OFF: Moorcock on sci-fi

[Paul Mather]

On Sat, 24 Mar 2001, Nick Medford wrote:

=> Well, I think the problem is in the idea that the political views of an author
=> are the most important thing about his/her writing. I don't buy that at all.
=> It's entirely possible that HP Lovecraft, say, held racist/supremacist views,
=> and it's pretty certain that he was a rather sad and disturbed individual-
=> none of this alters the fact that he wrote some great short stories. It's as
=> simple as that really.

I agree.  It's kind of like the old thread of our favourite musicians
oftentimes being tossers in person, but that doesn't stop them from
putting on a blinder of a show.

We should also remember that people and their views change over time.
In the case of Lovecraft, for example, he'd pretty much done a 180 on
all that right-wing stuff by the end of his life, and was actually a bit
of a lefty!  So to say "Lovecraft believes in X," or "Lovecraft is an
X," should probably be qualified in time.

Cheers,

Paul.

e-mail: paul at gromit.dlib.vt.edu

"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production
 deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."
        --- Frank Vincent Zappa