(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 —
Book: Dangerous Visions edited by Harlan Ellison. More than an anthology- an inventory of the best science fiction minds of the 20th century
— Guillermo del Toro (@RealGDT) February 7, 2016
(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.]
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Because literally the only thing you seem to find wrong with it is the way it was phrased, as if her having an opinion about something is a personal affront to you, and her being assertive in her phrasing is an infringement on your personal liberty. Which is really stupid. Dann’s the same, really. He has no problem with non-binary gender defaults but my God this person phrased her opinion assertively that’s like fascism!
I think it’s plain enough that ‘Redshirts’ and ‘The Day the World Turned Upside Down’ were both a very long way from “the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year” as well.
The problem you have is that you didn’t say “they weren’t good enough for a Hugo”. You raised them as responses to something that was absolutely and completely terrible in all ways possible. They aren’t even close to being in the same category of shitty that Wisdom from My Internet (or Transhuman and Subhuman are. They were both also better than anything that has been promoted by the Puppies thus far.
The other problem you have is that many people liked Redshirts quite a bit. Obviously a lot more than you did. It contains a brilliant meta-narrative made into narrative that works with and satirizes the material it is inspired by. It also won against reasonable competition – competition which, one might note, if the “SJWs are rewarding message fiction” narrative was true, would have beaten Redshirts. So even if you didn’t like it, there is quite obvious quality there that all of the Puppy nominees thus far have lacked.
In a normal year, The Day the World Turned Upside Down would not have won a Hugo. It would have been up against quality competition. It was, however, up against incompetently written crap and incomplete non-stories slated onto the ballot by the Puppies. The fact that it won is on the Pups for preventing anything worthwhile from getting onto the ballot. One might notice that it barely beat “No Award” as well. Obviously, a lot of the regular Hugo voters also found it to be too weak to win. It was, however, so much better than Wisdom from My Internet, that your citing it as a “response” just makes you look like a joke.
However IF it is true that he has indeed been treated as he says in his post, then I will be buying all his future output at Amazon and boycotting Harper Collins.
So, your position is that a publisher is obligated to publish absolutely everything a writer sends them, no matter what they think of it? He claims it violates his free speech for them to not publish his novel unless he rewrote it. Except that his position would eliminate the publisher’s own right to free speech to choose not to give a platform to speech they don’t want to give a platform to. He isn’t being censored: He is free to, and has, publish his book elsewhere. He’s just whining like a spoiled child.
So, I just read Nick Cole’s own account of the Awful Wrong done to him by HarperCollins.
He was not “censored.”
HarperCollins, upon delivery of the manuscript, decided that they didn’t want to publish it without some changes made. That’s their right.
He decided he was not willing to make those changes. That’s his right.
He then took his book to Amazon and published his book there, the way he wanted it.
At this point, everyone should be giggling madly at the idea of calling this “censorship.”
I know a journalist who once wrote an article that started with the line ‘I want to be Martha Stewart’.
An obvious attack on the right of other people to be Martha Stewart, up to and including Martha Stewart herself.
Reading Nick Cole’s own words based on my limited understanding of publishing what happened to him is fairly normal. I hear this kind of thing from writer friends all the time.
A publisher decides what they will and won’t publish. Writers are told to make changes all the time. Major changes to their plot, characters, ending. It’s part of the business if you work for a publisher. They are in charge unless you are able to get out of your contract if you dislike the changes required.
This is not censorship. It’s a business decision. Based on the attitude he is showing in his blog he may be finding himself as blackballed because he is “hard to work with” and isn’t a top bestseller and hasn’t published enough books yet to have a reputation for being on time.
The Phantom: as I mentioned the brand new Nick Cole affair.
Okay, so I had no idea who this guy was, or why I, as a WSFS member and Hugo voter, am somehow responsible for whatever calumny has been inflicted upon him.
And this is what I found out: Cole is claiming that, by choosing not to publish him,
1) his publisher attempted to “ban” his book
2) his publisher censored him, and violated his right to free speech
hahahahahahaha… I’m sure that every author who has ever had a book turned down by a publisher will now want to complain loudly that the publisher has attempted to “ban” their book. They should probably file a lawsuit demanding a large damage settlement as well, while they’re at it. Good luck with that, cupcakes.
