Reply #27: Didn't know that about Goodkind, but I don't read him

[Orrex]

I'm embarrassed to admit that I read Piers Anthony into my early twenties, when his rampant sexism and breast-worship finally started to become unbearable--and I'm not exactly averse to breasts, either. For that matter, I can't even say for sure that Anthony's own fetish was creeping onto the page, but it became so annoying pervasive that I couldn't take it anymore.

I later learned that he's quite liberal in his views, and he's done great work in support of new and aspiring writers. Still, his chapter-length narcissistic "author's notes" at the end of each book, and his inability to describe a female character without mentioning her breasts, makes his stuff all but unreadable to me.

I glanced at a volume recently and can say with some confidence that I wouldn't care to read his style even if the above weren't true, but his manner certainly didn't inspire me to explore his writings further.

So I guess it can work both ways: an author's politics may be sufficiently objectionable to make it impossible to enjoy his or her work; and anothe author's politics may be laudable but insufficient to overcome bad writing.