A reader tells Megan McArdle that she’s every nerd’s dream girl because she actually likes Science Fiction, which got the gender wars rolling, and provoked discussion of girls & SF. Poor Megan has had to respond defensively.

I guess some people just date the wrong girls. My wife, as we near Social Security age, is only beginning to recover from a really drastic life-time SF reading habit. 30 years ago, we used to store her SF books on top of a row of book cases, about 15′ long with 4 or 5′ of space above. The stacked up SF filled the space, creating a visually interesting and thought provoking assemblage which came to be regarded by a number of people as a satisfying example of found art. We often speculated on having the whole thing set in lucite. Particularly after one of the occasional book avalanches occurred.

I expect Karen would read more SF even now, if there was more SF and less weak and imitative fantasy out there.

Nobody in our household likes Doctor Who, I’m afraid.