Pixel Scroll 2/7/16 The Bold and the Recusable

(1) INSIDE UTAH’S EXTRAORDINARY SF FANDOM. Provo’s Daily Herald interviewed Dave Doering and learned the answer to “Why Utah’s literary Big Bang? ‘Life, the Universe & Everything’ symposium, for one”.

When you name your symposium “Life, the Universe, & Everything,” and that symposium is in the heart of Mormon country, outsiders can get a little suspicious.

“I often had to cajole guests to come because they feared this was an indoctrination boot camp for Mormonism,” Dave Doering recalled.

Well, it’s certainly not that. Rather, LTUE is about science fiction and fantasy literature. The annual three-day symposium ushers in its 34th year on Thursday at downtown Provo’s Marriott Hotel. At this point, those early boot camp suspicions have waned: LTUE has become one of the premier symposiums of its kind, drawing more than 1,000 attendees and renowned sci-fi/fantasy authors each year, and covering a wide range of subjects pertinent to that industry. Not bad for an event that had only 30-40 attendees in 1983….

It worked. BYU’s small sci-fi/fantasy community grew as students started coming out of the woodwork. Within five years the symposium was drawing 300-400 attendees. That amount stayed somewhat stable through the years. Five years ago, though, things really blew up. Utah-bred authors like Shannon Hale (“Princess Academy”), Stephenie Meyer (“Twilight”) and James Dashner (“The Maze Runner”) put Utah on the map for young adult fantasy literature. New York City publishers now regard Utah as fertile literary ground.

“No one, I think, would have believed that Utah writers would make as big an impact as we have now in the young adult and fantasy areas,” Doering said. “Four of the top five writers in that field are from Utah, and you think for the population, that’s ludicrous! How did that happen?”

The Wasatch front, Doering said, has a particular storytelling culture that mainstream audiences have come to crave.

“We grow up with stories, and we are a very positive people. And I think that resonates,” he said. “By and large, the authors on the coasts that had been big names in the past, their dystopian view or manner of treating characters and situations, I think it got to be so repetitious that people were hungering for something different. And the kind of storytelling that we do here, and the worldview we have, people were just very hungry for. So it’s blossomed.”

Life, The Universe & Everything begins Thursday, February 11.

(2) IN LIVING B&W. At Galactic Journey, The Traveler just can’t turn off the tube the night that Twilight Zone is on. For one reason, this being 1961, if he misses one he won’t have another chance to see it until summer reruns begin.

It’s certainly not as if TV has gotten significantly better.  Mr. Ed, My Sister Eileen, the umpteenth season of the Jack Benny Show, none of these are going to win any awards.  On the other hand, The Twilight Zone has already won an award (an Emmy last year), and I’m hoping that my continued watching and review of that show excuses my overindulgence in the others.

(3) INCREASED INTEREST. Fantasy Faction has advice for putting your loot to work “A Guide To Banking In Fantasyland”. (Beware mild spoilers.)

These are tough times, and everyone needs a little help with the big decisions. Not sure which bank to choose? Sure, the Charity and Social Justice Bank [1] has an impressive name, but those offers at Valint and Balk [2] are really tempting. Perhaps Gringotts’ [3] goblin efficiency has caught your eye, or the great interest rates at the Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork? [4] Then again, the long standing stability of the Iron Bank of Braavos [5] is looking pretty good right now…

Hard decisions? Never fear! We are here with a handy guide to finding the RIGHT bank for YOU!

(4) DEL TORO TWEETS. Guillermo del Toro had this to say —

(5) TRANSTEMPORAL PIZZA PARADOX. A NASA scientist questioned the scientific veracity of a situation John Scalzi’s Redshirts. It seems John forgot to science the shit out of the pizza.

As you can see from the above embedded tweet and picture, a reader (who also appears to be a NASA scientist) asked me a question about the atoms in the pizza eaten in Redshirts, consumed by the heroes of the story, who had also traveled back in time.

Why would this matter? Because as a plot point in the book, time travelers had about six days to get back to their own time before they began to disintegrate — the atoms of their bodies from the future also existed in the past they’re visiting, and the atoms (eventually) can’t be two places at the same time and would choose to “exist” in the positions where they were in the current frame of reference.

