Forbidden Thoughts

Some of the stories are heavy handed to the point of parody, especially "Safe Space Suit", but the majority of stories are well told and have you thinking about the story. Those are the stories that need to be told instead of mocking message fic. It saddens me that so many reviewers of this book crow about making SJWs cry instead of talking about how a majority of the the authors in this book are able to deliver their message in a fun and entertaining way. Several of these stories will resonate with the reader regardless of political affiliation, if they can read with an open mind. Unfortunately, the people that most need to read this book won't look past Milo's name on the cover.

My title sums up my viewpoint. This was apparently supposed to be a modern response to Dangerous Visions, itself an uneven compilation of heavy handed message fiction. It's pretty heavy handed. But unlike the SJW anthologies I struggle to finish (and often don't), I was able to finish this anthology because all the authors can tell an actual story, so I was willing to read them all despite the hamhandedness of the messages in most of the stories.

The stories that balanced "forbidden thoughts" in the modern progressive-happy age with interesting premises were Brad Torgenson's entry, Jane LeBak's entry, and L. Jagi Lamplighter's entry. I especially liked LeBak's tale of secret Christianity and liked the worldbuilding of Torgenson's story. Vox Day and Sarah Hoyt wrote high quality stories, but they didn't seem like they would be out of place in current non-SJW anthologies. And Hoyt's came close to being something SJWs would approve of.

I'm not sorry I bought it, but it just didn't really feel very fearless or risk-taking taken as a whole. But again, since these were writers who can entertain, the gems were sparkly and the boring message parts of the non-gem stories were still readable enough.

Warning- If you are easily triggered, don't read this book.

If you are made of sterner stuff and have ever considered how political correctness might logically impact our future society if allowed to progress, this collection of Sci-Fi short stories and non-fiction is for you. The stories are uniformly excellent and imaginative, and while always dark and morbid, there is the occasional dash of humor. It is certainly not for those with weak stomachs or the faint of heart. The non-fiction opinion pieces center on recent cultural scuffles (the Hugos) and the tactics of the left (finger pointing and cries of racism!).

Highly recommended.

I bought this on the strength of Milo's introduction, not expecting much meat on the inside. Boy, was I wrong. This is a chilling glimpse into various possible futures where the dystopian SJW vision of forced equality, denial of human nature, and abuse of state power is actually borne out in reality, taking our civilization to dark ends.

Leftists have been cramming the shelves full of sci-fi books predicated on their delusional nonsense for a long time -- this is a shot back across their bough. This book will certainly be no-awarded and no-platformed for the rest of the year, which is exactly why you should read it.

Strongly recommended.

This is a very worthwhile compilation of short stories. The point of the collection is to give print space to fiction pieces deliberately cultivated from a body of work which would be rejected by most of science fiction publishing, not for its content or quality but for not adhering to the groupthink political correctness which plagues the industry.

Most of the stories are of middling quality, not earth shattering but entertaining enough. My concern upon purchasing this was that the stories included would be hamfistedly anti-establishment and therefore not entertaining. A few of the stories did indeed produce this eye-rolling response from me, but I was pleasantly surprised by the majority of pieces.

The high point of the collection is Jane Lebak's tale of Christians driven into hiding. I had not previously read any of her works but will be sure to delve deeper into her writing. It evokes shades of the underground, persecuted early Church with an Orwellian overlay that is stereotypically familiar but somehow fresh in her voice.

Unfortunately, the low point of this collection is Larry Correia's non-fictional account of the Sad/Rabid Puppy Hugo scandals. I am a huge fan of Correia's work; I own and enjoy the entirety of his Monster Hunter and Grimnoir series and place Son of the Black Sword in my top five fantasy novels. Correia's entry seems to be a couple of posts from his blog more or less verbatim. As someone familiar with the Sad Puppy story, this piece adds nothing for me. If I had not heard of the Hugo scandals, these posts really wouldn't have captured the depth of in-group prize swapping by the TrueFan cabal, nor sufficiently explored the politically correct doldrums in which science fiction is currently becalmed. Correia's name on the collection is the primary reason I bought this anthology and I was hoping for something more substantial.

In summary, this is a good book to add to your collection and I recommend it.

It's funny that the alt-right calls liberals "snowflakes" when there are books like this on the market. This book is so filled with the ridiculous fears of small minded bigots, I can't believe anyone with half a brain would give it more than one star. The term Social Justice Warrior is used as an insult, but honestly, why is social justice a bad thing? Even in their own, warped way, the alt-right is looking for their version of social justice for white people because white people have had it so hard over these past several hundred years. It's so difficult to be privileged and then have to share equal rights with people who aren't straight, white, hateful bigots.
This book is revolting, and it perfectly sums up the mindset of the alt-right, and their moron leader, Donald Trump. It's like if Ayn Rand and Joseph Goebbels had a developmentally disabled child.

It's not even close to dangerous visions. The first eight stories were almost painful to read; the message appeared to be more important than the story. Once we got past the update on puppies in the middle, the stories got a bit better. While there was a message in them the story also mattered.

