Story

[sartorias]

My one brief appearance in Nebula waters was with this story, which went on to be anthologized a few times

Comments

[estara]

"I do not want to put down a story or book and feel worse than I did when I picked it up."

THISS!!!!

[sartorias]

*g*

[starshipcat]

Count me in on that too -- I want my fiction to leave me feeling like at least the price was worth it. As a historian, I read far too much unrelentingly grim non-fiction, mostly because I've done so many articles on some of the worst parts of the century just gone by, of tyranny and the abuse of power, in which now and then justice was accomplished by purest of accident, and even then often sacrificing innocents in the process. And even when the victims are still alive, I'm often tormented by knowing that trying to help them might well make their situations worse instead of better, if somebody decided I was being a meddlesome busybody and took offense, and then took it out on the very person I was hoping to help.

[estara]

I'm a history teacher, so I don't do research, but my mother was one of the refugees from East Prussia during Wold War 2 (she was 13), so even in our family we have impressions of the war (my maternal grandfather never came back and her grandparents all died during the trek west). And from all I've read about particular dark sides of history, we so rarely learn from what happened before...

As a German I'm very wary of offending anyone of Jewish descent, the fact that my father is from Damascus (Syria) doesn't help with me feeling awkward.

In short: I don't read recent non-fiction history unless I am forced to. My interest has always been the middle ages and renaissance - dark enough at that!

[sartorias]

I've met several others who say much the same. On a very smaller scale, it might relate to why I have no interest in reading fiction about the Nixon years, etc.

[estara]

That sounds like a likely reason to me, indeed.

[sausconys_books]

Seconded! I have enough despair and darkness in my own life and at least at this point in time, reading something that makes me feel good is a priority. I used to love darker books, but now I can't even bring myself to read them.

[estara]

Interesting.

I never liked darker books for their own sakes, just as a foil for the heroes to grow (so conflict is nifty, dystopia and sad end is not), but the more stress I have in my daily life, the lower my tolerance for dreary books, even if beautifully written and of high literary merit ^^.