And as Mr. Cole does not appear to be muzzled or having any difficulty posting his wildly inaccurate rants on the Internet, the claim of “censorship” and “violation of rights to free speech” are clearly false.
Clearly Mr. Cole is another one of those for whom the Free Market is an abomination, because according to him, publishers should be forced to publish his books (he probably also believes that bookstores should be forced to sell his books, too).
I have this mental image of a 3-year-old, lying on the kitchen floor, drumming his heels and fists against the linoleum, screaming “YOU HAVE TO GIVE ME WHAT I WANT!!!”
@JJ
Yep.
The number of authors who’d be rich now if only publishing companies had to publish their book as submitted. Bwahaha
Dear Commentariat:
I am waiting, oh how I am waiting, for one of y’all to have a job shot out from under you because some middle management twerp doesn’t like your politics.
The screaming and the angstification will be historic in magnitude. Entire watersheds will be cried. A cretin in an office somewhere does not like Democrats/socialists/atheists/name your malfunction, and your work is in the crosshairs. That’s going to be a whole new ballgame I bet.
So maybe you should consider what it might be like if the shoe was on your foot, just for a second or two, hmm? Is that something we should tolerate, or in your case, encourage?
And by the way, Correia correctly predicted every singe thing you’ve said so far.
http://monsterhunternation.com/2016/02/10/left-wing-bias-in-publishing-your-wrongthink-will-be-punished/
“1) There is no bias.”
“2) Let’s quibble over the definition of “censorship” and “banned”.”
“3) This is all a publicity stunt to sell more books.”
And yet you still wonder why there is a Sad Puppies 4. Truly, it is amazing.
The Phantom: I am waiting, oh how I am waiting, for one of y’all to have a job shot out from under you because some middle management twerp doesn’t like your politics.
Except that isn’t what happened with Cole. He has made a conscious choice not to meet market demand — and now he’s complaining that the Free Market should be forced to buy what he gives them, instead of what the market wants.
The Phantom: And yet you still wonder why there is a Sad Puppies 4.
Nobody wonders why there is a Sad Puppies 4. There have always been spoilt brats with an unjustified sense of entitlement who believe that the World (or in this case, Worldcon voters) owe it to them to give them what they want, rather than them having to earn it. This is not a surprise to anyone. Sad Puppies are just another iteration of that.
*sigh*
The Phantom, as always:
blah blah blah SJW blah blah blah fart
Boooor-ing
Seriously, if that’s a concern you should be advocating for stronger unions.
‘Correia correctly predicts how quickly and easily people will see through this sort of nonsense.’
edheadedfemme on February 10, 2016 at 10:51 pm said: “*sigh*”
Get back to me when intersectional feminism suddenly becomes so radioactive nobody will publish it, Red. We’ll see who is sighing then. You don’t seem to realize that all it would take for the Big Five to be taken over by The Church Lady is a couple of corporate takeovers.
Point is my dear, you can have tolerance in the literary world if and only if you practice it yourself. As soon as anything is considered verboten, it’s over.
Nigel on February 10, 2016 at 11:45 pm said: “Seriously, if that’s a concern you should be advocating for stronger unions.”
Nigel, if writers need a union to protect them from the bad behavior of publishers, isn’t that an admission that publishers are abusing their monopolistic position to push their own brand of politics? Because that’s what Cole is talking about, he’s being punished for having something politically inconvenient to a minor functionary said in passing in a book of fiction.
As to actually making a writer’s union, why on Earth would I trade one bunch of politically motivated thugs for another? Better to drive the sons of bitches into bankruptcy by selling more and better work than they do. Won’t be that hard if they keep on making propaganda.
I am waiting, oh how I am waiting, for one of y’all to have a job shot out from under you because some middle management twerp doesn’t like your politics.
It happens all the time. Do you not live in the real world?
Also, do people other than you not have free speech rights as well? Wouldn’t it be a violation of the middle managaer’s (and the company’s) free speech right to dictate who they must or must not promote, and what criteria they may use? We do dictate some things – you can’t make hiring and promotion decisions based on race, but political affiliation has no such protection.
