As I write historical fiction and only read around the edges of science fiction, this year’s Sad Puppies campaign, to widen the field for Hugo nominations held some interest for me, in the sense that I do have on-line writer friends involved, some of them very deeply involved indeed. In a small way I have been pulled into the shallows of the controversy just by online friendship and shared interests. The whole controversy would take several thousand words to explain and explore, I have my own books to work on … and well, others more involved are considerably more eloquent.
This is a fairly concise question and answer session. There has been a lot of calumny heaped on certain writers by what appears to be a small, but noisily effective faction, whose thrust seems to be that book awards – and readers – should be more guided not by interest in a cracking good story, but rather by the degree of political correctness involved, and the gender/orientation/ethnic background of either the author or the characters. And that only a certain kind of science fiction fan is the legitimate kind. One of the authors so distained by the politically correct set fires back, with a dispatch from Fort Living Room. A long-time fan replies here.