defending science fiction yet again

My favorite bit of this article about how unloved science fiction is this:

The literary snobs will say it’s badly written, which most of it is. So is most “literary” fiction. Badly written literary fiction is, however, wholly unnecessary. There’s a lot of badly written SF that is driven by an urgent journalistic desire to communicate. That is necessary.

Othwerwise, it's preaching to the choir, although i didn't know that story about Salman Rushdie and Grimus.

As often as i have sneered about American slavish obsession with "realism," perhaps it's certain species of formalism masquerading as realism which is really what pisses me off.