Another Wingnut

I am a great fan of Science Fiction. It used to be that there were a great many authors whose works I'd look forward too with great anticipation.

Then many authors got blogs.

When you can see a favourite author's real political positions, it can really open your eyes. It can also profoundly affect the way you think about their works.

Take Jerry Pournelle, for example. Now, I knew that he was a conservative, and probably quite right-wing. But, during the lead up to the Iraq War, he was clearly opposed to the notion that America should even have an empire. I had a lot of respect for that. Pre-emptive wars are not conservative at all.

After the invasion? He polished up his jackboots and got straight in lockstep with the party-line. I suppose I should have expected it — he was always in very tight with Republican administrations — but it was quite jarring to go from "Well, I guess the guy has his own biases" to "has the man no capacity for critical thought?".

(Of course the utter disaster which was the sequel to The Mote in God's Eye — The Gripping Hand — which was so full of basic errors put me off the combined writing of Niven & Pournelle anyway.)

So, fast forward to this morning, when I'm checking out Daily Kos, and I see a link to this excresence: April 2006 Message from Dan. It's from Dan Simmons, the author of such fine works as Hyperion, and The Hollow Man, and it proclaims that this "War On Terror" the American Right are conducting as an excuse to give Tax Dollars to Halliburton is really a war for the survival of "The American Way" against "Radical Islam". It states that Canada and England will end up as Islamic Shari'a states, presumably because they're insufficiently devoted to the Republican Party.

Dan Simmons, you're a gibbering loon.