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To head off on an even further tangent for a second: Piers Anthony is pretty deeply problematic himself, and I don't mean that in an "insufficiently 'woke'" sen

To head off on an even further tangent for a second: Piers Anthony is pretty deeply problematic himself, and I don't mean that in an "insufficiently 'woke'" sense, either. Many of his works have an unhealthy fascination with sexualized adolescent characters; one of them (his 1990 adult novel Firefly) graphically and sympathetically depicts the rape of a child. https://www.filfre.net/2019/12/companions-of-xanth-preceded-by-the-worrisome-case-of-piers-anthony/ https://www.filfre.net/2019/12/companions-of-xanth-preceded-... https://litreactor.com/columns/themes-of-pedophilia-in-the-works-of-piers-anthony https://litreactor.com/columns/themes-of-pedophilia-in-the-w... There are plenty of other far more deserving authors that could take his place in such a comparison. Terry Pratchett is a pretty obvious choice, for instance. Or Tolkien, as someone else mentioned.

alasdair_ 6y ago
I seem to remember reading one of his “incarnations” books twenty years ago or so, where the justification for a middle aged man having a particularly kinky relationship with a fifteen year old girl (in both body and mind) was that due to time magic being used, she was technically legally eighteen and so everything was fine. He also wrote a YA novel entitled “the color of her panties” so...
- buisi 6y ago
  I will never cease to be baffled by what people are willing to put to print. These are some interesting questions. If he's writing a book about some fantasy sex between some character and a child, I don't see why he shouldn't be allowed to do that, so long as he's not selling those copies to children. If he is a pedophile, getting someone to bottle up such a central part of themselves is bad for their mental health. And nothing good can possibly come from having poor mental health. Although, it is hard to tell if this is the case, or if it wasn't contributed by his dodgy pen pal. The pen pal, and the whitewashing of him, if he is indeed a molester, is personally a far bigger problem to me (and one which is being a tad overlooked imo), than the sex scene, although at this point in this comment, I'm still trying to separate the man from the work. I can see why people would dislike him writing YA works. If he is a pedophile, I imagine part of the reason he has become so popular, is that he is uniquely able to "feel" the same things the reader might towards their peers. Someone trying to emulate that without that sort of touch would have a greater difficulty in doing so. However, it does appear as if he has pushed some boundaries, and there are serious questions to be had about when young people should start to be exposed to charged sexual settings like this. And what sort of shock scenes is really appropriate in there. He might even need an actual editor who can rein him in. I am not familiar enough with his work to comment further on this.
falcolas 6y ago
If I avoided every author who had problematic opinions, my reading list would be small. > He also wrote a YA novel entitled “the color of her panties” so... And yet it is probably justified in this case.

alasdair_ 6y ago

I seem to remember reading one of his “incarnations” books twenty years ago or so, where the justification for a middle aged man having a particularly kinky relationship with a fifteen year old girl (in both body and mind) was that due to time magic being used, she was technically legally eighteen and so everything was fine. He also wrote a YA novel entitled “the color of her panties” so...

buisi 6y ago
I will never cease to be baffled by what people are willing to put to print. These are some interesting questions. If he's writing a book about some fantasy sex between some character and a child, I don't see why he shouldn't be allowed to do that, so long as he's not selling those copies to children. If he is a pedophile, getting someone to bottle up such a central part of themselves is bad for their mental health. And nothing good can possibly come from having poor mental health. Although, it is hard to tell if this is the case, or if it wasn't contributed by his dodgy pen pal. The pen pal, and the whitewashing of him, if he is indeed a molester, is personally a far bigger problem to me (and one which is being a tad overlooked imo), than the sex scene, although at this point in this comment, I'm still trying to separate the man from the work. I can see why people would dislike him writing YA works. If he is a pedophile, I imagine part of the reason he has become so popular, is that he is uniquely able to "feel" the same things the reader might towards their peers. Someone trying to emulate that without that sort of touch would have a greater difficulty in doing so. However, it does appear as if he has pushed some boundaries, and there are serious questions to be had about when young people should start to be exposed to charged sexual settings like this. And what sort of shock scenes is really appropriate in there. He might even need an actual editor who can rein him in. I am not familiar enough with his work to comment further on this.

falcolas 6y ago

If I avoided every author who had problematic opinions, my reading list would be small. > He also wrote a YA novel entitled “the color of her panties” so... And yet it is probably justified in this case.