Episodes In Intolerance

     Get a load of this:

     Back in 2006 Dan Simmons wrote a time travel story warning about the Century War with Islam. Thucydides plays a prominent role, his diagnosis being that the Sicilian Expedition failed because the Athenians were not ruthless enough, and thereby doomed themselves.
     He got cancelled for this, of course. One of the greatest literary talents of his generation smeared as a right wing crank by people who didn't know what a dhimmi was, or a jizya, and had certainly never read Thucydides, but knew damn well that Islam was a religion of peace.

     Dan Simmons was a unique, overpoweringly impressive talent. He could write anything — and he did. His books cover the whole range of the fiction genres, possibly excepting romance. More important, every one of them was a jewel. I think I’ve read most of his oeuvre, and I can’t remember ever being displeased by so much as a single sentence.

     Simmons passed away only a few days ago. I could go on a long, effusive dithyramb here, extolling his numerous virtues as a writer and storyteller, but that’s not why I’ve chosen this subject. It’s because of a single short story he wrote, which he posted at his website. It’s a monitory tale; its focus is the war between Islam and civilization itself. And it is unsparing of anyone’s notions or preferences. If you haven’t yet read it, please do so before continuing on here.

     I know of only two other writers, the inimitable Tom Kratman and the mighty John Ringo, who have been equally blunt about the peril Islam poses to the First World. (No, I shan’t number myself among them. I haven’t earned the right to sit in that company.) But Kratman, Ringo, and Simmons share something else as well: They’re savagely reviled by the Left and the bien-pensants of all Establishments. Consider this vacuum-skull’s denunciation of Simmons:

     These days, Dan Simmons is mostly known as a hard-right Islamophobe who thinks that moderately progressive social policies will destroy America and tries to keep himself relevant by scolding climate activists. But in ye olden days, he was famous for a series of weird, genre-bending novels that made readers say either “wow, that’s deep” or “the heck did I just read?”

     Mustn’t offend the Left! Their claws come out immediately. Never mind that none of them are worthy to tie Simmons’s shoelaces. That’s the tactic they’ve embraced: vilification and unrelenting denunciation of anyone who dares to disagree with them. “Racist! Sexist! Ableist!”

     (Yes, those denunciations have lost a lot of their force. I’m a proud racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, xenophobic, and Islamophobic-American. Being up-front about all that hasn’t hurt my bank balance. Perhaps that’s because those positions are well supported by the evidence. But I digress.)

     Perhaps Simmons is just one more casualty of our contemporary political divisions and the fusillades they’ve occasioned. After all, there are some other big names on that list, including Dr. William Shockley, co-developer of the transistor, and Dr. James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of the DNA molecule. But it’s still worth noting that there is no writer on the Left whose stature compares even remotely to that of Dan Simmons. And of course, now that he’s gone, those pygmies will cluster around his grave to piss on it again. It’s approximately all they can do.

     Remember when Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies came out? Leftist scum were quick to denounce both Jackson and Tolkien for being racist, sexist, et cetera. “Why aren’t there any good Orcs? Why aren’t there women warriors other than Eowyn?” And on and on. Of course, to anyone familiar with pre-technological socio-anthropology, such criticisms appear idiotic, but what of that? “Racist! Sexist!”

     Gentle Reader, the idiocy is so extreme that it’s all I can do not to erupt in wild laughter. Yet I feel a great sympathy for Dan Simmons and a great revulsion toward those determined to besmirch his memory. For there will be some potential readers and admirers who will be deflected from enjoying Simmons’s works because of the Left’s scurrilities. And that is a terrible shame.

     Rest in peace, Dan Simmons. Know that you are missed.