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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tratyn Runewind" data-source="post: 1208954" data-attributes="member: 685">Hello, No.  But it's about what I'd expect from the author of the vastly overhyped Perdido Street Station, which reads like a so-so William Gibson pastiche written after a two-week LSD and Final Fantasy bender.Even a cursory reading will show that Tolkien's villains were much bigger fans of "hierarchical status-quos" than his heroes.  but we must have power, power to order all things as we will, for that good which only the Wise can see.and the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order, all things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish, hindered rather than helped by our weak or idle friends.are spoken by Saruman in his corruption.  Compare this to the original mission of the Wizards, who in opposing Sauronwere forbidden to match his power with power, or to seek to dominate elves or men by force or fear.The people of Gondor, who were the closest among Tolkien's heroic nations to having a "hierarchical status-quo", were explicitly in decline.  The Shire has no real hierarchy until Saruman (through Lotho) intervenes, setting up "Gatherers" and "Sharers" and multiplying the Shirrifs, which sends the Shire into a disgruntled decline.  The comment about absolute morality blurring complexities is telling, too.  It is the other way around - complexities are created to blur absolute morality, usually to the advantage of the ones doing the blurring, who would typically be judged harshly by such morality if their attempts at sophistry fail.  Even so, hard moral choices are made in Tolkien's work, most notably by Faramir (who, if he were so fond of "hierarchical status-quos", would have had Frodo and Sam shot down on sight without a second thought).As to "glorying in war", you get a glimpse into Tolkien's ideas on the subject with Bilbo's thoughts before he gets clocked by a rock towards the end of The Hobbit, and in some of Aragorn's discussion with Eowyn.  In any case, I'd consider Tolkien, who saw service in one of the more brutal wars of a brutal century, better qualified to comment on the subject than a trendy poseur like Mieville.With all that said, I will note that Mieville is right that there is a segment of SF fandom that thinks disparagingly of fantasy.  I just think that even to bother addressing the concerns of this crowd is all but pointless, since, from what I have seen, they're almost uniformly horrible people, well worthy of adjectives that would not meet with the approval of various moderators' grandmothers.  Mieville obviously has some sympathy for them and some concern for their opinions, though - not surprising in one so pathetically captivated by "radicalism", apparently for its own sake.  And this concern has apparently led to the little article linked to in the first post of this thread.</blockquote>

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