From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!floyd!trb
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Title: Re: SF attacked in December Harper"s magazine
Article-I.D.: floyd.973
Posted: Fri Dec 17 18:04:46 1982
Received: Fri Dec 24 01:02:15 1982
References: pur-phy.616

It is with great fear that I post this message, but I have always let
my feelings on non-asinine issues be known, so...

I find the childish reactions (over this medium) to the Harpers article
laughable.  If the guy was accurate then he was accurate.  If he was
inacurate then he was inacurate.  But SF fandom must rear its macho
head in defense of the wrongs (right or wrong) that this fellow has
committed.

I am not an SF fanatic, and I am not a Harpers reader.  I have read a
small bit of SF, and I have found the classic works satisfying and the
trash disappointing.  I see that there are many SF fans who chew through
SF pulp as though it was their sole subsistence.  I see people involved
in SF who appear every bit as addicted to it as others are addicted to
drugs and alcohol.

I'm not saying that all SF is trash, but I AM saying that much SF is
trash, much of any literary genre is trash.  Trouble is that the really
hungry SF fiends buy and defend this trash, and when someone attacks
the mass of SF work as a whole, they get offended, rather than either
recognizing the attacker as ignorant or separating the wheat from the
chaff.

[Here it comes...]  I have met SF fans who seemed to have no connection
to the real world.  I find that sad.

My God.  I fully expect to have three-headed monsters from outer space
burning effigies on my lawn by morning; that's the price I gotta pay.

	Andy Tannenbaum   Bell Labs  Whippany, NJ   (201) 386-6491