There's a bit more to this crusade:
http://flavorwire.com/533478/uncomfo...genre-fiction/
Quote:
BOOKS
In Defense of Uncomfortable Subject Matter in Genre Fiction
BY TOM HAWKING AUGUST 18, 2015 2:08 PM
It’s an interesting essay, and makes some valid points about the weight of nostalgia on this particular corner of genre fiction. But it also falls into a pattern that’s worryingly prevalent these days in the world of criticism, particularly when it gets to the topic of rape and sexual assault in fantasy. It’s at this point that Lutgendorff’s argument falls into the trap of confusing a depiction of something in a work of fiction for an endorsement of that thing (at least, in any instance where there’s an absence of explicit, unequivocal condemnation of it).
There is certainly no such explicit condemnation in the work of Stephen Donaldson, for whom Lutgendorff reserves some of her harshest criticism. She describes Lord Foul’s Bane (the first book of Donaldson’s Unbeliever series, #58 on NPR’s list) as “one of the most miserable books on the list,” largely for its depiction of a rape committed by Thomas Covenant, the book’s protagonist. I’m singling this out, not because I necessarily want to defend Donaldson (although, for what it’s worth, I think Lutgendorff’s criticism isn’t entirely warranted), but because Lutgendorff’s problem doesn’t appear to be with the nature of his depiction of rape as much as it is with the presence of rape in the narrative at all.
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More at the source.
Also worth noting, this relevant quote from S.M. Stirling:
"There is a technical term for someone who confuses the opinions of a character in a book with those of the author. That term is idiot."
Conquistador (2003)