Debra Doyle seems to be on the same committee - does she know about him?

Why would he *want* to join SFWA? To give his writing greater legitimacy?

He continues: “Only Ann Coulter even tries to write serious books”.

Maybe he’s an extraordinarily straight-faced satirist?

He was on the short fiction jury with me a few years back. He didn't seem like a loon in our e-mail discussions.

That year, we added "The Pagodas of Ciboure" by M. Shayne Bell and "Little Gods" by Tim Pratt. I had made a strong case of P.D. Cacek's "A Book, By Its Cover," as well.

So, even though there are thousands of men writing fantasy for publication as a first preference, only female fantasists are to be excoriated for fleeing from the Cold Hard Purity of Math and Science, huh?

What a dipshit.

Is this the same "Vox Day" who co-authored Rebel Moon with Bruce Bethke? (Capsule review: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, only bad.)

Sheesh, what an ass. Is it too late to revoke his nomination?

All the hard science in the world, no matter how accurately written, is not going to mean squat to a reader if she is not engaged by the characters and the story.

But as I am both a woman and a feminist, working on writing both fantasy and "soft" SF, and not about to buy word one penned by this vitriolic individual, I expect Mr. Day/Beale would classify me among the "mentally polluted".

I find myself strangely unperturbed by the prospect.

And I'm even mentioned by name on his web page.

Sheesh, what an ass. Is it too late to revoke his nomination?

Well, no. By "this year's" jury, Patrick means the upcoming awards, meaning works published in 2003 and 2004. The jury has already completed its service by adding David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas to the final ballot (which, as I've said here before, was exactly the choice I would have made).

He seems to be criticizing works like Catherine Asaro's books, which indeed often focus on romance with strong female protagonists. And yet, Dr. Asaro is also a brilliant physicist. (And also President of the SFWA Board of Directors.) I suspect she knows a good deal more about, say, quantum physics than he does.

Which prompts the question, does he know any hard science?

In fact, isn't he the one writing soft fantasy? What's the matter, Vox, is your mind too mentally polluted to write hard sf?

The SFWA® President shall appoint, and the NAR editor administer three Nebula juries . . .

If it's Asaro he's after, it's interesting that she appointed him.

Can I throw up now?

"Is this the same "Vox Day" who co-authored Rebel Moon with Bruce Bethke?"

According to his web page, yes.

Mind you, SF has always been full of people with nutty opinions. Ray Palmer, for years the editor of Amazing, believed whack-job author Richard Shaver's contention that malign "disintegrant energy robots" hidden in caverns beneath the Earth were using ancient pre-human technology to control the planet's surface dwellers and make war on one another. Not only did Palmer publish multiple Shaver stories expanding on this theme, he and Shaver also promoted it as actual non-fictional true-type truth and recruited other writers to expand on it. By comparison, garden-variety misogyny and Jew-baiting seem almost prosaic.

This being the case, arguably SFWA is wise to make sure the crackpot demographic is represented in its deliberative bodies. (And Cloud Atlas is certainly an unexceptionable jury choice.) As with so many aspects of SF's subculture, one is left saying, on the one hand, hurray for our fine and broadminded tolerance; and on the other hand, eeuw.

(Comment amended to reflect shsilver's correction below. Speaking of human fallibility.)

holding triple Ph.D.s in molecular engineering, astrophysics and Chaucer.

Do you think he has Mary Sues with profiles like this in any of his books? "The brilliant Dr. Hoet Bealadore sat in his office with a schematic for a new kind of nanoprotein on his computer screen and Chaucer's original manuscript of The Canterbury Tales open on his lap. He meditated on the subtle interconnections between these two apparently unrelated objects -- the former a product of his Ph.D research in molecular engineering at MIT, the latter the result of his archival work at Magadalene Library, Oxford, for his other doctorate. He sat in a specially constructed, climate-controlled laboratory/library. Nestled amongst the inferometers and fractionators and nanobot monitors were a Shakespeare folio, Jane Austen's seventh novel and a chapter of Ulysses written by Joyce in Dublin. Bealadore chose to do his work from here these days, indepedently, ever since his tenure case at Harvard had been derailed by Susan Estrogen, the bitter and childless chairman -- or rather, chairwomyn! -- of the English department.

Richard Shaver, for years the editor of Amazing, believed that malign "disintegrant energy robots" hidden in caverns beneath the Earth were using ancient pre-human technology to control the planet's surface dwellers and make war on one another.

Well, that certainly explains a lot. A lot of what, I don't know.

Anyone ever figure out, I wonder, how he first discovered the existence of these energy robots? Came to him in a dream? The inescapable conclusion given the facts to hand? "Messages" of one variety or another?

Mind you, SF has always been full of people with nutty opinions. Richard Shaver, for years the editor of Amazing, believed that malign "disintegrant energy robots"

I thought Shaver was just an author and the editor was Ray Palmer during that period.

I'd certainly like to meet some of those critics he's talking about who hold triple degrees in astrophysics, molecular engineering and Chaucer. Me, I can't even figure out where the light goes when we shut the refrigerator door.

de-lurking--

First, I typed in a very long rant. Then I deleted it and started to say something derisive and withering, yet succinct.

That turned into another rant that included words and phrases like: "misogynist," "morally bankrupt," "despicable," and "disguised as fact-based analytical opinion subject to debate."

And then my description of that rant started to turn into another rant.

I must be tired. So I'll go back to lurking, and only echo Patrick's "eeuw," and state that nothing makes my night like a woman-hating creep spewing idiocy and worshiping at the altar of Ann Coulter.

--re-lurking

shsilver, you're entirely right--that was a brain fart. I've corrected the comment.

Richard Shaver, for years the editor of Amazing, believed that malign "disintegrant energy robots" hidden in caverns beneath the Earth were using ancient pre-human technology to control the planet's surface dwellers and make war on one another.

Um, Ray Palmer was the editor of Amazing. It's at least arguable whether he actually believed Shaver's stuff, or had just found a reliable moneymaker.

Not to say that Shaver himself wasn't a loon. His paintings of the underworld, distinct from the ghastly prose, did show a fair amount of talent.

You've caught enough of my brain farts, I thought I'd return the favor.

Eeeeuuuw.

But what kills me is that he has kind words to say both about Pat Wrede and Lois MacMaster Bujold on his site. Not to mention praising Charlie Stross and Umberto Eco.

I don't know. Just doesn't compute.

Oh, and just as I was saying, oh, good, not all the creepo weirdo bigots live over here - the guy actually lives in Italy. I almost even thought I knew him, but I don't think it's him.

All I can think of is this:
uuhhhhhhhh...

and yes, I was thinking about Asaro too when reading that drivel.

It's pure asshattery, I tell you!

