I was perusing the Guardian Books section yesterday, as it is the only newspaper with a decent book section not behind a paywall, and came across an article about the rise of new Space Opera. The article was the usual tone from this particular journalist, who seems to sneer at anything other than lit-fic and poetry. However, near the end I came across this:
Quote:
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Today space opera is a battlefield for competing fantasies of the future. As America plunged in to renewed militarism after 9/11, sci-fi books again began to mirror real-world wars. Baen books specialises in works of "military SF" that, behind their appalling prose styles and laughable retro cover designs, speak to a right-wing readership who can recognise the enemies of America even when they are disguised as cannibal lizard aliens. Baen's chief editor Toni Weisskopf went so far as to issue a diatribe against any and all sci-fi that did not pander to this conservative agenda.
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Now, far be it for me argue that Baen books are high literature, and that they are all brilliantly written, but in my opinion (and this is just my opinion, feel free to disagree with me) they are not all as bad as this journalist makes out. His objections seem to stem from the fact that some of the authors don't share his political world view, in which case why even mention Baen in the first place? Here is a link to the full article for you to look at, as it is otherwise quite interesting.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/boo...illary-justice