(1) SIC SEMPER HEAVENLY TYRANT. [Item by Anne Marble.] Xiran Jay Zhao’s social media offers a window onto their problems with the publisher of their next book, Heavenly Tyrant. They began on January 24 with these messages:
Then today, Xiran Jay Zhao implied that their publisher threatened legal action over those X.com. posts
And later:
In response to some of these posts, horror & SFF writer Zachary Rosenberg suggested at this point, Xiran Jay Zhao should get a lawyer and stop posting to protect their interests.
The hardcover was published by Penguin Teen. (Wikipedia says that they signed with Penguin Teen Canada. I’m not sure if they had a separate U.S. edition.) The paperback is published by Tundra Books, an imprint of Tundra Book Group, which is part of Penguin Random House of Canada Limited. The author lives in Canada.
(2) LUKYANENKO ENDORSES PUTIN. Well, what else did you think the Chengdu Worldcon’s absent guest of honor was going to do? “Писатель Сергей Лукьяненко поддержал решение Владимира Путина участвовать в выборах” at Звездный Бульвар (Star Boulevard) — “Writer Sergei Lukyanenko supported Vladimir Putin’s decision to participate in the elections”.
The collection of signatures in support of Vladimir Putin’s participation in the presidential elections continues in Moscow. The famous Russian science fiction writer Sergei Lukyanenko spoke about his support for the candidacy of the current president in Moscow today in a conversation with journalists from the Moscow News Agency.
“I support Vladimir Putin’s decision (to nominate his candidacy for the presidency). I think that the changes in the country are visible to everyone who has lived at least more than 20 years,” he said….
(3) DON’T SAY WORLDCON. This odd phenomenon in Chinese social media was reported earlier today. Later it was learned the ban only affected one group.
(4) FURRY CON STAFF UPRISING. [Item by Patch P.] There’s turbulent convention organizing, and then there’s having staff resign in protest to force a leadership change: “Grassroots action: Leadership changes and weeding out hate at Garden State Fur The Weekend”. Dogpatch Press has the full story, which begins —
Garden State Fur The Weekend is an upcoming furry convention set for May 3-5, 2024 in New Brunswick, New Jersey. With their launch only months away, something unusual happened. GSFTW posted an official statement about opposing hate and Nazi-fur groups….
It was followed by an announcement of the con chair stepping down and a new one stepping up. It blames medical issues of the ex-chair, Dashing Fox. Dogpatch Press wishes good health to him. The story could end there, but unofficially, the change was forced by staff resignations. You’re seeing the aftermath of revolt behind the scenes, then getting back on track for launch. Yes, they stood up with the power of collective will to change the leadership for the better….
…Let’s not beat around the bush about why staff resigned to uproot the ex-chair: He actively associated with the Furry Raiders. They are a nazifur group who wither everything they touch. Their ties to alt-right hate groups and criminal schemes could fill a book….
(5) RABBIT TESTERS. Michael Grossberg opens a discussion of “Rabbit Test: Samantha Mill’s story, which swept this past year’s sf awards, has been hailed as libertarian (But that depends on your view of its central issue.)” on the Libertarian Futurist Society’s Prometheus Blog. One learns from his post there are people who classify themselves as Libertarians and do not agree with a woman’s freedom to choose to have an abortion. However, the post doesn’t explain whether that is on religious grounds, or why.
…That story is “Rabbit Test,” by Samantha Mills.
According to at least one veteran libertarian sf fan, Mill’s story fits the distinctive focus of the Prometheus Award.
“The well-written story has a strong individual-liberty theme,” said Fred Moulton, a now-retired former LFS leader and Prometheus judge.
But does it?…
…That’s been a hot-button issue even within the libertarian movement. Since libertarianism began to be popular in the 1960s and 1970s, most libertarians have supported a woman’s right to abortion (perhaps influenced partly by Ayn Rand, whose novels and essays helped spark the modern movement).