Which is fine as long as you don’t mix atom eras. But when the characters ate pizza, they were commingling atoms from the book’s 2012 with their own atoms several centuries later — and what happens to those atoms from the pizza when the characters return to their own time? Because the atoms gained from the pizza would simultaneously be present elsewhere, and, as already noted, the atoms default to where they were supposed to be in their then-current frame of reference. Right?

As you can see from the tweet above I avoided the answer by giving a completely bullshit response (and then bragging about it). I’m delighted to say I was immediately called on it by another NASA scientist, and I responded appropriately, i.e., by running away. I’m the Brave Sir Robin of science, I am.

(6) TEE IT UP. At the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy blog – “That Time the NFL Paid Jack Kirby to Design an Intergalactic Super Bowl”.

At the height of his power in the 1970s, Kirby was commissioned for a feature in the October 21, 1973 issue of Pro! Magazine, the official publication of the National Football League. At the time, Kirby had switched to DC comics from Marvel, and presumably had a little spare time to pick up extra commissions. Hyperbolically titled “Out of Mind’s Reach,” Kirby’s collection of art depicted a future pro football match and debuted bizarre new costume designs for four different teams.

(7) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • February 7, 1940 — Walt Disney’s movie Pinocchio debuted.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOYS

  • Born February 7, 1812 – Charles Dickens
  • Born February 7, 1908 – Buster Crabbe, who played Flash Gordon in serials.

(9) HARASSING PHOTOGRAPHER. Lauren Faits, who writes Geek Girl Chicago, broke a years-long silence in “Zero tolerance: Naming my cosplay harasser”.

I want to publicly thank C2E2, Chicago’s premiere comic convention, for action they took this afternoon. I was not going to attend their Mardi Gras event tonight due their affiliation with a traumatic figure from my past. Now, I enthusiastically will, and encourage everyone else to support C2E2 as well.

I am going to share my story before anyone else does.

Thirteen years ago, I was under 18- a minor. I was attending an anime convention in the Chicago area. A group of cosplayers, including myself, headed up to a hotel room to change out of our costumes. We were followed. While we were undressing, a photographer began slamming into our room’s locked door in an attempt to break in. The room had one of those sliding locks, which broke open under the force. The photographer rushed in with a camera, attempting to get nude photos and/or video of underage cosplayers.

This photographer’s name was Ron “Soulcrash” Ladao….

C2E2 is the first organization thus far to take me seriously. They are no longer professionally affiliated with my harasser, and thanked me for helping provide a safe environment for all. I encourage everyone to attend their party tonight, the convention, and other affiated events.

A lesson for everyone: If someone is making you or a loved one uncomfortable, don’t ignore it. It is easy to brush off someone’s disconcerting actions as “just their sense of humor,” but acts like these are no joke. We should not be laughing at predators. In fact, several people told me I should “talk” to Ron, to see if he’d apologize. Absolutely not. If someone broke into your home, or mugged you on the street, would you follow them later to seek an apology? No. We should believe and support one another, and let our actions show zero tolerance for harassment. We don’t owe harassers anything.

(10) NOT SORRY. Stephanie S. at The Right Geek justifies last year’s actions in an extensive post, “Dear SJW’s: We Sad Puppies CAN’T Repent”.

Lastly – and most importantly – there is no such thing as a “natural vote.” This is probably one of the biggest misconceptions that under-girds our opposition’s argument: the idea that, before we philistines got involved, the Hugos highlighted works that were genuinely the best in the field — which were selected by a group of high-minded, pure, and totally impartial fans. Ha. Ha ha. And again: ha. Do you know how many works of science fiction are published in a typical year? Many thousands. There is no one on God’s green earth who is capable of reading them all. In reality, modern fandom (like any other large group of human beings) has always had its aristoi — in this case, a small group of influential bloggers, reviewers, publishers, and magazine editors that routinely has an outsized impact, intentional or not, on what gets the hype and what doesn’t. The only thing that’s changed here is that some “politically objectionable” people have proven themselves to be a part of that aristoi and have decided not to play pretend. My suggestion? Make peace with the fact that factions will forever be with us. Man is inherently a political animal. Instead of denying this state of affairs, try to manage its effects by increasing overall participation on both ends of the Hugo process.

(11) TITANIC DISCOVERY. Futurism reports “The Mystery of Pluto’s ‘Floating Hills’ Solved : They’re Icebergs!”

NASA’s New Horizons mission keeps astonishing us with new images and new revelations about the mysterious, demoted dwarf planet, Pluto.

