10 Sci-Fi and Fantasy Works Every Conservative Should Read

[Eponine]

A satire or glorification of?

Both.

[The Marquis de Leech]

A lot of this depends on the strain of conservatism. With socialists for Mieville's list, you know what you're getting... but Paradise Lost is a kind of terrible choice for a religious conservative, but fits decently with Libertarianism.

I think it works for both libertarians (who'd take the view we're supposed to cheer Milton's Satan) and religious conservatives (who'd take the view that by sympathising initially with Satan, the reader is re-enacting the Fall).

[Darth Richard]

I imagine it depends on how you define conservative these days, which even conservative can't agree on.

Still don't get how Conan makes the list though.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Still don't get how Conan makes the list though.

Conan has an unsavory social darwinist streak running through it (see Howard's essay on the Hyborean Age for an account of races struggling for supremacy), and the Barbarism vs Civilisation theme is pretty Rugged Individualist. As such, it'd cover at least some conservatives.

(Since Howard was from 1930s rural Texas, I just put those quirks down to the author's environment, and just focus on the stories for their entertaining action and adventure).

[Myshkin]

Lovecraft was a bigot by the standards of the 1920s. But he was a comparatively harmless bigot (his anti-semitic rants didn't stop him from having a Jewish wife, and his later works are less overtly obsessed with race). He did remark that he wished he could have been around in the eighteenth century, when he'd have been a loyal subject of King George.

No one as aggressively racist as HP Lovecraft should ever be described as a "harmless bigot".

[The Marquis de Leech]

No one as aggressively racist as HP Lovecraft should ever be described as a "harmless bigot".

Lovecraft was harmless in the sense that his ugly beliefs never caused anyone any actual harm. He never beat anyone up or went around lynching people, nor did he join the KKK. He wasn't a violent or political bigot; his extreme paranoid xenophobia was of the reclusive variety, and as I said above, his anti-semitism didn't stop him having a Jewish wife.

[Darth Richard]

Racism is never "harmless".

[Myshkin]

Lovecraft was harmless in the sense that his ugly beliefs never caused anyone any actual harm. He never beat anyone up or went around lynching people, nor did he join the KKK. He wasn't a violent or political bigot; his extreme paranoid xenophobia was of the reclusive variety, and as I said above, his anti-semitism didn't stop him having a Jewish wife.

No he never went and lynched anyone, but he did write and publish racist screeds, which is not harmless at all. As for his Jewish wife, he married her because she was acceptably assimilated; or not all that Jew-y as he saw it. His wife had to constantly remind him that she was Jewish every time he went off on an anti-semitic rant.

[The Marquis de Leech]

No he never went and lynched anyone, but he did write and publish racist screeds, which is not harmless at all.

It's only harmful if anyone took them seriously. Lovecraft's views were kooky even by 1920s standards, and the sort of people who'd take, say, The Street seriously as racial commentary (let alone The Shadow Over Innsmouth) would be the sort of people who already had KKK pamphlets on their coffee tables.

As for his Jewish wife, he married her because she was acceptably assimilated; or not all that Jew-y as he saw it. His wife had to constantly remind him that she was Jewish every time he went off on an anti-semitic rant.

Yet he never admonished or harmed her after she reminded him.

[Happy Ent]

This thread cannot but be influenced by our differing views of what conservative means.

(E.g., Goodkind and Heinlein aren’t conservative but liberal (in the European sense).)

To put some more books on the list:

Strange & Norrell is imbued with many themes of conservatism.

Not F/SF, but No Country for Old Men struck me as deeply conservative.

[Myshkin]

It's only harmful if anyone took them seriously. Lovecraft's views were kooky even by 1920s standards, and the sort of people who'd take, say, The Street seriously as racial commentary (let alone The Shadow Over Innsmouth) would be the sort of people who already had KKK pamphlets on their coffee tables.

You think the guys who wrote the KKK pamphlets were harmless too?

Yet he never admonished or harmed her after she reminded him.

He never beat his wife, therefore he couldn't have been all that anti-semitic? You seem to think the only harm a racist can commit is physical. Even though it makes me feel filthy I'm going to quote a Lovecraft poem here. Read it, then tell me he was harmless (I'm putting it in spoiler tags because I'd feel even filthier if I didn't).

On the Creation of Niggers

by H. P. Lovecraft

When, long ago, the gods created Earth

In Iove's fair image Man was shaped at birth.

The beasts for lesser parts were next designed;

Yet were they too remote from humankind.

To fill the gap, and join the rest to Man,

Th'Olympian host conceiv'd a clever plan.

A beast they wrought, in semi-human figure,

Filled it with vice, and called the thing a Nigger.

That is not harmless.

[Galactus]

Bakker. The villains are sexual deviants, eugenics create the superman, women are metaphysically inferior, the gods are real...

[The Marquis de Leech]

You think the guys who wrote the KKK pamphlets were harmless too?

People were influenced and incited by the KKK pamphlets. I have a hard time imagining anyone influenced to hate Jews, blacks, or fish after reading Lovecraft.

He never beat his wife, therefore he couldn't have been all that anti-semitic? You seem to think the only harm a racist can commit is physical.

Yes, racism can be insidious in many different forms. The point, however, is that his anti-semitism didn't extend to people (such as his wife) he actually interacted with. His racism was at an abstract level, rather than a personal level.

Even though it makes me feel filthy I'm going to quote a Lovecraft poem here. Read it, then tell me he was harmless (I'm putting it in spoiler tags because I'd feel even filthier if I didn't).

That is not harmless.

Written in 1912 at the very start of his career, a good decade (or two) before his major stories, and the point at which he was most overtly racist. The nastiness fades in the later works (where is the racism in At the Mountains of Madness?). But again, no-one was influenced by that poem; you're confusing being offensive and vile (which the poem certainly is), with being genuinely harmful.

[Bastard of Godsgrace]

Yeah, it is pretty strange list. Come on, no Tolkien and Lewis? IMHO, Howard and Lovecraft don't belong on any must read lists, because they were simply poor writers. And yes, Goodkind and Heinlein are liberal from my European POV.

I think The Diamond Age would be far better choice than Snow Crash, since it sure reads like a conservative book, while Snow Crash is, once again, liberal from my POV. I would like to see Book of the New Sun on the list and something by Tim Powers, preferably Declare.

Also Borges and Bulgakov, obviously, if we are not restricted to books originally written in English.

EDIT: As an afterthought, if books translated into English are allowed I would name Eden by Stanislaw Lem.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Sologdin,

I've always viewed Hobbes as more "Statist" than Conservative. They are not coextensive terms.

[Datepalm]

Isn't Cryptonomicon really Stephenson's opus n terms of conservatism and the glories of capitalism and war and what have you?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Shouldn't this thread be predicated by a firm definition of what a "conservative" is? After all if it simply mean a preference for the "Status Quo" a modern liberal would have been a "conservative" immidieatelu following he start of the "New Deal".

[Zoë Sumra]

Shouldn't this thread be predicated by a firm definition of what a "conservative" is? After all if it simply mean a preference for the "Status Quo" a modern liberal would have been a "conservative" immidieatelu following he start of the "New Deal".

As Blu-Ray mentioned up-thread, there isn't one firm definition because conservatism isn't one thing. A few posters have mentioned different books for different types - maybe, carry on their work with a preceding attempt to define the different types.

[Datepalm]

a firm definition of what a "conservative" is?

Go ahead then.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Elosia,

The simplest definition is a person with a prejudice against change.