re: #17 silverdolphin

Both Niven and Pournelle were pretty conservative to begin with – pro-Vietnam War. I think both saw their works hurt by their relationshipo with Reagan and Gingrich. They both became involved with conservative politics and, for Niven particularly, never really produced anything great after 1980. Like Orson Scott Card (and more recently JK Rowling), they let their political views overshadow and influence their work too much.

Science Fiction is not really fallow ground for paleoconservatism. Fantasy works better there.

I think it depends on the writer, while I completely disagree with John Ringo on damn near everything, he writes a compelling story. You can even put Scalzi’s Old Man War in the plucky humanity against the universe setting that many of these Space Opera settings thrive in, some work some don’t.

I agree that when the writer goes into the story with an agenda that almost always fails, because the story is what matters, if the story is engaging just about everything else can be forgiven. I fully believe that Niven and Pournelle just kind of disregarded that in their collaborations.