The most recent discovery is this little gem: Pluto has hills and small mountains that literally float across its surface.  It’s weird and unearthly, but we’re dealing, after all, with a very alien world on the outskirts of the Solar System.

And things are bound to get even weirder.

The newly discovered hills are mostly small, typically a few kilometers across, and were discovered in the immense frozen ocean of the so-called “Sputnik Planum,” which represents the western lobe of the famous heart-shaped Tombaugh Regio, the most prominent feature on Pluto

It seems these hills are composed of familiar water ice (so they really are icebergs, just like their terrestrial counterparts); since water ice is less dense than nitrogen ice, these hills are literally bobbing in a vast glacier or frozen ocean of nitrogen.

(12) SUPER BOWL ADS. Here is the Independence Day Resurgence trailer that aired during the Super Bowl.

And the X-Men Apocalypse trailer, too —

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, and JJ for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Brian Z.]

285 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 2/7/16 The Bold and the Recusable

  1. Wombat:

    Wait a minute, he didn’t have a contract for this book yet?

    I think he did — or at least I think he said he did.

    [checks]

    Yes, he said “That’s how they threatened a writer with a signed contract.”

    I think if he actually reads the contract, he’ll discover that this is covered by the contract. They don’t have to publish the book unless they want to. I’ve signed enough publishing contracts, negotiated enough as a former agent, and even written a couple, to know that they’re never going to guarantee to publish the book, regardless of what it contains. They’re going to “desire” to, they’re going to offer terms for it, they’re going to have a schedule, they’re going to cover what rights they’ll be buying and all that hoop-de-doodle, but in the end, if they don’t like the book, they don’t publish the book. Agents make sure that if they don’t publish the book the deal’s off, so they can’t just stick in in a closet, but they’ll never get a publisher to guarantee publication.

    So yeah, as many have noted, they haven’t banned the book, nor have they censored the writer. The book was declined, and so he published it himself. Maybe he should have taken it to Baen — but then again, maybe they wouldn’t have wanted to publish a prequel to a book that was published elsewhere. If so, that wouldn’t be censorship or banning, either.

    And sure, if publishers up and rejected a book because it had too much intersectional feminism to it, I imagine the author’s nose would be out of joint, but that wouldn’t be banning or censorship either.

    Ultimately, when the author owns copyright, all the editorial suggestions are suggestions. But they’re backed by the publisher’s ability to reject the book, for any reason the publisher wants.

    That doesn’t mean the author has to do what the publisher wants. It just means that the publisher doesn’t have to do what the author wants, either.

    I co-edited an anthology years ago that was under contract to a publisher. The editor didn’t think the assembled book was commercial enough and asked us to make changes. We didn’t want to make the changes, so we said no, we don’t want to do that. The publisher dropped the book. We shopped it around, didn’t find any other takers, so the book never came out. So it goes.*

    Flip side of that, I was working on a comic once and the publisher told me they were making some changes that I thought violated the deal we had. I told them so, they said it was their way or the highway. I told the letterer not to deliver the next issue, and the publishers decided it would be better to talk things through. We ended up going back to the original deal as I understood it.

    That’s the way things go. The contract provides a context for the deal, but in the end, they can say “We want this or we won’t publish” and you can say “I want it this way and won’t change it.” And in the end, either you compromise, one of you changes your mind, or you don’t publish with them.

    That’s not censorship, that’s not banning, that’s business.

    It’s practically libertarian. You agree, you work things out or you part ways.

    What I’m amused by is that he complains that progressives “eat and drink and sleep outrage.” Outrage is his marketing strategy. It’s what he’s trying to use to sell the book.

    It seems the real complaint is that progressives are declining to be outraged, not because of the politics but because this is how publishing works.

    Is his book banned? No, it’s available. Was it censored? No, it’s available as he chose. Is it published by someone who didn’t want to publish it? No, but don’t confuse that with censorship or banning, dude. That’s a different thing, one most working creative types are very familiar with. It’s called rejection.

    *we did help start a few careers, though, as one of the editors we showed it to liked various stories enough to hire the authors to do licensed fiction, and those sales led to bigger sales and authorial success. So I’m happy about that.

  2. Oh, I think RedWombat should get credit as well, she’s the one who gave me the earworm.

    Although it should probably be:
    Scroll your pixels for nothin’, and your clicks for free

  3. Oh, and if there was a union (and there can’t be at present; labor laws don’t allow independent contractors to unionize), the most they’d be able to do would be to guarantee payment in the event that work was commissioned but not used, not to guarantee publication.

