Eh, I was going to stop at a like but it's not expressive enough. Thanks, interesting, good to know, I'll probably go and read it...and it's still not OK to spread disinformation about actual people to make a more interesting story.
Two novel genres arguably have their start using Mormons as the Big Bad villains:
• The Mystery/Detective genre with Doyle's A STUDY IN SCARLET.
• The Western genre with Zane Grey's RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE.
But just as Mormons and their culture/history can be used grist for fictional villains*, they can be used for grist for heroes as well. My series, for example, or DJ Butler's Hiram Wooley series (THE CUNNING MAN and sequels from Baen as well as Butler's related short stories) and his CITY OF SAINTS. There are many other examples from currently writing LDS authors.
Rather than dwell on the negatives from two centuries back, I prefer to work for the positive by writing in the here and now.
*For a literary treatise on depictions of Mormons in culture etc., see THE VIPER ON THE HEARTH by Terryl L. Givens (Oxford University Press).
LDS background in a Victorian setting? Eh, you can probably do it better than Conan Doyle.
Doyle lifted much of his Mormon section of A STUDY IN SCARLET from Robert Louis Stevenson's “Story of the Destroying Angel” in THE DYNAMITERS, btw.
Eh, I was going to stop at a like but it's not expressive enough. Thanks, interesting, good to know, I'll probably go and read it...and it's still not OK to spread disinformation about actual people to make a more interesting story.
Two novel genres arguably have their start using Mormons as the Big Bad villains:
• The Mystery/Detective genre with Doyle's A STUDY IN SCARLET.
• The Western genre with Zane Grey's RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE.
But just as Mormons and their culture/history can be used grist for fictional villains*, they can be used for grist for heroes as well. My series, for example, or DJ Butler's Hiram Wooley series (THE CUNNING MAN and sequels from Baen as well as Butler's related short stories) and his CITY OF SAINTS. There are many other examples from currently writing LDS authors.
Rather than dwell on the negatives from two centuries back, I prefer to work for the positive by writing in the here and now.
*For a literary treatise on depictions of Mormons in culture etc., see THE VIPER ON THE HEARTH by Terryl L. Givens (Oxford University Press).