#riordan — Public Fediverse posts on home.social

Seán Fenian @[email protected] · 2025-12-15 · 19:46 UTC

In which Rick #Riordan nails it.

"Ah, yes, the occasional 'Why did you put gender fluidity in your book, your agenda is ruining the story' comment. Perhaps what is ruining the story for that reader is their insistence on believing that a non-cishet character's right to exist in a story is an 'agenda'?
"And of course, if the reader is wondering why I put gender fluidity in a Norse mythology story... that reader doesn't know much about Norse mythology."

I stopped bothering to count the times readers have complained that my books are 'too woke' and that my 'woke agenda' is 'ruining the story'. Look, I hate to say this, buddy, but if the idea of characters in a story giving a shit about other people ruins the story for you, that says more about you than it does about the story. And what it says about you isn't good.

The best of the lot was the guy who sneered 'Go woke, go broke' in a review on one volume of my Stardock Trilogy — which at the time was in the top three in Amazon's bestseller lists in all three of its principal genre categories. (At one point the three volumes of the trilogy were at #1, #2 and #3.)

Yeah, I really went broke writing that book, pal. You just keep telling yourself that, if it makes you feel good.

#riordan