    After all, look at the movie industry (where there is a writer’s union, grandfathered in before the law changed to prevent independent contractors from unionizing). Nobody writing for movies or TV gets a deal that guarantees their work will be used, just paid for. You can complete a whole movie and the studio can still choose not to release it. What the union gets you is paid. Not published.

    And in the movies, they own the work you did, so they can shelve it, rather than with a typical novel, where you own it, so you can get the pub rights back.

  4. JJ :

    Oh, I think RedWombat should get credit as well, she’s the one who gave me the earworm.

    Here comes the Wombat, gonna tell us a story.
    Mail me out my Hugo PIN.
    Here comes the Wombat, singing “I gotta novel
    Fire up the presses, gotta make it pay.”

    She gotta hamster, she got a princess.

    [and at this point I quit, because I haven’t actually READ anything by Ursula, sorry to say]

  5. @Tasha: “The book would also get CN based on the sample I read:”

    CN? (I’m feeling particularly dense at the moment.)

    @RedWombat:

    No, the other forum wasn’t NeoGAF. I don’t even have an account there.

  6. @RevBob

    I believe Tasha means “content notes”–warnings for rape, abuse, racism, sexism, etc etc.

  7. @Tasha

    Actually, I liked the first chapter quite a bit. Chapters 2 & 3, not so much.
    Also, it looks like your experience with the free sample lined up with mine pretty well.

    @Nigel

    Having not been in the room, I’m inclined to guess that their suggestion wasn’t phrased in unduly strong language. There’s a difference between “this character as a female does not fit well with the rest of the book and may hamper sales” and “I find the idea of a female as a lead character to be offensive, irrational, and unacceptable.”

    I’m guessing….correct me if I’m wrong….but getting the latter response probably wouldn’t motivate you to respond in a cooperative manner. His blog entry suggests that he was presented with something more equivalent to the latter than the former.

    @redheadedfemme

    The theme works for me on a couple of fronts. The first is that this isn’t the first time that SFF has been to this rodeo. The Terminator movies, the I, Robot movie, AIs have used some pretty curious “logic” to arrive at the conclusion that humanity shouldn’t run its own affairs and/or kill them all. Although “The Fifth Element” does not involve AI, Lilu sort of fills in the same role.

    Then he leads the first chapter with the Turing quote…or is it a “quote”???….about an AI smart enough to pass the Turning test is also smart enough to fail it on purpose. It suggests an AI that does not want to become known until it can be revealed on its own terms.

    Then he frames the abortion quite specifically as an action taken for shallow reasons. It isn’t that her family is already large enough to be hard to keep fed and clothed properly. It isn’t that there is a high risk of the child being malformed. It is framed strictly as a convenience.

    Parenthetically, he could have probably gotten the same effect by using euthanasia instead of abortion. Killing off an aged family member because it is too much trouble to visit them and/or see to their care.

    Lastly, I think that the AI is still thinking in a computer framework of programs and sub-routines where prematurely or artificially ending a sub-routine is harmful.

    I’m guessing that Mr. Cole intended that the AI view a fertilized egg as the beginning of a sub-routine that was evolved to create a new life. After all, there does come a point prior to delivery where a baby has neurological function and is responding to his/her environment.

    Perhaps the AI is still “young” enough to be unable to handle the sort of nuance required to ethically separate a zygote from a neurologically active, but not quite ready to be born baby. Or perhaps it just sees a process that if it left alone will more often than not result in a new life.

    In any case, I thought the premise was interesting, but didn’t much like chapters 2 & 3.

    In general, I do find the repeated efforts to minimize his perspective on the experience to be troubling. Could his editor have been offering reasonable requests for changes? Sure. Without their side to the discussion, it is hard to have any facts in support of that position.

    Could his editor have allowed their personal political perspectives to get in the way of their larger job of polishing up a manuscript? Sure. Why so much effort to discount this very real possibility?

    Regards,
    Dann

  8. Could his editor have allowed their personal political perspectives to get in the way of their larger job of polishing up a manuscript? Sure. Why so much effort to discount this very real possibility?

    Because even if that’s what happened, it’s not banning and it’s not censorship.

