Fans aren't Slans!

[bnewman]

Okay, we knew that already. But why?

For those who are confused, Slans are superintelligent, telepathic mutants from the science fiction novel Slan by A. E. van Vogt. Once upon a time, there was a "Fans are Slans" meme in fandom. This meme was subsequently rounded up and defanged on account of being chauvinistic.

But really, it's just wrong. Fans are superintelligent, alright — we're just not telepathic. In fact, it might be more accurate to say that mundanes are telepathic. Who exactly has trouble parsing social signals?

So now I want a science fiction novel about a culture with two races, of which one is superintelligent and the other is telepathic.

Comments

[q10.livejournal.com]

it's your own fault. i thought it was pretty clear what i was talking about, but you had to twist it around. not all parasitic oppression and exploitation is erotic, you know.

the members of the empathic caste populate Marketing, you see.

[sammka.livejournal.com]

It kinda wasn't clear what you were talking about.

[mneme]

Was not clear.

[q10.livejournal.com]

even if it wasn't clear, there was still no need to infer anything kinky.

and isn't the ‘stuff us in little boxes’ description of the cubicle experience pretty commonplace?

[mneme]

There's nearly always a need to infer something kinky.

The "stuff us in litle boxes" description of the cubicle experience is not unusual, but nor is it that dissimilar to Boxing Helena or various other things.

[q10.livejournal.com]

boxing who now?

[checks Wikipedia]

oh.

very much not that.

i think yours is significantly more obscure, but, since i didn't know about it until you mentioned it, my intuitions here aren't worth much. in any case, i think the ‘exploiting them for ideas’ line makes a lot more sense in the cubicle context.

unless there's some kind of ‘kinky geek farm’ meme, that is. and there probably is one. [shrugs.]