Or, alternately, just an exercise in "look at me, I'm outraging your sensibilities." Ho hum.

Ahah. I wonder if it would make his brain explode that I'm majoring in science, read science nonfiction for fun, and prefer to read and write fantasy and historical fiction?

Richard Shaver, for years the editor of Amazing, believed that malign "disintegrant energy robots" hidden in caverns beneath the Earth were using ancient pre-human technology to control the planet's surface dwellers and make war on one another.

I wonder if Bill O'Reilly also made contact with these robots.

He's humble, too.

"Vox Day" is just his own special way of spelling "Vox Dei", which, if I'm not mistaken, would mean "Voice of God" or some such.

He also has violently bad hair.

I don't fit the gentleman's pattern. *I* write romance novels in space about strong, beautiful, independent and intelligent but lonely men who finally fall in love with rugged men who love them just as they are. :-)

Sadly, I have merely a B.Sc. (Hons) Maths & Physics, Dunelm and more years' experience as an industrial scientist than I wish to think about right now, not 3 Ph.D.s, so clearly am not qualified to think of myself as a Real Scientist.

Is this website now multimedia? Cause I swear I'm hearing a therimin as I'm reading it. It's like a really bad sci-fi movie, with a bad-guy who is so off kilter you want to say "no one who is such a moron could ever make it to the position of power he is in right now."

Not to be blandly practical-minded about this, but inasmuch as Mr. Beale and the rest of the Nebula novel jury members seem to have discharged their duty by selecting a novel that most would agree is of overall Nebula finalist caliber, and have done so with an apparent minimum of fuss, does it matter what his politics or personal opinions are, particularly in relation to being a Nebula jury member? The jury did make a reasonable selection, in my opinion.

Evidently Dr. Jekyll helped to judge the Nebulas and Mr. Hyde writes as 'Vox Day'.

does it matter what his politics or personal opinions are, particularly in relation to being a Nebula jury

Depends, how do we know his mysogyny didn't tip the scales one way or the other? Sure the jury made a reasonable selection, but can we be sure he didn't vote against someone because they were a woman, liberal, a feminist, or Jewish?

John, I think it's already been noted that the Nebula novel jury's choice (for non-initiates: The Nebula jury adds one book to the list of finalists; the other nominees are chosen by vote of the membership) was just fine.

The humor of the situation, in my opinion, is the ongoing degradation of the prestige of the once-coveted Nebula Award. Certainly if I were running a literary award that was widely perceived as being increasingly tarnished by arcane rules, unabashed logrolling, and general ridiculousness, my next move would definitely be to recruit me a yawping borderline anti-Semite and woman-hater for the award's jury. Just as an exercise in branding, if nothing else.

Josh, I think it's pretty silly to speculate. How do we know the other jurors didn't make their choices based on equally dreadful criteria?

I repeat my contention that the really dim bulb in this story isn't the cannily opportunistic "Vox Day", it's SFWA.

Patrick: I repeat my contention that the really dim bulb in this story isn't the cannily opportunistic "Vox Day", it's SFWA.

Agreed. On a more serious note than my previous comment--I shouldn't really comment until I've done some more background reading on the guy, but on the facts as presented in the original post, this doesn't really incline me to take SFWA or the Nebulas seriously. Now, since I'm not qualified to be a member of SFWA, maybe I should sit down and shut up--but I'm one of those people busy working on becoming qualified for SFWA, and this is not leading me to think that SFWA will welcome me with open arms should I actually achieve the requisite publication record.

Well, as far as I can recall, his claim of being a former columnist for the St. Paul Pioneer Press is correct.

However, I seem to remember him being one of their first console game reviewers. Not quite the same thing....

"this is not leading me to think that SFWA will welcome me with open arms should I actually achieve the requisite publication record."

Errr... SFWA has someone in it whose politics you find icky, therefore it would turn its back on you?

As far as I know, the only entrance requirement for SFWA membership is publication credits; if you have them in order, it seems doubtful they would not accept you. At the very least, when I applied for membership, they didn't ask me about my politics.

It's hard for me to comment authoratatively about the Nebulas one way or the other, since I'm still relatively new to SFWA and to the Nebula process (sitting on the short fiction jury this year was instructive and mostly pleasant). I will say that about half the time I'm at peace with the winners of the awards, and the other half of the time I've never heard of (much less read) the winner, and I don't know if that's a statement that reveals more about me or about SFWA. The non-jury process does seem unwieldly and silly to me, however.

John: "Errr... SFWA has someone in it whose politics you find icky, therefore it would turn its back on you?"

No, SFWA has seen fit to appoint to a jury panel for a supposedly prestigious award someone who has explicitly stated his contempt for people like me, people like some of my friends, and people like some of the writers I admire.

I'm sure SFWA will be only too pleased to take my money, but the impression it gives me is not a good one. I have no problem with SFWA containing people whose politics I find icky; it would be very surprising if any organisation with that many members did not contain some, and I'm sure many members would find my politics icky, and take the same view. I do have a problem with SFWA apparently being unconcerned that one of the people involved with the Nebulas feels that someone like me by definition is not worthy of being considered for the Nebulas.

Something like this *does* matter, even if the novel ultimately selected is of worthy calibre, even if the novel selected is of worthy calibre and is written by someone who's a member of one of the groups declared incapable of writing quality material. Because it makes me wonder if SFWA would actually care if the final selection was unduly influenced by someone's prejudices.

Sorry, I can't get past the part that goes "Women do not write hard science fiction today because so few can hack the physics..."

Ummmm. My wife, Dr. Christine M. Carmichael, is an Active Member of SFWA with a Ph.D. and B.Sc. (Honors) in Physics. She's a first-rate scientist and engineer, as well as Project Manager /Principal Investigator in superconductor physics. She's a full-time Professor of Physics. An 7-year-old (somewhat obsolete) version of her resume, which includes a few technical publication titles, may be found at Carmichael resume. Since then, she's had more Physics publications, including "Imaginary Mass, Momentum, and Acceleration: Physical or Nonphysical?" [Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Complexity Science, 17-21 May 2004] and "Demonstration of Beats with a Double-Driven String" [The Physics Teacher]...

Is my wife being accused of not being a woman, or of not writing the Science Fiction that got her into SFWA, or of not having the innate ability to be -- say -- President of Harvard?

Come to think of it, I will not bother to tell her about this idiot. As to Chaucer, she knows Classics better than Day/Beale -- unless he also mastered Latin, ancient Greek, and Middle English as my wife did when she studied at the University of Edinburgh.

It's not as if I have to defend her honor as a grandmaster of Quantum Mechanics, but she fought sexism her whole academic life, since Physics in particular is a Last Bastion of male chauvinist fools.

