Sold!
I just read this review of Jim Butcher’s latest book:
1 of 106 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
I’m just going to rate this a 1/5 on principle…
By Zoe S. Galaitsis on October 6, 2015I’m just going to rate this a 1/5 on principle, after Jim Butcher got nominated by Vox Day and his Rabid Puppies. Not sure what’s going on there but Butcher hasn’t come out and said a thing, not even to deny their platform of reviling women, gays, and non-Christians. I’m generally wary of reading anything by him or giving him any money at this point.
Hmm. Funny. I do not recall our platform reviling women, gays and non-Christians. I recall our platform was to support books on their merit and entertainment value, regardless of political correctness, and to give science fiction awards based on their skill at telling a science fiction story, not to give science fiction awards based on political party loyalties.
I do recall being in the receiving end of actionable libels from major international news organization, and I do recall thinking that no one was stupid enough actually to believe such obvious and clumsy lies, but in this case I overestimated the intelligence of the reading public. I thought that they would be smart enough to, you know, read.
Therefore the principle that this reviewer is upholding is the unreality principle, that principle that lies are better than truth, and outrageous lies are better than lies; the principle that injustice is better than justice, so judging books based on the fact that someone you arbitrarily and unjustly decided to hate likes those books is better then reading the book and judging on the merit.
Have you wondered why award-winning SFF books and stories, the kind sold to libraries and touted as best sellers, are all so bland and bad?
Consider the simple logic of it. A community must either judges stories on the merit or not on the merit.
If the community judges stories on the merit, then the most meritorious works will be lauded, assuming the community has any taste at all. (And if you do not agree with the tastes of science fiction readers, why read science fiction?)
If, on the other hand, the community judges stories not on the merit, as when, for example, you judge the story on the political correctness of the message or of the author’s private life, then not the most meritorious works will be lauded. Bland and bad stories will be promoted and feted, and your, the reader, will not hear if there are any good stories out there.
Do you want to know why brilliant hard-core science fiction like THE MARTIAN by Weir did not win awards but boring and predictable lecture-fiction with little science fiction in it, or none, won instead? It is because fairplay is not in fashion among the termites who have eaten their way into positions of influence in the award-nominating structure.
Envy the Morlock! How simple it becomes to live in a world with no right or wrong, which are subtle and silent and require a nicety of judgment and wisdom to discern: but party loyalty is obvious, self-aggrandizing and loud, and any idiot can see who is a member of the groupthink collective, and who is an unperson scorned by Big Brother.
Humans think. Morlocks hate.
They hate whoever the two minute hate says to hate. It does not matter whether Emmanuel Goldstein is real or not, or whether Jim Butcher writes well or poorly. The target is created for the sake of the hate; the hatred is not a reaction to some hateful thing, real or imaginary the target has does or is.
Be that as it may, this review was a sufficient incentive to buy a copy of Mr Butcher’s latest book. Money permitting, I shall buy two copies.
I don’t know and I don’t care what Mr Butcher’s political leanings, sexual preferences, denomination or race is. I have not examined his Ahenpass, or discovered is he has a quatroon as a greatgrandfather. I am not a Leftist. I care if he can perform the job for which I pay him, that is, write a good story in return for my hard earned book buying dollar.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Cinder-Spires-Aeronauts-Windlass/dp/0451466802/
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
