Comfort and Consequences, Obtusification

In response to the ongoing furor over Jay Lake's earlier post (see Kelly's and Lyda's posts below), we should note, as does Jay on his blog, that Paul Tremblay has responded rather well to the whole conversation here. He boils the question down quite nicely to a discussion of comfort versus consequences, and in the debate over "THE MEANING OF SF/F", I think his points are founded on rather solid ground. Check it out.

And, thank you Elizabeth Bear (slapfight bigger!) for linking out to Lilith Saintcrow's excellent take on the trap of readerly obtusification, which you can find here, for yet another angle on this argument.