- Forum Clout
- 23
There's something about Jason Sanford that inspires a visceral revulsion and disgust. Perhaps it is the uncomfortable treatment of children in his stories like this child torture story involving a little girl he posted on his own website (archived so the internet will never forget, Jase!) That story is still up - he's never apologised. There's other examples, his story Paprika is mostly about an ancient mind in the body of a small girl, and a small boy (not really a boy has ancient mind so it's okay honest!) gets killed. Lovely fella.
So, I was hate-reading his August 2023 issue of his appalling newsletter, "Genre Grapevine" (never forget ever). Nearly the whole thing is about a 72 year old man getting a story accepted in July to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (F&SF). Why would anyone care. Because 40 years ago in 1983 this man was a member of a legal, far right political party in the UK. Which said old codger regrets. 40 years, more than half this old man's life and he cannot be forgiven or forgotten. It's a crisis. The magazine had to issue a statement.
Who even reads the magazine? I checked its circulation figures for advertisers (kept for comedy), "Average paid circulation 12 months ending 9/30/2005: 26,600". If you run a magazine and your ad sales page has quite literally not been updated for 20 years, you aint running that business well. Editor's a guy called Gordon Van Gelder. He has that 'Sanford' look going for him (Wikipedia).
The piece contains this jaw-dropping passage by Sanford,
"In the thread, Finlay describes a number of serious problems that came up during his tenure at F&SF. He states that when he took over as editor, he "inherited a story that ended with a sexual assault and the implication that the woman deserved it. I didn't see any way to rewrite the story to fix the problem, and I didn't want my name attached to its publication." He took the problem to Van Gelder, who was "not sympathetic to my concerns." Finlay ended up paying the kill fee for the story out of his own pocket so it wouldn’t be published, an astounding thing to see happen at any magazine.
Jason Sanford quite literally advertises his work with a free story on his website about child torture in which an underage girl is lured by an adult male in a literal white van to commission the torture of another child by adults. But a story featuring an adult woman being sexually assaulted is a, "serious" "problem" because of the, "implication that the woman deserved it". The child who is chosen for torture in Jason's story, a boy named, "Binny", is said to bully other children and punches the female protagonist. Some might say there is an implication from Jason that the child deserved it.
Okay, duly noted, Sanford. 40 years is not long enough for your content around children to be forgiven or forgotten.
So, I was hate-reading his August 2023 issue of his appalling newsletter, "Genre Grapevine" (never forget ever). Nearly the whole thing is about a 72 year old man getting a story accepted in July to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (F&SF). Why would anyone care. Because 40 years ago in 1983 this man was a member of a legal, far right political party in the UK. Which said old codger regrets. 40 years, more than half this old man's life and he cannot be forgiven or forgotten. It's a crisis. The magazine had to issue a statement.
Who even reads the magazine? I checked its circulation figures for advertisers (kept for comedy), "Average paid circulation 12 months ending 9/30/2005: 26,600". If you run a magazine and your ad sales page has quite literally not been updated for 20 years, you aint running that business well. Editor's a guy called Gordon Van Gelder. He has that 'Sanford' look going for him (Wikipedia).
The piece contains this jaw-dropping passage by Sanford,
"In the thread, Finlay describes a number of serious problems that came up during his tenure at F&SF. He states that when he took over as editor, he "inherited a story that ended with a sexual assault and the implication that the woman deserved it. I didn't see any way to rewrite the story to fix the problem, and I didn't want my name attached to its publication." He took the problem to Van Gelder, who was "not sympathetic to my concerns." Finlay ended up paying the kill fee for the story out of his own pocket so it wouldn’t be published, an astounding thing to see happen at any magazine.
Jason Sanford quite literally advertises his work with a free story on his website about child torture in which an underage girl is lured by an adult male in a literal white van to commission the torture of another child by adults. But a story featuring an adult woman being sexually assaulted is a, "serious" "problem" because of the, "implication that the woman deserved it". The child who is chosen for torture in Jason's story, a boy named, "Binny", is said to bully other children and punches the female protagonist. Some might say there is an implication from Jason that the child deserved it.
Okay, duly noted, Sanford. 40 years is not long enough for your content around children to be forgiven or forgotten.
doesn’t sound pfg that’s for sure.
