Speculative Fiction Authors I’ve Changed My Mind About

Over months, or maybe over years, I’ve been trying to listen. I’ve been trying to learn. I realized that sometimes, you need to look at somebody’s set of works time-wise; because how they describe certain things can change too. Sometimes, having read other authors, you may appreciate that this one has made an actual effort to keep up with the rest of the world. Sometimes, you may discover that you may agree with so many things in one series of the given author, but you also dislike many points in another series by them. Overall, you learn to like and appreciate someone’s novels despite their drawbacks. That’s what has happened to me, and that’s how my attitudes towards several speculative fiction authors have changed.

Guy Gavriel Kay

I used to rant against his novels, especially against his first ones, such as the Fionavar trilogy and “Tigana”. Do I still think that he perpetuated some harmful stereotypes there? That he created certain characters who were irritating? That some incidents there weren’t very probable, even according to the setting’s inner logic? Oh yes, I do. I am still unable to like Diarmuid from “The Fionavar Tapestry”, and I am as disappointed as I was because Kay wrote a feminist character in this trilogy in a very stereotypical way. I don’t like Devin from “Tigana” either, and I haven’t changed my mind about the “king marries a commoner” plot from the novel. But… But…

But those novels are back from the 1980s, and Kay has written many other things since then, and many of them I genuinely like. He’s been returning to his quasi-Italia, he’s written an astounding duology about an alternative version of Byzantium, and many other thigs, and he’s learnt a lot. His style has changed, his attitudes have changed, and they all have changed for the better. Even if there’s always a great plot in his novels, he also gives space and voice to the “commoners”, to artisans, physicians, cooks. He writes about classism and sexism without anachronistic manifestos, but he no longer excuses injustice as “those times were different”. He writes about women trying to find their place in a patriarchal world as doctors, spies, nuns. He writes about ordinary people who have to choose between two bad things in a classist, feudal environment. He doesn’t perpetuate many of the common fantasy stereotypes. His novels stand out on other levels too, when it comes to their meticulous world-building, their style, the aura they evoke so easily each time. He reshapes Provence, Byzantium, Italy, he isn’t yet another author basing their setting on your Good Ol’ Merry England and its Middle Ages. And I appreciate it, I can’t do otherwise, not in the world which is still so English-centric despite its growing diversity. Just as I appreciate that Kay isn’t a writer who thinks the same he thought forty years ago.

My attitude towards his works has changed a lot, but I’m not going to hide I was meaner and more nitpicky on them. Well, it happened. But we changed, and Kay has changed, and I am grateful that I could realize it.

Robin Hobb

I disagreed with many social takes this author had in her nine books on Fitz Farseer, a royal bastard and assassin from Six Duchies. I complained on double standards, on the promises of grittiness falling short, on the setting being depicted as more egalitarian than it actually was. I complained on the sexual abuse survivors’ depiction, and on random approach to many issues, from the structure of a feudal society to the question of teenage relationships. What I forgot, though, was that Fitz’s voice wasn’t the only one in Hobb’s universe. Because then I read another seven novels by her, set in the same universe, and I realized I enjoyed not only the setting but her takes and reflections, too. Her books on the Traders and on the Rain Wilds are surprisingly compatible with contemporary themes in speculative fiction, with exploring queerness, with defying patriarchy and rape culture. I can’t believe sometimes that the same author who sees particular harmful mechanisms so clearly in these novels also wrote the sequence of series about Fitz. I don’t mean that Fitz’s takes are very toxic, but some of them have aged poorly. Meanwhile, the “Liveship Traders” and “Rain Wild Chronicles” books are still astounding – on every level.

When you realize you agree with the author more than you thought, you start to like other elements of their creation even more. And so, in the end, I enjoy Robin Hobb’s novels as they are, I cherish their slow pace and complex descriptions, I cherish the richness of the setting, its originality. Want to read about a color-blind quasi-medieval kingdom? Or about fantasy cultures based on the Innuits or the people of the Himalayas? Or just a great narration about prophets and dragons? Go to Robin Hobb.

Stephen King

When I hadn’t read any of his books yet, I was convinced they were trashy, because I was dumb enough to proclaim every popular and prolific author a bad author. Now, having read “It”, “The Shining”, “Pet Semetary”, “The Stand”, and some of his rather mediocre books, I see I was so much wrong. Maybe King isn’t the best writer ever when it comes to style. Maybe he repeats some tropes. And yes, he gets quite cringy sometimes. And his books are centred on white Americans, so white that the usual cast would be English-descending mostly. Maybe German or Jewish or African-American, sometimes. It is also true that he centers men. That his book-endings can be unsatisfying. But guess what? He’s aware, at least, that he has problems with writing certain types of characters. And he’s improved over years. I was happy to read about a female Reverend in “Under the Dome”. I was happy to read about a crush between a white boy and Black girl in “The Institute”. King tries to be more inclusive. He’ll never be another Rick Riordan, but, still, I appreciate his efforts, especially that he must have been reared on such authors as Richard Matheson and Roger Zelazny, who were more ignorant about minorities than he’s ever been.

Another thing is that his novels aren’t some trash full of gore and cheap sensation. They are character-driven, they draw from psychology, from what we fear deep inside our consciousness. They are about people who have to survive the unthinkable, or about people who may have cultural capital, who may be well-read and well-educated, but who are still insecure, susceptible to the terrifying suggestions of unknown forces (which happens in “Pet Semetary” and in “The Shining”). They are about addiction, trauma, and mental health. They don’t idealize the things they are about, such as your square American family. And, above all, they are about the power of love and friendship. And what do we need more than novels like that?