Science Fiction Aficionados discussion

Hello and welcome to the next installment of our ongoing series read of The Vorkosigan Saga.

this one is set approximately 200 years before Miles' birth. which makes me a bit nervous. Falling Free also won the Nebula for Best Novel in 1988. which makes me less nervous!

I just downloaded it and am all excited!

I thought this was a good read. It was the first Bujold book I read and I remember asking when we started the Vorkosigan Saga series why it is considered to be part of the series. It was explained but I still think of it as a standalone novel. I look forward to everyone's reaction to it!

This one took a bit of getting used to for me. It surprises me how creepy I found it. It does sort of become relevant for the next one (as even more so does Labyrinth from Borders of Infinity: The Mountains of Mourning / Labyrinth / The Borders of Infinity for anyone who might have skipped that).

This one doesn't seem to be generating much discussion!

I'm sad to admit that I'm quite behind. I still need to finish last month's read! oh me oh my.

I enjoyed this one, although not as much as some of the ones we've read previously. I agree that it was creepy! I had a slightly hard time swallowing the main issue towards the end of the book (view spoiler)[ that the quaddies could be discarded or even killed without people caring. On the one hand, it seems like if the situation could somehow be shown to the public in whatever passes as the media, public outrage would not allow it to happen. On the other hand, I suppose real life history would show that sort of thing HAS happened. I just don't want to think it can :) (hide spoiler)] I loved the resourceful quaddie "children"!

Well, if we found it creepy, as presumably open-minded sci-fi readers willing to be intellectually challenged - I can just imagine the horror of the everyday "terran(?)" when confronted with quaddies in a gravity environment. And hadn't their entire existence been kept secret? A motivated agitator could probably whip up a mob real quick with accusations of DNA manipulation. We've had enough trouble among ourselves with simple questions of race and class and gender, no?

I think that is the most troubling part to me-I could totally see the administration 'passing the buck' on various issues until a species is simply exterminated.

This novel will set you up for the entire issue of Jackson's Hole, which is an ongoing subtext in the Miles novels. I liked the engineering challenges in this one. (view spoiler)[Plus, the quaddies appear again in another Miles novel down the line! (hide spoiler)]

Agreed the engineering challenges were a nice piece of science. As usual I loved the characters too. Glad I snuck this one in. I wasn't sure I was going to like it from reading the reviews. But I definitely did enjoy the read.

2014 Prometheus Awards Lois McMaster Bujold wins Hall of Fame for Falling Free. I guess I should finally get around to reading this one.

Rion wrote: "2014 Prometheus Awards Lois McMaster Bujold wins Hall of Fame for Falling Free. I guess I should finally get around to reading this one."

Thanks Rion. I'd heard of the awards but did not know the basis on which they are given, so googled the it. In case anyone else has an interest, here's a link to the group that gives the award -- http://lfs.org/index.shtml.

well that turned me off to it.

Oh dear! I have no idea what Bujold's political opinions are or whether she would enjoy being in such company. I wonder what one would do, when offered such an honor from a group one had no particular respect for?

I remember in the 1970s and 1980s when it was revealed that popular entertainment stars like Elton John, Joe Jackson, Olivia Newton John, Billie Jean King, Martina Navritalova and others were gay that their careers suffered, at minimum, or outright tanked. Never mind that they produced good music or played sports well. I am so glad we as a society seem to be largely past that.

However, one thing we are not past, and this saddens me, is that when a famous author is outed for having views that are not politically correct (and I have no idea if this even applies to Bujold), similarly narrow minds to those of yesteryear reject the author without any regard to the quality of his or her work. In science fiction it has happened to Heinlein, van Vogt, Dick, and to some extent Orson Scott Card, among others.

My hope is that one day, just as people have learned to tolerate gay entertainment artists, we will also learn toleration for authors who are not compliant with politically correct Nazis, that we instead judge authors purely on the basis of their product, their writing.

Why is it that people only want to read news that parrots their views, conservatives watching Fox News, liberals watching MSNBC, both chastising CNN for being too far from their slanted world view? How does listening or watching only what we already agree with grow us as persons? Do we really want to read authors that simply affirm our preconceptions, and never ones that might challenge them?