Yet, some libertarians have always disagreed, even while being consistently “pro-choice” on everything else that doesn’t violate the basic libertarian principles of non-aggression….
(6) GASTRONOMICAL AND OTHER BALONEY. In “Around the World in Eighty Lies”, The Walrus reveals an Atlas Obscura contributor’s mystifying pattern of fabricated facts.
THE STORY WAS CHARMING: a short article about soups, continually replenished for decades, secreted in jars across oceans. The soups, according to one source, were “older than Taylor Swift.” I devoured the article, published in December 2022 on Atlas Obscura, an online publication billed as “best-in-class journalism about hidden places, incredible history, scientific marvels, and gastronomical wonders,” and texted it to a few soup-obsessed friends. Then I forgot about it for months until the weather turned chilly and I pulled up the link again, only to notice the article had changed. An italicized editor’s note had been added to the top, which began: “This article has been retracted as it does not meet Atlas Obscura’s editorial standards.” The note went on to state that multiple details and interviews had been fabricated.
Intrigued, I did a Google search for the author, Blair Mastbaum. His social media profiles and Wikipedia page suggested an American writer in his mid-forties, very active on Instagram, where he posted captionless photos of his travels in Europe. Mastbaum had written ten other articles for Atlas Obscura, eight of which, it turned out, had similar retractions. Topics ranged widely: acoustic archeology, Hawaiian cultural appropriation, an obscure dialect of sign language. Mastbaum’s first retracted story had been published in January 2022; the last one more than a year later….
(7) ONE THUMB UP. [Item by Steven French.] For folks in Chicago, a “Science on Screen” series that includes Godzilla, Don’t Look Up, Contagio and War Games at Siskel Film Center from February 9-12.
It’s the end of the world as we know it…and, if we’re being honest, we could use some help in feeling fine. From pandemics to nuclear war, from planet-pulverizing meteors to a city-smashing monster, these films explore all the ways we’re risking destruction. Watch the films with experts from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, keepers of the Doomsday Clock, to discuss the end times—and how we can avoid them. Presented in partnership with the University of Chicago Existential Risk Laboratory, the Japanese Cultural Center (JCC), and the DePaul Humanities Center. Additional speakers to be added.
(8) WHAT WHO’S FIGURES WERE. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] This month’s SFX magazine has the final low-down on Britain’s Doctor Who viewing figures which now includes 7-day catch-up views. (Remember, for comparison the US has five times the population of the UK.)
First up, The Goblin Song by Murray Gold reach number one on the iTunes chart on the day of its release and no12 in the official single sales chart that week and number six on the official singles download chart and number four on the official top 40.
Doctor Who ‘The Star Beast’ consolidated at 9.5 million viewers including catch-up. Overnights for ‘Wild Blue Yonder’ were 4.83 million with 7.14 million adding in 7-day catch-ups. ‘The Giggle’ obtained 4.62 million overnight and 6.85 million with 7-day catch-ups added in. ‘The Church on Ruby Road’ was the most watched scripted show (which excludes things like the King’s address to the nation) on Christmas day with 4.73 million viewers which increases to 7.49 million with 7-day catch-ups added in.
(9) BRIAN LUMLEY (1937-2024). Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award winner Brian Lumley died January 2 his website has reported. He came to prominence in the 1970s writing in the Cthulhu Mythos featuring the new character Titus Crow, and in the 1980s began the best-selling Necroscope series, initially centered on character Harry Keogh, who can communicate with the spirits of the dead. His other series included The Primal Lands, Hero of Dreams, and Psychomech. He wrote around 60 books and many works of short fiction.
Lumley also had a 22-year career as a Royal Military Policeman. He is survived by his wife, Barbara Ann (Silky) Lumley, his daughter Julie and many grandchildren and great grandchildren.
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born January 29, 1958 — Jeph Loeb, 66. It’s not likely that you’ve heard of Jeph Loeb but you’ll definitely have heard of the work he first did as a comics writer and later film writer/producer. So let’s get started.
