who just HAVE to help in the worst – and then do exactly that. But [WARNING: PROLONGED CONVERSATION WITH ME WILL REQUIRE YOU TO THINK] might drive undesirables aware with extreme force. Hrmm…

        Like

        1. Even a short conversation. I fling paradoxes at the slightest provocation. Pointed out to a parent that all he had to do was hold his daughter tight and let her go at the same time to be a good parent. I have fun doing this. I tell people I have no idea what I AM is going to say.

          Like

  7. A great story doesn’t have to make you feel uncomfortable, it just has to tell a great story. Everything it makes you feel is just gravy on top.
    If it makes you think, bonus.

    Like

  8. Yeah. Fun bit with the work slowly resuming progress: I realized both factions in the civil war are both very Christian factions driven by deeply held religious convictions. But since the viewpoint character starts out in the bad guy faction it’s going to end up looking incredibly woke for probably about the first third or so, until they start getting exposed to the other faction and a lot more of the stuff they didn’t know.

    And then things are, from the wokist perspective, going to take a hard turn to starbord and go pretty completely off the rails. Because, you know, none of the world actually works that way.

    I finally decided I kind of don’t care. But I also have no reputation to preserve or destroy, so that’s a thing. And it’s not like the story didn’t happen if I just skip it and start on the next one, so might as well finish it.

    Now I just need to figure out quiche fails his first real test. I know how, I just haven’t figured out the underlying why.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. The SF I grew up on explored odd ways to look at things like from inside some prismatic disco ball. Just a few examples:

    If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister, by Ted Sturgeon arguing that incest is only bad because of abuse, and that we constantly inbreed dogs, pigs, corn, bananas, to make them come out better, so why not humans?

    Heinlein’s polyamory stories.

    The Small Assassin, by Ray Bradbury featuring a serial killer infant (no, not even a toddler)

    It’s a Good Life, by Jerome Bixby about an all-powerful, tyrannical teenager.

    Not all were great. Robert Silverberg once took up the challenge of writing about a truly alien species rather than aliens who were humans with tails or funny ears. He succeeded in writing an incomprehensible story.

    Now I’ve always been a quite religious, traditional Christian who finds such things wrong-headed, but worth pondering. I expected that attitude when I was submitting stuff, and found it surprising that any speculation that reinforced the vision of the anointed was approved no matter how poorly written, and anything else was thrown out with the trash.

    Is there room for that kind of SF now that we’ve all been propagandized and cancelled? I don’t know, but I intend to write what I want to say as well as I can. And you can see where that has gotten me by checking the utter lack of sales on my Amazon page.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Yes, me too, and I must say that given all the other shenanigans with Google, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube etc. it would surprise me if Amazon -didn’t- jigger their search algorithms against non-conforming authors and books.

      I have zero evidence to support that, but I’d have to be an innocent little child not to expect it.

      Like

      2. https://reclaimthenet.org/news-media-calls-on-amazon-to-censor-more-books

        “And while Amazon is already, and very controversially from the point of view of free speech supporters, banning some books, other types of activists and their media outlets clearly think that should only be the beginning.”

        Individual authors, such as Colin Ferguson, have seen their books on systematic non reporting of certain types of crime throttled and removed from search results also. That one I have personally experienced.

        Liked by 1 person

          1. Sorry, Colin Flaherty. He covered Ferguson.

            Wrote three books. “Don’t make the black kids angry”, “White Girl Bleed A lot”, and “The Knockout Game” showing that the “racial healing” that Obama promoted was a lie and had been since Obama was a community organizer. The titles were drawn from various community leaders and assailants.

            Each of them had a thousand or more links to various “local stories” that the MSM wouldn’t cover. Most of them are rotted, but you can track them down in the Internet Archive with a little luck.

            Liked by 1 person

    2. the utter lack of sales on my Amazon page

      Link please? The only books I find with “Frank Hood” as an author are a series on submarines during the cold war. I don’t think that’s what you are talking about. ‘Sides, “Frank Hood” is the co-author.

