What on EARTH are Baen playing at?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Iphinome

Isn't Eric Flint openly left wing though. I'm pretty sure if they thought a story about gay married space hippie atheists who go around the galaxy performing abortions for unwed teenagers and then charging the costs to the state would make more money than they'd lose they'd print it.

Yes, Eric Flint is a communist. A refreshing balance to all the right-wing authors at Baen.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

At least Mercedes Lackey doesn't think any seriously twisted sexual fantasies she might happen to have should be marketed as novels.

Oh, certainly not a slam, as far as I know she's not part of the completely-unrealistic-and-needs-a-slap part of the American left whose preaching annoys me. And while I haven't read much of her work, that dinosaur story is great.

(I can generally get on with the right better, when we openly disagree...mostly because for various reasons it seems we're more likely to agree to disagree)

As to what Mr. Ringo's written, I hear he practically had to have those novels forced out of him...and I'm not reading them. Shrug, I can't stand any Heinlien *except* Starship Troopers either, so...

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

While I seriously disagree with certain parts of this thread, I have to say that the whole discussion has been thought provoking.

That said, I still read what I like and like what I read (for the most part)..

I agree although some parts had reminded me a typical topic at Spanish sci-fi news: Is Heinlein fascist ("facha")?

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

As to what Mr. Ringo's written, I hear he practically had to have those novels forced out of him...and I'm not reading them.

The first one. It was the book he wrote to get it out of his head so he could go on writing the stuff he wanted to. I'm not sure what's more disturbing -- the fact that it was in his head in the first place (that said, there are some pretty toxic corners in my own head) or the fact that his fanbase ate it up and demanded more. Which he not at all reluctantly provided. I'm still dragging my way through Watch on the Rhine, though, so it'll be a while until I have the time, dedication, and stomach to start in on Ghost and its many sequels.

It doesn't help that I don't really mesh with his writing style, even in straightforward books like the early Posleen War ones. I couldn't tell you why; it just doesn't work for me.

Shrug, I can't stand any Heinlien *except* Starship Troopers either, so...

Have you tried The Moon is a Harsh Mistress? That's one of my favorites, along with Citizen of the Galaxy and Tunnel in the Sky.

Mercedes Lackey is a falconer and raptor rehabilitator. I think there is a certain amount of clear thinking forced upon one by dealing on a daily basis with feather-covered bundles of I-want-to-kill-you.

In "The Wee Free Men", I think it was, Terry Pratchett defined a witch, not as a person who has second sight, but one who has "first sight and second thoughts" -- someone who sees things as they are, and someone capable of self-analysis of their own thinking. I find that to be the kind of person I get along with best, whatever their political viewpoint, possibly because that is the only kind of person one can really have a productive discussion with. Unfortunately, too many people have what I call religious issues: their personal beliefs (social, political, scientific, even literary) become like a religion to them, and they think that if they just believe really, really hard, it'll all come true. Look at the politics of both left and right (not to mention the more dogmatic libertarians) and you'll find all the examples you could ever need. They don't have first sight; they see things as they expect them to be, or want them to be, not as they are. They assign attributes to labels, and then expect those attributes to manifest themselves in anything (or anyone) they affix those labels to. And they are totally, completely incapable of recognizing that their ways of thinking, their collections of labels, their personal dogmas, are a way rather than the way.

The do-gooders in "Last Rights" are a perfect example. They attached the label "poor oppressed creatures" to the dinosaurs and expected them to behave accordingly. However, the dinosaurs acted like dinosaurs anyway. When reality contradicted their image, they rejected reality and clung to that image.

Part of the problem is that we're used to living in a negotiable world. Many of the things that affect us, starting with our first interactions with our parents as tiny babies, can be negotiated in some way. Our words, and the feelings that generate them, can influence our world. We can negotiate about staying up past our bedtimes, about whether that paper really merited a C, about leases and raises and forum bans and returning broken clocks. As a result, many of us are ill-equipped to deal with things which can't be negotiated, like giant lizards with tiny brains, or other things that directly involve the laws of nature rather than the laws of man. You can negotiate if you get caught breaking the traffic law that dictates what happens if you drive over 120 kph, but you can't negotiate if you get caught breaking the law of physics that dictates what happens if you drive into a tree. No matter what you think will happen if you drive your car into a big, solid tree, no matter what you hope will happen, no matter what you want to happen, no matter what you believe will happen, what actually happens is under the control of the universe, not your own mind. I find that many of the people I can talk with most productively are those whose hobbies include things such as rock climbing. The law of gravity has no appeals process.