Loeb, a four-time Eisner Award winner, started out as comic writer, with his first work being on Challengers of the Unknown with Tim Sale. Loved that series!
They notably would somewhat later do Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight and Batman: The Long Halloween. The latter you’ll no doubt recognize. The former is a collection of really interesting stories. It is available from the usual suspects.
(As always I’m not listing everything, just what I’m interested in.)
They did a really great Catwoman series, Catwoman: When in Rome. I’ll do no spoilers as it’s a six-issue story extraordinary told. If you’ve got lots of money to spare, the absolute edition is, well, absolutely amazing.
At the end of the Nineties, he started a nearly three-year run on Superman with Ed McGuinness largely being the artist. It ended with the rather amazing Emperor Joker storyline.
Of course this being the two major comic producers, Loeb and McGuinness soon got another a series going, Superman/Batman, and that in turn led to a new ongoing Supergirl series.
Now Marvel.
He destroyed his hometown of Stamford, Connecticut in the first issue of the Civil War series. Oh poor Stamford.
His Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America series got coverage by the Associated Press and The Washington Post. Impressive.
Film scripts he has, oh yes.
With Matthew Weisman, he wrote the script for Teen Wolf, you might recognize for having a major role for Michael J. Fox. Completely different in tone was his next script with Weisman, Commando, the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle. And he did Teen Wolf Two as well, this time with Weisman and Tim Kring.
Somewhere in the vaults of Warner Bros is his Flash film script. Now that would really interesting to read, wouldn’t it?
He wrote a script for an episode of Smallville, after which he became a supervising producer and has written many episodes since then. He had a three year contract extension to stay on the series but left when his son developed cancer. (The son sadly passed away.)
He was writer/producer on Lost during its second season. After leaving Lost, he was co-executive producer and writer on Heroes. Tim Sale’s art was prominently featured.
Thirteen years ago, Marvel Entertainment appointed him to the position of Executive Vice President, Head of Television of its new Marvel Television. If you’ve watched a Marvel series since then be it Agent Carter or Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., he’s listed as executive producer.
He left Marvel five years ago.
(11) COMICS SECTION.
- Loose Parts has its own peculiar idea about saving the Earth.
- Candorville has a debate about whether to waste words on a genre topic.
(12) REINVENTING THE WHEEL, ER, GRID? “14 Years Later, a Classic Sci-Fi Franchise Is About to Take its Biggest Risk Yet” claims Inverse.
It’s time to get back on the grid. As of now, the third film in the Tron franchise — titled Tron: Ares, but styled as Tr3N — is officially filming. Fourteen years after the second film, Tron: Legacy, and 42 years after the 1982 classic, Tron will finally become the weirdest sci-fi trilogy of all time.
How should Tron-heads feel about all this? Will Tr3N fix everything or destroy all programs, now and forever? At this point, it feels like Tr3N will either be great or terrible, with no room for a middle ground. Here’s why….
… Whether the movie is great or horrible, the third Tron movie will have to tackle the paradox of Tron’s essential weirdness. As a concept, Tron was both ahead of its time and terribly shortsighted. In the first film, we got an entire virtual world populated by living, sentient Programs, who manifest as people; imagine The Matrix, but most characters are Agent Smith.
Because it came out in 1982, Tron used arcade game logic to imagine this alternate digital realm, which gave the film its beautifully minimalistic aesthetic. However, this vibe also made “The Grid” seem small and empty compared to the kinds of virtual worlds that have existed in science fiction ever since.
The limitations of Tron’s world-building were so obvious that Tron: Legacy explicitly states Kevin Flynn created a bigger and better second version of the Grid. Still, this Grid feels limited in the same way the first one did, simply because the world-building feels contingent on the real world mattering more than the Grid. The paradox at the heart of Tron is the struggle to make a virtual world matter more than the real world….
(13) BOMBS AWAY. “Dr Strangelove at 60: is this still the greatest big-screen satire?” asks the Guardian.
…The message of Fail Safe: human beings are fallible. The message of Dr Strangelove: human beings are idiots.