I personally have no burning fondness for the second amendment, but that doesn't stop me from appreciating van Vogt's work. I also don't particularly care for other author's political views. Usually they don't appear in their works, like Card's do not. But even if they did, as Heinlein's love of libertarianism, Dick's distrust of government, Lewis's advocacy of Christianity arguably do, what's so bad about having one's world view challenged? Are our individual world views really so fragile they can't withstand the slightest examination or consideration from an opposing view?

Hmmm, “politically correct Nazis,” what an absolutely charming term. Let me see if I understand you. By “politically correct” do you mean “objecting to language that others find insulting?” Or perhaps you mean “trying to make folks be aware of the position of privilege they are speaking from?” Or perhaps you mean the less-nuanced but all too often inappropriately meant “anyone who disagrees with me?” In any of these cases, do you really believe that people who express any of these opinions are equivalent to the murderers of millions of human beings? Is it not perhaps possible that by employing such hyperbole your language might have the effect of saying “anyone who disagrees with me or questions my choice of language should just shut up?” Who in this case might be using the phrase “political correctness” to attempt to silence others? I find it ironic that those who most frequently use this phrase all-too-often are using it in an attempt to actually stifle discussion, because they don’t care for the legitimate objections that are being made about someone else’s choice of language.

As to your main point, books are expressions of ideas, and most of us are reading science fiction for its entertainment value - and occasionally to be challenged by new ideas. But not all ideas, mind you! Science fiction has too frequently been challenged as the playground of middle-class white men, as a place where the ideas of women and people of color and anyone who doesn’t fit the dominant idea of “default human being” are simply not welcome. This criticism has been made frequently enough that I believe most science fiction readers are willing to admit that it has occasionally been true. I bring this up simply to point out that even here, where most of us would say we are eagerly searching for “new ideas,” historically there have been limits on just what type of “new ideas” are welcome.

None-the-less, because we are reading (mostly) for entertainment, we have every right to pick and choose among the vast numbers of books on offer those that we think might offer us the most entertainment. As someone with “no burning fondness for the second amendment,” would you really choose to curl up on a lazy weekend with a book that had been praised as a fervid defense of the right to bear arms? There are times when we want entertainment, and there are times when we want intellectual challenge and the two don’t always have to mix. For someone who absolutely loved Ender's Game, and then found themselves profoundly disturbed by the author’s political views, to choose to no longer offer that author their financial support, is that such a crime? For someone reading Heinlein who simply finds his portrayals of women to be so objectionable that they can no longer stand to finish the book, is that not within our rights as readers? How we choose our entertainment reading is not at all equivalent to how we choose our method of being informed about world events. None-the-less I completely applaud your last sentence – here’s to hoping that none of us have world views so fragile that they can’t withstand examination and consideration from opposing views.

Wow I apologize for ever posting anything about the 2014 Prometheus Awards. I just needed a reason to finish another Bujold book. I had no idea that Libertarianism had become pejorative, but then again I haven't been paying attention to politics that closely of late. This discussion continues to reinforce the wisdom in that decision. More to the point, Libertarianism is politically neutral. There are libertarian socialists, right libertarians, left libertarians, objectivists, anarchists, pretty much everyone that wants to add the idea of liberalism into their belief structure, oxymoronic in modern western society no? As for that particular group, I'm sorry I don't know. However, I think what Dan was trying to say, was that people should judge others work based upon their actual work. If you find out that Bujold is a Tea Partier,the most recent group to hijack libertarianism, are you now going to rate her books less because you found out she didn't have your same political beliefs? Good skeptical thought moves away from calcitrant thought patterns. Please Alexa, I think you understand that you cherry picked the "Nazi", word in his argument. I understand how you saw it as being loaded, however I seriously doubt he was trying to consciously offend female members.

Rion, I don't think you have anything to apologize for; of course it is of interest that one of her books just won another award. As a long-time lover of Bujold I would never change my opinion of her because a group I didn't like gave her an award. In this group I wouldn't be surprised that the number of readers who are more likely to read her because of this award is approximately equal to the number of readers who are less likely to read her because of this award. If you're trying to decide what to read next, you have to decide on the basis of the information that's available. On the other hand if an author I loved suddenly became a vocal advocate for and prolific contributor to a cause I despise, that might cause me to rethink my opinion of that author - how could it not? (Seriously, think of the cause you most truly, truly despise and ask yourself, "could I still unreservedly love her?")

