If you think gritty, but darkly humorous, might work, I’ll recommend Godstalk, by P. C. Hodgell (big surprise to those who’ve seen fantasy recommendations from me before, I know). The protagonist starts off at a rather low point (sick, amnesiac, being stalked by undead and, well, some other things that are arguably undead, but different), but she hits her stride pretty quickly. No dragons, but she could stake a claim on being a princess, though not much really comes of it in the first book. The book deals with her awakening in the city and attempts to fit into its life, even as she tries to find a way to get back to her people. In the process, she gets tangled up in trade wars, thievery, guild politics, and inadvertent theocide.
It’s complex, densely written, and has been my favorite novel ever since I first read it decades ago.
The 500 Kingdoms series and the Elemental Masters series are both fun takes on retelling fairy tales, and female protagonists abound. I like both, though I prefer the Elemental Masters.
Seconding recommendations for Lois McMaster Bujold (any of her stuff, really, though in this context, Sharing Knife in particular. Though if ever want Sci Fi with a strong female protagonist, look no further than Cordelia’s Honor.) and Discworld (Tiffany Aching stuff is so excellent)
Un-recommending Liveship (Tepid writing, super stereotypical issues, IMHO), and Mercedes Lackey.
Adding my recommendation for Sabriel, by Garth Nix. Technically this is “Young Adult” but the character is SO good, the worldbuilding is awesome, and the pacing is wonderfully brisk.
…as long as she doesn’t care that she’ll be reading the work of a known apologist/enabler of pederasty and molestation…I can’t touch Darkover books anymore, sadly.
You know, I try to separate the artist from the work. If I boycotted the work of every artist out there with political or ethical views I don’t agree with, or criminal pasts, I’d have damn little to read, look at, or listen to.
Marion Zimmer Bradley died almost fifteen years ago. The child molester that she supposedly enabled died twenty-one years ago. You’re not in any way contributing to the support of a child molester if you buy her books. Do you refuse to buy a copy of Beowulf because its author was a child molester? O.K., there’s no way to know if he was, but suppose he was. How would buying a copy of it be supporting child molestation?
There’s “views I don’t agree with” and then there’s what she did.
And yes, generally I don’t read the works of authors I find continuously or unrepentantly ethically objectionable. No Orson Scott Card in my library anymore, either. But I’m not monomaniacal about it - HP Lovecraft, for instance, was a racist, but in his case, very much a product of his times. Boy-Man Love wasn’t exactly 60s cultural mores, though, was it?
I also read lots of SF by authors whose political views I find objectionable - lots of Libertarians etc. But again, that’s not kiddie-fucking nor covering up for it.
Hell, MZB puts a somewhat-sympathetic paederastic relationship right in her Darkover books - Heritage of Hastur, I think it was.
Well, you are contributing to her estate, which largely sustains her friend (likely lover) and fellow Breen apologist Elisabeth Waters.
It would be sending a message to current child molestors that it’s OK; If you’re talented, history will forgive you. See also Jackson, Michael, whose videos still show up on VH1. Fuck that shit.
Do you refuse to watch Charlie Chaplin movies, since he was a child molester too? What about other fields? Do you refuse to use Euclidean geometry, since Euclid was a child molester too? O.K., there’s no possible way to know if he was a child molester, but suppose he was.
The world is full of people who have done incredibly evil things. The graves of the world are even fuller of such people. I can’t possibly take the time to investigate the backgrounds of every author of every book I want to read, every actor, director, screenwriter, and crew member of every film I want to watch, every creator of every scientific theory I want to use, every CEO of every corporation which manufactured, shipped, and sold every product I buy, etc. It’s law enforcement’s job to find, convict, and punish them, not mine.
Boycotting anything because you don’t like the owner, creator, etc. of that thing is just letting law enforcement off easy. In effect, we’re saying to them, “I know you can’t be bothered to enforce laws, so there are lots of evil people running around out there. Instead, I will just boycott the products of a tiny sample of such people. Yeah, that will show them. They raped and killed a dozen people once? Well, I won’t buy their book. That’s appropriate punishment.”