On balance, Kubrick’s message is more persuasive. Dr Strangelove remains the greatest of movie satires for a host of reasons, not least that it hews so closely to the real-life absurdities of the cold war, with two saber-rattling superpowers escalating an arms race that could only end in mutual annihilation. There’s absolutely no question, for example, that the top military and political brass have gamed out the catastrophic loss of life in a nuclear conflict, just as they do in the war room here. Perhaps they would even nod sagely at the distinction between 20 million people dead v 150 million people dead. All Kubrick and his co-writers, Terry Southern and Peter George, have to add is a wry punchline: “I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed.”…
(14) SLIM NOT-SO-SHADY. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] When it first landed on the Moon a week or so ago, JAXA’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) first ever Moon lander was unable to generate solar power and quickly lost energy from the battery. Now, however, it appears that the solar panel was misoriented and SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) is back online. “Japan’s SLIM probe regains power more than a week after moon landing” reports Reuters.
… SLIM lost the thrust of one of its two main engines shortly before the touchdown for unknown reasons and ended up drifting a few dozen metres away from the target. The lander safely stopped on a gentle slope but appeared toppled with an engine facing upward in a picture taken by a baseball-sized wheeled rover it deployed.
The probe’s solar panels faced westward due to the displacement and could not immediately generate power. JAXA manually unplugged SLIM’s dying battery 2 hours and 37 minutes after the touchdown as it completed the transmission of the lander’s data to the earth.
JAXA does not have a clear date when SLIM will end its operation on the moon, but the agency has previously said the lander was not designed to survive a lunar night. The next lunar night begins on Thursday.
(15) DON’TCHA JUST LOVE DYSTOPIAS….? [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Dystopias are great (provided you just read about them and not begin to live in them as we now seem we are about to….) Moid over at Media Death Cult has a dive into dystopic fiction.
(16) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “Barbie with a Cat” is a parody of the movie with Owlkitty.
[Thanks to Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Anne Marble, Daniel Dern, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, and SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Xtifr.]
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First!
I’m re-listening from the beginning Simon Green’s Ismael Jones series, now eleven novels deep. A pulpish cross between SF and fantasy with a first person narration, each is about seven hours long, perfect for a winters day listening.
No subscriber notification went out for this Scroll. Weep wail!
(3) Yeah, about that gathering…
https://www.newsdirectory3.com/tianwen-unveiling-chinas-diverse-science-fiction-to-the-world/
and
http://www.china.org.cn/arts/2023-10/23/content_116768150.htm
(13) Yeah. Um. That was scary when I first saw it.
(14) And a toast to the engineers of JAXA.
(10) “Born January 29, 1968 — Jeph Loeb, 66.”
Either the year is wrong, or his age is wrong.
A comments checkbox! Yay!
(1) I’ve pre-ordered. An act of faith.
(2) Of course he did.
(4) At least he got the boot?
(14) Bravo, JAXA!
(1) This will probably get messy. 🙁 And it shouldn’t get messy. Fans want the book! The author wants their edits!
Also, this gives many writers another reason to abandon traditional publishing…
(2) Oh. What a shock. Also, eww.
(4) Surreptitiously adds furry news site to her feed
I’m not a furry, I swear, but I’m always interested in good coverage of fandom.
(9) Rats! 😐 I first encountered Brian Lumley in an issue of Fantastic Magazine through the story “How Kank Thad Returned to Bhur-Esh.” (Don’t tell Ted White, but I might have acquired it through a bookstore clearance section where they sold bags with two or three old SFF digests.)
I also acquired a later issue where I was astonished to learn that people didn’t like the story and thought it was trite. I think they … may have missed the tone of the tale.
Joshua K: One more demonstration of my power to introduce typos where none were before! Fixed now.
(1) I’m curious exactly what “except my editor’s poor handling of my concerns about a Z!on!st author of his made me request another one” entailed. Because I could see where having a you can only edit one of us discussion along those lines could easily blow up in unpleasant ways.
