Are Baen books really that bad?

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Difflugia

That one's Mother of Demons, if you wanted to know. It's one of my favorites. The only politics I've really noticed in his books is in 1632, and even that's just a bit of admiration for labor unions.

Yup that's the one. Was good. I didn't see anything political about it. I just don't read a lot of sci/fi so I don't think I've read anything else by him. Maybe a short story and I used to read his columns when they were doing the short story magazine. I really enjoyed those.

[Apache]

If I remember correctly, Mother of Demons was his first book. And yes it was very good.
Apache

[Little.Egret]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

Yup that's the one. Was good. I didn't see anything political about it. I just don't read a lot of sci/fi so I don't think I've read anything else by him. Maybe a short story and I used to read his columns when they were doing the short story magazine. I really enjoyed those.

I am sure any really committed critic could find lots to complain of in Mother of Demons.

Free sex, non use of money, biology influencing culture, cannibalism, probably Marxism if you look closely.

Here's the Baen Free Library, Miller & Lee especially recommended

http://www.amazon.com/s/?url=search-...publisher=Baen

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?url=searc...publisher=Baen

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

I never read them for their sci/fi. The first Baen books I read were Mercedes Lackey. Back then I didn't pay any attention to the publisher. It was years before I looked at Baen to see what else they had that I might like--and it was after reading Holly Lisle who wrote some great and entertaining fantasy and what would be called urban fantasy today. It probably wasn't until I started submitting books to publishers that I even REALIZED they were known for sci/fi first and fantasy second.

There are a lot of readers out there who pay no mind at all to who the publisher is, what they may or may not specialize in and so on. There's nothing wrong with paying attention or not paying attention to such details either.

I only became aware of Baen through their ebook business.

Until then, they were just another publisher; a logo on a few books that caught my eye. After I downloaded their Free Library to my mother's RocketReader she started recommending stuff to me (163x, the Belisarius saga, etc) so I dug around, found the first few free CDs, found the webscriptions and worked my way back to the first. Been buying them mostly without fail.

Which is why I know they aren't only (or even primarily) about MSF: I own 657 of their books and I know what I have.

[RDaneel54]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

I own 657 of their books and I know what I have.

Wow! That's a lot of Baen books.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

I only became aware of Baen through their ebook business.

Until then, they were just another publisher; a logo on a few books that caught my eye. After I downloaded their Free Library to my mother's RocketReader she started recommending stuff to me (163x, the Belisarius saga, etc) so I dug around, found the first few free CDs, found the webscriptions and worked my way back to the first. Been buying them mostly without fail.

Which is why I know they aren't only (or even primarily) about MSF: I own 657 of their books and I know what I have.

I was introduced to Baen books well before ebooks came out. Mercedes Lackey and David Weber both hit the scene in the late 80's. I started reading David Weber because one of the clerk's at the local SF&Mystery bookstore recommended this wonderful new writer (She was apparently his sister or SIL, I don't remember which) about that time. Baen had quite a stable of writers in the early 90's - Weber, Drake, Moon, Lackey and Bujold.

[Fbone]

Looking through my Goodreads shelves I find 11 Baen books listed. Five of them I abandoned and other six were rated D, D+, D+, D+, D+, and C-.

It's apparent that Baen books aren't for me. That's ok. I gave them a chance and now I know to avoid them in the future.
One book that resembles the Guardian article is James Hogan's Inherit the Stars.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by RDaneel54

Wow! That's a lot of Baen books.

At their website, the listing of "my books" runs 19 pages.
(Shrug)

All the CDs, most of the webscriptions, all the original library.
Been at it since the PDA era.

Before I found their digital stuff, I had maybe a dozen of their paperbacks.
By publisher, my biggest accumulation is Doubleday/SFBC; triple digits in hardcover. DAW is number 2, Ballantine 3, ACE 4, DelRey 5.

The stuff accumulates over the years.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Looking through my Goodreads shelves I find 11 Baen books listed. Five of them I abandoned and other six were rated D, D+, D+, D+, D+, and C-.

It's apparent that Baen books aren't for me. That's ok. I gave them a chance and now I know to avoid them in the future.
One book that resembles the Guardian article is James Hogan's Inherit the Stars.

I'll bet every publisher out there has at least one book that resembles the publisher article...

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Fbone

It's apparent that Baen books aren't for me. That's ok. I gave them a chance and now I know to avoid them in the future.
One book that resembles the Guardian article is James Hogan's Inherit the Stars.

Uh, how does it resemble it?
Just curious.

Hogan is one of my favorites: THRICE UPON A TIME is my number two time-travel story and THE MINERVAN EXPERIMENT (of which INHERIT THE STARS is part 1) a top 10 series.

(BTW, INHERIT THE STARS was published by DelRey back in1977, before there was a BAEN.)

[Red Falcon]

Brad R. Torgersen has a reply to the article that started this discussion here:
http://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Red Falcon

Brad R. Torgersen has a reply to the article that started this discussion here:
http://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/.

Love the title.
The article's not bad, either.

All I can say is: word.

[Apache]

I would not consider Hogan to be a Right Wing Conservative.Not to mention Hogan leaned more towards Libertarian and Anarchists politics in his books.
Yes I like SFMil & Adventure SF and have been buying Baen Books ever since Jim Baen started his company.
Apache

[NormHart]

Baen Books is the reason I bought an e-reader, the reason I found MobileRead, and the reason I have a library of in excess of 3000 books here in my home. I started buying dead tree Baen books years ago and I soon began to look for the Baen logo in the bookstores with all the passion and excitement that I used to devote to searching for the Rocketship logo to the left almost a half-century ago. Baen Books has resurrected so many out of publication books that I can't even begin to enumerate them and has introduced me to so many new authors that I would not have read if I had been constrained to dead tree.
And the cost... the price of their “Monthly Bundle” is a deal that is unbeatable.

All that said there are Baen authors I do not read. Some of their works make me physically ill, mindless slaughter, maiming, and mutilation. It is quite disgusting. However, I will still buy a bundle that contains those author's work to get the other books at a reasonable price and I certainly don't support boycotting Baen Books (or any publisher) for some of their author's creations. That smacks of abridging the freedom of speech.

[darryl]

Thanks to the OP for bringing this article to our attention. Personally, as you all know, I think the article was ridiculous and unfair, and its charges should be ignored. I neither want nor need to filter what I choose to read by reference to the political views of a publisher, even one who has had the effrontery to air those views in public. And if this means I am exposed to the odd badly written book, then I think I will manage to survive. Far better this than to exclude from possible reading the catalog of a whole publisher based on the ignorance and prejudice of one article in a newspaper of the opposite political persuasion.