Saturday Book Discussion: So, how about those Hugos?

[inverarity]

The 2014 Hugos will be awarded at WorldCon in London, August 14-18.

The 2014 Hugo Finalists
You may have heard there is some controversy this year, over the "Sad Puppies" slate of nominees promoted by Larry Correia and Vox Day. For those unaware of said controversy, Larry Correia (author of the popular "Monster Hunter" and Grimnoir Chronicles"

Comments

[hibiscusrose]

Can't comment on the Hugo controversy itself, as I'm not a voter and only heard a little bit before reading this. In fact, another blogger referenced Vox Day and I had to look him, having never heard of him. But I can tell you, having read over Vox's blog, I would never read anything by him. Don't think I've ever heard of Correia, so can't say anything either way.

Now, as to your question about the perceived misbehavior of authors--well, some I don't care about their private lives. I can admire an artist's work, be they dancer, actor, or writer, while admitting they're not nice people in a great many cases. Depending on how they get their personal/political feelings across, I may not even care about that (pretty sure I would not have gotten along with Heinlein politically for example, but I enjoy enough of his books that I don't care). The odds of me meeting them are slim and that's all I generally worry about. Now if they're not deft or they've switched to a "beat 'em over the head" routine, and it bothers me, then I have a simple solution: I stop reading them. I don't buy any of their books and never recommend them. I don't think I would bad-mouth them in a book discussion or review, but if asked, I would make it clear why I stopped reading them.

But there are limits and this certainly goes past them. Like you said, "I respect anyone's right to boycott whomever they like, avoid reading works that offend them, and condemn people they find hateful. But at the point where you're telling other people that their reading choices are immoral, you lose me completely." And I don't care if you're right of Pat Buchanan or left of Saul Alinsky--you don't get to dictate to me like that!

And as for the moderates getting tromped on--well, all I can say is that I noticed several years ago it didn't pay to be middle of the road in an Internet discussion. Both sides generally jump on you, spiked shoes first. Really, too bad. Common sense was the first casualty.

[paulliver]

My father had a policy of letting his kids read any book they want, and he is pretty happy with the results.

And artists are, in general, a temperamental lot. It's probably why when I was researching a lecture on literature I was actually impressed when some literary writers managed to have more published novels than ex-wives.

[little_e_]

"And as for the moderates getting tromped on--well, all I can say is that I noticed several years ago it didn't pay to be middle of the road in an Internet discussion. Both sides generally jump on you, spiked shoes first. Really, too bad. Common sense was the first casualty."

A great observation.