    It’s editorial judgment, which is what the publisher pays the editors for. Editors aren’t hired to be objective machines, they’re hired because the publisher thinks they’ve got good judgment, and the use of that good judgment will render said publisher lumpy with loot.

    Does that mean all of the editor’s choices will be good? No, no more than David Ortiz hits a home run (or even gets a hit) at every at-bat. But editors thrive or fail on their track records overall, and their personal judgments are part of their job.

    I’ve dealt with lots of editors. Some I find a lot of common ground with, some I disagree with on lots of things. When I think it interferes with the work, I stop working with that editor. In a less-mercantile world, one would hope they would feel the same way, but the reality has been that they don’t mind as long as the books sell. So my experience, at least, suggests that editors care more about sales than political harmony between themselves and the authors they work with.

    In any case, you and Cole seem to want to make it about politics, but what you’re encountering is that a lot of working professionals don’t find that claim terribly credible, along with the attempt to claim that a publisher rejecting a novel is censorship and banning.

    Publishers reject books. Even contracted books.

    Even if the editor’s personal perspective is that the book will damage the author’s career (and the publisher’s bottom line) is due to the editor’s pro-choice beliefs, the editor is still paid to use their judgment. Editors who like conservative stances are out there too, publishing books for them what like those, and if they were to judge that a book doesn’t work because it’s got this chapter in it where it goes all pointlessly liberal for a while (and Cole did say that the reasons the AI made the decision it made were irrelevant to the story, so long as there was a reason), then they might just as easily ask for a revision, and reject a book they felt was flawed without said revision.

    The solution is to find another editor and another publisher,* if one doesn’t agree to the point of not wanting to change anything. It’s not to insist that the editor suspend their judgment. Editors are paid for their judgment, and as long as they have a good batting average, they’ll continue to be.

    *or to self-publish, which is the path Cole freely and uncensoredly chose.

  9. @Rev Bob
    @redheadedfemme is correct
    CN = content note
    Slightly more acceptable to people than
    TW = trigger warnings
    Sorry I wasn’t clear.

    @Dann
    Are you just not reading comments? What part of It’s typical business practice are you having a hard time understanding?

    If you don’t want to deal with that kind of thing don’t publish traditionally. One has options today. Woo hoo for the times we live in. Self-publish and wait for reviews to tell you what people think of your story in no uncertain terms if people find and buy your book. Just don’t turn around and complain about the reviews.

  10. I really appreciate all the input from the writers/editors in this thread. Thank you!

  11. @RDF – I don’t expect anyone to have read my books–but a filk, now!

    @Dann – Even if it happened 100% as he said did, even if he is presenting a completely unbiased account, even if his book is far better than his blogging, he’s STILL not being oppressed or censored. Which is the claim.

    I’m sorry that I’m not angry that he’s angry that a thing happened to him that has happened to many, many authors, but honestly, having had multiple books rejected for being something editors didn’t want to deal with, and not having thrown a public temper tantrum over it, the field of my fucks is barren.

  12. RedWombat

    @RDF – I don’t expect anyone to have read my books–but a filk, now!

    Sorry, dear, but being a married man, only one woman gets to order me to filk them.

  13. In general, I do find the repeated efforts to minimize his perspective on the experience to be troubling. Could his editor have been offering reasonable requests for changes? Sure. Without their side to the discussion, it is hard to have any facts in support of that position.

    It doesn’t matter. In civil procedure, there is something called a Motion for Summary Judgment. It is a response to a Complaint that essentially says “even if absolutely everything the plaintiff says is true, they still don’t have a case”.

    Cole’s “complaint” of being censored would be subject to a Motion for Summary Judgment. Every whine he makes in his post, even if absolutely true, doesn’t amount to anything that is outside normal business practices on the part of his publisher. Even if absolutely everything he says is true, he’s got zero grounds to complain. This is just how publishing works. The editor did their job. Cole refused to act in accordance with his contract. The publisher declined to publish his book. That’s normal.

  14. File 770 isn’t called that wretched hive of scum and villainy for no reason. Bwahaha

    I’m sorry we aren’t appropriately outraged for you @Dann. If he had gotten a ton of rape and death threats after publishing it I’d feel differently. He still wouldn’t be banned or censored. But I might care more.

  15. Yay teamwork.

    @Dann (did you change your name?) – In general, I do find the repeated efforts to minimize his perspective on the experience to be troubling.