      And yes, the vast majority of the books I read come from people here or MGC or are adjacent to such.

      Phantom, I’ll check out your book and the two short stories.

      Like

      2. BTW, if you click on my icon, it will take you to my Gravatar page which has links for my website, my author’s page, and my wife’s author’s page.

        Like

        1. Ah, I had blocked one of Gravatar’s features, and couldn’t get profiles to load in my default browser. The joys of trading off bandwidth vs functionality. Satellite internet (not Starlink, alas) can be a pain.

          Like

    4. “we constantly inbreed dogs, pigs, corn, bananas, to make them come out better, so why not humans?”

      Because the way you make those come out better is to kill (or sterilize) all the ones that don’t meet whatever standard you’re going for. Or, at least for the bananas, some disease comes along and completely wipes out your inbred varietals, because there’s not enough genetic diversity for them to survive that disease.

      Most people would say that there are ethical problems doing that to humans. At least if you don’t live in modern Iceland.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Humans already have a lack of enough genetic diversity stemming from several population bottlenecks. The latest supposedly about 70,000 years ago that brought us down to a breeding population of barely 10,000 humans. I’ve seen several stories over the years about space colonization and lost colonies that use the 10,000 humans figure as the lowest number of humans necessary for a survivable breeding group; although I haven’t seen any animal experiments or studies to support that number. For sure that we have several animal species that are so bottlenecked that they may as well be clones (such as the cheetah), and without intervention, they’d quickly go extinct.

        Liked by 1 person

    5. Another ‘truly alien, not just human with a tail’ book from yesteryear is Dickson’s 1971 None But Man, where the alien culture is based, not on Right vs Wrong, but on Respectable vs Non-respectable. I still re-read it every so often, just to enjoy the glimpse of another mindset (although I suspect that Dickson was channelling non-specific oriental culture, but I don’t know enough to say for sure one way or the other)

      Like

  10. I just came across an sf subreddit, and had hopes to find some good stuff.

    There was a post from someone who had stopped reading Moon Is a Harsh Mistress in the middle, because “it was so sexist” and “the women only existed to have sex with the male main characters.” Everything that the women of the book did, was put down as windowdressing, and only the things that men did were important things.

    ( guess “Mike was a man” was taken a little differently than intended….)

    The thread afterwards did have some explanations for the young, but was also full of people announcing that X book by Y author was also hopelessly sexist, because the style of feminism in the book was no longer the current style.

    After a while, you can only laugh!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. “He wrote about women like Handmaid’s Tale was a documentary.”

      This is a real Reddit comment that allegedly describes TMIAHM.

      If I knew the commenter IRL, I have to say I’d be tempted to gift the person a Gor book, just so they could calibrate better. :)

      “I don’t like the way Heinlein writes about men, women, and sex” or “I don’t approve” is clearly not the same as an author being oppressive or male supremacist or whatever.

      I can’t wait until I hear that Jane Austen is too racy….

      Liked by 2 people

        1. Yeah, that is a beauty right there. “Fictional characters can’t consent,” uh huh.

          …

          Can they consent to being shot out of a railgun and flung across the Atlantic ocean? Because I did that to Alice. Maybe she’s pissed at me, in some fictional place?

          Liked by 1 person

    3. RAH was writing about a future society that was, what, 80% male? Because very few female criminals were sent to the Moon. That imbalance distorted Lunar society in a multitude of ways. Simply being obnoxious to a woman could be a capital offense, and since there were no police or official courts it was vigilante justice. The accused might get a short informal trial, if lucky.

      Liked by 1 person

      2. very few female criminals were sent to the Moon
        …………………….

        Few families followed their convicted spouse, or family members. At least where Mannie grew up. Places like little Hong Kong had whole populations, men, women, and children, deported to the moon, not just criminals.

        Like

  12. “…the stultifying boredom of leftist science fiction …”

    Yep. Ever try reading anything by N. K. Jemisin? My eyes glazed over……….

