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I think it's a difficult balance to strike. On one side you usually don't want to hurt a fantasy novel author who put all their soul into their book and actual

I think it's a difficult balance to strike. On one side you usually don't want to hurt a fantasy novel author who put all their soul into their book and actually care about how it's received. On the other side some authors will have a very strong message to convey, and use their work as a platform to expose more people to their ideas, good or bad. Not engaging with the message and/or ignoring it when you see it as either damaging to the readers or an abuse of people's good faith would feel wrong to me. Not that readers have a duty to engage with a book, but if you were ready to pan a horrible propaganda piece on reddit but stopped because it could hurt the author's feelings, I'd have fully encouraged you into speaking your mind in reasonable terms.

dsign 3y ago
Why, I just read a book[^1] whose author gave personhood to lifted animals, and made everybody vegetarian. She also made everybody monogamous...even the moose. IMO, she could have written a better story if she hadn't been afraid of over-critical readers that would think her work is propaganda advocating for XYZ. The moose didn't need to act like a politically correct western guy. But it's fun to comment on those details, politics and all; they don't subtract from the work. And yes, there are non-fiction books, like the Bible and "More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws", but those can also be approached with a dose of lightheartedness. [^1] The Terraformers, By Annalee Newitz. Go, buy it, read it. It has real science in it, nothing else needs to be said.