Tag: SFWA

SFWA rejects Jon Del Arroz

So much for SFWA’s increasingly ludicrous claim to represent the interests of professional science fiction writers. It’s now an objectively racist organization of people who mostly don’t write science fiction that doesn’t accept American Indians or Hispanics who professionally publish science fiction.

Statement from the SFWA Membership Credentials Committee
Recently, a science fiction writer made a very public announcement of his application to join SFWA. SFWA Bylaws section VI.1.c.i gives discretion to the membership credentials committee “regardless of qualifications.” Based on the behavior of and online statements by this writer over the preceding year or so, which the credentials committee believes is inconsistent with the obligations that SFWA members have to one another, the committee has determined that it has good and sufficient cause to deny this membership.

We did not take this step lightly, and we are sensitive to suggestions that this action is due to the writer’s political opinions: it is not. SFWA does not, and will not, impose a political test or political standard for membership. We strive to be welcoming to all SFF writers of good will, whatever their personal beliefs or opinions. However, the membership credentials committee, comprised by the sitting Board of Directors, believes that admitting this writer would not be in keeping with our obligations to our membership.

SFWA is a heavily converged organization. As per the Impossibility of Social Justice Convergence, they are increasingly unable to perform their core function, which originally concerned representing the interests of professional science fiction writers.

Instead, they defend sex criminals, celebrate pedophiles and child molesters, accept members with literally ZERO science fiction publications, are largely comprised of amateurs who publish the occasional short story in short-lived amateur publications, and reject genuine science fiction professionals because of “obligational inconsistency.” It is no wonder that the vast majority of bestselling science fiction authors don’t bother to join the organization, since it has nothing positive to offer them.

SFWA is functionally dead. It serves literally no professional purpose anymore. As the lead editor at a mid-sized science fiction publisher, I can attest that it has absolutely no influence with science fiction publishers, distributors, and retailers whatsoever.

The most amusing aspect of this is that SFWA isn’t even trying to hide that it is no longer a professional writers’ organization anymore. The small print they cited from the new bylaws means that they can literally accept anyone the committee likes as a member, whether the applicant has ever written anything or not, whether the applicant is even human or not. Thanks to the short-sighted fools who gave in to Ann McCaffrey’s threat to quit if they did not let fantasy writers join, SFWA is now an organization for racist cat ladies and their cats, not science fiction writers.

Important lesson: whenever someone threatens to quit unless you do x, the only correct response is to say: “We are not doing x. We accept your resignation. Goodbye.”

Now, as always, the SFWA statement hides its true justifications behind a nebulous fog. What are the actual justifications that supposedly provide “good and sufficient cause”?

Dear Mr. Del Arroz,

SFWA Bylaws section VI.1.c.i gives discretion to the membership credentials committee “regardless of qualifications.” Based on online statements and your behavior from the past year, the membership credentials committee believes it has good and sufficient cause to deny your membership in order to keep SFWA virtual and physical spaces harassment-free and has done so.

Examples of behavior from the past year:

  • Threatening to film people without their consent at private SFWA functions.
  • Soliciting people on social media, including Facebook, Gab, and Twitter, in order to “troll” and harass other professional authors, including SFWA members and board officers.
  • Accusing SFWA of “doxxing” your children, supporting pedophiles, racism, among other attacks.

Sincerely,

The Membership Credentials Committee

SFWA, Inc.

Of course, if they were to hold the existing membership to the standard they are claiming, they’d have to expel half the leadership, past and present.

The sickness in the SFWA

Believe it or not, the current President of the SFWA is defending the pedophiles and child molesters of her organization and attempting to sweep Moira Greyland’s damning bestseller under the rug, probably because they have never expelled its inactive members who are convicted pedophiles or looked into the behavior of its Grand Masters such as Arthur C. Clarke and Samuel Delaney. John Del Arroz has more about the vile behavior of Cat Rambo.

