"The images were too unpleasant for me" is a completely viable reaction.
Yeah, I don't know about that.
To be sure, there are some people who just don't like graphic violence, sex, or combinations thereof. Nothing wrong with that. There are also some people who don't like chocolate. But if you dump three pounds of unsweetened baker's chocolate into a steaming pot of mushroom risotto, it's a little precious to tell critics "Oh, you just must not be a chocolate person. Well, it takes all kinds." There are no hard and fast rules to fiction writing or cooking, but even so...you can screw up the recipe, even if there isn't a recipe to screw up.
And yes, so that we're clear, in this instance the mushroom risotto is the subgenre of hard science fiction and the three pounds of unsweetened chocolate is the sex to which the lion's share of the story is dedicated to describing.
Schreiber, I'm a bit confused by your comment, and your reaction to Scattercat's comment. I don't get that he's disregarding
your reaction to this story as saying "Well, all the people who don't like 'Spar' just don't like sex in SF, so obviously they don't like this" or whatever. I took his comment pretty much at face value. If someone doesn't like fiction with such visceral descriptions, then they don't/won't like this story. That doesn't mean you can't like the story for other reasons.
And while I appreciate that
you don't like this story, it seems like you're suggesting that people who
do like it maybe don't know how to cook or don't understand an inherently screwed-up recipe when they taste it.
I know you know how to cook, and maybe I'm reading your comments wrong here. But although I respect your opinion on this story, I don't necessarily agree with it, and I definitely don't buy that the recipe was inherently broken.
OTOH, I'm perfectly willing to accept that while "Spar" worked for some people, it doesn't work for others for a variety of reasons. (See also: Pretty much every Hugo nominated short story featured here at EP.)
I don't think that mean's the recipe is wrong; just that not everybody shares the same tastes, even if we all do love mushroom risotto.