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bgalbrecht · 10-30-2017, 11:17 PM

I don't read much YA, and it does sound like the negative review campaign against The Black Witch is pretty bad. My personal impression is that in the culture wars, there has been a lot of campaigning both for and against individual works and authors by people who have not read the authors at all, from both sides of the culture wars. I wouldn't be at all surprised if a bunch of the 5 star reviews for that book are fake reviews from the "anti-SJW" crowd who had not read the book either.

Earlier this year the author of the article at the Federalist, Jon Del Arroz, was claiming to be a victim of PC forces when a science fiction convention chose not to invite him back this year this year as a guest author like they did last year (i.e., comp his membership and appear as a panelist), and was making a lot of claims of bias about the convention organizers which I thought were refuted by the organizers. On his blog, he was also encouraging people to vote for things he admitted not reading for the Dragon Awards (although I could be misremembering, and he might have only been encouraging people to nominate things he hadn't read), mostly either because he was friends with the authors, or they shared his political and/or religious views.

BTW, If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love, was nominated for a Hugo (a fan-based award) and did not win, but won the Nebula, which is voted on by the membership of the Science Fiction Writers of America. The rest of the commentary about the Hugos and the Sad Puppies are inaccurate, especially since most of the nomination hijacking was done by the Rabid Puppies, far right wing followers of Ted Beale, and I can assure you, having read the crap they nominated, there was little or no fun fiction in most of the stuff they and the no awards given in the categories where they stuffed the selections with their slate were deserved.

Anyway, to get back to YA, it may be that many parents don't want their kids to be reading YA books with sexual situations, romance, LGBT characters coming out, etc, but if the books getting chosen by YA kids (12-18 year olds), they're probably buying them because they're going through puberty and they're looking for validation that what they're feeling is normal. For the record, I don't think LGBT characters even when they are the protagonist influence kids sexuality. I don't think the publishers have an LGBT agenda, I think it's just that it's no longer a taboo subject like it was when I was young. if kids want to read about LGBT characters, it's either because they know they are, or they're not sure, or they have friends who are LGBT.

10-30-2017, 11:17 PM	#23
bgalbrecht Wizard Posts: 1,806 Karma: 13399999 Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: US Device: Nook Simple Touch, Kobo Glo HD, Kobo Clara HD, Kindle 4	I don't read much YA, and it does sound like the negative review campaign against The Black Witch is pretty bad. My personal impression is that in the culture wars, there has been a lot of campaigning both for and against individual works and authors by people who have not read the authors at all, from both sides of the culture wars. I wouldn't be at all surprised if a bunch of the 5 star reviews for that book are fake reviews from the "anti-SJW" crowd who had not read the book either. Earlier this year the author of the article at the Federalist, Jon Del Arroz, was claiming to be a victim of PC forces when a science fiction convention chose not to invite him back this year this year as a guest author like they did last year (i.e., comp his membership and appear as a panelist), and was making a lot of claims of bias about the convention organizers which I thought were refuted by the organizers. On his blog, he was also encouraging people to vote for things he admitted not reading for the Dragon Awards (although I could be misremembering, and he might have only been encouraging people to nominate things he hadn't read), mostly either because he was friends with the authors, or they shared his political and/or religious views. BTW, If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love, was nominated for a Hugo (a fan-based award) and did not win, but won the Nebula, which is voted on by the membership of the Science Fiction Writers of America. The rest of the commentary about the Hugos and the Sad Puppies are inaccurate, especially since most of the nomination hijacking was done by the Rabid Puppies, far right wing followers of Ted Beale, and I can assure you, having read the crap they nominated, there was little or no fun fiction in most of the stuff they and the no awards given in the categories where they stuffed the selections with their slate were deserved. Anyway, to get back to YA, it may be that many parents don't want their kids to be reading YA books with sexual situations, romance, LGBT characters coming out, etc, but if the books getting chosen by YA kids (12-18 year olds), they're probably buying them because they're going through puberty and they're looking for validation that what they're feeling is normal. For the record, I don't think LGBT characters even when they are the protagonist influence kids sexuality. I don't think the publishers have an LGBT agenda, I think it's just that it's no longer a taboo subject like it was when I was young. if kids want to read about LGBT characters, it's either because they know they are, or they're not sure, or they have friends who are LGBT.