So that's off my list...

[aesmael]

Thanks to lost_angelwings for pointing me to this post by Willow|Seeking Avalon.

It concerns a rejection letter sent by William Sanders of Helix, which reads as follows:

No, I'm sorry but I can't use this.

There's much to like. I'm impressed by your knowledge of the Q'uran and Islamic traditions. (Having spent a couple of years in the Middle East, I know something about these things.) You did a good job of exploring the worm-brained mentality of those people - at the end we still don't really understand it, but then no one from the civilized world ever can - and I was pleased to see that you didn't engage in the typical error of trying to make this evil bastard sympathetic, or give him human qualities.

However, as I say, I can't use it. Because Helix is a speculative fiction magazine, and this isn't speculative fiction.

Oh, you've tacked on some near-future elements at the end, but the future stuff isn't in any way necessary to the story; it isn't even connected with it in any causal way. True, the narrator seems to be saying that it was this incident which caused him to take up the jihad, but he's being mendacious (like all his kind, he's incapable of honesty); he was headed in that direction from the start, and if it hadn't been the encounter with the stripper it would have been something else.

Now if it could be shown that something in this incident showed him HOW the West could be overthrown, then perhaps the story would qualify as SF. That might have been interesting. As it is, though, no connection is shown and in fact we are never told just how this conquest - a highly improbable event, to say the least - came about.

There are some other problems with the story, but there's no point in going into them, because they don't really matter from my viewpoint. It's not speculative fiction and I can't use it in my magazine.

And I don't think you're going to sell it to any other genre magazine, for that reason - though you'd have a hard time anyway; most of the SF magazines are very leery of publishing anything that might offend the sheet heads. I think you might have a better chance with some non-genre publication. But I could be wrong.

Sorry.

William Sanders
Senior Editor
Helix

I did have Helix bookmarked as something to read, Suddenly the idea of reading, supporting, or contributing to anything associated with William Sanders is much less palatable.

And unsurprisingly he responds to the posting of this text with vicious and ablist language:

Son, hasn't anybody ever told you that public posting of a private email message is contrary to the rules both of accepted internet practice and common courtesy?

I do appreciate your efforts to be fair - certainly far more so than most of the other people in this ward, ah, group - but the fact remains that you've done something both socially and professionally unacceptable in posting it at all. So if you had any idea of submitting anything else to Helix, forget it. I won't work with people who pull this kind of shit.

I suppose this is what I get for trying to be a nice guy, and give you a little encouragement rather than the standard thanks-but-no-thanks form rejection. Silly me.

(I notice, too, the presence in the lynch mob of another person I've tried to help, and to whom I thought I'd been particularly kind. No good deed, etc.)

Of course none of these people have read the story, and so they fail to grasp the context - that I was talking not about Muslims, or Arabs, or Oompa Loompas or any other religious or ethnic group, but about terrorists and violent extremists. (That being, after all, what your story was about.)

But I don't feel any need to defend myself, or Helix, to these people; indeed I doubt that there's anybody outside their little Mutual Masturbation Society who gives a damn what they think about anything at all.

They are cordially invited to have intercourse with their precious selves. I'm sure most of them could use the practice.

That was in response to this explanation of the situation from the person who originally posted the letter, which I do not think mitigates it any:

You don't expect to get a rejection like this in your email inbox, that's for sure. I mean, I don't know him at all so I'm surprised that he would be so blatant about it. (I see that he's been referred to as William "Sheethead" Sanders on lj before...)

On the other hand, he was writing about a nasty character in my story, so I gave his email the benefit of the doubt and took it to be more character- or extremist-specific. He was also giving my story a lot of attention when he didn't have to look at it due to Helix' closed submissions policy. I usually don't try to argue with the editors for fear of getting blackballed, and it's his fiction site. I also don't want to be a nail in the coffin in one of the few professional-rate free-read SF markets out there. Plus, I think people can hold whacked-out opinions in some areas and be reasonably intelligent in others, or at least I hope they can...

'Tis a shame. I had been given to believe that Helix generally contains quality fiction by accomplished writers.

Comments

Context is Everything

[solipcyst.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

As the person who received the rejection, I think people should understand the full context of Mr. Sander's email before they jump to conclusions. I posted it here:

http://solipcyst.blogspot.com

Re: Context is Everything

[aesmael.livejournal.com]

Ya, I read that before posting. It ain't convincing. But I did edit my post to make things clearer.

[lost-angelwings.livejournal.com]

That's still so ugh :\ Even in context, what's with "sheet heads" at the end? And the whole thing still smacked of unprofessionalism and his own personal issues >:\ His response was equally icky with the ablist language :(

[syntaxia.livejournal.com]

I think the fact that this Sanders guy is so enraged at posting his letter says a lot about him.

I don't understand this. If it's your honest opinion, be prepared to defend it to the world. If you're ashamed of it, don't tell it to anyone. Anything else is just opportunism and bigotry.

[syntaxia.livejournal.com]

And I read Solipcyst's blog post linked above, and I still think the same. For me, the main issue is his reaction to the posting of his letter, not the letter itself.

[flynnacatri.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I thought it was a very useful reply, and made me want to read the story, which clearly had powerful characters and cultural depth of some extent. Also, to see if I could spot the weaknesses/if the non-scifi was obvious but it was still good... The ONLY bit there that might be offensive is the casual use of 'sheetheads' at the end. And as this is a personal letter, a) he may just have found it easier, HAVING ESTABLISHED that he knows and appreciates the character/culture/setting/story and b) he may be speaking of how the editors in general refer to them/the 'imaginary sheethead population that constricts what is acceptable'. That is, a slang term, covering a set of rules/responses but not actually believed of specific peoples.
Or c) he could have been being rude.


Also, Sci+fi plus sheetheads... kept thinking of Dune >.> which didn't help.

[lost-angelwings.livejournal.com]

Would it be okay if he had said "nigger" or "chink" or "faggot" or "he-she" instead of "sheethead"? It's not a slang term, it's a slur. :\

To me, it's clear he was not being ironic or sarcastic or referring to other ppl. Even if he was (and oddly, if he was, he never clarified it and in fact dug his hole deeper, dismissing Muslims and Arabs he might have offended with his condescending "Oompa Loompa" crap) it would not change that the word is a slur and that he used it in the straight forward, casual and derisive manner he did >:\ He didn't even put it in scare quotes to at least show that he might not be the one who is saying such things, or it is terminology he does not believe in. >:\

I vote for C. :)

[flynnacatri.livejournal.com]

I think the whole scifi aura led to me feeling it was in a different setting, especially as it's a word one is more likely to find in a novel than reallife, which is why it didn't seem particularly offensive. But it wasn't the word itself - I'd still feel it could be any of the various reasons. Note - could be. Also bearing in mind that we have no idea of the behind the scenes context, the casualness or not of the corespondent's relationship...

Just to clarify, I don't think it was actually nice, but I find it really hard to judge on so little data what he 'meant'.