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From: chabot@miles.DEC (L. S. Chabot)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: C.J.Cherryh, Tanith Lee, and other assorted female SF authors...
Message-ID: <732@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 25-Feb-85 16:56:32 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.732
Posted: Mon Feb 25 16:56:32 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Feb-85 10:08:55 EST
Sender: daemon@decwrl.UUCP
Organization: DEC Engineering Network
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Well, let's see: rejoinders to "just how many good female science fiction 
authors are there anyway"...in a pinch, a favorite repartee is to ridicule the
person's ideas of good science fiction.  You start out with "Well, just how
many good *male* science fiction authors are there anyway?" and get the person
to name the authors held dearest, and then snort and criticize the ones you 
know, and declare "*Never* heard of him" while obviously implying that he can't
be good if not well-known.  Fight fire with fire, I say.  It may be hard to 
put down the subject matter as being "only *men's* issues" (so that you're 
saying that they aren't worthy of consideration by the educated portions of the
human race, but only concern "typical" men's concerns which everybody knows
are racing forms and power lawn mowers :-) ), but, heck, the exercise in
sarcasm is probably worth the effort.

Of course, we should only be so lucky as to get such a fool as above to list
James Tiptree, Jr. as a favorite...on the other hand, you might not be able
to withstand the mirth!  (and, sadly, it's no longer very likely)

I like to try to worm such discussions around to how none of the person's 
favorites can compare to biggies of conventional literature, such as, say,
George Eliot.

L S Chabot
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