    Like

      1. Honestly? It’s worse than drivel. Drivel is a harmless timewaster. Jemisin is yuck.

        That said, I think she’s sorta trying to imitate Octavia Butler’s ick factor, but Butler was clearly someone who was a horror writer from very deep down. You might not like her stuff, but it was stuff that was powerful.

        Jemisin is more along the lines of writing horrifying things and telling you they’re nice and happy, because Woke Reasons.

        Liked by 1 person

      1. Madam as an alien I wish to protest. My vision of the Cosmic All though woefully incomplete and incorrect is far better than that. It is possible that Ms. Jemsin is being controlled by an Eddorian but that seems unlikely as even Eddorians have some things they will not do…

        Liked by 1 person

  13. “If we have to re-teach people that not all books with female characters are going to lecture them, or that you can have a gay character without endorsing Marxism, or for that matter that some weird sort of social experiment in your book might not be something you endorse, let alone dream of, so be it.”

    I have Diversity!!! in my books. Robots, humans and space aliens sleeping together. I have Fantasy!!! as well, them not fighting over who used whose toothbrush the next day. I have gay characters, they both carry guns and they despise Marxists. I have a Strong Female character… with crippling PTSD from all the nightmare sh1t she’s gone through.

    Also, despite the robots, humans and space aliens (and werewolf, an elf and a few more) all sleeping together, I have zero sex scenes in my books. Because they’re gross, frankly. I always skip them, I see no reason to make my readers skip them. Lots of romance and people making bold advances to their crushes, but then we cut to the next morning and the toothbrush issues. (A gentleman will quietly wash the toothbrush and not make a fuss. Good manners are never wasted, IMHO.)

    Because why would I think I know so much better about all kinds of social things that I can lecture people on them? Let them figure that sh1t out on their own, I’m going to lecture about rivets in aircraft skins, or the best way to assault an Elder God/eldritch horror with a giant tank. (Frontal assault, point blank was my choice. KaPOW!) Or the best way to deal with invincible alien AI probes.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. I went with tungsten penetrators in an iron jacket. The iron arrives nice and hot from air friction and magnetic heating in the railgun (10k fps!), and splashes all over the outside of Mr. Eldritch Horror, setting him on fire. The penetrator continues on and dumps all sorts of lovely heat energy into his tender insides, and creates a steam explosion.

        At 5,000 rounds a minute, you can make quite an impression. >:D

        Then there are the Valkyries. Two megatons per second. Go big or go home.

        Like

      1. I tried, but on re-reading it was just stupid. We don’t need to see all that, we can just make it up on our own.

        Besides, other people’s minds are much farther into the gutter than mine, they’ll do a better job for themselves.

        Like

    3. “A gentleman will quietly wash the toothbrush and not make a fuss.”

      Considering the amount of spit and other fluids you swapped in the interim, what, pray tell, is the point? ;-)

      Liked by 2 people

        1. But… wouldn’t most women (and men) have a stock of extra toothbrushes still in the package, because you don’t buy just one if you find toothbrushes for sale? Obviously a guest shouldn’t search the bathroom, but there’s probably one around?

          Heck, some people don’t go on vacation without a totally new toothbrush still in the package, because they are paranoid about hotel rooms and plan to throw the toothbrush away before going home, or because they don’t like wet toothbrushes in their travel kit.

          Like

          1. Recalls folding toothbrush in my travel kit. I am not taking the Sonicare, nor the Water-pik. (An irrigation syringe with right-angle spout does an adequate job for a couple night’s stay.)

            OTOH, we have a large stash of manual toothbrushes, because I get one every dental visit. Every few years, we stick them in a goodie bag for the Gospel Mission shelter.

            Like

      2. I once read some book wherein the MC kept extra toothbrushes because his bedroom was Grand Central, and he… didn’t want to get any on him? Or something? Because…?

        I thought it was so stupid that I’ve never forgotten it.

        Plus, these are -ROBOTS-. Like, artificial intelligence from another planet cosplaying as human. Do robots have spit? Or germs, or any biology at all? And are they even girls, for that matter? It’s an issue I’ve left open for the reader to decide. Had a couple of people jump to some pretty wrong (and gross!) conclusions I must say, trauma lives in the population.