It’s no wonder these people are so obsessed with “harassment policies”. One innocuous off-color joke by a Tor editor several years ago sent all of fandom spiraling and signalling. He was fired and ostracized from conventions after that. But it’s as they say, SJWs always project. The reason they focus so hard on what they call harassment, is they have far darker skeletons in their closets.  They know the actions they and their friends engage in, and so they have a hyper focus on the public appearance, the social element. They witch hunt average men to call harassers, all while on the other hand promoting the most deviant, pornographic lifestyles imaginable. Ironically, my wife, a far more beautiful woman than anyone you’ll see at a sci-fi con, has only had problems with men creeping on her and going over the line twice in her life — both by self-professed male feminist science fiction professionals and at science fiction conventions.

It was no wonder that yesterday, SFWA President Cat Rambo made a vile attempt to downplay Moira’s story of the abuse she suffered at the hands of Marion Zimmer Bradley. To someone like Rambo, MZB’s identity as a feminist and gay icon is far more important than the real human who was hurt. In her capacity at SFWA, Rambo should be championing Moira, a  best seller with a related work in the field — instead, she downplays the relevance in order to make more politically charged and wholly irrelevant attacks on the president. She’ll go so far as to protect the pedophiles in sci-fi that she’ll label anyone concerned over what happened to a real human being “alt-right” in order to dismiss them.

Sick. She refuses to disavow a dead pedophile and deflects. Why? We can only speculate, but from what I’ve observed in Sci-Fi fandom in conjunction with Moira’s story, MZB and Breen are not isolated incidents. The exposure of their story frightens the gatekeepers of the industry who have pushed an agenda of this lifestyle for decades.

Cat Rambo is a complete trainwreck. She makes Stephen Gould look sane by comparison, and Gould actually honored the author of Hogg by naming him an SFWA Grand Master. I have never been so proud to be the first SFWA Life Member to have had the SFWA Board vote for my expulsion. What sane, psychosexually healthy individual would want anything to do with such a deviant-filled degenerate organization?

Twitter was unimpressed.

J_Ishiro‏ @J_Ishiro
The SFWA and World Fantasy are so quick to condemn #hplovecraft’s racist opinions, yet won’t touch Marion Zimmer Bradley’s ACTUAL CRIMES? In her daughter’s own words, Bradley was a monster.

An Eclectic Scribe: Richard Paolinelli‏ @ScribesShade
 Actually, just wondering how many more of them are being sheltered by the SFWA now like the one you just referenced. BTW, I never supported either Moore or Trump so your deflection attempt, much like your leadership of @SFWA, seems to be a complete failure.

superversivesf‏ @superversivesf
It is rather telling that you decline to denounce the behaviour of convicted pedophiles and child abusers with “What does it matter at this point?” WTF is wrong with you?

Henry Vogel‏ @HenryVogel_
SFWA Pres, who believes it’s more important to dig up a 60-year-old corpse than deal with the 20-year-old one in her organization’s basement.

BADKarma‏ @karmalysing
The Fascist Left, where viciously denouncing the victims of pervert abusive pedophiles is “being on the right side of history” if said pedophiles happen to be homosexual and famous.

What’s Cat Rambo going to do for an encore, name the corpse of Marion Zimmer Bradley the 2018 Damon Knight Grand Master, then dig her up for the ceremony? If Rambo isn’t pressured to resign by the SFWA membership, that will speak absolute volumes about the deviants and pedophiles who are still lurking in their midst.

RIP Jerry Pournelle

J. Lamplighter Wright recalls Jerry Pournelle’s last public performance at Dragoncon, where he gave out the Dragon Award for Best Science Fiction novel.

What Mr Pournelle did not tell you is that when he went up to hand out the award, he got a standing ovation. Everyone stood up…even Larry Niven. It wasn’t a big crowd, but it was a wonderful moment. I also noticed that, unlike everyone else who seemed to be reading the names, I could have sworn that Pournelle had his list memorized. He recited them smoothly while looking out at the audience.

I’m so pleased to hear that he was publicly celebrated to the very end, as he deserved. My favorite memory of Mr. Pournelle was talking to him after the publication of Riding the Red Horse. At almost the last possible moment, he had agreed to let me use “His Truth Goes Marching On”, a story which had appeared in the first volume of There Will Be War, which Riding the Red Horse was consciously designed to imitate. I thought that would be a fitting symbol of the torch being passed from the one series to the next, since I had been unable to obtain the rights to the original anthology series.

Then, at absolutely the last possible moment, I happened to see an article written by him in an old issue of The General, which combined strategy, wargames, and game design. Excited to have discovered it, I shot him an email asking him for permission to republish it, which right he graciously granted. This is the introduction I wrote for it.