Sorry, but no, I don't think I cherry-picked anything; the phrase "politically correct Nazis" jumped up and smacked me over the head. It doesn't particularly offend women, it offends anyone who has ever tried to get someone to realize that their words are deeply offensive, or callous, or ignorant, and are instead told that they have no right to complain. No, instead they are told that their complaints are equivalent to one of the most extreme forms of permanent silencing ever practiced by mankind.

If I were to say "My hope is that one day we will also learn toleration for authors who are not compliant with the Jewish establishment", would it be cherry picking for you to react to the word "Jewish"? Obviously not.
The phrase "not compliant with the establishment" and "not compliant with the Jewish establishment" mean totally different things. Adding the word Jewish in that case would not merely be offensive but would implicitely affirm a hateful and destructive conspiracy theory.

I happen to have a serious problem with how often phrases such as "politically correct Nazis" are used, in no small part because they foster an atmosphere in which talking about such matters is unnecessarily difficult.

Full disclosure: I'm generally sympathetic to people who promote freedom and I have no idea what makes this particular award problematic.

There is no argument when it comes to using loaded words. I've always scratched my head at how people can take words like "liberal" and twist it into a bad word. It really is an ugly tactic. Unfortunately political smearing, no matter how false the statement, often works with the less educated.

So I googled "Political Correctness Nazi" and saw that Bill Maher appears to have been one of the people propagating this particular usage of the phrase. This is not a surprise. He had a show called politically incorrect. So him taking the stance that there are people who take political correctness too far seems natural. I generally just see Bill Maher as an informed skeptical thinker. Does he have a particular slant. Oh course he does. But there is a point to be made that in any type of belief structure, there is room for abuse. Does political correctness have it's place in our society? Anyone else see the inherent danger in thought control? Bujold addresses the inherent danger with taking this line of thinking too far with her criticism towards Beta's over zealous psychiatric institutionalism.

Attempting to bring this discussion back to Falling Free. I'm very curious why a libertarian group would give this particular title an award. It's sort of funny, because while reading Bujold's other works, it never seemed like she committed to any one political view point. We have the anarchists in Jackson hole, The institutional Liberal Society based on Beta, Military Monarchies on Barrayar and Cetaganda, communalism in quaddie inhabited space, theocracy in Athos, and now libertarian in Falling Free?

In retrospect, Bujold's characters strengths have always been their unwavering individuality and lack of allegiance to any type of authority unless it is in their explicit interest. So yes, if she is a libertarian, it makes sense.

While I found a new accountant after finding out that the one I was using was president of a so-called pro-life group (after he questioned me about my contributions to Planned Parenthood), I don't think I've ever chosen not to read a book based on the author's political views or social leanings, especially if the author's work does not promote those views. And I don't think libertarians you can equate libertarians to tea partiers, as tea party adherents have a lot of non-libertarian ideas! Bujold is a great author. I don't consider her books to be promoting libertarianism (including Falling Free) and certainly would not boycott her books because she received an award given by a group that has "Libertarian" in its name. There are books I will not buy because I don't like what they are about, e.g., Fifty Shades of Grey and similar books, but that is based on subject matter and not the author's personal beliefs.

I have two serious problems with the phrase. The first is that to call anyone a Nazi, simply because they have strong feelings on any (non-Nazi) subject, simultaneously minimizes the horror of the holocaust and engages in the worst kind of name-calling. Instead of engaging with the subject at hand, resorting to name calling to shut up your opponent is not open discussion. The second problem is that when someone accuses someone else of excessive political correctness, they are in effect claiming that that person is trying to censor their speech, yet they are doing this by trying to in turn censor the speech of the original complainer. "He's trying to shut me up so let's all gang up on him and make him shut up." No, he's trying to point out to you why he thinks what you said is wrong and you now have the right to tell him why you think he's wrong. If someone were to think that I might be being excessively particular about a subject, then I would think it would be far more reasonable to point out the perceived errors, rather than simply try to shut me up by calling me names. And all too often it is an utterly meaningless phrase, too many people use it to simply say, "You're not allowing me to voice political opinions that are different than yours."

That said, I can certainly admit that many folks use the phrase casually, with no intent to provoke the harm that I see in it. However, once it is made clear how deeply insulting it can feel to hear it, should not all of us who care about free and open discussion cease using it?

