(urth) Gollancz list (was: Re: Book of the New Sun won thecontest!)

[David Duffy]

On Sat, 6 Aug 2011, Greg Bates wrote:

> Have you not read The Left Hand of Darkness? I completely agree with you on
> The Dispossessed but I definitely think LHoD is worth your time.
>
> On Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 8:42 PM, Jane Delawney <jane_delawney at sky.com> wrote:
>
>> Le Guin is ... well I don't know what to say. I did not manage to read more
>> than 1 chapter of The Disposessed; she was so intent on banging her drum and
>> drilling into our heads the contrast between her idyllic but backward
>> egalitarians and the technologically advanced sexist b*****ds. Hated the
>> sheer manipulative lameness. Hated every sentence of it.
>>
>

This reaction always interests me (esp. since if you didn't read more than 
one chapter, I can't see how you can know much about the Urrasti :)).  It 
also ties into the ongoing "villains" thread, in that the society of the 
"technologically advanced sexist b*****ds" is villainous, but many 
individuals from it don't come across as personally vindictive, cf Sabul, 
the Annarasti physicist who likes being top dog.  I mean if our hero was 
visiting Saudi Arabia, I presume you wouldn't have thought it was 
maniipulative lameness to comment on the absence of women driving cars...

Anyway, I am circling back to Wolfe's politics, which although slightly to 
the right of, maybe, Charlemagne, never seem obtrusive to me as a more 
left leaning reader.  _And_ gun control, as alluded to in _Home Fires_ and 
a few others, which never has seemed so much of an issue down here in 
Australia.  Wolfe frequently has obnoxious totalitarian US governments (eg 
_the Eyeflash Miracles_), which I presume no-one here found offensively 
preachy.

Just 2c... David Duffy.