People who are pragmatic rather than dogmatic can usually find some common ground and work toward common goals. Unfortunately, such people are a vanishing minority.

[queentess]

What this guy said:

Originally Posted by PKFFW

What it boils down to, I think, is that great writing will rise above the genre it is generally defined within. Orwell, Bradbury etc were great writers and therefore so much more than simplistic science fiction themes can be gotten from their works. This does not negate the science fiction themes that are there though and therefore the label of science fiction is valid if one is inclined to label them in the first place.

[edited for space]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

Orwell, and I'll say this again, in my analysis, does not fit into these genres either. Neither does Joyce, or to take an author who many believe to be science-fiction, neither does Ray Bradbury. Once they break the expectations of genre (any genre), then genre no longer can be applied to said writer.

My rule of thumb is quite simple nowadays, if I don't know what to expect when I pick up the book and still don't know what to expect after a page or so, then I'll continue reading. Literary merit or otherwise, the book has to surprise me in some way, and that way is very rarely going to be with genre any more (just by dent of experience).

I think your wording is misleading, and I still think labeling works into genres is a good idea, but I agree with you.

In a nutshell, it sounds like you rebel against labeling works. It also sounds like you just like 'good writing'. In your mind, you've made the connection that anything put into a neat little genre is automatically 'bad writing'. I believe works can span multiple genres, and putting it into a genre doesn't make it bad. (Think of Gmail smart tags, where you can endlessly tag something to a genre )

Labeling with genres is just a way to, as you said, make the books more marketable. That's the ONLY purpose that genres serve. If I know I like science fiction, I will probably like other science fiction works. The rub is that there is a LOT of dreck out there. I've read so many bad fantasy novels (or something that, in your words, doesn't 'transcend the genre') that I no longer read anything from that genre unless it's specifically recommended to me. But I don't believe that all fantasy is bad. Likewise, I tend not to enjoy mystery novels because I find them formulaic. This isn't to say they're bad because they belong to a genre, just that I don't typically find them appealing.

In all my not-very-many years, I can wisely say that I won't avoid something because it's labeled to a genre. But as I age, I rely more and more upon word-of-mouth recommendations and in-depth reviews than I do genre categories for selecting books to read.

[TimMason]

Genre is, in the end, a contract made between writer and reader. Like any contract, it can be broken, both fruitfully and unfruitfully. Some writers stick to the contract and some readers like them for that. Other readers prefer looking for writers who will break the contract, and are always pleased when they find them.

High literature is, for the most part, genre-themed. Jane Austen used fairy tales and the gothic novel. So did Angela Carter. Paul Auster gives us hard-boiled detectives. Both high and low literature trail roots back to the Medieval exempla. Here's one for your enjoyment:

CONCERNING GERARD, A KNIGHT, WHOM THE DEVIL CARRIED IN A MOMENT FROM THE CHURCH OF ST. THOMAS IN INDIA TO HIS OWN COUNTRY
Caesar of Heisterbach, Dist. VIII, Cap. LIX. (Vol.II, p.131ff)
In a village which is called Holenbach there lived a certain knight named Gerard. His grandsons are still living, and hardly a man can found in that village who does not know the miracle which I am king to tell about him. He loved St. Thomas the Apostle so ardently and honored him so especially above the other saints that he never refused any pauper seeking alms in the name of that one. Moreover he was accustomed to offer to the saint Many private services, such as prayers, fasts and the celebration of masses.
One day, by the permission of God, the devil, the enemy of all good men, knocking at the knight's gate, in the form and dress of a pilgrim, sought hospitality in the name of St. Thomas. He was admitted with all haste and, since it was chilly and he pretended to be catching cold, Gerard gave to him his own fur cape, which was not badly worn, to cover himself with when he went to bed. When the next morning he who had seemed a pilgrim did not appear, and the cape was sought and not found, his wife in anger said to the knight, " You have often been deceived by wanderers of this kind and yet You persist in your superstitions But he replied calmly, "Do not be disturbed, St. Thomas will certainly make good this loss to us."
The devil did this in order to provoke the knight to impatience on account of the loss of his cape, and to extinguish in his heart his love for the Apostle. But what the devil had prepared for his destruction redounded to the glory of the knight; by it the latter was incited the more strongly, the former was confused and punished. For after a little time Gerard wanted to go to the abode of St. Thomas, and when he was all ready to start, he broke a gold ring into two pieces before the eyes of his wife, and joining them together in her presence, gave one piece to her and kept the other himself, saying, "You ought to trust this token. Moreover, I ask you to wait five years for my return, and after that you can marry any one you please." And she promised.
He went on a very long journey and at length with great expense and very great labor reached the city of St. Thomas the Apostle. There he was saluted most courteously by the citizens and received with as great kindness as if he had been one of them and well known to them. Ascribing this favor to the blessed Apostle he entered the oratory and prayed, commending himself, his wife, and all his possessions to the saint. After this, remembering the limit fixed, and thinking that the five years ended on that very day, he groaned and said, "Alas! my wife will now marry some other man." God had delayed his journey on account of what is to follow.
When he looked around in sorrow he saw the above mentioned demon walking about in his cape. And the demon said, "Do you know me, Gerard?" He said, it No, I do not know you, but I know cape." The demon replied, "I am he who sought hospitality from you in the name of the Apostle; and I carried off your cape, for which I have been severely punished." And he added, "I am the devil, and I am commanded to carry you back to your own house before nightfall, because your wife has married another man and is now sitting with him at the wedding banquet." Taking him up, the devil crossed in part of a day from India to Germany, from the east to the west, and about twilight placed him in his own house without injury
Entering his own house like a stranger, when he saw his own wife eating with her spouse, he drew near and in her sight taking out the half of the ring, he sent it to her in a cup. When she saw it, she immediately took it out and joining it to the part given to her she recognized him as her husband. Immediately jumping up she rushed to embrace him, proclaiming that he was her husband Gerard and saying good-bye to her spouse. Nevertheless, out of courtesy Gerard kept the latter with him that night. In this as in the preceding miracle it is sufficiently evident how much the blessed Apostles love and glorify those who love them.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

