Yep, I agree (ETA: about the fact that the books aren’t especially “rationalist”; I don’t remember thinking that the quality of the writing went down as the amount of anti-religious axe-grinding went up, but it’s been long enough since I read the books that maybe if I read them again with that claim in mind I would agree). Rereading Ender’s Game and have changed my mind about His Dark Materials being especially rationalist since writing that comment. ETA: Ender’s game has a ton more stuff in it than I remembered that could basically have come straight out of the sequences, so my mental baseline for “especially rationalist-y fiction” was a lot lower than it probably should have been. Also probably some halo effect going on: I like the books, I like rationalism, so my brain wanted to associate them.
Yep, I agree (ETA: about the fact that the books aren’t especially “rationalist”; I don’t remember thinking that the quality of the writing went down as the amount of anti-religious axe-grinding went up, but it’s been long enough since I read the books that maybe if I read them again with that claim in mind I would agree). Rereading Ender’s Game and have changed my mind about His Dark Materials being especially rationalist since writing that comment. ETA: Ender’s game has a ton more stuff in it than I remembered that could basically have come straight out of the sequences, so my mental baseline for “especially rationalist-y fiction” was a lot lower than it probably should have been. Also probably some halo effect going on: I like the books, I like rationalism, so my brain wanted to associate them.