Love, Meh, Hate

It's nomination season for a couple of important SF awards right now, and as I choose the books I want to see on the shortlists it's set me thinking about the books I've read recently in the genre.  I've had the experience several times recently of reading a book which has either won awards, or which many people are thoroughly enthusiastic about, but I've come out of those reading experiences wondering why anyone would fall in love with that book.

I've tried to figure out what makes me put the books I read into the categories of love, meh, and hate.  First, can I care about the subject matter?  There's a series of books of which I've only read one.  It's military  SF, but this book has at its heart a conceit about the mighty empire's weapons only working if people adhere to a certain calendar.  The military were willing to take billions of lives just to keep their exotic weapons working.  Nope.  Most definitely a hate.

But most of my hates come from male authors extrapolating their sexual fantasies into the future.  I'm reading one now which has a number of great ideas and an exotic alien, but every human character fucks every other one.  Yes, I used the F word deliberately, because that's what the author describes all his characters as doing.  There appears to be no love there, only lust.  And all those couplings are heterosexual.  There appear to be no gay relationships in that world, and asexual people don't exist.  This extension of current sexual obsessions into a wildly-changed future is a pet hate of mine. 

Loves include Mary Robinette Kowal's Lady Astronaut books.  She presents an alternate history where women could be astronauts in the 1950s.  Commenting on feminist themes and racism in a subtle and effective way, the books are an easy read which packs a punch.  Another love is Becky Chambers' A Closed and Common Orbit.  At its heart is a sentient AI trying to work out who she is.  Becky really gets into the mind of that AI and succeeds in showing us the world from a truly alien perspective.

I've read many meh books where the story pulls me in, but it's pure entertainment and doesn't mean anything.  They either have no deep issue at their heart, or don't deal with an issue which I personally care about.  These are the books I enjoy at the time, but can't remember the plot of a month later.

All of which goes to show that, as a writer, you can't please all of the people all of the time.  All you can do is write your individual truth, and hope that your tribe finds your work.