Authorial Politics

Eric Flint and Steven Brust have both self-identified as Trotskyists. This isn't a "liberal" or "socialist", it's full blown communist. To quote Eric, "I'm not a Pinko, I'm a Red".

Both are pretty good writers and only occasionally do their politics seem to get in the way of the story.

kzt wrote:Eric Flint and Steven Brust have both self-identified as Trotskyists. This isn't a "liberal" or "socialist", it's full blown communist. To quote Eric, "I'm not a Pinko, I'm a Red".

Both are pretty good writers and only occasionally do their politics seem to get in the way of the story.

I just wish people would stop lumping things together. Liberals are neither socialists nor communists, just as conservatives are not fascists or Nazis. Socialists and liberals have a visceral dislike for communism, as we have known it in the 20th century. Which may not have been what it should have been. Eric would say that Stalin ruined communism's image. When I was in the USSR in 1990 it was clearly a goner, Gorbachev being too late to save it. It would be interesting see it done right someday, but that will never happen.

And speaking of authorial politics, there is an interesting interview with Kim Stanley Robinson in today's (2/21/10) Los Angeles Times Book Review section.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/ne ... 9030.story

rofwh wrote:

namelessfly wrote:I got hammerred hard for starting a thread suggesting that the basic premise of Weber's Honorverse is Capitalist Manticore vs Socialist Haven. People were particularly incensed when I pointed out Manticore's voter eligibility criteria which requires you to be a tax payer rather than a wellfare case. People focused on Manticore's universal availability of prolong as proof that it was a socialist utopia that had remained economicly viable only because of the revenue from the wormhole junction. While I'll drop the issue in the HONORVERSE forum, I'll reiterate the point here.

....

And this is a good example of how differing points of view actually do see and interpret things quite differently. I never saw Haven as a communist entity. It was more like a situation where the power elite ran things and kept the population in bread and circuses until the revolution swept them out and what was a truly totalitarian, quasi-Nazi government took over.

The situation in Haven under the Legaslaturists was, according to David Weber (who just might possibly know something about it), modeled on the U.S. welfare & mediocrity state continuing till it mortally wounded its society.

And they were overthrown by...the military. This was a violent version of Portugal's Carnation Revolution, where the military got sick of the wars in Africa and took advantage of a power vacuum brought about by the fall (literally) of Salazar. And then a democratically elected Socialist government came to power. How Iberian.

Eric Flint certainly is more of a lefty than a righty. If label we must.

Eric is a Trotskyist, and he doesn't try to conceal that. Just ask him, someday. He was for many years a political activist with the Socialist Workers Party, iirc.

But what he really is is a romantic. The blinded trooper's wife's story in the Belisarius books is one outstanding example of that. And an Assiti shard during a wedding, of all things? There was never so much pairing up in any science fiction book as there is in the 1632 books (forget the Gazette's--that stuff is gossip). And look how he (not DW, I bet) has Hugh and Berry end up in Torch. Is he the Nora Roberts of Science Fiction?

Eric has also stated, that he puts romance into his novels and stories because its a normal part of human life. People are constantly settling down with one another. It's unrealistic to expect it not to happen in future societies.

saintonge wrote:Eric has also stated, that he puts romance into his novels and stories because its a normal part of human life. People are constantly settling down with one another. It's unrealistic to expect it not to happen in future societies.

I agree. But he does it in a much more charming, humorous and often touching manner than anyone else.

And did I see a relation of yours on the TV about 100 feet in the air upside down on skis? Beautiful! Don't answer--this is too personal. But I had to ask.

rofwh wrote:

saintonge wrote:Eric has also stated, that he puts romance into his novels and stories because its a normal part of human life. People are constantly settling down with one another. It's unrealistic to expect it not to happen in future societies.

I agree. But he does it in a much more charming, humorous and often touching manner than anyone else.

And did I see a relation of yours on the TV about 100 feet in the air upside down on skis? Beautiful! Don't answer--this is too personal. But I had to ask.

So far as I know, I'm not related to skier Ryan St. Onge.

Now, if you'd seen a drunken redneck causing trouble on TV, and he was named St. Onge, I expect he would be kin to me.

The thing I find most interesting in the books of ANY of the authors mentioned in the previous posts…

Politics DOES play a role in the universe of the author. Duh! But remember, in any book that deals with HUMANS, you are going to have politics. So I have no problem with left, right OR center leaning books. What I think all of us here are forgetting is that these are FICTION novels. You need a protagonist, and antagonist, conflict, and hopefully resolution of said conflict. Any first year literature student will tell you that. So if you enjoy the book, enjoy it. If you don’t, put it down and move on to something else.

The thing about DW that I find most fascinating is not his politics, but his CHARACTERS. Can anyone in this forum honestly tell me that they do NOT have a vested interest in Honor Harrington… or Victor Cachet? Even Cordelia Ransom. No… I did NOT like Ransom, but that was the whole point, wasn’t it?

Politics for politics sake will usually lead to books that don’t sell a lot. Politics for the sake of the STORY usually lead to the conflicts that have most readers still up at 2am chewing their nails and using eye drops so they don’t fall asleep.

rofwh wrote:

saintonge wrote:And did I see a relation of yours on the TV about 100 feet in the air upside down on skis? Beautiful! Don't answer--this is too personal. But I had to ask.

The skier St. Onge is no known relation to me. And the Stephen St. Onge who is an interior designer is not me.

White Tallon wrote:The thing I find most interesting in the books of ANY of the authors mentioned in the previous posts…

Politics DOES play a role in the universe of the author. Duh! But remember, in any book that deals with HUMANS, you are going to have politics. So I have no problem with left, right OR center leaning books. What I think all of us here are forgetting is that these are FICTION novels. You need a protagonist, and antagonist, conflict, and hopefully resolution of said conflict. Any first year literature student will tell you that. So if you enjoy the book, enjoy it. If you don’t, put it down and move on to something else.

The thing about DW that I find most fascinating is not his politics, but his CHARACTERS. Can anyone in this forum honestly tell me that they do NOT have a vested interest in Honor Harrington… or Victor Cachet? Even Cordelia Ransom. No… I did NOT like Ransom, but that was the whole point, wasn’t it?

Politics for politics sake will usually lead to books that don’t sell a lot. Politics for the sake of the STORY usually lead to the conflicts that have most readers still up at 2am chewing their nails and using eye drops so they don’t fall asleep.

I liked Rob S. Pierre.

Every time that I read one of the Honorverse books where his name is mentioned, I chuckle.

Fascism and Nazism are both variations of Socialism. While they allow the "means of production" to remain in the hands of the capitalists, the state rather than the free market dictates how these productive assets are managed.

rofwh wrote:

kzt wrote:Eric Flint and Steven Brust have both self-identified as Trotskyists. This isn't a "liberal" or "socialist", it's full blown communist. To quote Eric, "I'm not a Pinko, I'm a Red".

Both are pretty good writers and only occasionally do their politics seem to get in the way of the story.

I just wish people would stop lumping things together. Liberals are neither socialists nor communists, just as conservatives are not fascists or Nazis. Socialists and liberals have a visceral dislike for communism, as we have known it in the 20th century. Which may not have been what it should have been. Eric would say that Stalin ruined communism's image. When I was in the USSR in 1990 it was clearly a goner, Gorbachev being too late to save it. It would be interesting see it done right someday, but that will never happen.