I fervently hope that the attitude displayed by my previous article for Vector was not that of an embittered, ‘alf-arsed, unsuccessful, menopausal, hard-drinking, drug-taking, chaotic-rather-than-anarchistic, sexually frustrated, mixed-up-never-had-a-decent-teenage, half-and-self-educated, ivory-tower, fascist-middle-class-Bolshy-uptight-aggressive, dilettante, feminist, lesbian, Outsider, misfit, sour-grapes, never-even-had-a-slice-of-the-cake-never-mind-the-whole-bloody-cake, insufficient-self-sufficiency-freak, would-have-been-a-hippy-except-she-was-stuck-with-kids-on-a-housing-estate, been-through-the-mill-and-came-out-milled, doesn’t-give-a-fuck-about-the-proles, Hitler-must-have-been-okay-kids-and-animals-adored-him, talks-to-plants-they-are-the-only-people-who-understand-me, hide-her-head-in-the-sand-it’s-awful-out-there-and-my-bum’s-worth-viewing, apathetic, sit-on-the-fence, apolitical, mystical, nothin-better-to-do-than, why-doesn’t-she-get-a-decent-job, when-I’m-dead-‘they’-will-make-a-fortune, mere-self-indulgent-self-seeking-sensualist, pie-in-the-sky-dreamer, if-she’d-really-suffered-she-wouldn’t-have-time-for-all-that-psycho-surreal-crap, champion-of-lost-causes-better-lost, lives-in-her-own-world, put-on-dressed-as-sham, atavistic, anti-technology, unrealistic, pretentious, portentous, superior, writes-hairy-things-which-would-benefit-from-Occam’s-razor, obscurantist, Madame-Ovary-hides-again, can’t communicate-with-the-masses, thinks-the-world-owes-her-a-living, intellectual-bluestocking, dumb-woman-Chip-Delany-on-shoulder, penis-envying, message-carrying-nothing-relevant-to-say-really-writer sort of person, because, although all of the above descriptions have been made of me at one time or another, and many of them were, are or will be in some measure true, depending upon the point of view, none of them is all of the picture, but they also describe not only myself but all science fiction writers and readers. That above sentence incidentally is not my longest to date; I think the longest counted was 497 words counted by some angry reviewer with a short-attention span but time to count words who was delightfully misprinted as stating that one of my sentences contained ‘497 worlds’ — pretty good going for any science fiction writer. And the reason also for the fervent hopes at the beginning of this article is because, even if most of Science Fiction fandom either disclaims me or has never heard of me, I wish to be recognised as and am, one of the boys – er – sorry, club.

Josephine Saxon