12) For my money, the biggest problem with TRON Legacy (well, conceptually) was that the original TRON took place in a kind of networked proto-world-wide web with different machines communicating with each other, while TRON Legacy took place in an entirely self-contained, air-gapped system that had been left running for 20+ years.
And my fear is that the biggest problem with TR3N (besides that version of the title not actually working) will be Jared Leto.
@Anne Marble
The Furries do fandom with such deliberate gusto that it’s a joy to watch, even if you’re only following as a spectator sport
Yeah, my first impression is cringe. And I’m very curious to know how “Z!on!st”, a much humpty-dumptied word, is defined by Xiran Jay Zhao.
(1) Based purely on her tweets, it appears she’s throwing a fit because she can’t get another author canceled, and making life miserable for her editor is delaying the edits for her book. She’s also asking people NOT to preorder her book as a protest against Israel and obsessively tweeting about the Gaza war.
Big no thanks from me all around.
12) Tron 3: It’s Morbin’ Time
(1) already pre-ordered.
(2) absolutely unsurprising eww.
(5) why does this text sound like all libertarians are men?
To explore strange new scrolls; to seek out new fans and new conventions; to boldly go where no typo has been before!
The 14 year gap since Tron Legacy is a long time. Is there still any connective tissue left??
10) Wasn’t Civil War written by Mark Millar?
1) I don’t think fighting with your publisher about other writers is a good idea. Not seeling is the most common reason to be dropped by a publisher but beeing dificult to work with is as I have heared the second most common reason to be fired. If the fight got to strong I respect that the lineeditor may not work that easy on Heavenly Tyrant. It is sometimes necesary to go public but I don’t think that was a good time exspecially how Xiran Jay Zhao got public here.
Love the Scroll title
(13) “You can’t fight in here – this is the War Room.”
Of course there are pro-life libertarians! We used to say that if there are three libertarians in a room there are four opinions (borrowing an old joke about rabbis).
Occasionally something pops up in a fandom branch that temporarily melts my brain. n@zi fur groups? Really? REALLY? OK, deep breaths. Just have to wait for my brains to congeal once again before moving on.
12) I think a much better Tron sequel would be one where the Tron grid is under attack and invasion from another online world, like World of Warcraft or Secondlife. Suddenly the residents are under pressure to monetize and create in-app purchase opportunities 😉
Stefan says Wasn’t Civil War written by Mark Millar?
Now what exactly did I say?
(5) Anyone is free to apply the term “libertarian” to themself, even the Mises Caucus. Some people come to libertarianism from a Christian orientation, and they’re more likely to believe in prenatal rights. I disagree with them but may still find common ground with them on other issues.
(13) Counter to Betteridge’s Law of Headlines, the answer is “Yes”.
@Michael Brooks: If I understand correctly, Xiran is asking people to preorder the book “so I cannot be sued for damages.”
I don’t know what the situation is, but perhaps getting lots of preorders will convince the publisher to move the editing along and prove that Xiran is trying to get the book out on time and should not be sued, or something like that.
Michael Brooks: How are you getting “Don’t preorder my book” from “preorder my book” ?
I don’t know if their comments about their editor’s “poor handling of my concerns about a Zionist author of his” means they tried to get another author cancelled and their editor wouldn’t – which would be reasonable for the editor – or if they expressed concerns without requesting a specific action and the editor was dismissive, which could go either way, or if they got the impression the editor was favouring another author because they were Pro-Zionist (and so is the editor) and that is why XJZ raised their concerns, only to be shut out even further for asking. the former seems the most likely but we’ve seen the latter, and we’ve seen situations in between.
(1) My impression is, she wants the other author cancelled and does not want her editor (or even her publisher) to work with any Jewish/Israeli artists at all. But she does want to be subsidized for her views. Pass.
