Moshe Feder Speaks for Himself
Tor Books editor Moshe Feder is my wife’s editor. Hence, her customers, her readers, the people who are delighted with her novels, are his customers as well, the people who pay him to do his job so that he can make a living.
He has decided publicly to rebuff those customers Mr Feder calls our customers unhappy with the recent unprofessional antics at Tor Books by the charming epithet “idiots”:
As you may have heard, certain scoundrels have declared a boycott of Tor, starting today, to protest the efforts of some Tor employees to defend the Hugo Awards from attack. In response, some of our friends have declared today “Buy A Tor Book Day.”
I wouldn’t have the temerity to ask you to buy a book just because some idiots have declared war on us. But if there _is_ a Tor Book you’ve been meaning to get anyway, buying it today would be a a gesture I’d appreciate.
[As always here on Facebook, I’m speaking for myself and not the company.]
Ah… Well, thank you for your help mollifying our customers, Mr Feder. I am sure that being told they are idiots will make them eager to spend their hard earned book-buying dollars the product you and I are working together to produce for them.
The honorable and upright man being referred to so colorfully as a scoundrel is, of course, Mr Peter Grant. Mr Grant expresses a strong doubts about Mr Feder’s veracity:
Read his first sentence.
Now, read it again.
It’s a lie. It’s a bare-faced, out-and-out falsehood. He’s lying in public, and he appears to believe he’ll be allowed to get away with it.
The boycott of Tor has nothing whatsoever to do with “the efforts of some Tor employees to defend the Hugo Awards from attack”. It has everything to do with some Tor employees (including Mr. Feder) deliberately, repeatedly and publicly lying about the ‘Puppies’ campaigns, those behind them, and anything and anyone else they regard as ideologically impure and/or unfit to associate with SF/F fandom as approved by them. I’ve already described in detail Ms. Gallo’s contribution, which sparked the boycott. Mr. Feder’s latest lie merely confirms and reinforces her mendacity (and my position).
He states that he’s speaking for himself and not the company . . . but I haven’t seen Tor repudiate any of his earlier lies, some of them issued on company time using company equipment, so I’ll give this latest assurance the same credibility I’ve given his earlier ones.
My comment:
Since I have a conflict of interest, I must remain neutral. Loyalty to my publisher demands I not take sides. Loyalty to my beloved customers demands I not take sides.
Mr Feder has taken sides. Loyalty to his political correctness outweighs, for him, loyalty to publisher. And he just called you, my dear readers and customers, idiots and scoundrels.
This has nothing to do with the Sad Puppies. We are only here for the Hugo Awards.
This particular fight is between, on the one hand, those at Tor Books who think political correctness outweighs all professional and personal loyalties, all standards of decency, all need to be truthful, and who damn their own customers; and, on the other, those who are thankful to the customers and who think the purpose of a business is business.
One side consists of those calling for the resignations that any professional worthy of the name would long ago have proffered for the damage they have done to the company name and public goodwill.
The other side consists of people at Tor who regard Tor as an instrument of social engineering, an arm of the Democrat Party’s press department, or a weapon in the war for social justice.
Without expressing any personal opinion, I can say that there is an easy compromise which our free and robust capitalistic system allows: we can all wish the best to Miss Gallo and Mr Feder when they day comes when they decide to take their interests and obsessions elsewhere, and leave the company in the hands of those of us who merely want to write, publish, and read science fiction told from any and every point of view, political or otherwise, provided the story is well crafted.
If you are a customer and have an opinion, please make your voice heard.
tom.dohertyATtor.com
andrew.weberATmacmillan.com
rhonda.brownATmacmillan.com
Substitute the at sign where I have written AT.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
