From: justicar@cdp-ltd.demon.co.uk (Tony Johnston)
Subject: Enter Sandman
Date: I dunno. September '95 some time.

In article <schellj-1209952015440001@port-049.dial.net.nyu.edu>, 
schellj@is2.nyu.edu (God Eater) wrote:

>God Eater winced as the man off the net assumed a position beside him...He 
>had started to get a little annoyed at all these new entries, this person 
>waltzes in, says something very solemnly witty and menacing to Ratz and 
>quietly lays claim to the title of bad ass motherfucker of the universe...
>All these fucking guns just itching to go off...None of this was very cool 
>at all, everybody so fucking uptight taking themselves to be the fourth 
>horseman of the apocalypse...This place had gone to shit...Too many tough 
>guys sauntering around...Except for him and Joe Ordinary...shit, he might 
>just have to start a little place of his own, members only kind of place, 
>good writing and talk and no tough guys allowed.  He already had a name.

With an unearthly suddenness, the door flung open.  A blur - blue neon, here 
a fleck of green - whipped around the bar.  Godeater could hear the cock of 
hammers from around the room.  He winced again.

Sandman pulled an unfeasibly large caliber handgun out of his duster pocket, 
levelled it in the direction of the blur.  A deafening whine began, a tornado 
forming in the centre of the bar.  Sandman let several shots fly at the 
tornado.  The ricochets damn nearly hit Ratz.  Starting to panic, Sandman 
pulled a doublebarrel out of his coat, cocked it, let loose.

Nothing.

The tornado slowed, the blur started to congeal.  Godeater squinted in 
recognition...

"ELITIST MAN!" he shouted.  The figure now standing in the centre of the bar 
wore blue neon tights and top with a greenscreen sash across his chest.  He 
nodded in Godeater's direction, then turned to Sandman.

"Sandman, AKA Justicar, AKA Tony Johnston - I find you guilty of innumerable 
crimes against fiction writing and the cyberpunk genre as a whole!  The 
sentence is...DEATH!"

Sandman began to protest, on his knees.  "No...No...Please, Elitist Man!"

But EM was having none of it.  He picked Sandman up by his collar and flung 
him against the bar.  "We'll see how tough you really are..."  he began pounding 
Sandman's face, pounding and blood flowing and bruises and broken bones and 
blood and blood...

Godeater woke with a start to find Sandman watching him from across the table.

"Ease up, G," the tall man said, "gonna give yourself an ulcer at this rate."  
He chuckled, downed another JD&C.  "The use of violence in my fiction is kept 
strictly to relevance - apart from senseless, meaningless random acts of 
violence, which last time I looked out my window, were very much a part of 
real life as we know it.  

"The jaded attitude you have toward something you obviously used to participate 
in is very common in genre readers - call it the CP backlash, if you will.  

"In 1990, nothing could have been cooler than lots of wetware, enough SKIPS to 
hold the Encyclopeadia Britannica, and BIG, BIG guns.  Now, in 1995, times have 
changed - much as Alan Moore revolutionized comix with naturalistic (and 
realistic) tales of everyday people with problems, as Tarantino has done in the 
cinema with his hitmen who argue about whether pigs are filthy, so too has CP 
changed, for the better in my opinion.  

"The opening up to allcomers of any genre is to be welcomed, surely - before the 
cookery programme boom in the 80s, chefs were an elitist, closely guarded bunch.  
Now top chefs are celebrities - are they any less respected for it?  No!  
Probably MORE respected, by MORE people, as people are curious and eager to 
learn.

"There is room in CP for all styles of storytelling - Snow Crash isn't really 
an SF story at all, it just uses the setting to facilitate the telling of the 
plot, and a damned good one it is, too.  Jeff Noon hardly uses technology at 
all, but the attitude is there.  Even His Most Holy Mr Gibson isn't that 
interested in the tech itself...but then some, as Walter Jon Williams, are, and 
he too is as valid as you or I.  There is space for all of us.

"Not all of my fiction is CP, certainly not all is violent.  Some of it is akin 
to poetry, and song lyrics of mine tend to reflect tragedy rather than 
violence.  Nevertheless, CP and violence are useful literary vehicles, and we 
shouldn't deny ourselves their use.  Do you now scorn books you read as a child 
that you enjoyed?  Does the very idea of someone actually enjoying Die Hard 3 
make your blood boil?  Perhaps.  But there is no fault in enjoying a 'ripping 
yarn' even though the plot may have holes in it the size of the moon.

"Think on this.  Farewell."

And with that, Sandman rose and left, tossing Ratz more change.

Godeater watched him leave with visible distaste.

"Smartass."