The first one. It was the book he wrote to get it out of his head so he could go on writing the stuff he wanted to. I'm not sure what's more disturbing -- the fact that it was in his head in the first place (that said, there are some pretty toxic corners in my own head) or the fact that his fanbase ate it up and demanded more.

I'm not sure that much of "his" fanbase, his scifi fanbase, did. I certainly have no interest in then, but if they sell that well - I can understand why he keeps writing them, and that they have a solid fanbase.

As to "being in his head", well, some of the David Drake's Slammers stuff is also pretty unpleasant. David talks in the Complete Slammers that Jim Baen wouldn't look him in the eye when he was buying it, back then. I find them good stories, personally, but that is a personal preference. And... I won't read anything Kratman's even co-written, personally. My choice again (I have read a two-page synopsis of each of the ones I've skipped which leaves me feeling I'm missing nothing).

Then again, I like Mr. Ringo, I got to play with the LOTA setting for a RPG which was very nearly published, and I like doing that sort of thing, soo

Have you tried The Moon is a Harsh Mistress? That's one of my favorites, along with Citizen of the Galaxy and Tunnel in the Sky.

I have a big enough interest pile...I'll stick em on the end somewhere

(not to mention the more dogmatic libertarians)

Yea, please <winces> (I'm a classic liberal, and they keep trying to claim me as one of their own, which I am SO not).

And, er, I wouldn't recommend being shot at for a wake-up call in reality, but it's remarkable how well it works. (No, I have not been in the military. Northern Israel, and leave it at that) It's actually one of the reasons I can get on with some of right mil sci-fi writers, mainly vets - they're just willing to let unimportant things drop when you're working with them, in favour of getting things done.

[Worldwalker]

I'm waiting for the third part of the Complete Slammers to come out before I buy them all, because I know what will happen the instant I have them on my 505, and what will happen is not compatible with accomplishing anything more productive than eating what is put in front of me, and tending to the consequences of that eating.

Yeah, there's a lot that's unpleasant in the Slammers books, but it's different from the Kildara books. I think the big difference is in not having a viewpoint character that pretty much exults in being a sick %#$@. Partly, I suppose, it's because the various Slammers stories are less tightly connected, rather than being the story of a single individual's experiences and actions. Another part is that the characters often have a sense that what they're involved with is a tragedy and a waste, but it's happening, and they're there, and it's the kind of job they're good at. One comes away with the feeling that (nearly) everyone, even Colonel Hammer, would prefer to live in a world that had no work for them, but that's not how it is, so they'll do their job. (I'm not even going to try to get Steuben into this) Mike Harmon enjoys what he does -- from what I've read to this point, he wouldn't have it any other way -- and his actions, and more important his lifestyle, are presented as desirable, even ideal.