(4) “Nazi furries,” really? I am continually bemused by groups who support ideologies that would enslave or exterminate them. But in this case… Nazis were heavily into various kinds of sex fetishism, not to mention some wild versions of ancient pagan beliefs and practices, so it’s not a giant leap to think they’d embrace furries. But furries embracing them back still boggles my mind.
(12) I loved Tron with all my heart, thought the sequel was fine if not dazzling. The sequel didn’t go in the direction I would have liked, which is a good thing. because I would have liked a lot of esoteric stuff about identity and free will, which would have sold even fewer tickets, alas. Hiring Jared Leto for Tron 3 makes me feel…ambivalent. On the one hand, Leto likes to play smart/brilliant characters; OTOH, they also seem to be nihilists who don’t take long to bypass rational acts for rationalized violence.
(1) For all the discussion about who she is or is not trying to “cancel” I don’t think she’s actually named anyone or requested any actions that impact anyone but herself.
This really reads like a last ditch public attempt when all her private channels have failed. Her requests are all “talk to me” and “send me my manuscript”, which are not the sorts of things you normally need to go public to get.
Regardless of what may have gone on behind the scenes, or her private behavior, or any private requests she may have made, it doesn’t speak well of her publisher or editor that it reached this point
Nazi furries?
Nazi furries?!?!?
I suppose that’s another example of “there is more in heaven and earth, Horatio¨, or, for all you computer types, “don’t ever underestimate what the users will think of doing.”
Xiran Jay Zhao goes by “they”, btw.
The thing that worries me is that they’re telling the part of the story that they think makes them look good. Even in their telling, they’re telling the editor how to treat another author because of that author’s politics. Which is, in my opinion, Right Out.
Run a public campaign that X is a jerk? Go for it. Start a protest about your publisher platforming X? Fine (unless I disagree with you). Tell your editor how they should handle X? Bad.
@Ryan H
Their publisher is known, there’s only a finite number of people they could be referring to.
There’s no indication that Xiran HAS exhausted private channels in resolving the issues. Only later in their complaints did they even mention talking to their lawyer. One’s editor being a month late with line edits, while annoying, doesn’t sound to me like time enough to have exhausted all private legal remedies.
Regardless of whether the author they had a problem with is unobjectionable or repugnant, bringing a private disagreement with your publisher into the Court of Twitter seems not just ineffective as a “last ditch” effort to get one’s editor to hurry up, it’s likely to actively blow up in their face.
@CaseyL — My favorite sequel to TRON was the video game TRON 2000, which hewed much closer to the aesthetic of the original film, and I thought also did a better job of continuing/expanding the original story.
@Madame Hardy
My mistake
And I don’t disagree with you, but at best everyone sucks here. Even if Xiran Jay Zhao has behaved in a completely unacceptable and unprofessional way, it looks like the publisher’s response was to ghost them in the middle of the publishing process, which is also completely unprofessional and unacceptable.
Also, even from a cursory check of their social media it’s obvious that Xiran Jay Zhao is consistently and publicly radical in their views and opinions. That doesn’t excuse poor behavior, but there’s also no way the publisher didn’t know what they were getting when they signed them. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for someone who signs an outspoken radical and then gets the vapors when they need to deal with an outspoken radical.
It’s been a week since the first public request. More than enough time that the publisher should have been able to make this entire situation go away by now. Either cutting Xiran Jay Zhao lose, with whatever legal complications that entails, or otherwise communicating. No way this should still be in public limbo without some degree of dickery.
(10) Jeph Loeb – Not (yet) mentioned is the four-issue (available as a single book) A SUPERMAN FOR ALL SEASONS, one of my favorite Loebs and more generally one of my favorite miniseries/runs/whatevers. The art is fabulous, ditto the story.
Available, among other places, on HooplaDigital (if you’ve got a card/account with a participating public library). Also on my short list for “worth owning, so you can reread it whenever.”
(Note, as of a few months ago, ASfAS was given as one of the strong influences for the upcoming Superman: Legacy TV series on Warner/Discovery/MAX/AuntBerthasKittyBoutique/Yoyodyne or who/whatever owns the DC properties, unless/until Yet Another Flapdoodle adds this to the digital scrap pile.)
