Possibly one of my favourite series, period. The first book is objectively hard to get into. (The writing is a little rougher than the later novels, and the in media res start + Erikson’s… anthropological(?) approach to world building (where history and culture are complicated, everyone disagrees about everything, anyone who can tell you something about the world with certainty either refuses, or is lying) leaves you needing to work hard to understand what’s going on while not being sure if the effort is worth it.)

And then book two shares almost no characters and takes place on an entirely different continent, only tangentially connecting to the main plot. :P But if you can get over the shock of that (and get through the first book to get here to begin with) Deadhouse Gates and Memories of Ice (books two and three) are genuine works of art, and the rest of the series is of similar quality.

Realistically, this is a complicated issue. I can understand wanting to modernize older works (wanting to share something you enjoyed, but struggling because said thing has not aged well), but part of the value of those works is in the view they give of the past.

The important part if this is going to become commonplace, I think, is making sure the process is transparent and the originals preserved; EG, if a book is going to be edited, it needs to be explicit (in the new version) that it was editied, what was edited, and why it was changed. It’s one thing to tweak something so that it can still be enjoyed, it’s another to try to forget it was problematic in the first place.

That all said, I find I agree with Pullman, here; I doubt the publisher is motivated to do this by anything other than sales. Let new authors find their place, instead of whitewashing the works of dead men to turn a quick buck. /shurg

Eh… it tracks well enough I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand. Right wing talking heads push so hard at young men, it’s fucking exhausting. And the slightest attempt to engage with or learn about current events and politics tends to lead to social media algorithms jamming alt-right nonsense down your throat, because that reactionary, provocative/offensive content generates more engagement. And so much of it is trying to frame the normal struggles of growing up (sex and sexuality, responsibility and expectation, growing independence (fiscal and otherwise) etc, etc) as things being inflicted on them by others, things thay can be simply solved by stripping power from these groups. (Immigrants, women, people of colour, LGBTQIA+, etc.)

Doesn’t help that a lot of this gets internalized, I think. Like, fuck, there are plenty of terms that seem reasonably descriptive of me (bi, demi, enby, etc.) but… I’m super straight passing, and not super driven by sex or romantic relationships, so it’s like… I never really have to deal with these labels in my day-to-day? I stick he/they in stuff when people ask for pronouns, style myself somewhat androgynously, am well aware 90s David Boreanaz is objectively eye-candy, and I haven’t gone on a date in… years, because I just don’t really care. But claiming those labels feels improper, somehow. Both from a “born and raised christian, que toxic masculinity and internalized homophobia” perspective and a “I am in a position of extreme privilege where I haven’t had to face many of the struggles common to the LGBTQIA+ community, claiming a place there seems insulting” perspective. /shurg