Even in the Posleen books, I don't see the same kind of depth that Drake brings to his writing. It's all black and white, good guys versus bad guys (and not even nuanced bad guys; one-dimensional bad guys who want to eat us). Are the Slammers the good guys or the bad guys? It depends on who you ask. There's no ambiguity in the Posleen War. We win, or we get eaten. I don't like to use the term "military porn" or its variants because they have been so often directed against the things that I enjoy, but the way Ringo describes weapons in particular seems to incline that way. To Drake, a tribarrel is a tool; to Ringo, a SHEVA is a lover. Different generations, I suppose, and more than that, the difference between the grimness of Vietnam and the nationalism of the Reagan years.

Another difference is in the authors' attitudes. Going back to what I said earlier about the dogmatic versus the pragmatic, Drake impresses me as being one of the pragmatic. Like the Slammers, he got any illusions burned out of him a long time ago. Ringo is -- and again, I'm getting this from his writing and his commentaries on his writing, not from knowing him personally -- is dogmatic. I can't think of a character in his stories who disagrees with the viewpoint characters' ideology who is not a two-dimensional straw man (I guess that would be sort of a woven mat?). They only exist so that Ringo, speaking through his POV characters, can discredit their beliefs -- which are generally exaggerated and distorted mockeries of real-world ideas he thinks are wrong. Of the two of them, I can easily see Drake having a reasoned discussion with someone whose ideology he disagrees with, while it seems to me that Ringo would just chant "USA! USA!" any time the other person tried to speak.

[DawnFalcon]

Actually, a SHEVA is a homicidal cartoon rabbit, but hey.

I think you're overlooking the March (Empire of Man) series and Cally's War (and The Hero, although it's non-cannon now). "But they're co-written." Well, wouldn't be the first author to work better collaboratively...

He also needs to do more shorts, his two Honourverse shorts are genuinely funny.

*shrugs* I don't try and pretend most of his stories aren't pulp...it doesn't bother me. Oh, and a fun fact: precisely three of the thirty-five books he's written are NOT legally available for free online.


I also think you're overdoing it on the belief thing (ignoring Ghost, as I've not read them). It's not like he's Michael Z. Williamson or anything. (For him, you can talk about beating you with a belief round the head!)

[Freeshadow]

but you can't negotiate if you get caught breaking the law of physics that dictates what happens if you drive into a tree. No matter what you think will happen if you drive your car into a big, solid tree, no matter what you hope will happen, no matter what you want to happen, no matter what you believe will happen, what actually happens is under the control of the universe, not your own mind.

you want to look up the term "Semmelweis-Reflex" (or 'I'dont believe in bacteria')

But labeling is a nice point to the problem, my personal example:
I live in Germany; everytime when - being confronted with people living here for dozens of years and hardly speaking a word - I dare to say that it'd be a kind of respect and every day social cooperation to have put more effort into learning the local language, there will be always someone in the crowd telling me that I'm a Nazi-a*hole.
Telling them that I'm far from expecting something I would not be able to achieve myself, because German is NOT my primary language (it's Polish, but i speak both free of influences, and accent of the other) telling this and really seeing in their eyes their "label-attaching machine" getting jammed is always an interesting and funny experience.

[Worldwalker]

Do I even want to know how many languages you speak? Besides the obvious three?

I really love the mental image of people's label-attaching machines getting jammed. I'll have to remember that one. It really is fun watching them realize how wrong they've been (especially if it involves them making fools of themselves in public) and trying to backpedal as fast as they can. I have a bit of a subversive streak.

[Freeshadow]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Do I even want to know how many languages you speak? Besides the obvious three? 1)

I really love the mental image of people's label-attaching machines getting jammed. 2) I'll have to remember that one. It really is fun watching them realize how wrong they've been (especially if it involves them making fools of themselves in public) and trying to backpedal as fast as they can. I have a bit of a subversive streak.

1) That'd be it - my french isn't really worth to be mentioned - at least along with my standards its too lousy.

2) That's why I chose said analogy. its great to look on their faces whilst distinguishable thinking steps are processed:

• alien set_label = poor rather helpless hardly locally speaking person;
• set_behaviour = live with it calling it 'multicultural tolerance'; (may I mention HOW MUCH I hate PC !?)
• "anti alien" comment set_label = evil german nazi; (in disguise since i prefer my top NOT cannonball-shaved)
• immigrant himself = discard_label;
• rescan_label-database;
• ERROR: wrong or missing label: user halted (sheepish expression on face)

To quote a polish poet

Originally Posted by Julian Tuwim

The brain is an instrument, with whose aid some people think, that they think.