> In the same vein, an article[1] in The Telegraph entitled "The Hobbit: How the 'clomping foot of nerdism' destroyed Tolkien's dream - and the fantasy genre" makes a few similar points.

My first impression of that article was that anyone who, in the 21st century, still thinks that "nerd" is a cutting insult, can be safely ignored.

Brief perusal of the original article that the Telegraph references (M. John Harrison's screed against worldbuilding as "the great clomping foot of nerdism" [1]) confirms that he's basically trying to prove that a writing style he doesn't like is, therefore, logically and objectively inferior to a style he does like. I'm comfortable that my first impression was accurate.

[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20080410181840/http://uzwi.wordpr...