What to read, Heinlein or Mein Kampf?
Dec. 13th, 2010 01:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lightcastleAccording to an old Michael Moorcock essay, "If I were sitting in a tube train and all the people opposite me were reading Mein Kampf with obvious enjoyment and approval it probably wouldn't disturb me much more than if they were reading Heinlein, Tolkein or Richard Adams."
I stumbled across the essay while glancing at the dust-up about steampunk Charlie Stross set off. (Personally, I always thought steampunk *did* deal with those issues, but maybe I'm thinking of early pieces in the genre or before the genre coalesced and now it is just gears and corsets and costumes.)
I did think the whole side discussion of Hobbits as an Arts and Crafts society was interesting, especially since it strikes me as exactly what a lot of StrowlerCon people wanted their Steampunk to be.
I stumbled across the essay while glancing at the dust-up about steampunk Charlie Stross set off. (Personally, I always thought steampunk *did* deal with those issues, but maybe I'm thinking of early pieces in the genre or before the genre coalesced and now it is just gears and corsets and costumes.)
I did think the whole side discussion of Hobbits as an Arts and Crafts society was interesting, especially since it strikes me as exactly what a lot of StrowlerCon people wanted their Steampunk to be.