Editor’s Introduction to:

SIMULATING THE ART OF WAR

by Jerry Pournelle

Science fiction’s gain was the game industry’s loss.

There are few, very few, readers of this anthology who do not know of Jerry Pournelle, the science fiction writer. Nearly everyone has heard of the author of Jannissaries and The Mote in God’s Eye, the editor of many anthologies, the techno-savvy Byte columnist, the SFWA president, the Lord of Chaos Manor, even the aphorist who coined the Iron Law of Bureaucracy.

In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.

But there are not very many who know of J.E. Pournelle, Ph.D., wargamer, and particular fan of the classic Avalon Hill game Afrika Korps. In the early 1970s, Jerry was also an occasional contributor to the Avalon Hill house magazine, The General, in which he introduced new rules for Waterloo, conceived an clever device for counter concealment that anticipated Fifth Frontier War‘s Fleet rules by a decade, and penned an astute article explaining how to draw upon the timeless Principles of War for the purposes of designing better wargames.

Alas, it is a lesson that few designers in the industry have taken to heart. These little-known facts may be reasonably cited as evidence that Dr. Pangloss was wrong, and we do not, in fact, live in the best of all possible worlds. After all, we narrowly missed living in a world where J.E. Pournelle designed Halo: Combat Evolved!

But the best part was yet to come. Not long after the publication of Riding the Red Horse, Jerry called me up and said, “You know, maybe it would be a good idea to revive There Will Be War. Would you have any interest in bringing that back into print?”

I did my best to remain calm, refrained from mentioning that obtaining the rights to publish There Will Be War had always been my original desire, and informed him that we would be extremely pleased to do so. I am very sorry that we were unable to get the last two original volumes, Vols VII and VIII, out before his death, but they will be released later this month, and at least Jerry was able to see his flagship anthology fully revived with Volume X last year. As I said before, working with him was both an honor and a privilege.

Please feel free to post your remembrances of Dr. Pournelle and his work here. Beginning tomorrow, Castalia House will honor Jerry Pournelle by making the first volume in his classic military science fiction anthology, There Will Be War Vol. I  a free download on Amazon for three days. Also, Chaos Manor has set up a Well-Wishing Page in case you wish to offer the Pournelle family your condolences.

Their indifference is palpable

This interview with NK Jemisin in The Atlantic is interesting, as it indicates a change in strategy on the part of the Puppykickers:

Just a year ago, the idea of a novel as deliberately outside the science-fiction norm as The Fifth Season winning the Hugo Award seemed unlikely. In 2013, a small group of science-fiction writers and commentators launched the “Sad Puppies” and “Rabid Puppies” campaigns to exploit the Hugo nomination system and place dozens of books and stories of their own choosing up for awards. Those campaigns arose as a reaction to perceived “politicization” of the genre—often code for it becoming more diverse and exploring more themes of social justice, race, and gender—and became a space for some science-fiction and fantasy communities to rail against “heavy handed message fic.” Led by people like the “alt-right” commentator Vox Day, the movements reached fever pitch in the 2015 Hugo Award cycle, and Jemisin herself was often caught up in the intense arguments about the future of the genre.

I spoke to Jemisin about her works, politics, the sad puppies controversy, and about race and gender representation in science-fiction and fantasy the day before The Fifth Season won the Hugo Award. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Newkirk: For you, are those people something that bothers you as you build a profile? Are people louder now that The Fifth Season is getting so much love?

Jemisin: They may be, but I’m not hearing them as much. I seem to have passed some kind of threshold, and maybe it’s something as simple as I now have so many positive messages coming at me that the negatives are sort of drowned out. As a side note, the so-called boogeyman of science-fiction, the white supremacist asshat who started the Rabid Puppies, Vox Day, apparently posted something about me a few days ago and I just didn’t care. There was a whole to-do between me and him a few years back where he ended up getting booted out of SWFA [Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America] because of some stuff he said about me, and I just didn’t care. It was a watershed moment at that point but now it’s just sort of, “Oh, it’s him again. He must be needing to get some new readers or trying to raise his profile again. Or something.” I didn’t look at it. No one bothered to read it and dissect it and send me anything about it. No one cared.

