The Fantasy Times

Previous Fantasy Times commentaries have described the prevelence of liberal authors and genre pundits on the extreme liberal side of the political realm.  These authors have written, with extreme vitriol, about their hatred of conservative ideals, leaders, aspousers and laws that do not align with their political view.  Not just polite opposition or a spirited defense of their thoughts, instead a bitter assault on those from the opposing viewpoint.  Readers should be amazed that authors, some with amazing talent, would blatantly alienate some of their readers by not even being respectful to alternative ideas.  Previous commentary illustrated such abuses as Jay Lake and David Brin and then last week’s headline story about No Beer Press not just endorsing a candidate, but selling books at a discount with a portion of the proceeds going to that candidate. This bothered me immensely as a purchaser of several trunk fulls of genre books.  In order for me to get a discounted price, I had to support a candidate that I do not support.  Today, I realized why this has bothered me such…and it was not because of the obvious difference in opinion.

I saw Jay Lake’s sequel to Mainspring on the Border’s shelf today and was going to pick it up, but I couldn’t.  This lead to me sitting in the very comfortable chair across from the shelf where the book was displayed to think about the reasons against the purchase of his book.  I thought about yesterday’s headline article which featured Patrick Rothfuss‘ smart voting post.  I know Mr. Rothfuss doesn’t share the same political ideology as myself, but he quite eloquently made his points.  Agree with some of his points I did not, but the tone he chose to take did not offend me.

BANG! BOFF! ZIP!  There it was.  The reason I am so bothered by Jay Lake’s posts is not because of his positions, but because of the way he speaks about and treats the members of the opposing viewpoint.  Jay Lake, David Brin, Jacqueline Carey, George RR Martin and others do not seem to respect their readership enough to be respectful and ARTFUL in their posts.  Others, although opposing my ideals, are respectful with their dissent: Paul S. Kemp, Patrick Rothfuss, Erik Scott de Bie, Ellen Datlow.

So I will not purchase any more of Jay Lake’s books…or others that treat those with opposing view points with disrespect.  After all, I can and will speak with my pocket book.