Also, as you have pointed out, the Ashley anthology did not have any women at all. That’s hardly the same thing as an anthology with 11 men and 4 women. The latter wouldn’t have gotten nearly as much attention. The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume 3 is a recent anthology with only one female author. I don’t recall that editor taking a beating.

The crux of your argument begs the question of male and female authors are already being treated in a gender-neutral manner. Since that’s the point of contention, assuming the answer is decidedly poor form. Add your factual inaccuracies to this mix and I’m afraid that you should take your own advice and reflect.

I know. Ashley didn’t have any women in his retrospective, reprint SF only anthology. And a lot of people with feminist sensibilities were extremely upset about that, as we have seen in on the blogs. Not just a little, but very upset. That was just terribly unfair to all the excellent female writers out there, who should be positively discriminated, such was the sentiment.

But now we get a TOC from Strahan, who has been criticized in the past for not having the right mix as well. Earlier Strahan was told he didn’t have enough women in his anthology. Now he has 11 women and 4 men, and now it’s fine. When it’s 11 men and 4 women the editor takes a beating, because that just isn’t fair is it? But the reverse? That’s fine, man we’d love to see that all the time.

Uhm… no. That’s a skewed worldview, and it irritates me a lot. I’m sure this book will have interesting stories by both men and women. I’m also sure I will buy it, in October even. I am however noting a very strange political correctness to the responses. More men than women in the TOC is to be criticized. The reverse is to be applauded.

No. People need to do some reflecting on the extreme agenda’s they have and how biased they are, and how ironic that bias is considering they accuse the male anthologist of bias himself.

I’m glad to see Ford & Beagle in there at least, they usually have a good story.

It was swell getting to spend time with you at Worldcon. So glad you’re too tired to write a full report. They must never know about the maple syrup & the panthers.

Lovely colour, again – nice to see some warm earth colouring for contrast.

Any thoughts on the balance of this book in the SF/fantasy continuum? Or are these label-free, unclassifiable stories?

Thank you for listening, last year, even if it was not a comfortable thing to have done.