My feeling when I read Zvi's post was definitely that she has a problem with historical fiction full stop, or at least historical fiction that focuses on romance, and you know, whatever. I mean, if she can't allow for the genre I can't get too hung up on making sure that my representation of the genre is up to her standards.

It's unfortunate because I think she made some good points, but in the post and the comments things got more than a little extreme. A friend of mine who more often runs in those circles talked me down at the time because I had finished posting the WWII fic and felt like I hadn't come up to her standards. My friend said she thought the venom in the language had more to do with the fact that the fic was by astolat and therefore was being rec'd every five minutes, rather than the matter at hand. That is, whether Zvi had problems with me or not, she probably wouldn't lose her shit over my story because I'm not that much of a BNF to get her really angry with me. I hope that's true, or at least, I'm hoping that writing this essay won't get people freaking out over my stories which previously didn't get spotlighted merely because no one reads Rymon.