    Meh. Since he’s claiming censorship where none exists, I’ve deemed him an unreliable narrator. In other words, he’s welcome to his feelings, which are independent of fact, and I am welcome to shrug them off as being unlikely to be fact based. And that’s before I factor in the received wisdom of years of professional writing that says this is not at all unusual or that, in actuality, his book has indeed been published. So, I’m puzzled as to why you’re troubled.

  16. Nobody is going to sign a contract that says “we have to pay for and publish your next book, no matter what” because that would leave them on the hook if the next book was blatantly plagiarized. Or contained only the word “the” 94,000 times.

    Conversely, “you have to write another book for us before you can go elsewhere” can gets the people insisting on that something like Monty Python’s Contractual Obligation Album*, because you can’t enforce a contract that says “you have to write a good book for us.”

    I read once that a band got out of a “next five albums” option in their contract by pointing out that the contract would be fulfilled if they turned in five one-hour recordings of them performing the national anthem over and over.

    *A comedy album, not a book, because it’s the example I can remember.

  17. @RDF – Sorry, intonation didn’t land right on that, I meant “but a filk, now, that’s something!” but the implied end bit didn’t come across. I was meaning to express delight at the existing filk, not demanding one!

  18. I’m guessing….correct me if I’m wrong….but getting the latter response probably wouldn’t motivate you to respond in a cooperative manner

    Well if someone told me having a female lead character for a light comic children’s fantasy was offensive I would almost certainly be lit up with a desire to start burning shit down, that’s true, but not because I felt personally oppressed. If they felt that some crucial plot-point touching on a hot-button topic was offensive irrational and unacceptable, I’d have to consider the real possibility that they might be right, and if they were right, well, do I want it to be that way, and do I want it to be that way enough to walk away from the publishing company that doesn’t? Those are the choices. I don’t say don’t whine about it, I’m all for people whining and moaning and complaining and kicking up a stink, but if you’re searching for a principle here, it’s not going to be ‘I will stand up for each and every writer who walks away from a publishing house because of a plot point they found to be offensive and irrational and unacceptable.’ We evaluate these things on our own terms, not the terms you choose for us.

    My point would be that there really is nothing so valuable to a writer as professional editorial input and be it ever so hurtful and however much it scrapes your sensibilities raw, you give it serious consideration and you re-evaluate your work in light of it because if they accepted the book initially, then they liked it and they want it to be the best it can be almost as much as you do (ideally this is what they want – mileage may sadly vary.)

    Also, none of this is the fault of the person who wrote that article Phantom invoked this in response to.

  19. In general, I’m not looking for anyone else to be outraged. I’m not particularly outraged.

    I am trying to point out that if the back ground of the author and/or the trigger issue were changed a bit, that I believe that there might be less of a rush to dismiss this particular author’s objections.

    Is is possible that his former editor raised some reasonable issues in a reasonable manner and that he wigged out unnecessarily? Sure. Chapters 2&3 sure could use an editor. Thoughts about the editing process, and rejection of a work under a “next book” contract were in line with what I already thought to be the case.

    Is it possible that the editor had a reaction that was unreasonable? Sure. Unfortunately, folks seem to be quick to bypass this reasonable assertion.

    Sorry about the name change. It was not intentional. I think I’m back to my former self now.

  20. @Dann: “I am trying to point out that if the back ground of the author and/or the trigger issue were changed a bit, that I believe that there might be less of a rush to dismiss this particular author’s objections.”

    To be blunt, if the author hadn’t been such a whiny Puppy about it (WAAAHH I WAS CENSORED BY BULLIES BECAUSE I’M A BIG STRONG CONSERVATIVE!! I WORSHIP THE FREE MARKET BUT I DON’T UNDERSTAND IT AT ALL!! BUY MY BOOK THAT WAS BANNED BY BIG PUBLISHING!!) but had expressed himself more reasonably, and had the quality of his actual writing been higher, he might have gained some traction and/or sympathy.

    But he was, and he didn’t, and it wasn’t, so he didn’t.

  21. My favorite contract story was Nick Lowe recorded “Bay City Rollers We Love You” in hopes that his label (United Artists?) at the time would drop him. They loved it and it was big in Japan.

  22. I am trying to point out that if the back ground of the author and/or the trigger issue were changed a bit, that I believe that there might be less of a rush to dismiss this particular author’s objections.

