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Maz's avatar

I get what you are trying to say, but there are better ways of saying it.

Your canon is your canon, mine is mine. There may be shared points of contact or none at all.

I find LotR bloated rubbish, but I'd happily read Emily St John Mandel, Michael Chabon or a Paolo Bacigalupi book that was of the same length, as I find their worlds better.

Surely the point should be 'Expand your canon'.

Or is there some official canon list I've never encountered before?

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The Phantom's avatar

"The idea of the canon is outdated, colonialist, racist, sexist, and anti-queer."

The idea of the canon is a way to sort the little nuggets of gold from the field of dross. Some few works echo down the years, most do not.

You don't have to -like- David Brin or his stories, but you do have to admit they were significant at the time they were published. They're a piece of SF history.

I read LeGuin and for the most part found her achingly boring. Your mileage clearly differed.

But no one can pretend "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" was not an influential story. It's influence on me was to put a chapter in one of my own books envisioning a return to Omelas with orbital fire support, because you don't just walk away from something like that.

That's what a true canon is. That some of us detest the Omelas story is not relevant, it is still an important piece of SF history.

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