Alternate History and Real-World Insult

[tamaranth]

I'm deeply uncomfortable about the current debate concerning Patricia Wrede's new novel The Thirteenth Child, an alternate-history fantasy in which the Americas (North and South) are, for magical reasons, not settled by humans until the coming of the Europeans.

At least part of the discussion seems to be along the lines of "it is unacceptable to write an AU in which Native Americans / First Peoples do not exist, because it insults those peoples in reality and negates their existence in a way that mirrors historical genocide."

Most of the people criticising the book don't seem to have read it -- many assert that they won't read it -- and some are saying that they now won't read other books by the author.

So (assuming that my reading of the discussion, and of the relative importance of certain comments, is valid)
- there are alternate histories that can't or shouldn't or mustn't be written;
- an author writing unacceptable alternate worlds is liable to blacklisting;
- the actual content of the book (which I haven't read, but will make a point of reading) is irrelevant.

And of course people are degenerating into some fairly nasty name-calling again, which I am not inviting to happen here: any and all ad hominem attacks will be deleted, regardless of whether I agree or disagree with them.

This feels like a peculiar kind of censorship and I am uncomfortable, angry and disturbed by it.

Comments

[marypcb.livejournal.com]

and by the same argument, KSR's Years of Rice and Salt would be only acceptable because White Europeans can't be discriminated against too much... faugh