I think there’s nothing inconsistent in voting in a jury one day to send someone to prison for the rest of their life and the next day giving them the Nobel Prize or an Oscar. I can separate my feelings about someone’s crimes from my feelings about their creative work. Furthermore, I recognize that in many cases it will be impossible to ever know the background of such creators. As much as I dislike it too, I recognize that great creators are sometimes incredibly evil people in other respects.
I mean seriously, did you read this after you wrote it? Let’s go over a few basic points:
#1) The point of boycotting a book because you don’t like something the author did is to use your limited powers to help enforce some form of social justice, as you perceive it. #2) If there is no way to know if someone did or did not do something objectionable, then there is no need to assume the worst, and no reason to take action. (Duh?) #3) No one is stating that “not buying someone’s book” is an “appropriate punishment” and frankly, it’s pretty rude of you to put words in people’s mouths like that. Not buying someone’s book IS however, often about the only real way people have of interacting with these people, so you do what you can. How this constitutes “letting law enforcement off easy” is mystifying to me. #4) If you don’t care, that’s your business, but other people do, and should not be ridiculed for trying to do the right thing. Or are you going to trot out some sort of “think of the starving celebrities!” tripe next?
Do I have to pay Euclid’s estate money to use his theorems? And did Euclid create his theorems, as opposed to just discovering them?
No, and neither do I. And i’m not saying you should.
BUT
You then somehow make the giant logical leap that that then makes it OK to ignore the activities that you do know about.
Nope, I’m all in favour of a good social punishment too, like a shunning.
I’m not advocating boycotting MZB to punish MZB - the bitch is already dead, FFS. I’m advocating doing it because of the message it sends to others.
I do.
What about when their creative work enables, and indeed celebrates, their crimes, as MZB’s work financially enabled Breen’s activities AND condoned at least one paederastic relationship in her own fiction? What then?
In MZB’s case, we have all the background we need. Her own words damn her.
So fucking what? Creativity trumps morality, to you? Fuck that noise.
I don’t disagree with you, though for me the line is a little different, mainly because I rarely buy books at this point in my life.
I won’t give financial support if I can help it, and I won’t read things where what I know about the author makes the books ooky (that is the technical term).
Any McKinley recommendation needs to come with a warning for Deerskin. If you’re looking at the first Jacqueline Carey Kushiel series, I’d issue the same warning for the third book, Kushiel’s Avatar. One graphic rape scene apiece for each book, if you’re wondering.
I’d recommend J.V. Jones’ The Barbed Coil. A woman from modern San Diego gets drawn into a fantasy world and ends up being the one who has to save everyone.
**Deerskin **in general was a little WTF :eek: coming to it immediately after reading her other (much more child-friendly) work. I was more than a little traumatized by it, and I still haven’t ever gone back and read it again as an adult. Apart from the rape, I recall the whole damn book being pretty oogy (another technical term) between the weird mind-fuck state of the main character, the hangups of the father and the “Prince” characters and the relationships in general.
> Nope, I’m all in favour of a good social punishment too, like a shunning.
No, shunning is wrong. Even if I could consistently know who performed an evil action that deserves to be prosecuted, I wouldn’t do it. And, of course, neither you nor I actually know who really performed evil actions. I refuse to play God and pretend that I can know who’s evil. I refuse to try to usurp the role of law enforcement in punishing people who do criminal acts.
> Creativity trumps morality, to you?
No, read my post carefully. I said no such thing. Creativity and morality are separate realms. They should always be treated as such. The most brilliant writer or singer or musician or painter or whatever deserves to be treated exactly the same as any random bozo off the street in the way they are punished for their crimes. Being brilliant in their field should get them absolutely no special consideration by police, judges, and juries for their crimes. The other way round is also true, I believe. Their being evil has nothing whatsoever to do with how brilliant I think their creative acts are and has not effect on whether I want to experience their art.
