Science fiction author Jason Sanford defended Vice in the quarterly journal storySouth, describing the affair as a "literary lynching". A number of other writers and editors came to Vice's defense. Jake Adam York, a founding editor of storySouth, noted that Vice had allowed his short story and the four-page section of Carmer's original book to be published side by side in Thicket, a journal edited by York. To York, this action by Vice "implicitly acknowledges the relationship (and) allows the evidence to be made public." York added that doing this allowed the readers to enter the "intertextual space in which (Vice) has worked" and that what Vice was doing with his story was allusion, not plagiarism. York also stated that, according to his own analysis of Vice's story and Carmer's source material, Vice did not break copyright law.