What this book tries to goo "Ooga Booga be afraid", Soutpark has already mocked. Try looking up:
"Unplanned Parenthood" or "42nd trimester abortion" from SouthPark and then contrasting that to "Edge of Detachment".

The number of different ways southpark has addressed affirmative consent, either directly "I'm sorry Im going to need AFFIRMATIVE CONSENT" or the principal handing out consent forms in class. You may now compare that to "The Code"

Southpark has gone after gender issues on any number of occasions: "Cissy" (Where Cartman has his own bathroom) and "Mr Garrison's new Vagina" (Where Mr Garrision wants to get a sex change, get pregnant and abort it). Now compare that to the Forced Sex Change story of The Social Construct.

Southpark's "Cissy" again and "Fractured but Whole" are poking at the same material as "A place for everyone".

And this is just off the top of my memory. I'm sure people with more complete South Park memories can find better ways to mock this book.

Its like these guys were told: "This is the issue to go after, and demonstrate Liberals BAD" without thinking issue all the way through.

The danger of trends and inevitable consequences. Funny and frightening at the same time. I particularly enjoyed EJ Shumak's "Auto America.."
Terse, yet complex and extremely well written. A great piece!

Very wide variety of riffs inspired by our present-day ambient noise of Political Corrected 'Art', SJW gaseousness, divertisiousness, etc., etc., etc. You don't think a huge glop of satire and sarcasm can help SciFi and Fantasy tales? Well, babe, you gots anudder think coming right here...

I purchased and read Forbidden Thoughts. For the most part, I found it neither forbidden nor thoughtful. Rather, it was heavy-handed to the point of immobility, (mostly) poorly-written and consistently poorly edited. A couple of stories saved this book from the shame of a one-star review, but only barely.

There were several non-fiction articles in the book, all but the introduction being recycled blog postings from the Big Three of Sad Puppydom, Tom Kratman, Larry Correia and Brad R. Torgersen. The postings were heavy-handed diatribes when written, and age has done them no favors. Yiannopoulos phoned in a semi-original introduction, but his idea that Science Fiction is under attack by the Evil Left is unoriginal and remains unsupported by such trifles as fact.

On the fiction side, most of the short stories take a favorite right-wing strawman, dial it to 15, then use it to beat the reader vigorously about the head and shoulders. Chief offender was “At the Edge of Detachment” by A. M. Freeman. There, a parent can have their child killed up to the age of 13 – an “allegory” of abortion. Other stories were similarly ham-fisted, and most were unreadable.

Having said that, there were a couple of readable short stories. If that sounds like damning with faint praise, so be it. Notable shorts:

World Ablaze by Jane Lebak – for some reason, Catholics are being persecuted and arrested by the State. If you can swallow that, the story works fairly nicely.

the store Gambit by Vox Day – here, the author sets up an all-female military unit that, For Reasons, must fight a primitive enemy hand-to-hand. They win, although it takes a male officer to show the Poor Girls what is needed.

Test of the Prophet by L. Jagi Lamplighter – This story, if given a decent editor, would be commercially viable in any market. A woman born and raised in Pakistan, who moved to America and became a US Marine, needs to go back to Pakistan because her beloved cousin has gotten himself mixed up in the Taliban. We learn (almost too late – a good editor would have frontloaded this) that the woman can see ghosts. We learn (in an entertaining but 10% too long and talky) section that one of the things said ghosts have been up to is inserting errors into every religion’s doctrine. Again, not bad at all.

So, no, I really don’t recommend Forbidden Thoughts, especially if one wants, you know, actually forbidden thoughts.

Wow.... that was neither thought-provoking nor well written. Good Sci-Fi is, for me, the drawing out of a possible trend to fantastic extremes, as a commentary on modern life. An un-PC, right leaning anthology should be able to do this handily.

Instead, we have the story of a Pakistani-American who goes back to save her friend from the Taliban. Also she can see ghosts, for reasons. And she sees that her friend is possessed by Demons! Demons! They tell her that they ghost-wrote the Quran, Islam is a religion of Hate! And then a Jesus-Lion saves the day? Just... What thoughts is this supposed to provoke?

Another poorly written short takes a cute conceit -- mocking 'Safe Space' with a "Safe Space-Suit" that refuses to tell the astronaut that she is in fact being bombarded with radiation, because it would hurt her feelings. But that little sliver is lost between a first act that is just a boring, repetitive screed against affirmative action (the deeply incompetent pilot who we're told so many times only got the job because she's a black woman), and a random third act that involves time travel and having your brain eaten by a reptilian. I honestly do not know why.

Everything this anthology tries was already done a million times better in Harrison Bergeron. At least now I know that feminists just want to use me as an illiterate, secret breeding slave, constantly whipped by castrated Betas, while they live as lesbian space-nuns.

The one about consent, "The Code" by Matthew Ward, actually kinda funny. Would give half a star for that.