She just didn’t care. She just didn’t care. No one cared.

And then, the next day, they completely revamped the rules of the Hugo Award.

SJWAL. What’s particularly amusing about this is that last year, the Puppykickers went running to the media, pointing-and-shrieking like banshees. That strategy completely failed, so now they’re going with the “oh, we don’t care” line, while simultaneously trying to claim that I am seeking to raise my profile. We’ll see how long that lasts.

Let’s face it, I’m not the one talking to The Atlantic about me. Nor do I have any need to do so. As Mike Cernovich says, we are the Alt Media now.

Notice how the interviewer doesn’t ask her about calling Robert Heinlein and most of SF fandom “racist as *fuck*”. The truth is that having Jemisin replace Scalzi as the public face of Pink SF is about the best possible thing for Blue SF.

Smells like SFWA

Elijah Wood speaks out about the pedophiles in Hollywood:

Hollywood is in the grip a child sexual abuse scandal similar to that of Jimmy Savile in Britain, Lord of the Rings star Elijah Wood has claimed.

The 35-year-old former child actor said paedophiles had been protected by powerful figures in the movie business and that abuse was probably still taking place.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Wood said he had been protected from abuse as he was growing up, but that other child actors had been regularly “preyed upon” at parties by industry figures.

“You all grew up with Savile – Jesus, it must have been devastating,” he said.

“Clearly something major was going on in Hollywood.

“It was all organised.

“There are a lot of vipers in this industry, people who only have their own interests in mind.

“There is a darkness in the underbelly – if you can imagine it, it’s probably happened.”

Considering the physical proximity of Hollywood to the California SF scene, it would not surprise me in the least if there turns out to be links between the Hollywood coven that Wood is describing, the Breen-MZB coven, and the coven of convicted pedophiles that the Sacramento police department reported were in contact with Arthur C. Clarke in Sri Lanka.

The truth will come out eventually. Eventually the victims will find the courage to speak out and save others from suffering their fate.

Anne Henry, co-founder of Bizparents, a group set up to help child actors, said Hollywood is currently sheltering around 100 active abusers and said a “tsunami” of claims was beginning.

The Science Fiction Women’s Awards

The SFWA’s Nebula Awards were given out this weekend and offer further proof that allowing women into a men’s club inevitably destroys it over time. The winners in the four major categories:

Novel: Uprooted, Naomi Novik
Novella: Binti, Nnedi Okorafor
Novelette: “Our Lady of the Open Road,” Sarah Pinsker
Short Story: “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers,” Alyssa Wong

What’s interesting about this is that all the screaming about sexism in science fiction has never been louder. This is despite the fact that women now dominate the SF publishing houses, the editorships, run the SFWA, and are giving themselves literally all the major awards. Consider the winners of the four categories over the last five years:

2015: 4/4 women
2014: 3/4 women
2013: 4/4 women
2012: 2/4 women
2011: 2/4 women


The trend is clear, and what is readily apparent is that very few, if any, men will win Nebula Awards in the future. You might think I’m complaining about this, but quite to the contrary, I very much welcome the transformation of SFWA into the Science Fiction Women’s Awards. The more the SF publishers are influenced by it, the bigger a competitive advantage Castalia House is going to have.


Men reliably flee female-dominated institutions and activities. There is a reason there are so few lawsuits by men demanding admittance into women’s-only organizations, after all. The 2015 Nebula Awards not only tell us who is probably going to win the Hugo Awards for Best Novel and Best Novella, but also indicate that Pink SF is going to become even more omnipresent in what passes for mainstream science fiction publishing.

A review of “Safe Space as Rape Room”

Lela Buis reviews the series:

This work is an expose about pedophilia within the SFF community. It’s posted by Castalia House in five parts on their website, plus three appendices for supplementary information. Like most people, I’ve been aware that particular members of the community had a dark side to their reputations, but this is an eye-opener. I’m impressed by the author’s integrity, and the challenges he brings about dealing with the problems. The law is the law, and everyone needs to observe it, regardless of their personal philosophies.

The only issue I have with this is that it gets sidetracked with attacks on John Scalzi as past president of the SFWA, and others, as enablers. However overwrought the charges, I have to admit Daniel does have a point with some of these complaints. I’m tempted to say this series should be required reading, but readers should keep in mind that Castalia House has an axe to grind, especially with Scalzi.

