Friday, July 18, 2014

Conservative Fiction

I'm just gonna submit this shit without comment, y'all.

Well, one comment.  This is what they consider their best.

They're proud of this.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's not a *real* conservative booklist. There are women other than Ayn Rand on it, and she is completely missing from it. Everybody knows that women can't write good quality stuff, especially not science fiction or fantasy. Except Ayn Rand, but that's *reality* not fantasy.

delagar said...

Heh. Good point. It's probably a CINO list. PC strikes again!

dorki said...

All I can say is "Holy BLEEP".

Anonymous said...

The Holy Land? That's the best they can do? Yup, I guess it is. --L

delagar said...

Sadly enough, it really is.

Every now and then, one of the Truly Serious Conservative bloggers -- Rod Dreher, for instance -- will write a post wondering why Conservatives aren't creating excellent, or even passable, art and lit these days. And their commentators will have all sorts of answers, from bewildered to whiny and self-serving ("Because we work for a living, that's why!").

But the question itself reveals the answer, I think. (And N&M's comment above hints at it.) Conservatives long ago started seeing art as politics -- well, everything as politics, but art is a subset of everything.

It is true that all literature is political, because everything is political. But as a writer, you can't and don't think of your writing as political as you create it. If you do, it's deadly to the work, and to you as an artist. This, for instance, is what is wrong with Heinlein's Podkayne of Mars. (One of the many things wrong with it.) He wrote it as a political screed against working mothers.

Well, these critics are looking at works as political tracts; and many of those writers (including Ayn Rand, Tom Kratman, and David Frum) are writing not novels but political tracts.

These are going to be of interest, if they are of interest at all, outside of your political party, only as political artifacts.

Anonymous said...

I wonder why Christopher Buckley isn't on the list? Movement-internal drama or something? He's at least a decent writer with several actually funny books, and always coherent, unlike some of the rest of the list.

You'd also think just about any randomly-chosen militry SF writer would improve things too.

Rosa