In an interview a few years back with The Sun magazine, atheist bigwig Sam Harris had this to say about the comparable (de)merits of religion and rape:
If I could wave a magic wand and get rid of either rape or religion, I would not hesitate to get rid of religion.
You can read the whole interview starting here.
And some people wonder why so many atheists have broken with Harris and the rest of the Old School New Atheist Boys Club to start Atheism Plus.
EDITED TO ADD: Hadn’t noticed that the interview was from 2006, so maybe this is old news to a lot of atheists. Still horrible.
Favorite female authors: Diane Duane (she’s currently at the top because an updated version of her second Young Wizards book is due out on Monday, and she’s posting very short Nita/Kit stories on her tumblr), Tamora Pierce, Elizabeth Moon, Laurie R King (because her Russell-Holmes books are so amazingly good)…
How in the hell did I forget Diane Duane? I go to her Tumblr daily! Some fan I am.
Are we only doing female SF authors?
My grandpa always used to get me Mercedes Lackey books. I probably wouldn’t have bought them for myself but I thought the world building was SPECTACULAR and it probably sparked (or cemented) my interest in social justice stuff. Also history (though that’s more of a passive interest).
Gotta give mad props to KA Applegate for Animorphs.
That’s all I can think of off the top of my head (that haven’t already been mentioned).
Speaking of Elizabeth Moon though, are you guys talking about The Deed of Paksenarrion? Because I tried to read that SO MANY TIMES and I could NOT get past maybe halfway. I’ve only ever had that problem before with The Lord of the RIngs and The Three Musketeers. It’s not because they were boring. I just don’t know why. š
@Molly Moon: Yeah, someone asked for women authors, I can’t remember if they specified women SF authors or not, but that’s what’s been offered, so I guess they did.
Mercedes Lackey hooks me in good but about one novel in three fails to hold me rapt after the hook. I don’t know why.
I haven’t read much, if any, Elizabeth Moon.
Why has no one mentioned Susanna Clarke yet? There’s an author who has me pounding down the door for another book.
Elizabeth “many Muslims have all the virtues of civilized persons” Moon? I’ve heard she’s good, but I can’t bring myself to read her after that.
Robin Mckinley – the Blue Sword. Loved it.
And not the The Deed of Paksenarrion series but Serrano Legacy series or Vatta’s War series, from Elizabeth Moon. Hadn’t heard that comment before, emilygoddess, and now hoping my white privilege hasn’t led me to overlook racism in her work. She certainly has some outstanding female characters.
and also in the fantasy genre, I’m very fond of Barbara Hambley, too.
Okay, the bacon thing has officially gone Too Far. On the train this morning, I heard the usual “Now arriving at Beaconsfield” announcement as “Now arriving at Bacon’s Ford.”
Mollymoon: Deed of Paksennarion is one of my favourite fantasy trilogies. I have to admit though, a lot of that is probably because I’m a total sucker for The Paladin archetype in pretty much any game.
Unfortunately, I’ve fallen out of the habit of reading, because being buried in a book until 6am is not compatible with productive employment. I used to read a fair bit of McCaffery back in primary school, as well as Ursula LeGuin.
I missed most of this discussion, but to get back to the Hitch topic that the discussion was about when I last had a chance to read it… Skyrimjob, have you considered that it’s possible to admire a person for some things and yet accept criticism about them, and even give criticism yourself? You should try it sometimes.
Molly moon: I’m referring to the Deed books, which now have sequels. But if you didn’t like the original trilogy, I’m not sure you’d enjoy the newer ones. I’ve tried her SF, but it didn’t grab me like her fantasy.
In the realm of odd… I bought my partner a smoking gun for her birthday. Today I used it to smoke some pan-seared asparagus. One of the pieces in my omellete (asparagus, lox, capers; salt and pepper to dress) tasted amazingly like bacon.
I used cherry to smoke it.
@Molly Moon: Yeah, someone asked for women authors, I canāt remember if they specified women SF authors or not, but thatās whatās been offered, so I guess they did.
Nope. We just happen to be a heavy SF&F community.
Well,then, you can’t beat Anne Perry’s early work for mysteries with the atmosphere of repressed, middle class, Victorian England and strong female leading charecters. I also recommend Dorothy L Sayers, Ellis Peters or G F Chisholm for some old fashioned crime, Kathy Reichs if you like your crime brutal and Dick Francis for light mystery thrillers (if you believe the rumours that his wife wrote them).
And have you read A S Byatt’s Possession? Annie Proux’s The Shipping News?
I want to like Kathy Reichs because she’s pretty badass, but when her chapters are about four pages long and every single one ends on a cliffhanger (“but I didn’t know then what I’d find out when I spoke to [other character]…”) it just gets so dull.
I can understand that. I admit I only read Kathy Reichs books once (hooray for public libraries) but I find them gripping when I do. As is usual, the earlier ones are better, I think.
Yes, even though I couldn’t re-read them they’re a pleasant enough way to spend an afternoon. She definitely makes you eager to find out what’s going to happen but it’s kind of the literary equivalent of fast food š
I am a consumer of mind candy, I admit it! lol.
Long-time lurker, de-lurking for discussion of fantasy and SF authors. š
I honestly don’t understand all the dislike of Pullman around here. I loved His Dark Materials, personally, and I really couldn’t get through Narnia. I think C.S. Lewis is pretty insufferable overall, though I admit I did get a kick out of the Screwtape Letters. But I’ve read a bit of his apologia and I guess I read Narnia as a bit of a hostile audience, looking for the allegory, I have to admit. Regardless. I agree that the first book of HDM may be the strongest out of the series, but I think the next two are only a small step below, and I loved them all. Maybe it just comes down to the fact that I hate the message of the allegory Lewis beats you over the head with, but like the one Pullman does? I don’t know, but HDM is one of my favorite book series, personally. I thought Pullman made an interesting world with interesting rules, and I loved the daemons in general. He kept me turning pages. I read the whole series over the course of a week.
