Cutting Off One's Nose To Spite One's Face

So you've probably all heard the exceptionally vague news about the Asimov's brouhaha by now: Jim Grimsley sold them a story, "Wendy," which deals with predicting tendencies toward child abuse and apparently is quite squicky. The editor of Asimov's, Sheila Williams, bought the story, but the publisher (or someone else above her -- again, actual news is thin on the ground) killed it.

From what I've seen, we don't know: who exactly killed the story; why it was killed (personal squeamishness? lawerly caution? something else entirely?); if Grimsley was offered a specific "kill fee" (which is very common in situations like this, though moreso in non-fiction) or if Sheila just offered "to pay for the story anyway"; if it is common or not for this to happen (I presume not, but that's just a presumption); and just about anything else that we might want to know.

The villagers, meanwhile, are assembling in that discussion thread (on the Asimov's message board, no less -- it's a good thing I enjoy cheap irony), shaking their pitchforks and rakes and threatening to a) burn the evil Baron out of his castle, b) never ever submit any more stories to Asimov's, or c) cancel their subscriptions. A few brave souls have pointed out that deliberately killing one of the few SF magazines left (and one of the only markets in the first place for a story like this) is remarkably stupid, but the villagers seem more content to rant and cuss; if a thing is not perfect, then it must be torn down to the ground. (And some of them are now refusing to have anything to do with F&SF, simply because its editor, Gordon Van Gelder, tried to inject some words of reason.)

And, of course, this is exactly the most constructive thing they could be doing, in a world where the major SF magazines have been taking double-digit hits in circulation nearly every year of the past twenty. Yes, let's hurry the death of short SF, so all of these actual writers, wanna-be writers, have-been writers and indeterminately-being writers can be kicked in the tuchus and forced to find something else to do with their time.

I swear, there's times when I hate being in the same genre with such prima donnas. (The only people really acquitting themselves well in that discussion, in the long term, is Gordon and Matt Hughes; every other repeat visitor is one degree or another of outraged pissiness.)

Grow up, folks. It does sound like Asimov's bobbled the situation, but, on the other hand, we've only heard it from the writer's point of view (and very sketchily, at that). I, personally, don't know what the hell went on, and I don't actually much care. I'm honestly surprised every year when the circulation on the "Big Three" drops horribly yet again, and they still don't go out of business. (I don't want to see them go, but I don't see how they can avoid it much longer.) In the list of things to be worried about in SF, "the evil Short-Story Suits are stifling our freedom of expression, man!" is way, way down the list.

(I didn't get to this until now, because John Scalzi covered it, from a different angle, already. But I hadn't read the incredibly self-important Asimov's discussion thread at that point -- and, now that I have, I felt the need to rant.)