        But on the whole, if the young lady (or robot/alien/werewolf/whatever) you had over last night brushes her teeth in the morning A) that’s a sign of good hygiene and B) shut up! and don’t you dare upset that girl with your bs.

        Like

    4. I have zero sex scenes in my books. Because they’re gross, frankly. I always skip them, I see no reason to make my readers skip them.
      ………………….

      As a reader who also skips written sex scenes, Thank you!

      Liked by 1 person

      1. I rather like how Jerry Boyd handles the ‘sex scenes’ in the Bob & Nikki (Bob’s Saucer Repair) books. Which is to say sleep didn’t happen right away and then morning arrived all too soon.

        Liked by 1 person

  14. The Phantom posted something truly twisted on The Phantom Soapbox. I can’t comment there, so I’m dragging it over here.

    http://phantomsoapbox.blogspot.com/2023/10/free-will-itself-now-under-assault.html

    You can thank me later. :-P

    But of course, we can’t even despise Sapolsky because the asshole didn’t actually choose to write that drivel, it was merely unconscious reflex…
    ———————————
    ‘Progressives’ suppress free speech because they don’t have the means to suppress free thought.

    Yet.

    Like

    1. Why can’t you comment at the Soapbox? It’s Blogspot, should be okay.

      Anyway, I sent that to Sarah as a possible Guest Post for in case she might be winding the cat or something. There are some ideas so stupid you just can’t let them go by unremarked.

      Like

  17. You have a story to write that has sat for 45 years. The story must flow! (muse cracks whip)

    You feel a pull to instead write what “the house” wants. Profit is -good-. (accountant peers over top of glasses)

    Start a fundraiser for the 45. When there is enough of a lootpile… (Shiny!)

    Can I pre-order a signed 1st print hardback? (waves US cash money)(toothy grin)

    Like

      2. Is this the hermaphrodite planet book or a different weird?

        Some times one just has to do a project, even though there is no tangible benefit to doing it, because not doing it is getting in the way of doing the projects with tangible benefits.

        Like

          1. Honestly, I thought you’d already written that one to get it out of the way.

            Given how much else you’ve already written, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with putting one out, of which people might say “It was a well-written story with solid world-building that I couldn’t put down, and I never want to read it again.” ^_^

            Like

          2. Phhhht. Is -that- it? That’s a 2 or 3 weird on a 10 scale. Tops.

            In -todays- market? You biggest risk with that concept is becoming popular with freaky lefties. And last I checked, they do spend similar dollars to mine.

            Phhhht. Hermaphrodite world? That’s the BoogieXer to wig me out? Me? LOL. Write it.

            Write it.

            Like

            1. “You biggest risk with that concept is becoming popular with freaky lefties”

              LOL. At least according to the samples Sarah posted the other year, she’s actually considered what a society like that would function, culturally and ethically, so it wouldn’t just be a hermaphrodite gloss on modern social problems.

              Which means the lefties would hate it with the heat of a thousand suns.

              Like

                  1. As long as there are orbiting space weapons vaporizing bad guys, I’m interested.

                    Couple of those would be pretty handy the last few weeks, IMHO. If I can’t have one of my own, I can at least read about them and dream…

                    Liked by 1 person

          1. ach.
            I didn’t find TLHOD all that satisfying. It might have been because it was one of a group of novels we had to pick from for a book report, as I’ve never been found of “assigned” reading. Similar issues with Rocannon’s World. I gave up on UKLG for a long time until I accidently picked up “A Wizard of Earthsea.”

            Like

            3. TLHOD all that satisfying. It might have been because it was one of a group of novels we had to pick from for a book report, as I’ve never been found of “assigned” reading.
              ……………………..

              I got out of assigned reading TLHOD. Went up to the instructor and said “Already read this. Do I have to read it again?” I re-read books all the time. Did then too, when nothing “new” caught my eye in the library. Didn’t care to re-read TLHOD. Not the last time that happened.