And by the way, Correia correctly predicted every singe thing you’ve said so far.
That’s because Correia can predict that people will respond to Cole’s bullshit with reality. I’m sorry that dealing with the real world is so hard for you. It must make your life quite difficult.
Get back to me when intersectional feminism suddenly becomes so radioactive nobody will publish it, Red.
There are plenty of publishers who would refuse to publish anything containing intersectional feminism. Publishers choose what they want to publish, and what positions they want their platform to be used for. The real question is why this is such a surprise to you and Cole.
Nigel, if writers need a union to protect them from the bad behavior of publishers, isn’t that an admission that publishers are abusing their monopolistic position to push their own brand of politics?
You’ve made a lot of assumptions here, most of which are contradicted by reality. Harper Collins isn’t a monopolist – it has plenty of competition from other publishers, and even with authors (like Cole) who can self-publish if they choose to. You also haven’t demonstrated that choosing whether or not to publish a particular work is “abusing” their position. They are a private organization. They get to decide what to use their resources for.
Because that’s what Cole is talking about, he’s being punished for having something politically inconvenient to a minor functionary said in passing in a book of fiction.
He’s not being punished. He is simply not being published by Harper Collins. He could have been if he had followed their editorial direction. He chose not to. That’s his choice. It is also the publisher’s choice to then choose not to publish the book. Cole then published the book on his own. For him to claim censorship while he is publishing the book in question is ludicrous.
Better to drive the sons of bitches into bankruptcy by selling more and better work than they do. Won’t be that hard if they keep on making propaganda.
Yes, you understand the market better than Harper Collins. Sure. Your disconnect from reality becomes more apparent with every sentence you write.
Ya know…..
One of the benefits of reading a lot of blogs and comments is the education.
I’ve read about all sorts of hurdles in the publishing world. Women that were either afraid to use their own names or “advised by professionals” to use pen names. Writers that were given grief over including non-binary characters; particularly within the YA corner of the literature pool. The author of the one example I’m thinking about indicated that the book didn’t even have any kissing in it, FWIW.
And you know what? I believed them.
Absent some outright proof that they were lying, I took them at their word.
Now we have someone that says that their editor had a response well beyond “there are some wrinkles that need to be ironed out”, and most everyone here is doing their very best to minimize and excuse that editor’s behavior. Did the publisher have a right to not publish it? Sure.
Should they have rejected it just because their editor had a significant personal problem with the abortion aspect of the plot?
Should publishers advise women to use male sounding pen names so as to not scare off male readers?
Should publishers push authors to not include non-binary gendered characters in YA?
Or reaching back into the pre-Puppy annals of history, should Hugo voters consider other legal and legitimate author interests (like owning/running a gun store or working for GOP candidates) before casting their vote? (Set aside the issue of whether or not such considerations actually impacted the final result, please.)
The way to grow a more diverse and tolerant world is not to change the targets for intolerance.
FWIW, I read the first couple chapters of the book in question. The techno-jargon really wasn’t up my alley. The characters bore a whiff of cardboard. But I thought the core idea of the story was really pretty good. At least, if I was editing that book, the first chapter would not have been where I would have started.
And as he is a fellow veteran, I also downloaded a sample of his trilogy. We’ll have to see how it goes.
Regards,
Dann
I believe my point was publishing has been doing this forever. If you want to work with a traditional publisher this is the price you pay. Thank goodness we now have the option of self-publishing and if you don’t like a publishers terms you can walk. Anyone getting into publishing should understand the business.
If you truly want to learn about the publishing business and all the things an editor can insist you do follow authors. Follow people who have been in the business for 20-30 years. Read contracts. Read your contact very carefully with an IP attorney to explain every single word and what it means to you.
But if you get into the business without doing your research and claim censorship over typical business practices you look pretty ignorant. People are going to mock you for being an author and not understanding words or the business you are in.