I suggest that Day/Beale read about how Sophia Kovalevskaya had to fight to become the first woman with a PhD in science in any European university, over a century ago, and exactly why "Madame Curie" won two Nobel Prizes. Then Day/Beale needs to think long and hard about whether he's helping to move us into the future, or back before the 19th Century.

And wasn't there some dame who read up on Galvani and Volta and then penned a little manuscript about Frankenstein? Maybe the daughter of a pioneering feminist, and author of what Brian Aldiss reasonably considers the first modern Science Fiction novel? Sheesh!

Julia Jones writes:

"Because it makes me wonder if SFWA would actually care if the final selection was unduly influenced by someone's prejudices."

Leaving aside the question of whether it should be SFWA's job to actively monitor the political correctness of all its members to see if they conform to a particular standard, all selections are influenced by someone's prejudices; it's axiomatic (it's merely that some prejudices are more obnoxious than others).

Presumably Mr. Beale could have voted to nominate works to the general Nebula list; presumably he gets to vote to determine the winners of the Nebula. Indeed, it's entirely possible his vote could be the determining factor, if the vote is close. So his prejudices could be relevant then as well. Fact is, so long as he's a member of SFWA, his prejudices will have an influence on final selections. It's unavoidable, unless one proposed to enact a political screening test to keep the sexists and racists out. And even then you'd just catch the stupidly obvious ones, and we know generally speaking that SFWA members are not stupid.

From what I know of Beale's politics, he's a jackass, and a fairly ignorant jackass at that. I feel pleased that my own politics, to the extent that they play any role in Nebula selection, are likely to counteract his (indeed, inasmuch as I sat on the short fiction jury this year, and we nominated a story by Eileen Gunn, it's more than likely). Were you to join SFWA, provided you meet the entrance requirements, at the very least you could take pride in knowing you are also diluting the influence of this jackass on future Nebula Awards.

Having said that, I'd be hesitant to bar anyone from potentially participating in the full range of SFWA activities on the evidence of his political jackassery. I do agree with PNH that he's not exactly the intuitive choice to help rehabilitate the Nebula award's reputation. On the other hand it might not have occured to the jury selection folks to look at his politics, but rather at his SFWA-relevant qualifications, which is to say his publishing track record. I know SFWA didn't ask me about my politics prior to empaneling me, and had they asked, I'd've been likely to tell them that they were none of SFWA's damn business.

Given the final choice of the Novel Jury, it's difficult to say that the jury en masse did a poor job in the selection process -- either Beale was an active participant in a good choice, meaning that he has some critical faculty outside his own prejudices -- or the other jurors treated him as damage and routed around him.

Could this be Vox/Beale's ideal version of the Nebula Jury process? (mercilessly swiped from Jeremy Osner's comment over on Making Light):

And in order to demonstrate his worthiness, his testicles are felt by the junior present as testimony of his male sex. When this is found to be so, the person who feels them shouts out in a loud voice testiculos habet ("He has testicles") And all the clerics reply Deo Gratias ("Thanks be to God"). Then they proceed joyfully to the consecration of the pope-elect.

- Felix Hamerlin, De nobilitate et Rusticate Dialogus

John Scalzi writes:

"Leaving aside the question of whether it should be SFWA's job to actively monitor the political correctness of all its members to see if they conform to a particular standard..."

Oh, let's _not_ leave that aside, at least until you explain who it is you think is suggesting that SFWA do that. Note that the person you're replying to said, in the very post you're replying to: "I have no problem with SFWA containing people whose politics I find icky; it would be very surprising if any organisation with that many members did not contain some, and I'm sure many members would find my politics icky, and take the same view." So clearly she's not the strawman you're looking for.

I don't know about that, Ed.

When Julia says "Something like this *does* matter," in regards to the political positions of someone on the Nebula Jury, and then wonders if SFWA *cares* about the Nebulas being "unduly influenced by someone's prejudices," it does seem implicit that she feels SFWA should care, and thereby, do something to avoid such things. Which leads fairly directly to the question of whether it's SFWA's job to monitor its members' political correctness.

I of course think it's wonderful that she is personally tolerant of all sorts of opinion, regardless of whether that opinion is wise or unwise. I am wondering if she feels SFWA, the organization, should be any less tolerant, and if so, why. If she would be willing to accept someone like Beale as a card-carrying member of SFWA, why should she rather strongly imply he is not acceptable as a juror -- and that SFWA, the organization, should know better?

Depends, how do we know his mysogyny didn't tip the scales one way or the other? Sure the jury made a reasonable selection, but can we be sure he didn't vote against someone because they were a woman, liberal, a feminist, or Jewish?

As has been pointed out, we can't know. But I think it's worth noting that Cloud Atlas wrestles precisely with these questions of human liberty, sexism, racism, slavery, and communist clone revolutions. Oh, wait, never mind that last one. Cloud Atlas is, in the end, a deeply humanist and liberal book. It happens to have been written by a man (one who as far as I know isn't Jewish), but if we can judge from the content, he is both a liberal and a feminist.

(As an added bonus for Making Light readers especially, it also features a vanity press publisher getting the crap kicked out of him by goons. Hurray!)

SFWA has seen fit to appoint . . .

I’ve got no brief to defend SFWA as an organization, but as far as this particular case goes, could we please stop saying this? You might as well say “America selected John Negroponte to be intelligence czar.” The Nebula jury is not appointed by the organization as a whole or by the membership at large, as far as I know. I certainly wasn’t consulted.

I’d rather not be tarred with the Vox Dei Selection Brush, even if that also means I can’t take credit for, say, the selection of Mr. Scalzi for the short fiction jury.

He neglected to complain about "romance novels in space about strong, beautiful, independent and intelligent but lonely women who finally fall in love with . . ." each other.

Myopia can be amusing sometimes.

Alex Cohen: (As an added bonus for Making Light readers especially, it also features a vanity press publisher getting the crap kicked out of him by goons. Hurray!)

Snort. You almost tempted me to read it, but alas not even that happy prospect can overcome my dislike for that kind of narrative structure.

Way upthread, Magenta Griffith said, Debra Doyle seems to be on the same committee - does she know about him?

As I said to somebody who raised the Vox Day/Theodore Beale question to me in correspondence at the time:

"Mr. Beale's nom-de-rantage -- or, for that matter, his day job -- never came up in his dealings with the Nebula Jury, and I suspect never came up in his dealings with whoever vetted his credentials for SFWA membership. (Which is, despite the existence of Mr. Beale, in my opinion a good thing. I really don't want any non-political organization of which I'm a member to start asserting the right to vet its membership rolls based on political opinion, since while I may be swimming in that organization's mainstream today, there's never any guarantee about tomorrow.)"

Which, as it happens, remains my opinion on the issue. And thanks for asking.

