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After getting VECTOR 13 I feel I must defend one of my favourite stories against one of my favourite authors; i.e. “Of Man and Woman” against Brian Aldiss.

This is not a story of “madness, violence and insanity” (what is the difference between madness and insanity anyway?) but the story of a child who, through no fault of his (her?) own is born a monster to normal parents.

Jean Graman

The really fascinating thing about science fiction – and another LXICON surprise for me was that this idea seemed to be so widely appreciated – is that it leads straight into quite specialised fields. i don’t just mean physics, astronomy and the rest, but politics, philosophy, social comment, psychology and (not least) literature. Sf is a meeting-point of all these.

Kingsley Amis

The letter section seems devoted chiefly to a wrangle about the definition of science fiction, a wrangle which to my knowledge was going on nearly thirty years ago, and will doubtless be continueing thirty years hence.

Don R. Smith

I haven’t waded into the ‘Definition’ because with all the ones I’ve seen I can usuall recall stories that lie outside them and yet are usually classified as sf. Being one of the lazy types I can’t really see why people go to such lengths to try and define sf. I mean, why bother? I rarely bother to find out why I like or dislike something.

Mr Doherty’s article was most interesting. I find the idea of a teacher actually teaching sf fascinating. I don’t suppose my English teacher knew it existed. More power to Mr D’s elbow.

Jill Adams

I’d take a guess that most of these people don’t really know what they do want from the Association, they just know it’s missing.

Jill Adams