I feel sorry that an excellent author has been dragged into this discussion through no actions of her own. My first reaction to the news was to wonder how she herself felt about it. On reflection I would imagine she is honored by the award, as any author would be to know that her work is appreciated, and finds the political viewpoints of the organization itself rather unimportant. I would think most of us are quite willing to accept compliments on our hard work from anyone on the political spectrum, without seeing any need to let their appreciation be colored by their politics.

About minimizing the Holocaust, there might be some kind of convergence there: I looked at the link provided above in the hope of understanding the problem and the organization awarding this prize says that you should join them if you're a fan of a Holocaust denier...

Wow that award did seem suspect. Gomen'nasai! I erased it and apologies again for posting it. It was a link sent by following Bujuld on goodreads. I hope she's not anti-semetic or apart of a group that is. I didn't see that statement, but I could have overlooked it. After reading the first page it sounded like nerd spam and unnecessary. I left this link for future reference, and am curious if there is a direct link to the page in question.

(view spoiler)[lfs.org
You meant that link right? I can say without a doubt it's nothing I'm advocating or would like to be. I only read the award page on goodreads before posting it. <-------Sorry for that one right there.
(hide spoiler)]

I don't think you ought to be sorry. It's no big deal and I might have done the same.

Having an anti-semitic background and having met some anti-semites with a different background, I don't think it's uncommon. Still, I very much doubt most of the authors who receive that prize are anti-semitic.
Not only do "we" tolerate authors who're into stuff most people (not some shadowy politically correct media elite!) would find objectionable such as child molestation and Holocaust denial, we're supposed to abide by some kind of code of silence in the name of preventing bad feelings or selling products. So I don't think one should assume everyone knows who they're associating with.

Nazis, among other things, sought to and in fact did harm people for holding views that were not in accordance with their views. In much the same way, when I read people advocating the harming of authors because these authors hold views that are out of conformance with the narrow orthodoxy acceptable to certain politically correct stances, and by politically correct I mean militantly intolerant liberals, I am saddened, and I make a comparison.

The main difference I see between the Nazi and the politically correct is one of capability, not intent. Both intend to do their utmost to harm those they disagree with politically and socially. If you have problems with this comparison, I see that as a positive sign. I think you should, and I challenge you to differentiate your intolerance and desire to harm from a Nazi's in a more meaningful way than I have yet read. Simply saying your desire to harm is of a different degree of magnitude seems insufficient. Why seek to harm others at all on this basis?

My main point was to state a hope that some day we could and would evaluate a work on its own merit rather than extrinsic, irrelevant characteristics of its author, such as whether an author does or does not sympathize with libertarian political views. What does it really matter? Does the work itself present libertarian views and resonate? If so, maybe that is a sign it is time to examine again libertarianism, or at least some aspects of it.

Even on those infrequent occasions when an author's viewpoint enters into a work, for example, A. E. van Vogt's advocacy of the second amendment is all over The Weapon Shops of Isher, I can still appreciate van Vogt and this work despite not agreeing with him really on this political point. In fact, I very much do. I also appreciate Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale in much the same way, however much I may doubt the premise of what I believe is her political statement in writing it. Namely, I don't believe all (or a majority of) men are as interested in controlling women's reproduction as Atwood assumes.

My point is that yes, you can say you won't read Card no matter how worthily he writes because you disagree with his politics even though they don't factor into his work because you wish to harm him by withholding your patronage. But I will think you're making a poor choice in denying yourself entertaining reading for such a silly reason, and I will even go so far as to say I think you're doing something immoral in desiring to harm a person for holding a political or social view simply because it differs from and thus challenges yours.

You can complain about my word choices and try to play semantic games to try to silence me by falsely saying I am minimizing the Holocaust (even though I don't) all you want. It doesn't alter the validity of my point. I also think this discussion is a bit of a digression and have doubts regarding its value. I will therefore let my point stand or fall without further input from me. After all, my post was really more a statement of hope that toleration could one day make a sad situation other than it currently is. I see that day is clearly not yet arrived.

"politically correct nazis" is a classic case of 'reductio ad hitlerum' http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduct... - and of the first corollary to Godwin's Law http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin...

Please! enough about politic----book talking please!