As a member of SFWA's BoD, I can say that we have no input in who goes on these juries. Which is a shame in this case, since I already knew about this bozo and would have made some noise. But I agree with David Moles: SFWA didn't make this appointment.

That said, I also don't hold a lot of truck with the Nebulas (Ray Feist has called them glorified bowling trophies). Or any other awards, for that matter. But I think I will make some noise now, since I don't want him to show his face in this sort of position again.

Derryl

Shaver claimed to have visited the center of the Earth through a Being John Malkovitchesque tunnel in his basement. From Wikipedia:

In the 1960s and 70s, now living in obscurity, Shaver looked for physical evidence of the bygone pre-historic races. He found it in certain rocks, which he believed were "rock books" that had been created by the great ancients, and embedded with legible pictures and texts. For years he wrote about the rock books, photographed them, and made paintings of the images he found in them to demonstrate their historic importance. He never succeeded in generating much attention for his later findings during his lifetime, but in recent years, there have been exhibits of Shaver's art and photographs.

It's not mentioned in the Wikipedia article, but I seem to recall reading somewhere that there was speculation that Shaver was schizotypal, that he displayed several of the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia, but in non-dangerous manifestations. Very likely, he simply had vivid dreams or hallucinations and the letters supporting his claims were probably just imaginative fans playing along, not realising they were encouraging Shaver's mental illness.

As for Mr. Beale, I don't know what his excuse is.

"Yep, that Ted, he may have believed public schoolteachers to be ignorant Leninists, and women who have abortions to be worse than Mengele, and female scientists to be nothing but trained dogs, and sometimes he went a little funny in the head and made a few provocative comments about how those darned Jews really deserved everything they've ever gotten because after all they bring it on themselves, don't they, but you could always trust his judgement when it came to science fiction."

As I recall, in the Shaverian universe, one of the reasons the Dero [disintegrative etc.]won out over the Tero [non-disintegrative etc.] for control of the earth was because the latter had gotten it into their heads that the former could be always be reasoned with so long as you kept the conversation light.

John, I doubt very much that anyone wants SFWA to get into the business of vetting anybody's politics.

However, the mere fact someone's crackpot notions about Jews or women (or crop circles or ancient astronauts) can be defined as in some way "political" doesn't shield them from mockery. Nor is it impermissible to raise an amused eyebrow when the organization once run by Damon Knight and Poul Anderson is reduced to running on the volunteer efforts of chuckleheads you'd cross the street to avoid.

As I've said more than once, I have very mixed feelings. I do in fact approve of my subculture's habitual tolerance for head cases of all sorts. I also periodically feel, after glancing encounters with some of them, like I need to go boil myself in antibiotics. The proper response to this particular ironic wrinkle in the human condition isn't "outrage", it's "laughter."

He neglected to complain about "romance novels in space about strong, beautiful, independent and intelligent but lonely women who finally fall in love with . . ." each other.

Sounds good. Know any books like that?

Jack Womack:

"As I recall, in the Shaverian universe, one of the reasons the Dero [disintegrative etc.]won out over the Tero [non-disintegrative etc.] for control of the earth was because the latter had gotten it into their heads that the former could be always be reasoned with so long as you kept the conversation light."

Well, that's the great thing about fiction, isn't it: You can make the outcome whatever you want it to be.

Speaking for myself, I don't think I could even be accused of tolerating stupidity lightly -- I have a long-documented tendency to enthusiastically stomp on its head with spiky shoes. However, of all the dumbassery Beale may be rightly accused of, in this specific case, bad judgement in science fiction does not, in fact, appear to be part of it. So it could very well be that your mocking comment may be correct. Which would be ironic.

Patrick: Indeed, mockery is a fine thing when judiciously applied, as are the further clarifications of your position for my edification. Many thanks for that. I would agree that if nothing else, SFWA would benefit from a better class of chucklehead.

Someday, editors willing, I'll have enough pub credits to join SFWA, and when, after a lifetime of service, I run for SFWA President, my platform will be "a better class of chucklehead."

flawless victory asked:

Sounds good. Know any books like that?

Well, Ammonite by Nicola Griffith is the first one that comes to mind. This site here will probably point you in the right direction.

Keith says: "Shaver claimed to have visited the center of the Earth through a Being John Malkovitchesque tunnel in his basement. From Wikipedia...."

Thank you so much for the link to that fascinating article. I'm really intrigued now and hope I can find some of his art and his photographs of the "rock books".

I tell ya'. It takes all kinds to make a world.

What's so wrong with saying there should be standards? You can even say that Day falls inside of the acceptable range of tolerance, but denying that there should be any standards at all is a bit confusing. I haven't seen anyone put that forth, but I have seen people, PNH included, dance around the suggestion that standards are a bad thing.

I think this guy's sort of a John Dvorak with literary credits, and a very wide mean streak.

I don't see how not to take his comment about women SF writers is a deliberately mean poke at Catherine Asaro.

He's also ignoring people like C. J. Cherryh, who uses solid physics and sciences, not to mention linguistics, without needing to have the kind of textual flag waving Beale apparently wants, and uses in his own work. (Which, by the way, is much harder to find than the work of Asaro, Cherryh, Tepper, or Tiptree).

Oh, and the degree in Chaucer throwaway comment just made him look dumb. You don't get a "degree in Chaucer." You get a degree in English, Linguistics, or Medieval studies, but not Chaucer.

Josh Jasper:

"What's so wrong with saying there should be standards?"

There are standards: Three professional-level short story sales and/or the sale of a novel. As far as I know, those are the only relevant standards for admission to SFWA. The membership requirements are otherwise mute; there is no behavioral or political standard, which, given the cheefully unconventional nature of science fiction writers, is probably a good thing.

"I have seen people, PNH included, dance around the suggestion that standards are a bad thing"

Color me confused.

Standards for personal and political opinions, as a membership qualification for SFWA, or for a Nebula jury, are a bad thing.

Okay? No dancing.

John Scalzi writes:

When Julia says "Something like this *does* matter," in regards to the political positions of someone on the Nebula Jury, and then wonders if SFWA *cares* about the Nebulas being "unduly influenced by someone's prejudices," it does seem implicit that she feels SFWA should care, and thereby, do something to avoid such things. Which leads fairly directly to the question of whether it's SFWA's job to monitor its members' political correctness.

Considering that she explicitly _says_ she's not talking about membership standards, I think that only leads to "monitoring memebers' political correcting" by way of a big detour through a pile of straw.

If she would be willing to accept someone like Beale as a card-carrying member of SFWA, why should she rather strongly imply he is not acceptable as a juror -- and that SFWA, the organization, should know better?

If I understand you correctly, you think there should be no difference in the standards for being a member and the standards for being appointed to the jury. That doesn't sound right to me.

