Gene Wolfe flames and reviews

T Cox · 07 Feb 1986, 00:19 · from net.sf-lovers.1986.mbox

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From: benn at sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (T Cox)
Subject: Gene Wolfe flames and reviews
Date: Thu, 6-Feb-86 19:19:32 EST
Message-ID: <1603 at sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers

[]
> >    I haven't read the books, and for all I know they are God's gift to
> > mankind, but however good the books are the above is the definition of
> > bullshit.  The writer presents the following as facts (not opinions):
      [biased paraphrases here]
> > I for one find this sort of garbage extremely offensive.  Is anyone out
> > there interested in answering the original question instead of lecturing
> > the rest of us on our stupidity?
> > 
> >    -- David desJardins
> 
> I'm another one of those people to whom Gene Wolf is like unto a god, but
> I have to agree with Mr. desJardins on some of his points.  Others are a 
> little less cut and dried.
> .
> .
> .
> As to who's the best SF author ever, that remains to be seen, doesn't it?
> 								Mark!

First, may the Powers forgive me for all this included text.  
Second, may the elementals of fire hear me, for I do their work.

Flame on.

You total bozos.  I really cannot understand such gross stupidity in 
people who would otherwise strike me as bright:  readers of SF/Fantasy
stories.  You amaze me.
	You can swallow spiders on Mars.  You can read the future
history of the Earth a million hears hence without blinking.  You can
handle the twisting and writhing of every physical law of the universe.
And then, then you fall flat on your collective faces when someone uses
strong rhetoric.  This is too much.
	The original poster, whose article has long since vanished 
from my site, said things like "there never has been, nor ever could
be, an author as gifted as this one."  Do you think he was serious?
Of course not!  Great horned toads of Jupiter!  This is called, now
read slowly here, e x a g g e r a t i o n.  Everyone catch that?
He was overstating the case for dramatic effect.  Something any
author can do through the mouth of a character without surprising
any one of you.  But let someone make a sweeping generalization
on the net, and everyone jumps down his throat.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.
	Now we're going to have a little test here.  I am going to
write something that will be an exaggeration.  I will do it for
dramatic effect.  Ready?  Take your time.  Don't get excited; it's
only exaggeration.  It's just a rhetorical device.  Now brace yourselves.

	Not one of you is worthy of posting to sf-lovers, you
	narrow-minded, gullible GITS!  How literal-minded and
	dense can a human being be?!?  You are not worthy of 
	even READING this newsgroup!  I banish you all forth-
	with to the purgatory of net.philosophy, net.religion.
	christian, net.women, and net.cooks!  Begone!

There, that wasn't so bad, was it?  A little warm, but hardly
threatening to the discriminating reader.  

Flame off.  May the elementals of fire be appeased.

Please, fellow readers, next time someone uses strong language
the way the original poster did, to make an obviously silly 
sweeping generalization, remember that there are people in
the world who use that kind of phrasing all the time, in normal
conversation.  Just because you don't, that doesn't mean others
cannot.  And if it gets under your skin, that is not the other
guy's fault.  If the original poster had been a green-tentacled
alien from, say, Planet 10, you'd not have reacted that way.
Shame on you all.

"oh, lighten up, Tom!"

Sorry.

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