Manifesto
Some links of interest.
The original orcs from
Confluence 2006
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FAR FROM NARNIA,
Philip Pullman’s secular fantasy for
children, by LAURA MILleR.
A strange rant from a great author, in
which LOTR is described as "infantile"
and The Chronicles of Narnia as
"morally loathesome".
Sturgeon's Law.
Wikipedia's description of Theodore
Sturgeon's apt response to people
telling him that 90% of all sf is crap.
WE ARE THE ORCS!
There's been a lot of complaining
recently from various sectors of the
specfic community about how our genre
gets no respect. I say, who cares? Not
liking specfic is the literary world's
problem, not ours. Why should we
worry whether they like what we read?
Do they bother themselves over what
we think of their favorite books? Of
course not. What really matters in the
end is that you read what you like, not
what someone else tells you to like.
That's what this site is all about. Like
what you read, and don't worry what
anyone else thinks about it. If we
readers of speculative fiction are going
to be labeled outsiders, the orcs of the
reading public, we should at least be
proud of it. Instead of grumbling, we
should wave our orc flags high. We
should be proud of our genre, and not
care about anyone else's opinion. Not
everybody can like everything. Be
happy we have a choice. If the rest of
the world doesn't appreciate the books
we like, that's their loss, not ours. Long
live Frodo, and Harry Potter and
Muad'Dib and John Carter and
Saxifrage Russell. And, if anyone
reading this happens to have a soft
spot for Elizabeth Bennet or Nathan
Zuckerman, be proud of that too. We
orcs, at least, can try to be as
broadminded as possible.