Casey L:
Please do not confuse Jewish with Zionist. There are a hell of a lot of Jewish people right now who are loudly protesting against Israel’s government’ actions – up to and including not just many Israelis themselves, but also the families of some hostages from October 7.
Equating Zionism with Judaism does nobody favours.
Lemon Rose
“Equating Zionism with Judaism does nobody favours.”
And yet, and yet, I have heard so many anti-Zionist protestors do exactly that.
It is a mystery, it is.
I missed that XJZ recanted her “don’t preorder” protest after she was served legal papers. Before they found out they could be sued, they posted this:
https://twitter.com/XiranJayZhao/status/1750435065421799433
RyanH:
XJZ hasn’t named anyone, but their supporters seem to think the target is Deke Moulton (who has subsequently privated their X feed).
https://twitter.com/TundraBooks/status/1749499851291652502
Apparently anyone who expresses any support whatsoever for Israelis is a “zionist.” The word means very little to me at this point in time.
“Zionist” has become a synonym for “settler,” which is a synonym for land thief.
Mind you, I’ve been given to understand by some Israeli folks I know that they also find the West Bank “settlers” a menace too.
Nazi Furries? Are their costumes based on German Shepherds?
or perhaps Dachunds?
Nazi furries are definitely “‘I never thought leopards would eat MY face,’ sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.”
There’s a Live Journal Nazi Fur group who disgustingly think that they can take the word “Nazi” and render it, well, cute and harmless.
So they can use all of the symbols of the Nazis as they’re just, well, not representative of those Nazis that killed some six million Jews plus untold homosexuals (the word used at the time) and Gypsies (again the word used at that time).
CatE: and trade unionists, and of course socialists.
@Ryan H: I think you’re being very generous about what actual publishing production timelines look like even when the author hasn’t been months late to their deadline (which XJZ mentioned having been in that original thread) and there isn’t a major and very personal spat going on about whether they’re going to be reassigned to another editor.
Both those things massively disrupt a schedule, and the work of keeping every other project in the pipeline going around that disruption means that yeah, it’s going to take more than a week or even a month to fit that process back together.
And expecting it over the December publishing shutdown — nothing happens in this industry in December — which also coincided with a major COVID wave? Where almost everyone in Ontario was out sick at some point, and every person out sick meant a stall in decision-making processes?
There’s an ideal world where a publisher makes this situation go away in a week, but I’m afraid none of us live there, on several axes. And there are a lot of reasons for that which don’t require us to assume someone’s being malicious.
1) No person should be murdered. Not the Jews being killed and driven from Egypt ages ago, not the Palestinians who were kicked off their land (we’ll give you pennies on the dollar for your land, and if you don’t accept, we’ll take it and you’ll have nothing *actual quote from someone turned off their land when Israel was formed in that land), and the many, many wars and skirmishes thereafter. When anyone in a war claims “God and right are on my side,” according to Abraham Lincoln, “one or both of them is wrong.”
No person should have attacked civilians in that kibbutz, and walls between countries don’t work, as shown again, and again, in China, in the north of England, dividing Berlin, or at the southern border of the US.
Ideological wars and manufactured grievances, encouraged biases and hate speech, are antithetical to understanding, to knowledge, and to peace.
Nazis have been an issue in the Furry community for a while. I say this as someone who is not a member of that particular community, but who has numerous friends who are.
You know an issue is niche big when Rolling Stone has an article about it (from 2017). It was also in the Pixel Scroll in April of 2017, when Rocky Mountain Fur Con (one of the big ones) was cancelled.
“Nazi Furs F*ck Off” (sometimes censored, sometimes not) is apparently a hot-selling T-shirt/button/ribbon at a ton of Furry Cons these days.
(Edit for better paragraph spacing)
@Michael Brooks
I saw that. Looks like at least a fewof XJZ’s followers are trying to dogpile that author, who seems to have set Twitter to private in response.
