Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
...all John Ringo's recent books read more like political manifestos than novels, to my mind (which is a pity, because he USED to write really, really good "hard" SF).
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Ever read any of John Norman's early "Gor" novels? They're good stories. But he found that a certain segment of his audience really, really went for the B&D angle. And since nobody else was writing for their niche, they'd buy anything he wrote. It didn't have to be good. It didn't even have to be readable. It just had to be their particular flavor of porn.
That's what's going on with Ringo: he's discovered that there's a market for his flavor of porn (figuratively or literally) and they'll buy anything he writes, even if it stinks on ice. Mike Harmon is their fantasy: ruler of his own petty kingdom, swilling beer, raping underage girls, killing anyone who disagrees with him, etc. They'll buy it and fantasize to it, and not care if it's any good or not; they're not buying it to be good.
Once upon a time, John Norman wasn't a half-bad writer ... but he gave it all up to write third-rate S&M porn, and his writing declined accordingly. John Ringo seems to be going the same way. It's unfortunate, because his early books were excellent. It seems that the more political they become, the worse the writing gets. He's depending on the theme rather than the writing to sell them, and judging by his sales, it's working, but it's a loss to literature.
I think this is true, by and large, of
any writer who forgets that writing is supposed to be about telling a story and decides to use it to wave their particular flag or exercise their particular fetish. It doesn't matter what the flavor of politics or social theory or strange sexuality is; the writing suffers.
Plus, as a reader, I find that if I disagree with the author, I want to reach through the book and throttle him , which is not conducive to a relaxing mood for reading, and if I agree with him, it's like having someone force-feeding me chocolate: just because I like something doesn't mean I want it rammed down my throat. Obviously I'm not typical, or John Ringo wouldn't have the sales figures he does (nor would several other writers), but that's how it works with me.
I still buy from Baen because they support something I find even more important than a couple of authors' politics: Not treating their customers like criminals. Behaving honorably, and trusting my honor. Proving to the "readers are the enemy" publishers that you can in fact do very well by giving your customers a good product at a fair price. I don't like to see them turning SF from a unifying force to a dividing one, but on the scale of social evils, that's still a lesser evil then criminalizing the customer.