If all art is political, are all artists politicians?

I found out yesterday that Dan Simmons died. I’ve mentioned him many times here, because Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion are favorites of mine. I also enjoyed The Fifth Heart because I’m a sucker for Sherlock Holmes stories.

I never met Dan Simmons, and I never heard him speak. I also didn’t go out of my way to learn anything about him. At the edges of my perception, I could see some news that he might be contemptable, but it was very easy for me not to know much about any of that until he died.

Now that he’s dead, there are folks like Ursula Vernon roasting him.

Dan Simmons, noted racist, has died. He wrote Hyperion, which contained a good short story and then a lot of other words, which many of us read anyway because it was the Nineties and Waldenbooks had a limited science fiction section.

— Kingfisher & Wombat (@tkingfisher.com) 2026-02-28T19:23:24.330Z

There are other folks online posting celebratory messages, and I think it sucks.

From what I can tell, 9/11 broke him. He embraced Islamophobia, and all of the worst impulses that came out of that tragedy. Things he wrote before 9/11 seem fine. Things he wrote after were bad, if not actually harmful.

I see that as a tragedy, and my wish is that when a person like Dan dies, we celebrate the good, acknowledge the bad, and try to learn something from their life.

“That’s what Ursula is doing, Brian.”

I don’t think so. She’s calling him a racist and bashing his stories, actively diminishing something beautiful because the author eventually acquired reprehensible views. The man’s been dead a day and she’s pissing on his work and his grave, and encouraging others to do the same. It makes me mad.

It’s possible that my love of Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion, specifically the stories following Saul and a father’s love and sacrifice for his daughter, is moving me to this position of defending a racist and bad person. I acknowledge that possibility, but I think there’s more to it.

From what I can tell, some of Dan’s stories did active harm. They also seem to be his least popular stories, for good reason. How much harm did Dan do when he became a racist? I don’t know.

I’m certain I did not agree with Dan politically. I probably disagreed with him on a great many things, but I will always appreciate some of the stories he wrote, because they moved me and made me a better writer. Learning he has died makes me sad.

When J. K. Rowling eventually dies, if I’m still around to see it, I’m sure my reaction will be a little bit different because Joann is much more active in the harm she does. I will acknowledge that The Harry Potter series inspired a generation to read, and for a time, did great things for fiction. But Rowling is very active and public in doing harm with her transphobia.

Who am I kidding? If Rowling were to die in a plane crash tomorrow, I would be a little sad, because I’m not a monster. I would probably say what I just said, that Harry Potter changed the landscape, and that it’s a shame she used her fortune and influence from her art to harm people that are already struggling.

As far as I can tell, Dan Simmons wasn’t as bad as J. K. Rowling. I’m not sure his death warrants a celebration. It’s one of the cases in which, if you don’t have something nice to say, it’s probably okay to let his death be quiet.