Newsgroup: it.comp.console.playstation
Titolo: What is it Good For?

handed with his anti-war messages.
It's worth remembering that the Pertwee era co-incided with the nastier 
stages of the Vietnam War, at a time when protesters in Britain were being 
arrested for carrying marbles ('offensive weapons') - so the anti-war 
messages might have been strident but they were justifyably so.
If you want to see real bullshit moralising look at Topping and Day's 'Devil 
Goblins from Neptune' in which we discover that Mike Yates's hitherto 
unhinted-at promiscuity is leaving him feeling shallow and unfulfilled. (One 
of the authors is a Born Again Christian, I believe.) Or check out any of 
Paul Cornell's articles in 'SFX'.
David Forbes (yup, still here)
sits in front of a set tuned to SCANALYZER orbiting
on triptine saying over and over, 'Christ what an
imagination I've got!'
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 Paul Cornell's articles in 'SFX'.
Yep, which leads me neatly into replying (again) that "real bullshit
moralising" is damaging in a DW story.
I think it's extremely irresponsible and/or childish for an author to really
"push their own barrow" in a story, whether it's giving the loveable
companion Marxist tendencies or revealing that the Doctor has some
alarmingly right-wing thoughts at times.
Sure, characters have to have personalities / thoughts / feelings / etc ...
but when those thoughts correspond so *neatly* with the author in question,
it's almost embarassing. For eg: the new companion is a rabid born-again
Christian. Oh what a surprise that the writer is, too!
Some might say that we shouldn't know so much about authors to think so
negatively about their work, but I'm not so sure. Surely at its most base
level, it's more challenging for an author to write about something they
*don't* like or *don't* agree with, than to push their own views and
interests onto a book reading public?
And I will qualify, that I am speaking strictly within the realm of DW here.
It's a show that's bigger than all of its writers put together, so I have a
real problem with authors trying to assert too much authority on something
that is like this. If, on the other hand, it's an author's own world  and
own series of books, anything is free game. People are reading the books
because of the author and/or the characters & situations in the books -- not
because it's a series they follow, like DW.
Hope this is making sense to someone, somewhere!
RI
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In a message dated 12/30/99 10:35:11 PM, 
r...@policebox.com
 writes:
<<Some might say that we shouldn't know so much about authors to think so 
negatively about their work, but I'm not so sure. Surely at its most base 
level, it's more challenging for an author to write about something they 
*don't* like or *don't* agree with, than to push their own views and 
interests onto a book reading public?>>
Two things. Judging a work based on what you assume the author's intention in 
writing it was has come to be called the "intentional fallacy." A lot more 
goes into a book than even the author is aware of. One can consider an 
author's intent, but the book has to stand or fall on its own.
Second, Gustave Flaubert wrote, "An author should be in his novel like God in 
his universe: present everywhere, visible nowhere." (Well, he wrote it in 
French, but you know what I mean....) I know, just because he said it doesn't 
mean everyone has to agree with it or follow it (that's the logical fallacy 
known as "argument by authority"), but in fact it's very hard to write a 
tendentious novel and pull it off. Even writing a novel with an obvious 
authorial voice (e.g., Tom Jones by Henry Fielding) is difficult. Readers can 
tell when they're being lectured, and they usually resent it.
One of the first lessons I ever learned about writing was, "Don't tell, 
show." If you want to prove that, say, sinners never prosper, don't keep 
repeating it. Formulate your plot so that the bad guys (realistically) lose 
and suffer.
You can always tell the characters in a Dickens novel that the author 
approved of, even though he never comes right out and labels anyone as a hero 
or a villain. That's the way to do things.
Tom Beck
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