> This is news to me.
Then you’ve never done any research into the matter. Chaplin was well known for finding very young girlfriends and dumping them after a short time when they became too old for his taste. He married some of them, but the marriages didn’t last. He continued to do this till his last marriage at 54, when he married an 18-year-old. He was apparently too tired to hunt young girls after that point, so he stuck with her the rest of his life.
And that’s my point. I seem to know much more about what despicable people many actors, directors, screenwriters, etc. are than you do, and if I boycotted every film for which I know how evil some person involved in the film is, I would have to give up watching movies at all. The same is true about fiction, although it’s a little easier there because there’s only one writer for a book, not dozens of participants as in movies. Is there any creative person other than Marion Zimmer Bradley whose works you are boycotting because of what the creator did? Is it just too much effort for you to examine the life of more than one creator?
Some of us would rather our money didn’t go to support things we know to be evil.
BTW, I know you’ve been told this before, but your inability to use the quote button makes responding to your posts much more trouble than they are generally worth. I don’t want to have to go in an edit out everything someone else said when I’m trying to reply to you. So, this will likely be my last reply to you in this thread.
Blaming Marion Zimmer Bradley for the child molestation done by her second husband misunderstands how child molestation works. Some people talk as if there is an completely unbreachable boundary between an utterly evil group of people who molest children and/or enable molesters and a utterly perfect group of people who are the victims of child molestation. Unfortunately, child molestation is a crime where such clear distinctions are very difficult. I’m told (although I’m not an expert on this) that people who are molested as children often grow up to be molesters and enablers themselves. That doesn’t mean that molesters don’t deserve to be sent to prison or whatever. It does mean that it’s harder than you think to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys.
Incidentally, I’m not particularly a fan of Bradley’s works. I have a bunch of them, but they were all acquired quite a while ago (and signed by Bradley at various conventions), long before I heard about any of this. I own a lot of books, many signed, and will probably never have time to read some of them. I’ve read a little of Bradley’s fiction and am not particularly impressed. I once told a fan of her works at one of those conventions how silly I found some of her fans, who would like to think of themselves as characters on Darkover and who treat the societies there almost as if they were the basis of a religion. He told me that whatever I thought of the quality of Bradley’s prose or the ridiculousness of her fans, she had had a rough life and had somehow survived it. She was raped by her stepfather as a child and beaten by her first husband. She still managed to go on to be a prolific author. Her background is typical of people who become enablers.
Breen was already convicted. MZB’s testimony there is already on record. No speculation required.
Once again - Breen already convicted, MZB already on record as enabling.
For fuck’s sake - I’m not speculating or passing on a rumour about this particular case - the facts are already out there.
Nope.
No argument there.
Nope.
Agreed - evil people can be brilliant…
…and this is where you lose me. Just because someone is creatively brilliant, does not mean I have to support their creative work. I take the whole person into account, and make an overall judegement based both on their work and what I know about them.
Chasing 16, 17, 18 girls (or boys), while completely skeevy in an adult, is not child-molesting. Fucking 10 year-olds is. It’s completely disingenuous to equate the two.
Apparently not - I was well aware of Chaplin’s relationships, I just wasn’t disingenuous enough to call it child molestation.
Gosh, pretty ballsy of you to go right for the False Dilemma Fallacy right away.
At no point have I said all objectionable creators should be boycotted. Only MZB (and OSC, in this thread)
I’ve already mentioned Orson Scott Card in this very thread.
Actually, I do things in the opposite fashion from you - I tend to read up about authors, their biographies, and the causes they support, before I start reading their books. I generally only read the SF works of authors I already want to support for non-creative-related reasons (e.g. Pratchett, Banks, Mieville, Le Guin…). This may give me a more limited choice, but it’s the ethical approach. And also the reason I don’t read too much American SF.