David : Standards for personal and political opinions, as a membership qualification for SFWA, or for a Nebula jury, are a bad thing.

I figure it's a fair standard to not let someone on a jury if you know (for a reasonably certain value of "know") they're going to be voting based on gender rather than merit. How is that a bad thing?

If it's as hard to find volunteers for the job of jurying an additional selection into each of the categories as it all too often is to find people to take on for lots of other tasks in all-volunteer organizations, I expect the person setting up the juries was glad to get anyone who could be arm-twisted into doing the job.

As for screening for acceptability of opinions, you don't want to go there. This year, we think Beale's are uncool. In five year's time, who knows who'll be considered unacceptable. Witchhunt bad, tolerance [leavened with humor, as PNH advocates] good. As for his ungraciousness to Dr. Asaro, if she was indeed his target, I'd think the reaction he's getting here and elsewhere is probably punishment enough--he's been labelled "jerk", and so he shall be known, regardless of any good qualities he may possess. I know it's hard for many, here and elsewhere, to acknowledge that a man of his opinions may have good points; still, it is a possibility.

Besides, the thought of his possible paranoia and discomfiture when a female physicist and writer of fantasy novels offers him a chance at a responsible job in the organization entertains me. What's she up to? What did she mean by this? What's happening here? Is this his chance to stand up for the Good, the True, and the Right, or is it a Trap, set up by eval godless feminists?

Ed Galliard says:

"Considering that she explicitly _says_ she's not talking about membership standards, I think that only leads to "monitoring memebers' political correcting" by way of a big detour through a pile of straw."

Well, Ed, I can't help that you can't seem to parse the difference between what she says about her own personal inclinations about membership, and what she strongly implies about what SFWA's position should be about those people whose views are politically incongruent. If you're out there in the straw, you're out there by yourself.

"If I understand you correctly, you think there should be no difference in the standards for being a member and the standards for being appointed to the jury. That doesn't sound right to me."

Well, good for you, Ed. However, I think it's perfectly fine. And as it happens, it's not just me who thinks it: It's right there in the Nebula rules. The only additional qualification required to sit on the juries is for members who sit on the Script Jury, two members of which need have had a script "professionally produced." But even that doesn't affect all the members of the jury.

However, I do invite you to try to amend the Nebula rules to make the juries more exclusionary. Good luck with that.

Years ago the Coevolution Quarterly/Whole Earth Review covered the Shaver stuff in their cult issue which was expanded into the book "The Fringes of Reason." They reproduced an item from the letter column of Amazing during the Shaver period which will convince you that either insanity is spreadable by wood pulp or that Indiana Jones was alive and well and carrying a machine gun in the mountain caves of China during the late 40's. Hmmm--I wonder what the copyright status of 50-year-old letters to magazine editors would be...

I figure it's a fair standard to not let someone on a jury if you know (for a reasonably certain value of "know") they're going to be voting based on gender rather than merit. How is that a bad thing?

I think it's absolutely appropriate for someone in the position of choosing jury members to have such a standard in his or her head. And how are you going to prove they don't, already?

But let's say we had such a standard in the Nebula rules. What good does it do? How do you enforce it? How do you keep one half-decent standard from turning into an ever-growing laundry list of well-intentioned bad ones?

(You start with an amendment to ban flag burning, you end with something as long as the EU Constitution. Don't go there. Just leave the First Amendment where it is.)

Forgetting about the other issues for a moment...shouldn't somebody in a position to judge other's work actually have some kind of literary standard themselves?

I read excerpts from some of the books on his web site...the man can not in fact write himself out of a paper bag....

Hey, I wouldn't have picked him either. I agree with Patrick that the correct response to this is laughter.

John Scalzi writes:

Well, Ed, I can't help that you can't seem to parse the difference between what she says about her own personal inclinations about membership, and what she strongly implies about what SFWA's position should be about those people whose views are politically incongruent. If you're out there in the straw, you're out there by yourself.

I was wondering why you insisted on conflating the argument that selection for the Nebula jury should have higher standards than the general membership requirements with your strawman idea that the general membership requirements should include some political test. I had hoped there was some innocent explanation for it, but now I understand that you were just using a low, dishonest rhetorical trick. Sorry I wasted my time talking with you.

Ed Gaillard writes:

"I had hoped there was some innocent explanation for it, but now I understand that you were just using a low, dishonest rhetorical trick."

If by "low, dishonest rhetorical trick," you mean to say "noting what was actually being written," then yes, I guess I did exactly that.

Poor Ed. It must be a difficult thing to be flummoxed by language.

If by "low, dishonest rhetorical trick," you mean to say "noting what was actually being written," then yes, I guess I did exactly that.

Unluckily for you, "what was actually being written" is all available to anyone reading the thread, and I'll happily let them read it and decide.

Poor Ed. It must be a difficult thing to be flummoxed by language.

*yawn*. You're just not very good at this.

Shall I type slower for you?

Guys. Don't make me stop this car.

You never let us have any fun!

Guys. Don't make me stop this car.

Rats. I was all ready to post "Heeeeee's touching meeeeeee!"

If the Nebula jury rules are modified to exclude cretins, you just know this guy will dash into a phone booth, change into Martyr-Man, and go crying to Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity about how he's being persecuted by the traitorous liberal media for his red-blooded true patriotic American beliefs.

Oh dear. I've had email correspondence with Mr Beale; all I can say for sure is he didn't sound like a loon -- a Christian conservative, certainly, but that's not a hanging offense in my world. Patrick's diagnosis of his public pronouncements as being "an exercise in "look at me, I'm outraging your sensibilities" very plausible. On the other hand, he's been asking for an interview, and this fracas isn't exactly encouraging me to say "yes". And on the gripping hand, I've been known to give credit where none is due.

(I wonder if he already knows that my father avoided Auschwitz by coming down with a summer flu, and that I'm married to a feminist?)

I should add that the matter of Mr Beale's membership of SFWA is encouraging me to retaliate in the only appropriate way -- by upgrading to lifetime membership. (If you're worried about an organization you're a member of being infiltrated by people who hold views you disagree with, get in there and do something ...)

Patrick:

Are we there yet?

Charlie Stross:

Excellent! That's an easier route to Life Membership than Harlan took.

What ever happened to Jerry Pournelle's motion, which I seconded, a decade or so ago at a SFWA Business Meeting, that after 30 years of Active SFWA membership, one is automatically elevated to Life membership?

I'm so very happy to be a Life Alumnus at Caltech.

The danger is, of course, Life members of anything are more likely to have their arms twisted to become Committee Members, and even (gasp) Officers.

Nobody seems to have brought up the obvious question: are we *sure* Vox Day isn't a stringer for the Onion?

