I agree with this recasting. The vast majority of readers will never read one word on an author’s blog. Those who seek them out should be prepared—and willing—to encounter a person with thoughts that go beyond plot and character. I much prefer that to the authors who merely use their blogs as advertising for their product (I can see the value to them, but there is none for me).

Are you at risk of having your view of an author changed by interacting with them outside of their fiction? Absolutely. But I would argue that you are being brought more in line with reality, and that’s a good thing, even if relinquishing the fantasy may be somewhat painful. And if their political thought offends or upsets you excessively (i.e. Orson Scott Card), you can simply quit reading their blog and move on.

That said, I’m still quite interested in the interaction between someone’s fiction, and the overt political statement. It does seem to offer a shortcut for a reader to pigeonhole your ideas as they are presented in fiction, because you’ve essentially boxed yourself in, politically. Given that a lot of my fiction does have a deliberate message aspect to it, I don’t necessarily want to undercut those messages because I’m flailing around with my rantings over here on the blog.

I still don’t like the Palin pick, though.

Well, perhaps — speaking for myself, I don’t have a problem with Ursula Le Guin’s politics (which, for the most part, I don’t share), I do have a problem when she uses her fiction as a didactic bludgeon where the story-telling and characterisation is thin, and the thematic content is banal. Gee, Ursula, sexism and racism is really really bad? Do tell… on second thoughts, don’t bother. (And I find Iain Banks, with or without the initial, fundamentally unreadable so his politics are neither here nor there.)

Aaron wrote: Catherynne Valente is a brilliant writer, and I am trying so hard to forget the rant on her blog where she fervently wished that a falling tree would crush John McCain’s skull. I don’t think the issue there is political, but simply being a creep. Don’t know about you, but I find those who who wish death or dismemberment on total strangers are to be avoided.

That said, there is nothing I hate more than hearing the same sermon I’ve heard a thousand times over the last twenty years, especially if it is virtually the same thing I can see for free at the writer’s blog.

It is boring, annoying and rampant, especially in the American SF community.

I make it a policy never to post about politics, I slipped that once because I was so angry. It’s too much grief.