Is this the part where I flip out and have a meltdown because someone had the gall to not like one of my favorite authors? RAWRGH YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DISLIKE HIS DARK MATERIALS!!111!
Anyway, I, too, was a McCaffrey / Pern fan when I was younger. I grew out of it. That seems to be a common thing. I started seeing just how one-dimensional her villains are, and I just felt that although she built an interesting, compelling world, she never really DID enough with it. There just was not enough believable conflict overall. I think the trick is that I’ve always been kinda obsessed with dragons, ever since I was a kid, and liked the fact that Pern portrayed dragons as intelligent partners, and now that I’m not a kid anymore, I’m a bit more picky about what kind of brain-candy fantasy I like than ‘does it have a cool portrayal of dragons’.
Oh yes. About Hitchens, and atheism in general. I liked Hitchens for the fact that he was unafraid to ask theists difficult questions about their beliefs, and would really rake them over the coals on certain things sometimes. But even though I like some of his attributes, I have to admit the man was a reactionary asshole. I lost a lot of respect for him after I started learning more about his politics. He had some good attributes, but there’s a whole lot of bad to go along with the good there.
Regarding atheism…I don’t want to play oppression olympics, so I don’t mean to say that ‘atheists have it worse than [insert group here]’, but I think in many parts of the US, known atheists (along with muslims, too) face more open discrimination and hatred than women and POCs. At least in the areas I’ve lived (This may influence it; I haven’t lived in the parts of the country most infamous for racism and sexism), racists and sexists will not voice their ideas outright in public, and will keep to more subtle expressions of it. But people WILL publically voice bigoted ideas about atheists or muslims. It seems that it’s more socially acceptable to be openly bigoted against atheists, muslims, and gays, in the US, than it is anyone else.
That said, women and POCs, I think, face worse discrimination than atheists, by a longshot, because they can’t get a break from it. You can just NOT out yourself as an atheist if you want to. But you can’t just stop being a woman, or stop being black. And because the discrimination of these groups are backed up by a whole range of pervasive societal stereotypes and myths. Just because people aren’t usually open about their bigoted attitudes doesn’t mean they don’t treat women or POCs in bigoted ways.
I think this might be changing though…the republican party’s war on women is really causing the ‘traditional values’ crowd to come out of the woodwork again, and the traditional gender roles are coming with them. There definitely are certain voices in political discourse out there who are very frank with their regressive attitudes towards women.
Obviously, discrimination against all these groups is bad, and we should be working to end all of it. And that’s why I hate playing oppression olympics. The question isn’t ‘who has it worse’, but rather, ‘how can we help everyone?’ I’m a big believer in intersectionality. I use my atheism as a grounding starting place for my fundamentally egalitarian beliefs, and my support for social justice causes. As long as bigotry against one group exists, bigotry can be aimed at anyone. The correct approach is to teach people that it is not okay to judge someone for their genetics, beliefs, or physical appearance, no matter what. The only correct way to judge an individual is based on that individual’s words and actions. That is all.
Anyway, probably re-lurking for now.
Authors: just have to add Patricia Briggs, Pamela Dean, and Nina Kiriki Hoffman, none of whom are nearly prolific enough but are well worth the (sometimes very lengthy) wait.
Adding the the McCaffrey discussion – I loved those books when I was about 8-13. Part of what put me off, in addition to the rapeyness, was when it occurred to just how sexist the characterization of Kylara was. Beautiful woman with high sex drive = totally evil woman whose lust causes tragedy? Even at 13 I was starting to see how sexist and sex-negative that was.
I have soooo many thoughts on fantasy novels. But I’m wrimoing a fantasy novel and I’m afraid to start thinking too deliberately about what I like about other novels NOW… I might start changing my story mid-stream. That’d suck so near to the end.
On Christopher Hitchens, a few additional thoughts.
Firstly, I did love his work. Probably for a lot of the reasons Shaenon listed… the sheer vitriol in his work appealled to me greatly.
But the thing is, that was the time in my life when I was a good soldier for God, out there doing the work of the patriarchy. A jack-booted thug working to oppress women and deny rights to gay people.
And his work TOTALLY spoke to me, and left me in the same place I was at when I started.
Sure, you should be able to appreciate an author no matter your ideology… but when his ideology fit so well with my own, when we had such overlap while I was out there religiously voting for George W. Bush–in every sense of the word religiously–well, you can see why I might have problems with him now.
Writers who I actually look up to now are those writers who I read and appreciated but who challenged the way I thought and the way I lived my life–the ladies (and gents, but mostly ladies) who have been in large measure derided as hacks, who cannot seem to break into the mainstream but have been relegated to the blogosphere–some of the people in David’s links on the right-hand side. Those are the ones that took me where I was and changed me.
So, y’know, maybe I explode a little bit when folks call him the greatest and deride folks who are stuck in the blogosphere. Maybe I have a little bit of anger left over for that younger version of me. The one wearing the jackboots.
On fine quality fiction of genre by females… the Delia Marshall Turner books – NAMELESS MAGERY and OF SPELLS AND SWORDS.
I read this when I was young, and hated it because i couldn’t even understand what was going on with it.
When I reread it recently it was like… GREAT. Check it out.