The Board was surprised to find out that Beale is a nutbar. Which, considering he says his nuttiest things under a pseudonym, makes sense. SFWA can't vet people for politics, should not do so, and I'll note that even if Catherine had taken these picks to the Board, if someone else was there instead of me we'd still have him on the jury. Rumour has it you can't know everything going on about everyone. Maybe we can set up a registry where everyone declares their beliefs. (Joking.)

JVP, there is a SFWA membership category like you describe. Can't vote, but you're a lifetime member.

Derryl

As with so many aspects of SF's subculture, one is left saying, on the one hand, hurray for our fine and broadminded tolerance; and on the other hand, eeuw.

This nice man sitting next to me in Starbucks is now edging away because the laughing fit provoked a coughing fit that sounded like the latter stages of TB. You is an evil man and I like it. Please don't stop.

As for the topic/s under discussion: I remain mum. Last time I ventured to have an opinion on a SFWA matter being discussed in a public forum a Certain Famous Candadian SF Writer tried to bitch slap me cause I wasn't a SFWA member. Tried.

MKK

It seems to me that the argument here needs to concentrate on one thing, and one thing only. The point of the SFWA jury is to come up with the best and fairest and most sensible nominations possible. Preconceived notions about who can and who cannot write good sf strike me as pretty much a bar to doing that job properly. T. Beale clearly thinks women can't write hard sf, or indeed anything he would consider properly sf; this seems to me to disqualify him from the job.

If as seems also likely from his other comments elsewhere, he has problems with Jews, that is another nail in his coffin. Sexists and anti-semites do not leave their poison in the cloakroom when they come into the committee room.

As usual, one finds oneself swooning in awed wonder at the famously open minds of the liberal literati!

Christian? Yes. Conservative? No. I note with amusement that no one has bothered disputing my actual statements, as the two examples given would amount to a "few", wouldn't they? There's no shame in not wishing to wrestle with arcane mathematics when one can simply wave a wizard's wand instead; four extensive pages of critical notes from Pat Wrede was all it took to convince me to switch from writing mediocre science fiction to marginally less mediocre fantasy.

The reason I volunteered for the Nebula juries was to try to do my small part to rectify a situation where unreadable dreck is winning awards while far more noteworthy authors such as Neal Stephenson and others go unnominated. As for my having kind words to say about Bujold, Eco, Stross and Wrede, that should hardly come as a surprise as they are all very good writers and I am acquainted with everyone except Mr. Stross. Non credo che abbiamo incontrato, signora; riconosco il suo nome ma perche non lo so.

I shall also be sure to let everyone know about my virulent Judenhassen at the very next bat mitzvah I attend. Clearly, medieval persecutions of Jews held no popular appeal whatsoever and it is denying the Holocaust to suggest they did. Anything else? Ah yes, the name. I'm surprised that despite at least one conspicuous mention of Classics, no one was able to follow the Latin into Greek. Perhaps the one gentleman can ask his wife to explain it to everyone....

Adieu, dear friends, adieu.

"What's the matter, Vox, is your mind too mentally polluted to write hard sf?"

Yes, I'm thinking of taking some Women's Studies classes to correct the situation. If only my Ann Coulter doll would stop telling me that Math is Hard, I'd be able to write about strong, beautiful, independent, but lonely women in space and the rugged men who respect them for themselves.

Hmmm--I wonder what the copyright status of 50-year-old letters to magazine editors would be...

I reckon it'd be "orphaned": ie, under copyright, but impossible to track down the owner of the copyright. If it's something you've ever tried, yours might be a good story to tell over at the EFF site Orphan Works... Until March 25th, the US Copyright Office is soliciting input on potential fixes to the problem.

Vox Day:

I don't understand. Are you denying that you said: "Women do not write hard science fiction today because so few can hack the physics" but, instead, you're saying that some linear superposition of Barby and Ann Coulter said: "Women do not write hard science fiction today because so few can hack the physics?"

Or are you saying that a woman cannot both be a feminist and able to write hard science fiction?

Or are you saying that a woman cannot both be a feminist and a Physics professor?

Or what?

Please note that I am not attacking you. I am admitting that I had trouble understanding one paragraph of your because it seemed to deny the existence of my wife. I am giving you a chance to correct my misunderstanding.

I agree with you that Neal Stephenson is a good writer, although he needs a good editor. I agree with you that Bujold, Eco, Stross and Wrede are all very good writers. I agree with your statement that you had the best of intentions on the Nebula Jury. I did not accuse you of antisemitism.

I am just one reader of Patrick's blog. But if you can clarify things for me, you have reduced from n+1 to n the number of readers of this blog that you need to persuade.

Are you denying that you said: "Women do not write hard science fiction today because so few can hack the physics"

No, why would I deny it? Sure, it is theoretically possible for women to be feminist Physics professors writing science fiction. I have no doubt that one or two such unusual beasts exist floating about the fringes. However, because of the inclination of women towards Women's Studies and other math-free majors, the pool of potentials is extremely small. If only 13 percent of Physics PhDs are female, as Physics Today claimed, then I don't see why it should be controversial to state that few women are capable of writing hard SF.

I note that The Hard SF Renaissance declares the big names in hard SF in are: Greg Egan, Gregory Benford, Geoffrey Landis, G David Nordley, Paul McAuley, Nancy Kress, Kim Stanley Robinson, Charles Sheffield, Brian Stableford, Allen Steele, Bruce Sterling, Robert J. Sawyer, Poul Anderson, David Brin, Greg Bear, Hal Clement, Ben Bova and Larry Niven. With the exception of Ms Kress and Mrs. Robinson, these names strike me as overwhelmingly male. And Mrs. Robinson is one homely woman judging by her picture on her web site.

I believe I have a reasonably accurate snapshot of the state-of-the-field after getting book-bombed by genre publishers for the past year. Like my fellow jury members, I slogged my way through an astonishing amount of equine ejectus. And speaking of equine ejectus, I note that the cover of the award-winning physicist's latest indicates rather strongly that what is supposedly the recent best in our field is nothing but a romance series. It's not even a good romance cover... geez, win a Nebula and you STILL can't get Fabio?

I'd think the reaction he's getting here and elsewhere is probably punishment enough--he's been labelled "jerk", and so he shall be known, regardless of any good qualities he may possess. I know it's hard for many, here and elsewhere, to acknowledge that a man of his opinions may have good points; still, it is a possibility.

Ah, you're of the opinion he really cares about the illogical bogosities spewed by a few liberals who don't bother to address his comment but get all lathered up about their implications?

Face it. Most women CHOOSE not to hack math-based fields because it's real work, and because they tend not to have the inherent skills needed -- partly due to societal forces, but also because of natural inclination.

This leads thence to fewer SF authors, because SF readers are a harsh, perceptive, and unforgiving bunch when it comes to the science in SF.