Four stars.

For me, the most damning thing has been the reaction to the series on the part of the SF community. Instead of grasping that they have a serious and ongoing problem on their hands, they have tried to minimize the extent of the problem, claim that it is just a few bad apples, and resolutely ignore the indications that there are more bad apples still active in their midst.

It’s not important that many of the people associated with Castalia House harbor contempt for SF fandom. What is important are the facts of the matter. And it is disingenuous, in the extreme, to claim that they have done anything but attempt to sweep the latest revelations under the carpet as fast as possible.

Contrast the claims of the Pedofilers at File 770 that the series is either old, irrelevant news or circumstantial evidence versus Ms. Buis’s statement that it is “an eye-opener”. While “Safe Space as Rape Room” is neither definitive nor conclusive, it is a very important first step in discovering just how pervasive the sickness in science fiction is and putting an end to it.

Mailvox: what would you do?

David of One is curious what I would have done if I had found myself in Steven Gould’s position:

It isn’t hard to imagine, Vox, you having had become president of that foul organization only to discover … to realize at some formal function that you were in the midst of a great number of unwashed and perverse “artists”. Such an occasion and realization that you were in the company and leader of eaters of the dead that relish the flesh of the living young. In truth such is the case now of modern day vampires of the living with the exception you are not, by God’s grace and love, a leader amongst perverters of the the mind, body and soul. Such would surely be the making of a real life horror story.

I cannot help but ask you what you would have thought and done if such a situation were to have actually occurred during the annual formal function when such a realization might have occurred?

I would have held my tongue, smiled and concealed my realization, and done my best to learn as much as possible while I was in their midst. Then I would have quietly launched inquiries and hired private investigators with the organization’s money to look into the backgrounds of the most suspicious parties.

Once I was in possession of the necessary information, I would have spoken directly to the various parties and given them the opportunity to come clean, with the warning that the relevant information had already been sent to the relevant authorities. I would also have made sure that multiple parties beside myself were in possession of it; those who keep information to themselves create an incentive to be silenced in one way or another.

(In case it is not clear, neither I nor Daniel are researchers. We are merely the initial outlets for those who know considerably more than we do about all of this sort of nasty thing.)

After they either came clean or declined, I would have released a statement to the organization and to the media, with links to the full report. Then I would have asked the SFWA Board, and the membership, to vote on expelling the various individuals and stripping them of all honors.

SFWA instead voted to elect the man who selected Samuel Delany as a Grand Master. That’s on their heads, and on their consciences.

Clarke and the criminal connections

Leo is rather dubious about the evidence concerning certain of Arthur C. Clarke’s supposed idiosyncracies:

Still, a lack of accusations gives us nothing but rumors to work with. Did he associate with anyone later credibly so accused? That would be evidence for me.

Fair enough. It’s not like I know anything about it, although the false claims of his being cleared by the Sri Lankan authorities do tend to make me a little suspicious. Let’s see what is out there. Here is what there is from the 1998 Mirror piece based on the reporter who was sent from the UK to Sri Lanka to interview Clarke.

Sitting in a room he calls his Ego Chamber, Arthur C. Clarke  finally admitted his lifelong secret – not only is he gay but he prefers sex with beach boys. Clarke gives the name Ego Chamber to the study in his Colombo home because the walls are lined with his books and framed photos of himself with celebrities from the Pope to Princess Diana. The room has state-of-the-art computers, satellite TV, video recorders and other hi-tech gadgets which Clarke boasts he uses to communicate with pals at the Pentagon.

When we asked Clarke about suggestions that he may have been one of the original pioneers of sex tourism in Sri Lanka he gave a wry smile and said: “I am more amused than disgusted that anyone should think that. I am all in favour of efforts to stop it. But how do we stop it without interfering with the rights of responsible adults.”

Then he repeated a phrase often used by paedophiles: “I think most of the damage comes from the fuss made by hysterical parents afterwards. If the kids don’t mind, fair enough.”