              Like

      4. Considering who I had for a college roommate for a few years, and several of my former RPG buddies, and the whole LARP thing, and Infantry, you are most likely not going to weird me out.

        The book might not be my cup of tea. So? Is there a market? Probably.

        You are a writer. Write it. Pen name it if you must.

        Like

      5. Write it.

        Best case scenario, it’s a hit. Worst case scenario, it’s not. Either way, you will have written the book you wanted to. You’re entitled to the occasional arthouse piece, if that’s what it ends up being. Especially if it recharges you for other series.

        As for what your readers will think of you, I don’t think you have to worry. No one who knows the story behind the book will begrudge you writing it. No one stumbling across the book on Amazon will have an opinion of you to tarnish. As for your returning readers who don’t follow your blog or newsletter, you can stick in a “no hard feelings” preface to warn them what they’re getting themselves into.

        You’ll get a few flouncers, but they do not and have never mattered. Anyone honest will take the book in the spirit in which it is presented.

        Like

  18. Our drug of choice is stretching our thinking around strange new thoughts. Sure, some areas of strange are familiar and comfortable. But down deep we crave that new jazz. That senser of wonder from a new perspective.

    To boldly read where our minds have not gone before!

    Because when we find that special artist who can entertain us all the while……

    Yeah, danger. Authors go new, and some “fans” go “ecch”. I wasn’t very thrilled with Heinlein’s last few books. I still like most of his stuff. Cant please everyone, but perhaps that strange new worldbuild will get you some additional fans who “Wait, -Sarah Hoyt- wrote this? Who knew?”

    Yeah, you knew all this. (sigh) Trying to be reassuring and encouraging. But my engineer brain is trying to “fix it”. ‘Cause thats how the Maker made me.

    “More Brain Food Drill Author! Make us think! Can’t smoke -us-!” (very big grin)

    Liked by 2 people

  19. I read a book a long time ago where homosexuality made sense, biologically (aliens, females a small minority). No details or this would be too long, but I was able to suspend disbelief and just enjoy the story, until a homosexual character told the MC to “Stay out of my bedroom.”

    Naive MC hadn’t even expressed disapproval, but just surprise. After that I was looking for “human culture” messaging, and it just ruined the whole thing.

    I tried to explain this to the author. She could not conceive of the possibility that I might object lon any grounds except homophobia. The fact that it didn’t fit with the culture slid right past her.

    Liked by 1 person

      2. I saw this when my kids were going through school and had to fight to keep them from developing the response. They’re trained to avoid thinking/deflect uncomfortable thoughts.

        Like

    2. There are anime that have it as a thing within the society, due to odd biological constraints. The two examples that come to mind – Saber Marionette J, and Vandread – both involve single-gender planets that use clones to reproduce. And they’re both comedies that focus on the havoc that takes place when the opposite sex is introduced (female androids in SMJ, and crews from a male planet and a female planet forced to work together in Vandread). But nothing much is made of it. A supporting character has a crush on the lead in SMJ, and it’s played for laughs. Some of Vandread’s characters are in established relationships. But while those relationships aren’t shoved behind a curtain, Vandread remembers that the focus is on relations between men and women.

      Like

  20. My main world is very fairy-tale standard, on the surface. Underneath it’s something else entirely, and those who can’t see past the surface get very uneasy.

    It took one of the ladies in my old writing group three books to break through and figure out what was different, and then she got angry. I’m still not sure if some of the others ever caught up.

    Like

  21. The Falconers. Andre Norton’s Falconers are shocking, really. They don’t live a pleasant lifestyle but a Spartanesque one. And today that would get her cancelled. One of the later stories by P.M. Griffin showed the Falconers moving away from that type of life precisely BECAUSE it wasn’t feasible in the long term anymore. I mentioned them – and the attitude against that type of writing – here: https://carolinefurlong.wordpress.com/2018/06/14/creating-a-cruel-culture-a-study-of-andre-nortons-falconers/

    Like

  22. Appropos of nothing here, except in a roundabout way:

    Two nights ago I woke up in the night and scribbled some Very Important, must-not-forget-in-the-morning ideas.

