"I do that mostly because I believe that the fantasy business is in terrible trouble right now, for several reasons, not the least of which being the almost Democrat vs. Republican mentality of readers on the Internet"
About this Quote
Salvatore’s complaint isn’t really about elves and swords; it’s about what the internet has done to taste. “Fantasy business” is a telling phrase: he’s not only defending an art form, he’s defending an ecosystem - publishing economics, fandom culture, and the social contract between storyteller and audience. When he says the genre is “in terrible trouble,” the anxiety isn’t that magic has run out. It’s that the conditions for sustained, generous engagement have.
The sharpest move in the quote is the political metaphor. Invoking “Democrat vs. Republican” isn’t a policy reference; it’s shorthand for tribal sorting, identity-first allegiance, and the assumption that the other side isn’t merely wrong but illegitimate. Salvatore is pointing at a readerly landscape where books become badges, where liking a series signals which “team” you’re on, and where critique gets flattened into combat. The subtext: the internet has trained readers to treat art like a referendum.
There’s also a self-protective frankness in “not the least of which.” He implies multiple pressures - algorithmic outrage cycles, review-bombing, the speed of pile-ons, marketplace churn - but singles out polarization because it’s the one that corrodes everything else. It turns discussion into factional policing and makes creators write with one eye on imagined juries.
Coming from a veteran of commercially massive, long-running series fiction, the warning carries insider weight: he’s seen fandom at its best, and he’s naming how quickly it can be redirected into perpetual culture war - even when the battlefield is supposed to be a world of dragons.
The sharpest move in the quote is the political metaphor. Invoking “Democrat vs. Republican” isn’t a policy reference; it’s shorthand for tribal sorting, identity-first allegiance, and the assumption that the other side isn’t merely wrong but illegitimate. Salvatore is pointing at a readerly landscape where books become badges, where liking a series signals which “team” you’re on, and where critique gets flattened into combat. The subtext: the internet has trained readers to treat art like a referendum.
There’s also a self-protective frankness in “not the least of which.” He implies multiple pressures - algorithmic outrage cycles, review-bombing, the speed of pile-ons, marketplace churn - but singles out polarization because it’s the one that corrodes everything else. It turns discussion into factional policing and makes creators write with one eye on imagined juries.
Coming from a veteran of commercially massive, long-running series fiction, the warning carries insider weight: he’s seen fandom at its best, and he’s naming how quickly it can be redirected into perpetual culture war - even when the battlefield is supposed to be a world of dragons.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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