Fantasy, Scifi, and Tepper on Religion
Most of the fiction I read is fantasy or scifi. (Like with tv series, I’m of the opinion that if you’re gonna make things up, you might as well make the most of it. My life already contains most of the components of drama series and soap operas, so there’s no need to watch them.) Most fantasy and scifi, like most literature really, is crap, which is why I only read books that have been recommended by someone I trust (or sometimes if they seem extremely interesting).
One of the authors recommended to me is Sheri S. Tepper, which is why I’m currently plowing through her work. I read Beauty a few years ago, an now I’ve read Grass, Raising the Stones and have just started on Sideshow. Tepper has her own style and set of topics she likes to explore, somewhere in the fuzzy grey area where pure scifi meets fantastic fantasy. One of the topics is religion, and I must admit I really enjoy considering her scenarios, as unlikely as they may seem.
For instance, consider a God that actually Works. It makes people work for them (a little), but it also makes them happy, contented and healthy, and it doesn’t remove their sense of free will. Are these people enslaved? Why is it that because the “God” is physically present and clearly a living organism, we view it differently from how we would a benevolent invisible sky-father doing the same thing?
I especially like that Tepper doesn’t tell us readers what we’re supposed to think. An amazon reviewer (which I’m not going to link to as the review spoils most of the plot) thought this was a weakness in Grass - that the author didn’t explore her own philosophical problems and left too many questions unanswered. I think it’s exactly the other way around. Her books make me think, rather than tells me what she thinks I ought to think. Perhaps this is simply my preference as someone who occasionally enjoys puzzling over philosophical conundrums. If you’re looking for pure entertainment, Tepper’s books are definitely not for you.
Another author whose work I’ve really enjoyed is Robin Hobb. At first I avoided the Farseer Trilogy, as books about an assassin written by a guy really didn’t seem very promising at all. Then I was told Hobb is actually a woman (whose name is actually Margaret), and that her books under the Hobb pseudonym are actually very good. I was not disappointed. I haven’t read her older works (written under the name of Megan Lindholm), but the three trilogies Farseer, Liveship Traders and Tawny Man are absolutely worth anyone’s time. They’re written in a European medieval fantasy setting, but the lack of elves and dwarves and “conventional” magic make for a refreshing change from the standard high/pulp fantasy.
There are obviously other authors and books I’ve enjoyed, and I’ll probably come back to this topic in the future, but that’s enough rambling about fiction for now. If you have any suggestions for books I absolutely must put on my reading list, please do tell!
On a sidenote: XKCD tells it like it is, again.
What is the point of making up words for things that already have english designations? In a fairly entertaining pulp fantasy series I’m currently re-reading, the authors saw fit to randomly introduce a term that apparently meant “fortnight”; a term used only once in the seven books and which served no purpose other than giving them an excuse to put another explanatory footnote in there. Why? Why did the authors not realise that introducing that term was absolutely unnecessary? Why didn’t the proofreaders (assuming there were any) call them out on it? I don’t get it.