I publicly appeal to Avram Grumer to maintain his standards. John Derbyshire is a vile, loathsome toad--based not just on what he writes about Chelsea Clinton, but on numerous other of writings. Just because he reads science fiction does not make him a good guy. L. Ron Hubbard reads science fiction. Chancellor Palpatine reads science fiction. Ming the Merciless reads science fiction.
Posted by DeLong at August 21, 2002 07:20 AM | TrackbackP&F: Weblog: I should point out here that while I had initially considered Derbyshire a vile, loathsome toad of a writer, based on his piece about Chelsea Clinton, I've warmed a bit to him after discovering that he reads science fiction.
Avram Grumer responds:
Brad DeLong doesn’t agree with me about John Derbyshire: "Just because he reads science fiction does not make him a good guy. L. Ron Hubbard reads science fiction. Chancellor Palpatine reads science fiction. Ming the Merciless reads science fiction..."
What would SF in the Star Wars universe look like? Would they have novels filled with exotic spacecraft that need to expend huge amounts of reaction mass to climb out of a gravity well? Would they posit a strange extraplanetary environment called a vacuum? (The gamemaster of a Star Wars role-playing game I played in for a while maintained that, in his view, space in Star Wars was full of air. That’s why the ships go whoosh, and why the characters didn’t need pressure suits when they went EVA on a tiny asteroid in The Empire Strikes Back.)
http://www.PigsAndFishes.org/links/weblog/archives.html?year=2002&month=08&day=21#20020821223416