If you hang out in online bookish communities, you’ve probably heard or read some variation on the following: ‘Oh, I can’t believe people are reading his books. Don’t people know what he did?’ Quite often, the authors in question are referred to – somewhat euphemistically – as ‘problematic.’ This is a term I don’t particularly like using, because it covers a whole swathe of things, from the nonsensical to the monstrous. And yet it is a label that persists. For whatever reason, authors are branded as ‘problematic.’ When their name crops up in conversation, readers are occasionally chastised for reading their works. prospective readers may be warned away, or given a kind note along the lines of ‘before you give this person your money/time, there’s something you ought to know…’ Most of the time these warnings are well-intentioned. I can’t even begin to count the number of times such warnings have been met with ‘I had no idea, thanks for letting me know,’ but good intentions are famously what paves the road to Hell.

‘Problematic’ as a label covers too much to be useful on its own terms, but most of the time it boils down to ‘Either I or the society I inhabit takes an issue with something about this author.’ The phrasing lends itself easily to a shifting of blame. When people say ‘this author is a problem,’ it can just as easily mean ‘I have a problem with this author.’ And those are not the same thing. Close, but not the same. So pull up a pew and let me climb to the pulpit, because we’re about to unpick some things. And, fair warning, we might not like what we see.

Problem #1: The Author has different political/social beliefs to me

This is probably the one that comes up the most. If you go to a search engine and ask for problematic authors, you’ll probably given a long list of authors who have become just as famous for their opinions as their fiction. There’s a certain inevitability to this. Give anyone a platform and they’ll start talking. That’s basically what a blog is, after all. But when you take an author of fiction and give them an audience, some people can’t help but slip their own beliefs into interactions with their readers. One of the great perils of this age of mass social media is that we have access to authors at all hours of the day, and it’s all too easy to stumble across their politics when we’d rather just be reading their fiction. Sometimes this can be very informative, at other times it’s more than a little disappointing.

The first example of this I’m going to look at is Cixin Liu. For those who don’t know, Liu is a Chinese science fiction author, most famous for The Three-Body Problem. Liu is also on the record as supporting some of the Chinese government’s more controversial policies. However, there are a couple of things to bear in mind. The first is that the Chinese government has a lot of control over which native authors are published overseas. If Liu criticises the government, he may find himself facing their ire. A very bad place to be, by all accounts. Perhaps Liu is not fully aware of what his government is doing – a possibility we cannot entirely dismiss. But let us assume he does, for the sake of an argument. Liu is the product of a Chinese upbringing just as I am one of a British background. Britain and China have different social moralities. Everyone is the product of their environment, and perhaps we should not be so quick to judge another culture by our standards and to assume that our way of life is the only one with moral superiority is the height of arrogance.

As an example of someone closer to home (at least in a cultural sense), there is Orson Scott Card. An American author, and one of science fiction’s most famous names. Even of you haven’t read it, you probably know the name Ender’s Game. Card has a long catalogue of well-respected works, but is also known as having some rather controversial views. having read only a few of his works, I can say that some of his views on sex and marriage strike me as a little odd, and his views on same-sex relationships are well-documented. The added complication here is that Card is a member of the LDS Church (Mormonism), which requires a tithing from its followers. The Church itself has a rough track record when it comes to equal rights, and so by purchasing Card’s books, you are potentially sending money to an organisation that spreads a message you are uncomfortable with. To my mind, this argument has some merit. If you don’t want to support a cause, don’t send it money. However, we as readers are not, and should not be, in charge of how an author spends their earnings.

There are a number of authors I could bring up here, from J. K. Rowling to Terry Goodkind. All have drawn attention to themselves for their beliefs in a way that distracts attention from their works of fiction. This loops back around to the issue I spoke of earlier, when authors become personalities in their own right rather than the creators of fiction that we are first introduced to them as. So far as I am concerned, however, this problem is the easiest one to move past. As long as an author’s politics are kept out of their work, then they are free to believe and do whatever they wish. And politics and beliefs do influence fiction – of course they do – but that’s a discussion for another day. If a book is actively preaching a way of life, then it becomes a problem. But if an author believes something that I don’t, it’s very easy for me to ignore that.

Problem #2: The Author has committed terrible crimes

Now, divergent politics and outlandish beliefs are one thing, but sometimes authors cross well-defined lines. I’m a big believer in upholding the law, and there are certainly authors who have broken it. A lot of the time, this isn’t a problem from a reader’s standpoint. I don’t think many people out there are telling people to avoid an author because that author once shoplifted a bag of crisps. Not least because that sort of behaviour rarely makes the front pages. Some crimes, however, draw more attention, and it’s usually because they are the nastier ones. Thankfully, examples of this problem are very rare. In fact, the example I’m going to give is a fantasy one.

David and Leigh Eddings are best known as the husband and wife team behind the Belgariad and its related series. These are books that a generation of readers grew up with, and were one of my own avenues into epic fantasy. I’m the guy who read The Rivan Codex cover to cover. Most people I know who’ve read it have fond memories of the series, although many would admit it has aged worse than some others from the time. What some people don’t know, however, is that the Eddings were convicted of, and served prison time for, the abuse of two adopted children. This was prior to the couple’s fame as authors, and only became well-known after their deaths, though it was in newspapers at the time.