I’m aware that the spectrum of people who identify as ‘Zionist’ can vary in a spectrum from pro-2 state solution with Palestine with prosecution of Netanyahu as a war criminal down to what CAN and should be described as genocidal toward Palestinians at the other extreme. But the screenshots of the behavior their followers are using to attack this author as ‘pro-genocidal’ seem at the anodyne end of support for Israel, and the attacks use misrepresentation – for example, they use a screenshot of Project Shema’s founder mentioning that Jews were originally forced out of Israel thousands of years ago in an act of colonization to say that the Project AND the author are accusing the Palestinians of being the colonizers when the Project is clearly talking about the ancient Romans…which seems either willful ignorance or malicious bad faith on the people making the ‘pro-genocidal’ accusations.
And maybe XJZ didn’t intend her followers to dogpile that author, and maybe that’s not even the author she meant. But when someone has a significant following on social media, it seems to me that subtweeting such an attack on another author – even if you don’t name them – is likely to send a wave of one’s more trollish fans to pile on whoever MIGHT fit the description of the target, and XJZ would be shockingly naive not to expect that. To have done so anyway is irresponsible at best.
Thanks for highlighting the Prometheus blog (at http://www.lfs.org), which offers a wide variety of posts, reviews, essays, commentary reflecting the broad and diverse range of libertarian thinking regarding freedom-loving (and/or anti-authoritarian) science fiction and fantasy.
Because the focus of the Prometheus Blog is on fiction, with an emphasis on both literary quality and pro-liberty, anti-tyranny, anti-slavery, anti-war themes (and by the way I really like “Rabbit Test,” and happen to be among the vast majority of libertarians who agree with its theme), my post didn’t go into the abortion issue other than to acknowledge that libertarians disagree on that issue (as they do on foreign policy (generally non-interventionist), whether minimal-state government or a society without government (but with privately enforced legal codes prohibiting the initiation of force and fraud) is preferable or possible, where to place proper limits of patents and/or copyrights, and many other key issues. (As they say, the devil is always in the details, but historically and philosophically, modern libertarianism is closely related to both classical liberalism and peaceful anarchism.)
P.S. As I recall, the leading “pro-life” proponents within the libertarian movement happen to be women – and their arguments are not religious, but primarily involving science, philosophy and legal philosophy, especially how you define the border line between a developing fetus and a potentially functional human being.
Meanwhile, fyi, the current editor of Reason magazine, the leading libertarian magazine, happens to be a woman – and imo the most significant and influential past Reason editor, also is female: columnist/writer Virginia Postrel. Her books (most notably, The Future and Its Enemies, The Power of Glamour, and The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World) are illuminating, surprising and well worth reading.)
I sit in the first category, two state solution and for the love of any and all gods put Netanyahu on trial. Which is why I was curious, but scrolling through a month of Xiran Jay Zhao’s xitter feed didn’t enlighten and cost too many brain cells to continue.
Yeah, she IS prolific. Took me a while to find the right link again. I’d screencap but don’t have the brain cells right now.
https://twitter.com/untamedwwx/status/1750426338769412301
Alas, yes, there’s a contingent of “Nazi Furs”, altho they call themselves “Alt Right”, and just accidentally keep making references to Nazi symbology and dog-whistles. And yes, one of their projects is trying to take over Conventions, so they can rule fandom as they feel is their due.
But these are not clever people, there’s a massive overlap with the Sovereign Citizen community. (You have to have a massive amount of self-delusion and narcissism to be a Nazi in the Furry Fandom community!) When I used to do journalism for Furry Fandom, it was apt to work on the assumption that these were absolutely the kind of people who would screw up their tax returns, and was able to render some “non-profit organisations” defunct. Cargo-cult lawyers are notoriously bad at maintaining their books, even when they think they’re clever and using “that one cool trick” organisations.
That’s not to say they’re not dangerous. These are still the kind of people who will SWAT people and set off small bombs in fire escapes.