In recent years Clarke’s name has been linked with two notorious paedophiles, one of whom – a Swiss millionaire – was kicked out of Sri Lanka on the orders of the president for abusing impoverished beach boys. He is now awaiting trial in Zurich accused of sexually abusing up to 1,500 young boys and like Clarke was friends with a lot of Sri Lanka’s top politicians, senior policemen and influential government figures.

Clarke is said to have attended parties at the tycoon’s home. When asked if he had, Clarke replied:

“I may well have done. I mean the very first man I met here in 1954 was a paedophile and made no bones about it. He was in intelligence in the army, a fantastic guy.”

Clarke said of his sexual preferences:

“Here it would embarrass everyone right up to the president. I mean, I am chancellor of the university, a public figure, that is the problem so I would be swallowed alive. I would probably be outed, you see.”

These days the frail, white-haired old man gets around with the aid of a wheelchair and crutches following a polio attack 15 years ago.

But Clarke’s fading health does not stop him enjoying his favourite pastime – playing table tennis with schoolboys at a notorious pick-up haunt for perverts called the Otters Aquatic Club. Crumbling and in need of a coat of paint, the Otters is a meeting point for Westerners who lust after young boys. Those who hang around its games room, pool and tennis courts are perfect prey and are easily persuaded to sell themselves for 1,000 rupees (pounds 10) – a small fortune to them.

Clarke goes there regularly in the afternoon, hobbling on a walking stick, to challenge boys – some as young as 12 – to a game of ping pong.

Asked what his definition for paedophilia was Clarke said:

“There are two different definitions, anyone who interferes with young boys who are not old enough to know their own minds and that’s my definition. It varies for me.”

Asked how he knew whether the boys really did know their own minds as he had not known them for long, he said:

“Because pure and simply they looked reasonably mature. Mature enough for me.”

Told one of them was just 13, he said: “If he really was 13 he will be a very mature 13.”

Asked if he thought that was morally wrong he replied: “No.”

Told that some of the boys had told us they would not have had sex if he had not given them money he said: “I’m sure. But I didn’t make anyone do anything they didn’t enjoy doing.”

Of course, one has to ask why a reporter would fly from the UK to Sri Lanka to interview an old man about his predilections unless he already knew what he would find. There is also more highly specific information from what appears to be a British conspiracy site:

US detectives, who arrested leaders of NAMBLA 10 years ago, say Clarke was named by other paedophiles they quizzed during an FBI investigation. The perverts had set up children’s homes in Thailand as fronts for their sick activities.

One of its leaders was Jonathan Tampico, 48, a top nuclear scientist who worked for the American Government. He served two-and-a- half years in jail for molesting a boy of 12 and is now on the run with a million-dollar warrant on his head for further porn offences. He told detectives he had stayed at Clarke’s home in Colombo and had swapped letters with the author.

Another known paedophile, former church minister John Wakefield Cummings, 56, is serving a 24-years-to-life sentence after admitting molesting 17 boys in his care.

He told police in Sacramento, California, that Clarke had been contacted at his Sri Lankan home by a paedophile who was on the run from the American authorities.

In a sworn statement made to an investigator for Sacremento’s district attorney, Wakefield Cummings told how the pervert fled to Sri Lanka where he was able to contact the paedophile community through Clarke. He then fled from Sri Lanka to Indonesia.

Detectives contacted a child welfare group to warn them about Clarke’s activities.

A senior Sacramento detective said: “We never had any reason to take action against Arthur C. Clarke because he was outside our jurisdiction.

“But Clarke’s name did keep coming up. We were looking into members of The Boy Lovers Association who all seemed to know or be aware of him. He ended up connecting to a lot of people we were investigating. Tampico was one of those who said he went to Sri Lanka. I have seen letters between him and Arthur C. Clarke. There was nothing overtly sexual in them but they were clearly corresponding.”

He added: “Cummings told us in the course of interviews that Arthur C. Clarke is a paedophile. He said Sri Lanka used to be a popular destination for the paedophiles. But then the government changed and they were all thrown out. He said Clarke was one of the few they didn’t expel because of his status.”

Ron O’Grady, of ECPAT confirmed he had been warned about Clarke by police in Sacramento.