    And you’re failing miserably at it, mostly because there isn’t really anything to the objections. The reason you don’t see others making this sort of fuss like Cole is is because they understand that’s how the business works. So when those of a different background or who are using a different plot point encounter this sort of thing, they don’t make a big deal out of it. They just either make the requested changes or move on to something else. You might note that at least two people in this very thread have discussed similar things happening to them, and no one has thought of those incidents as being particularly disturbing. In the face of actual facts such as those, your hypothetical falls somewhat short of being convincing.

  23. I am trying to point out that if the back ground of the author and/or the trigger issue were changed a bit, that I believe that there might be less of a rush to dismiss this particular author’s objections.

    Yeah, I think most here have noticed that.

    But the thing is, you’re trying to make this about politics, claiming that people here are politically biased, but the response you’re getting is that this is ordinary publishing, and it happens over other things, too, both things that annoy progressives and completely non-political stuff.

    His objections are that he’s being censored and banned. He’s not and he’s not.

    He’s standing on the mountain waving his sword in the air and shouting about how he’s a writer and he will not be bullied.

    Good for him, he found a solution that suits him.

    So it goes.

    If he wasn’t trying to spin it as censorship, he might get reactions like “Gee, bummer. That must be annoying. You should find a more welcoming publisher. Have you tried Baen? Hey, have you thought of self-publishing?” But the way he’s trying to spin it, the reaction he’s getting is “Dude, get a grip. That’s not censorship, that’s publishing.”

  24. Honestly, I think there’d be plenty of sympathy for someone who was a victim of editorial unprofessionalism. That’s just not how this comes across at all.

  25. My favorite contract story was Nick Lowe recorded “Bay City Rollers We Love You” in hopes that his label (United Artists?) at the time would drop him. They loved it and it was big in Japan.

    …and then they wanted a follow-up, so he did “Rollers Show,” and it tanked as a single and they dropped him. So he got what he wanted, and we got two deliriously silly songs out of it.

    He’d been stuck in the contract after Brinsley Schwartz broke up, and he was the one they wanted to keep. Once they dropped him, he was able to move over to Stiff Records, where he wanted to be.

    And then he wound up recording the sarcastic “I Love My Label” about Stiff, and moving on from then when he could.

    But hey, it was the first record he produced himself, so it launched him on a very good career.

    [My favorite “I hate my record label and want to get out” song, though, will always be Graham Parker’s catchily vicious “Mercury Poisoning.”]

  26. The fun thing about “Bay City Rollers We Love You” is that it seems to appeal to both those who loved and hated the Bay City Rollers. The man didn’t know his own talent. Still waiting for that Tartan Horde reunion tour.

    I remember seeing Stiff T-shirts at the local record/waterbed/head shop. (Most involved at least one of the words you can’t say on TV.) I always knew of the label, but I don’t think I actually knew what they released until I got the Stiff box set that came out around 1992.

  27. @Kurt Busiek:

    [My favorite “I hate my record label and want to get out” song, though, will always be Graham Parker’s catchily vicious “Mercury Poisoning.”]

    Marry me.

  28. @Jack Lint:

    I remember seeing Stiff T-shirts at the local record/waterbed/head shop. (Most involved at least one of the words you can’t say on TV.) I always knew of the label, but I don’t think I actually knew what they released until I got the Stiff box set that came out around 1992.

    Stiffs Live, which predates the boxed set, is a treasure and a great snapshot view of the label. Essential just for Elvis Costello’s version of Burt Bacharach’s “I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself.”

  29. I got both STIFFS LIVE and the box set as soon as I saw them. That one label may encapsulate most of my musical taste. Well, no, since it goes all over the place, but man, that’s good stuff.

    The book STIFF: THE STORY OF A LABEL is also fun, and I use their approaches a lot when promoting things. With milder language, mind you.

  30. Kurt: My favorite “I hate my record label and want to get out” song, though, will always be Graham Parker’s catchily vicious “Mercury Poisoning.”

    I’m glad I googled that one. I’m not allowed to buy more CDs till April, though, damn it.

  31. @ Rev. Bob: “I WORSHIP THE FREE MARKET BUT I DON’T UNDERSTAND IT AT ALL!!”

    Also “I DON’T UNDERSTAND THE MEANING OF THE WORD ‘CENSORSHIP’!”

    There are a lot of relatively simple words/concepts these guys don’t understand. Or at least pretend not to understand, because then they get money and/or attention.

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