Anonymous asked: I know this may be old news, but I was reading Christopher Priest's thoughts on the Clarke Awards and was struck not by the criticisms of the judges, but by those of the writers of the nominated books. Especially him saying Charles Stross 'writes like an internet puppy', for me that's out of line, a writer should have some respect for other writers. Where do you came down on Priest's criticisms of his fellow writers? Fair or foul?
I think Catherynne Valente had the best response to Priest’s remarks: that whatever you thought of the comments themselves, a female writer who’d said anything even close to what he Priest did would have been utterly savaged, because we somehow think it’s more natural and acceptable for men to deal out unflinching, public, critical opinions than women, particularly about other people in their field; and that, while Priest was within his rights to make the points he did, we all ought to reflect on the sexist hypocrisy of our standard reactions to criticism.
As to whether I personally thought his comments were fair or foul: as declarative and scathing as he was, it didn’t bother me. As I’ve said before, I dislike the extent to which insisting on niceness is starting to stifle important critical discourse in the SFF community. Priest isn’t being polite, but he’s not being exclusively rude, either: he’s actually trying to make a point about the deficiencies he perceived in a particular awards ballot, and whether or not you agree with him, I’d rather he - we - had the freedom to raise such points than not.