    The only thing legible to my daylight self: “The Al-aska Fighters Brigade claims to have developed long-range Moosles, threatening to destabilize an already fragile Mid-West peace process.”

    Stay weird.

    Like

  23. Perhaps it’s all the same and artist or craftsman is just a different name for it.

    My experience has been that if you “craft” long enough, well enough, or both, the art will come whether you want it to or not. You just don’t necessarily notice it because you think EVERYBODY does that.

    Like

  24. Perhaps it’s all the same and artist or craftsman is just a different name for it.

    My experience has been that if you “craft” long enough, well enough, or both, the art will come whether you want it to or not. You just don’t necessarily notice it because you think EVERYBODY does that.

    Like

  25. “When the feces strikes the oscillating air device and you see me smiling, that is the time to begin worrying” anon

    Like

  26. Sorry I missed it. I just try to write stuff that makes for a good read. And I don’t try to ‘write to market’, since I suck at marketing anyway…

    Liked by 2 people

    1. For some reason this reminds me of a line from a Don Martin piece in Mad Magazine back in the day:
      They also surf who only stand on waves.

      Like

  28. I’m going to stand by uncomfortable, because art should make you uncomfortable in the way a good, intimate friendship does: when you are close enough to someone that their flaws and inconsistencies and the places you’re unlike are obvious, and that scares and surprises you, because how can you love something that has that hint of the alien about it?

    Because the lesson is that everything outside your head is the alien, and the challenge and joy and shock of life is learning to bridge that divide, between you and the world outside of you, which is never exactly what you wish it would be.

    Liked by 1 person

  29. I’m going to stand by uncomfortable, because art should make you uncomfortable in the way a good, intimate friendship does: when you are close enough to someone that their flaws and inconsistencies and the places you’re unlike are obvious, and that scares and surprises you, because how can you love something that has that hint of the alien about it?

    Because the lesson is that everything outside your head is the alien, and the challenge and joy and shock of life is learning to bridge that divide, between you and the world outside of you, which is never exactly what you wish it would be.

    Like

  30. I try to do NaNoWriMo each November, but I haven’t been able to the last couple years. So I went back to the website, and the first thing I see is a forced public apology/resignation because something said in private was shared in public…

    It makes me question whether I really want to be there, and question the direction they’re taking. Especially when I start seeing posts that have been banned “by the community” with no explanation attached.

    How long before I’m banned over some stupid thing, or politely told I don’t fit the community and I should leave voluntarily?

    The last time it was about Antifa and Burn Loot Murder and “if you can’t express support…”

    I’m not good at doing what is expected. It makes me sad, and angry that something I enjoyed so much has been contaminated. Even if that contamination is mainly in my head, soon or late someone will expect me to use their pronouns or get angry at something I write.

    It’s inevitable. Once the leadership starts demanding apologies, it’s only a matter of time before the Karen’s are given free rein. At that point it’s all downhill.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Smells like an opportunity. If there isn’t a good alternative already, I bet you could gin up some interest at Mad Genius Club or the Writer Dojo Facebook group. There are a lot of writers out there who could use the kick in the pants of daily writing without the politics or virtue signaling.

      But yeah, it’s always rough seeing a beloved community go off the rails like that.

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        1. I haven’t been back since 2019, so it might not have been in my range. It takes a lot to kick me out of status quo.

          And I have never been involved in the forums, so a little more insulation from the madness.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. I know you know this, but– that’s also their usual pattern.

            Get a good hook in the places that folks don’t have an especially deep involvement in, that they don’t MIND avoiding if it’s just not their thing, and then expand out.

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              2. Book Club With Spikes has a writer’s section?

                https://discord.gg/GH55tsBj
                (Note, link is both volume and time limited to avoid spam issues.)

                Welcome! This is a gathering place for people who like books. Bibliophiles, unite! Separately, in our own homes.
                Pinning: welcome, ladies, gents, and Beings all. There are currently two rules: don’t be a jerk is the hard and fast one. If you must cuss, make it creative.

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