Follow-up to the earlier question

[james_davis_nicoll]

Which mainstream science fiction or fantasy work would you say was the most racist mainstream science fiction or fantasy work?

(Mainstream = published by a legit publisher, not some vanity house)

Comments

[ba_munronoe]

Oy. I'm sure one could do "British Empire, in spaaaace" without it being a racism fest, but you'd have to actually put some effort into it rather than just snagging stuff from the Big Bag of Stereotypes.

[jessie_c]

White didn't even try. Every attitude in the book is lifted entirely from the desk of Steves Miller and Bannon.

[ba_munronoe]

The book, like the Grinch's soul, appears to be an appalling dump heap overflowing with the most disgraceful assortment of deplorable rubbish imaginable. And really, they're not even thematically appropriate bad guys: Space British Empire vs Space Russian Empire would be more traditional, but he's probably another Putin admirer. (And, come to think of it, the Space Russians would actually be strong opponents: like any proper Fascist, he prefers to imagine enemies that are somehow both very dangerous but also weak and incompetent, because once the Hero is released from the Shackles of Bureaucracy or whatever, he must be seen to utterly crush the Enemy: having the Enemy actually give as good as he gets is inconceivable.)

[jbwoodford]

...having the Enemy actually give as good as he gets is inconceivable.

That's something I remember from Tom Clancy's books; they probably haven't aged well (and I'm not going back to check, thankyouverymuch), but he sometimes [1] managed to write respectable/understandable antagonists who happened to be wrong in a way that motivated the plot.

[1]: The less said about "Without Remorse" in that context, the better.