(Please don't anyone point out how many times in my posts I write as if my opinions were handed down from on high; you know me here, and recognise I'm always ready to discuss.)
I find it odd that you would ask for the benefit of the doubt when you seem to give none to the author of the article.
That aside, I think you're misreading the article.
I can only assume you're arguing against the following rules, but as none of them are saying what you claim they're saying, it's only an assumption on my part, but here goes anyway...
1) You're still just telling personal stories.
I can only assume you're arguing against this one when you talk about Clarke's Ringworld and how the article is personally attacking your beloved style of SF. Well, even the "big idea" novel of Ringworld had characters. While the focus of the story was on the exploration of Ringworld, it was told through the eyes of the characters. It was just as much their views (or Louis' interpretation of their views). Ringworld wasn't just the story of an engineering problem, it was four diametrically opposed characters struggling with a hostile environment
and each other. Without those characters there'd be no story. It would be an academic article in a journal. So yeah, even Ringworld was
just telling a personal story.
3) Science fiction is always about the time when it was created.
In the sense of all SF is an allegory for modern times, clearly false. In the sense of all SF (just as all writing) is a reflection of the writer, who is a reflection of the times s/he is living in, clearly true. The article argues for the latter and doesn't comment on the former.
8) Trends are at least half over by the time you know about them.
While you could easily destroy the sentence above, the gist, don't chase trends is a sound one.
The rest are either demonstrably true or clearly stated as opinions / suggestions.
But it gives absolute 'this is good, this isn't' rules, claiming that all sci-fi must be personality based, that there is only one 'right' way of writing.
It's not a story without characters. But I think I addressed this above.
The fact that it is saying 'Don't write any more of the stories that Chrispy revels in' (I loved Ringworld, a mission of gravity, Arthur C. Clarke…, the books where the universe was the principal protagonist and the antagonist, and here someone is saying "No, no, mustn't talk about things, people are the only proper subject)
Again, you seem to be misreading the article and misremembering Ringworld. Protagonist: Louis. Antagonist: Nature, and at times Nessus, Speaker, and Teela. Man vs Nature and Man vs Man. It's not nothing vs nature or nothing vs nothing.
But I do object to being told not 'publishers are more likely to pick up books that fit in with their preconceptions' but 'the only permissible study for mankind is man'. Like an iman with the Koran, laying down limits.
Again, you're reading things into the article that aren't there.
