So, fandom-historical context to stuff I mostly heard about and only barely caught the tail end of when I was lurking on usenet in high school: Back when certain folks in furry were doing their utmost to get it recognized as a significant and distinct SF subgenre, the major hobby-horse of Serious Furry Writers was "furries need to be more than just be humans in animal suits". Like, that phrase _verbatim_.
This has basically been Fred Patten's song and dance ever since then; I am not joking, his name is the first one that comes up in my head of 'who from 80's fandom is still active today?'
And yeah, the whole objection is ill-defined and reeks of the "soft SF is any SF I don't like" tendencies that were just... everywhere in that fandom.
I'm sure @literorrery has plenty of Fred Patten stories she can share; not sure how much alcohol will be required. ;)
@indi @Ferrovore My personal favorite Fred Patten story is actually personal. Fred reviewed one of my books, and it's proudly erotic in a lot of places. His review was, almost to a fault, "I skipped all the sex scenes because they don't interest me, but the plot doesn't make sense. Making the sex part of the plot is a bad plan because then I can't skip it and still understand what's going on."
And now you know why I don't trust Fred Patten as an editor.
@literorrery @Ferrovore YUUUUUP that's the main story I was thinking of. Yup yup yup.