Now, I know nothing about any of this so I can’t vouch for any of it, but it’s easy enough to confirm that at least the names are real. Here are public court documents relating to the arrest of the aforementioned Jonathan Tampico. Notice that he and his three fellow defendants are members of NAMBLA, the organization that published the newsletter to which Samuel Delaney admits subscribing. And John Wakefield Cummings is on the registered sex offender list in Clovis, California. Ron O’Grady, who died last year, was a New Zealand minister who founded EPCAT.

Perhaps Mr. Cummings was lying about Mr. Clarke. Perhaps Mr. Tampico was lying about Mr. Clarke. Perhaps Rev. O’Grady was lying about Mr. Clarke. Perhaps all these people from around the world were lying about Mr. Clarke in their discussions with the Sacramento police. But why? Why would his name even come up in the first place?

The Otter Aquatic Club also exists and you can even visit its website. Otter Aquatic Club is one of leading sport promoting club has been in
existence for the past 78 years and it is one of the largest and most
patronized clubs in Sri Lanka.

And then consider how many obvious signs there were about Clarke compared to how much evidence there was about Marion Zimmer Bradley prior to the revelations of last year. A lot of these people are still alive; some of the detectives involved may even still be on the Sacramento police force.

I have absolutely nothing against Arthur C. Clarke. I enjoyed several of his novels. I was delighted to republish the excellent story he wrote for There Will Be War Volume II, “Superiority”. But the truth is what it is. History is what it is. This world is fallen and Clarke would hardly be the first brilliant man of talent to hide a terrible secret.

The question is, will the science fiction world investigate the matter and face the truth, whatever it might be, or will it continue to avert its eyes and permit the monsters in its midst to operate with impunity? Remember, this is a community that awarded Samuel Delaney its highest honor just last year.

Mailvox: Arthur C. Clarke: Predator or victim?

TS objects to the inclusion of Arthur C. Clarke among the pedophiles of science fiction:

I just finished reading “Safe Space as Rape Room” and I’m disappointed that you continue to include Sir Arthur Clarke in your list of child predators.  Following up on our earlier email correspondence I spent time over several days looking at everything I could on the Internet about this.  And no, I did not go to Sri Lanka.  What I found during my research satisfied me that he’s innocent of the charge.

Clarke denied (on multiple occasions) that he ever said what was alleged in the Daily Mirror.  He is also on record saying that pedophilia is wrong.  None of his writings give any hint whatsoever that he favors pedophilia.  When Sri Lankan police and Interpol asked the Daily Mirror for tapes of the interview, they were not produced.  The Sri Lankan authorities are on record as saying that Clarke “has been cleared” of the pedophilia charges against him.  Why do you believe the Daily Mirror’s accusations but not Clarke’s denials and the Sri Lankan authorities?  And, and I think this is very telling, why did no one come forward after he died and accuse him of sex abuse (ala Jimmy Savile)?

I think you are seriously wronging Sir Arthur.  Please don’t put him into the same category with Kramer, Delaney, Zimmer et al.  He doesn’t deserve it.

Why don’t I believe Clarke’s denials? Because most criminals are not prone to openly confessing to criminal activity. Why don’t I believe the Sri Lankan authorities? I do believe them. But they did not clear him of the pedophilia charges made against him, they simply stated the fact that no actual charges had been made.

National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) chief Jagath Wellawatte said there was no case against the writer, who captured the world’s imagination with 2001: A Space Odyssey and visions of extra-terrestrial civilisations.

“We had no case against Clarke and no one had come forward to say they were abused by him,” Mr Wellawatte said.

The agency was established under new child protection laws enacted after the allegations against Clarke surfaced.

“We have not had any formal complaint or testimony from anyone saying they were abused by Sir Arthur,” said NCPA investigator WTD Wijesena. “We cannot go on the basis of rumours.”

That is not an investigation and exoneration. That is simply an absence of a victim willing to testify against a powerful and influential man. Furthermore, there is documentary evidence that the media went to some lengths to look the other way.

The News of the World spiked an exclusive story exposing the science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke as a paedophile, according to a new book about life inside the newspaper whose closure was announced a year ago today.

Can we say for certain that Clarke was a pedophile? No, not at this point. But what we can say is that the claims, by Clarke and others, that he was “celibate” and “unable to engage in sexual relations” for decades sound eerily like the same claims about Walter Breen’s impotence that were made falsely by Marion Zimmer Bradley before he was convicted of molesting children.