Clearly, and I really shouldn’t have to say this because it’s obvious, there is no excuse for what the Eddings did. It’s a crime and a moral atrocity. Many people will veer away from reading the Belgariad on the basis that they can’t enjoy the work of such monsters. Honestly? Fair enough. Once you know something like that, it’s hard not to think about it while reading the books. Maybe ignorance is bliss, after all. But there are two things to consider. First, and specific to the Eddings, is the fact that the authors are dead. They are not making money off new sales. Your money is not funding abuse. The second point is a more general one. The Eddings were punished by the state for their crimes. Several years in prison, and their children put into better care. From a criminal standpoint, the slate had been cleaned. Now, would I trust a prior offender to look after my own children? Probably not. But society does have a habit of making former criminals into pariahs. If the purpose of justice is to punish, then surely their given sentence is punishment enough. And if the purpose is reform, then do we not owe it to society to give people a second chance, whatever their crimes may be? Crucially, the Eddings became writers only after their sentencing. Maybe literature was a way of seeking atonement? Or maybe I’m just reading too much into all this.

Ultimately, in legal matters I am happy to let the courts do their job. Maybe I won’t always think a sentence is harsh enough, or even too harsh. But the system should be allowed to do its job. Vigilante boycotts are not the answer. By all means, do not celebrate authors when they have chequered pasts, but kicking up a fuss will only bring more attention to their works. After all, any publicity is good publicity.

Problem #3: The Author has acted/behaved in a way I disapprove of

In a way, I’m quite fortunate. The overwhelming majority of authors I enjoy have shown themselves to be thoroughly decent people. Granted, I’ve spent precious little time with them in person, and at conventions they are of course putting on a veneer of a showbiz persona. That said, I have never had a negative interaction with an author. But I am online, and so I do see things. Once again, we’re back at that old problem of authors and readers being visible to each other at all times. It truly is a terrible world we live in. One ill-advised comment on Twitter (or X, as we are now obliged to call it) ca have real-world ramifications. Just last year, fantasy author Stephen Aryan made a remark about people who put Christianity in their Twitter bios, and I know of people who cancelled pre-orders of his new book as a result. yet that comment aside, Aryan has consistently been one of the more approachable authors I am aware of. One author who has successfully put me off his books die to his online presence is Larry Correia. Now, his books didn’t appeal to me all that much anyway, but his frequently combative attitude with, just about everyone to be quite honest, rubs me the wrong way. Of course, if Correia pouts out a science fiction book that looks good, I’m happy to put my personal dislike of the man to one side and give it a read. Just as I did with Neal Asher.

And it’s not just social media that can expose badly behaving authors. One of the founding figures of the genre, Isaac Asimov, was infamous for his behaviour towards women. Though probably more poor-taste playfulness than malicious intent, his habit of groping women is a disappointing blemish on an otherwise towering figure. Once again, there’s no defending what Asimov did, and his behaviour is usually brought up in any long discussion of his works these days. But does this mean that his books should not be read? Of course not. Asimov’s works are key to an understanding of science fiction. His books are also relatively free of women being groped (and, indeed, women in general), so it’s easier to separate the art from the artist.

Conclusions

I’ve talked about a lot of authors here, and they all have two things in common. The first is that they have certain traits and behaviours that would certainly cause problems for some readers. The other is the fact that they are all the creators of well-regarded works of fiction. Just now, I sued the phrase ‘separate the art from the artist’ and I think that’s the key to my argument. Now, that term is actually used in an academic sense more than it applies to general reading, but the core argument is still there. Clearly, a person has control over what they create. The art is born of the artist. But any author worth their salt is capable of writing things that are different to their own perspective. People who write about serial killers are rarely murderers themselves. Robert A. Heinlein was not a fascist, regardless of how some people interpret Starship Troopers. Nor was Anthony Burgess a psychopath. If you can believe that a human can write from the perspective of an alien, then surely it’s not too much of a stretch to believe that a bad person can create good art.

Let me put it this way. We still read the works of Shakespeare. We still study the works of Mark Anthony and Suetonius, and countless others. We treat everyone from Alexander the Great to Alexander Hamilton as heroic figures. All of these great people from the past have left a legacy in both fact and fiction. They are people we look up to and admire. And every one of them would be horrified by the morality of today. Similarly, a thousand years from now, people will look back at our present and say ‘I can’t believe people read this. Dis they not realise how wrong this is?’ The moral outrage we feel today will be swept away by new moralities, new philosophies, new authors and new readers. Maybe we can look forward to that future with fear, or maybe it will be wondrous beyond our greatest imaginings. All we can say for certain is that it will be different.

Returning to my point, my closing thoughts are something along the following lines. If you don’t want to read a book because of something the author has done or said, then by all means don’t. Nobody is forcing you to (outside of certain academic areas). But you also don’t need to bring up an author’s failings every time a book is discussed. Let the work stand on its own merits, and then we can talk about what an author did wrong in their life. They key thing is that people should be allowed to draw their own conclusions about books and the people who write them. There is no need for banning or boycotting or forewarning of an author’s sins. By all means, we should not shy away from the fact that sometimes authors disappoint us, but I don’t think we should put that first. We’re always told not to judge a book by it’s cover. Maybe we shouldn’t judge it by its author either.

In summary then, if you want to avoid reading an author because you consider them ‘problematic,’ then by all means put that book down right now. But don’t expect other to do the same. Speaking purely for myself, I’m not here for the authors. I’m here for the books. And that’s not about to change any time soon.