Larry Niven's first HC edition of Ringworld had a character teleporting around the world on his birthday, staying with the sun. Niven made a mistake, though, and had him going around in the wrong direction. Fans noticed (It's been fixed in all subsequent editions)

For Ringworld Engineers, people not only did models showing it was orbitally unstable, but also showing that there had to be a mechanism to deal with the forces of erosion. This was on their own time, not at his request.

Such consideration of the underlying presumptions of a story is not atypical of fans of SF.

If a woman isn't sharp as tacks with regards to science, she can't write SF. The fans will shred her first -- and then she'll either quit or drift into writing fantasy, which is far more forgiving.

T. Beale clearly thinks women can't write hard sf, or indeed anything he would consider properly sf; this seems to me to disqualify him from the job.

Actually, no, you should read what he said more carefully. This sort of perceptual myopia is one of the reasons women do poorly at math. Math requires precision.

This was not a statement directed at every single woman on the planet. It was a generic statement which dealt with women as a group, and one of their common qualities -- a general dearth of math skills leading to a dearth of hard science skills.

It does not say by any means it is impossible for a woman to have those skills. Only that they are far rarer in women than in men. Causation can be debated but isn't relevant to this discussion, per se. At least until this point in human time, women generally don't write hard SF and usually don't write SF at all.

Since any SF author who grasps the difference between SF and Sci-Fi (that is, any one worthy of respect) grasps that the difference between those two is either bad science or bad fiction and usually both, a dearth of science skills makes for most women attempting to write SF and producing SciFi instead. This is fine if you are writing for TV and some movies, but if you do it for books you will get blown away by the readers.

...then I don't see why it should be controversial to state that few women are capable of writing hard SF.

Because, Vox. Liberals don't want to hear the actual implications of statistics. It makes it much harder for them to maintain their cherished presumptions in defiance of real facts.

BTW -- as a final comment, this has caused me to actually look at the last 4 years of Nebula awards, and it does remind me why it is I tend to ignore them. From the 2000 Awards to the 2003 awards, 4 years, 4 book/story categories, five or more each category, I see about 7 names I recognize at all(Gaiman, WJWilliams, GRRMartin, LMBujold, MResnick, GBear, UKLeGuin) and 1 that sounds familiar (CDeLint). I've only read stuff from 4 of those (and, for two of them, what I read is their fantasy), and it says a lot that not one of the authors I read *regularly* have anything at all in the nominations -- the Nebulas are pretty much a circle jerk for members of SFWA. Most of it is probably crap that no one except members of SFWA read.

Keep patting yourselves on the back, though.

Vox, I find it interesting that you are so focused on a question that has nothing to do with the merits of the works themselves.

Frankly, it seems far more likely you perpetuate the stereotype of women not being capable of handling hard SF because it serves your own interests in some way. Maybe you should give some thought as to why that is.

-l.

(PS- Stan Robinson is male. You'd buy more credibility with your audience if you'd at least get your facts right.)

I understand that the words complained of are these:

"Women do not write hard science fiction today because so few can hack the physics."

This statement contains an assumption: that to write "hard" science fiction, one must be a physicist. One, moreover, who is abreast not merely of the possibilities suggested by, let us say, interesting extrapolations of theory, but possessed of specific technical expertise of the level that would be gained during the acquisition of a doctorate in physics. That Vox Dei thinks this is true is made clear by his later:

"If only 13 percent of Physics PhDs are female, as Physics Today claimed, then I don't see why it should be controversial to state that few women are capable of writing hard SF."

Of course this idea is nonsense. If Vox Dei actually thinks that science fiction is about physics, he's plain, flat wrong. The idea is manifestly absurd. Articles in physics journals are about physics. Science fiction, like all fiction, is about people. Specifically, it is about how people adapt themselves and their societies to technological change and advances in scientific knowledge. An understanding of the human condition and character, and an ability to think critically about history is far more important for this purpose than detailed understanding of physics at the technical level. The science should not conflict with what is known; it need do no more than that.

But there is a far worse logical squib involved here. The Nebula awards are severally given in recognition of the merit of a specific work. Vox Dei says - tendentiously - that he was making a statistical statement about a class of writers - women. Of what possible relevance to the Nebulas is such a statement, even if true, unless it is to demonstrate that Vox Dei is prejudiced against a whole class of writers?

For that, of course, is the real issue - the man's misogyny. I cannot say, on the evidence available, that his obvious prejudices have affected his judgement. I do say that as an active member of SFWA myself, I shall be scrutinising the Nebula ballot with even more than usual care.

Nick B writes:

"Since any SF author who grasps the difference between SF and Sci-Fi..."

Read: "Anyone who knows about the arbitrary dividing line that I've constructed in my head for the explicit exclusion of women..."

See, it all makes much more sense when you actually say what you mean.

The idea women can't handle the physics of Hard SF is outright stupid. For God's sake, my book has gotten praise for its "cool speculative physics," and I cribbed most of it from pop science books. If new fields of speculative physics can be reasonably explained to the average science-oriented person (as they can), then women are as equally capable of understanding them as men, and certainly women writers are capable of using them for their writing, and speculating on their potential aspects. If the ideas were so abstruse that only a subset of men were capable of understanding them (much less capable of writing and explaning them to others), it's rather doubtful they'd be the centerpiece of a genre of writing that is explicitly meant to be popular, and has been popular for years. A genre doesn't survive by being inaccessible to a large audience.

If Vox allows that women are capable of understanding the physics of Hard SF as readers, it's difficult to see how they would not be able to grasp the physics as writers. If he does not grant that women can understand the physics as readers, than he would also have to conclude that I can't handle physics either, since I can reel off the number of published women SF writers who have far more formal training in physics than I, even though I have been praised for my SF book's physics. And then if he grants that indeed I can't handle physics, perhaps he can explain why my astronomy book (which discusses a fair amount of currently speculative physics concerning the origins and nature of the universe) has been so widely regarded.

Personally I believe that the reason that so many women don't write hard SF is not that they're incapable of the physics involved, but because they recognize that hard SF technoporn is largely dead boring, and may prefer to spend their time writing stories in which their characters have an integral dimensional value >2, which is, sad to say, not exactly the strong suit of "Hard SF" as a genre.

Therefore, we may equally posit that the reason that women don't do hard SF is not they are not capable of the physics, but that they are capable of writing more and different sorts of writing, and therefore choose to do so. After all, why draw exclusively crayon when you have the access and ability to utilize oil paints, pastels and Photoshop?

We may also equally and more simply posit that Vox has his head up his ass on this matter.

Let's be clear what's going on here. Vox and his sock puppet Nick are using well-understood rhetorical tricks to start an argument.

Every regular reader of Electrolite knows that a) their basic assumptions are not only false, but logically untenable, b) they probably don't actually believe those assumptions themselves, c) all they want is to get attention, and d) nothing we say will "convince" them.

