Dear conservative science-fiction writers of America...

UPDATE: I am no longer taking comments on this thread. What I've received so far doesn't inspire me to hope for a meeting of minds, so I'm stopping it here before an exchange of views becomes an argument.

Hello there.

You don't know me, but I'm a guy with a blog the other side of the Atlantic who loves science-fiction.

I'm not anyone in fandom. Heck, I'm not even no-one in fandom.

I am a fascinated and appalled rubbernecker at the ongoing, overlapping disputes in science-fiction fandom - the infighting in the SFWA, the various Hugo award dust-ups, and the ongoing furore on diversity and gender in speculative fiction, most recently over at the Grauniad.

I haven't seen this kind of ring-a-ding since studying the British Labour Party's internecine struggles in the early eighties. Which may or may not mean anything to you, but trust me, it's really saying something.

I'll be open with you - I'm not your political bedfellow at all and would take different positions on a lot of these issues. But I think we could at least agree on the value of SF as a genre and a way of seeing the world which has meant so much to many.

And it's across that common ground that I reach out to American conservative SF writers, bloggers, fans and say: stop shooting yourselves in the foot by giving house room to people making racist statements.

You won't get anyone outside of your corner to listen to you if you don't.

Seriously.

I don't think you fully perceive how the words and deeds of your self-appointed spokespeople are being understood by readers with no dog in this fight.

So let's have a look at the corner you seem to be at risk of painting yourself into.

As you probably know better than I, the conservative slate proposed by author and polemical blogger Larry Correia for nominations for the prestigious Hugo Awards included a novella by Theodore Beale, better known online as Vox Day.

Beale is on record with some shocking statements - here's one beyond-the-pale example aimed at fellow author N K Jemisin - and had been expelled from The Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) last year.

Now, there's a conversation to be had about how and whether to read authors with detestable views. I'm not pro-censorship, I'm pro-context. But putting someone making offensive outbursts on a conservative voting slate for the shortlist for the prestigious Hugo Awards - that sends an entirely different message to the one I think you hoped it would.

Would Beale have gotten onto the shortlist for Best Novella - which he succeeded in doing - if he hadn't had this kind of support? We'll probably never know. But the point is that the Beale-boosting contaminated by association the conservatives-and-libertarians-overlooked-in-SF position the slate was intended at least in part to raise.

Correia mounts a mainly art-for-arts-sake defence for the inclusion of Beale on his slate (it's a long post so I'd suggest scrolling or searching for it). Unfortunately, he presses onto to defend Beale's record on race, which seems at best naïve in light of his public utterances.

It's important - and welcome - that Correia clearly states on his blog that he's not racist himself. But this shielding of Beale further damages the slate and any message you wanted to carry beyond people who agree with you. It starts to look suspiciously like trolling the Hugo's, and it's highly disrespectful of people who were rightly offended by Beale first time around, not least  N K Jemisin.

If you want to talk (and listen), come away from the walls and into the centre of the room. If you don't want only the loudest and angriest voices to be heard, speak up.

You're experienced and successful writers, for goodness sake. You have the talent to take part in the debates rocking science-fiction in a respectful way. You can hear and be heard.

There is another way.