Adieu, dear friends, adieu.

Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

Alex:

We know. I for one am representin' for the folks who might randomly come along and wonder if Vox and Nick represent anything more than the lunatic fringe.

Also, it's just plain fun to beat on the willfully stupid.

Can I start a tangent?

I didn't know "hard SF" means "SF in which the science is theoretical physics." Is that what it means? I used to be told it was "SF in which the science is in the foreground."

I'm bugged a little, because if "soft SF" means, as I think it probably does, "science fiction in which the science is the background and the fiction is the foreground," and which might feature an emphasis on social sciences:

what do you call science fiction in which geoscience(including climatology) or biological science (including evolution) are dominant? Or the kajillions of cybery things?

What do you do with Darwin's Radio, Heavy Weather, or Trouble and her Friends? What do you call them?

It's not that I need stiff little boxes for things, but a common language would be nice.

this would be hilarious it it didn't make me want to vomit all over my keyboard.

jonathan: i want to meet your wife! she sounds fantastic.

Lucy says:

"I didn't know "hard SF" means 'SF in which the science is theoretical physics.' Is that what it means? I used to be told it was 'SF in which the science is in the foreground.'"

That's been my understanding of it as well, and I would suspect the understanding of most long-time readers of the genre. Although with science fiction, "science" has been as often than not equivalent with "physics" (particularly the further back you go) which might be the source of Vox's point of view.

"If the ideas were so abstruse that only a subset of men were capable of understanding them (much less capable of writing and explaning them to others), it's rather doubtful they'd be the centerpiece of a genre of writing that is explicitly meant to be popular, and has been popular for years. A genre doesn't survive by being inaccessible to a large audience."

Of course, the flaw in your argument practically underlines itself, as even the writers of hard SF have openly lamented its decline into increasing market irrelevance. I was very surprised to discover that preorders for my most recent comic book were in excess of 300,000, still nothing but a drop in the bucket compared to the 50 million+ for the Left Behind and Harry Potter series. I doubt most SFWAns here have even heard of GP Taylor, and yet likely outsold most of those big SF names prior to even coming to America.

SFWA will continue to be primarily made up of marginal, semi-pro writers as long as it insists on being a safe house for wallflowers who prefer to write about people the way they wish they were instead of as they are. Ideas can be intoxicating, but great literature is dependent upon characters to whom the reader can relate. I've seen very, very little of that in the past year, even in those works that made the Nebula ballot. The fact that many individuals here are so distinctly uncomfortable with unfamiliar views makes it easy to understand why their art is so crippled. Nick is no sock puppet, Vox Popoli is populated by everyone from radical libertarian gays to wheelchair-bound socialists and George Bush-worshipping Three Monkey Republicans.

Try stepping outside your petty assumptions for once, you might actually find that it improves your writing. Or stick to believing in your cartoon bogeymen and writing about them if you wish, it makes absolutely no difference to the vast majority of the six billion people out there.

" I for one am representin' for the folks who might randomly come along and wonder if Vox and Nick represent anything more than the lunatic fringe. Also, it's just plain fun to beat on the willfully stupid."

Lunatic fringe? Okay, let's compare the annual circulation of the leading magazine:

Asimov's SF magazine: 50,000
Analog SF & Fact: 40,000
Focus: 3,000,000
Charisma: 250,000

According to Mr. Dozois, there were about 100 more SF titles published last year than there are Christian publishing houses. And I'm on the fringe? Right.

It is kind of fun, now that you mention it....

Make that MONTHLY circulation, sorry.

The Nebula award has long been known as the award give to writers by writers. (I almost said 'peers' but this really opens a can-o-worms.) So, politics, beliefs, and even flaming predjudices have nothing to do with it. What are the qualifications for voting on the awards in general and, in particular, serving on the jury itself? That you be a published writer.

Says nothing about whether you're a loony-toon with a frighteningly poor grasp of logic and facts. Or even a writer with different literary tastes.

The hope is that a work selected despite the wide range of beliefs and tastes of it's selectors will truly be an exceptional work.

Does this mean we can't make fun of Vox Day (Or VD as I like to call him) for his distressing use irrational arguments?

Of course we can. It's like finding one of those dishes of leftovers in the back of the refrigerator that is busy creating it's own little ecosystem. You comment on it, you drop it in the trash, and you don't swallow it.

I've been accused of writing hard science fiction (by people who write some of the crunchiest hard science fiction going, at that), and I can't hack the physics.

That's why I send long letters and drafts to people who *can* hack the physics, and let them tell me where I'm wrong. It works good.

Do the romance novels in space count if the women are rugged and the men are beautiful? If the men are beautiful and the men are smart? What about if everybody gets way too busy to actually have time for any romance? I'm having a hard time finding my marketing category here....

*goes to sit next to John and Charlie*

Drinks are on me, guys. Apparently I'm a boy. But the first guy who tries to check for testicles is drawing back a stump.

Vox says:

"Of course, the flaw in your argument practically underlines itself, as even the writers of hard SF have openly lamented its decline into increasing market irrelevance."

Uh-huh. And how many Hard SF books are published each year? It's popular enough for the purposes of my comment. Moreover, saying one genre of entertainment is more popular than another genre does not suggest the first genre is not popular, nor engaged in addressing a "popular" audience. So your nice little attempt at obfuscation of the issue does nothing to address the fact your original assertion ("women can't handle the physics of Hard SF") is pan-hit stupid, or mitigate the suggestion that your head is pretty far up your ass.

Also, arguing that Charisma magazine has a larger circulation than Asimov's would be like me arguing that Modern Maturity has a larger circulation than The Watchtower. In both cases this may be true, but it doesn't mean anything useful, because the comparison is bogus (it also suggests that the sets of subscribers of any of these magazines have no overlap, which is probably false).

Incidentally, when I call you the "lunatic fringe" I am discussing your hypoxic opinion as to the capabilities of women, not your identification as a Christian. I realize it's valuable for you to be able to maintain that people's irritation with you here has something to do with your religion, but inasmuch as I know quite a few devout followers of Christ who would also think you have your head up your ass regarding your opinion re: women/physics/hard SF (including some people in this comment thread), allow me to suggest that's not it.

In other words, leave Christ out of it. He deserves better than to be used as flak cover by the likes of you. Or at the very least, He deserves to be used by someone who argues better.

I am ambivalent about this thread.

As a First Amendment absolutist, I strongly defend the right of Vox Day to make the unpalatable statements that he does. He also seems to have some strange personal definition of Hard Science Fiction other than that which I have published:

HARD SCIENCE FICTION contained within "IF YOU LIKE THIS, THEN YOU'LL LIKE THAT" miniencyclopedia of