It took me 6-9 months online to figure out who knew what they were talking about and who didn’t. I’ve also watched people go from being good at giving advice to losing it and had to stop advising prospective authors to follow them. I find new people to follow all the time. It’s hard work finding out who knows their stuff and who is stuck in a bubble. But if you want to do well in the biz it’s important to know what’s true and what isn’t. What your rights are depending on how you publish. What you have to do to get published or what you have to do to do a good job self-publishing.
But one thing you have to do is take responsibility for the choices you make. Springing something controversial on a publisher is not being a good partner. Anyone who doesn’t know abortion is a hot button in America is living in a fantasy world. Nick should have let his publisher know he was going in that direction early on. Not just dropped them a finished manuscript. That’s unprofessional.
Let me see…I had a book proposal (one of an existing series) shot down because the publisher said they just didn’t want to deal with a particular can of worms, and another passed on because it involved animals fighting and the editor wasn’t in to that, even if it was Viking sheep and wolves. I had my agent pass on repping a book once because the book started with a kid wishing his mom was there to protect him, and it hit her too hard in the feels.
Did I scream and cry that I was being censored? Did I wail and gnash my teeth? Did I write the book anyway and demand that they publish it or I was gonna take my ball and go home?
Nah. I handed in a different proposal, that’s all. This stuff happens, and none of them were things I felt strongly enough that I was willing to immolate myself to prove a point.
There are things that maybe I would feel strongly enough about to do that. If an editor came to me and said…oh, that a female character had to be raped in a book or something like that,* well, hand me the gasoline and the matches. But I wouldn’t say that I was being censored, or that my publisher HAD to publish my book without making changes or be…well, fill in the outrage blank here. I’d be pissed, I’d tell people why I was pissed, but they have the right not to publish me.
This is not a job with guaranteed employment, whatever Mr. Phantom thinks. Writing’s a form of self-employment. This is a company placing an order for a product, and if they don’t like the product they get, they don’t have to accept it. There are multiple clauses in most contracts for just that scenario.
Clearly Mr. Cole feels that this was a bridge too far for him. He’s got every right to feel that way over anything he wants. More power to him.
But I’ve had books yanked from production when it became obvious that edits were going to take awhile–it’s not a punitive measure, it’s a realistic assessment that there’s still a lot of back and forth to be done and the schedule needs to reflect that. (Half the time it was them, not me–I’ve had books get pushed out by a year when it became obvious that the editor or art director couldn’t keep up with me. This is aggravating, sure, but it doesn’t mean that they were punishing me for the crime of turning my work in early, it means they had a lot of crap on their plate to deal with!)
It could have gone down exactly as he said. Entirely possible. I don’t know otherwise. But that particular grievance strikes me as…oh…the sort of thing that happens when you’re really mad at someone and anything they do is evidence. “Look at them eating crackers like a jerk!”
And I’m still not sure how this is my fault because I didn’t go see Orson Scott Card’s movie, or whatever it is we’re being accused of, but…uh…okay. Is it okay if I just don’t like Card’s writing? I mean, I read Hart’s Hope and decided I didn’t need to read anything by him ever again, long before the days of the internet. Do I get a pass from having OMGCENSORED him, or do I need a note from my mom?
*which I can’t see happening in a million years, honestly.
Is there any way to advertise for a better class of troll? Maybe it’s just me, in which case never mind, but when I’m in the mood for a discussion I really want a little unpredictability. Also, block quotes or italics.
I actually find Cole’s idea interesting and can see a lot of ways in which it could be used thoughtfully, so it’s not the concept that’s offensive. Even if it was, his publisher declining to publish his book unmodified isn’t censorship and I’m guessing Correia knows it but has decided for strategic reasons (hey, groupthink is a thing on all points of the political spectrum) to pretend that it is.
@RedWombat–
By all means you get a pass on not having censored Orson Scott Card.
Just as long as you don’t kill the dog. Or the cat. Or, probably, the horse. Refrain from those offenses, and it’s all good.
@dann665
Should they have rejected it just because their editor had a significant personal problem with the abortion aspect of the plot?
Well, if I understood Mr. Cole’s plot point correctly…
Why on earth would an AI get so het-up about abortion in the first place? Certainly it would know that in its own life, there was a point before it obtained true consciousness and sentiece, and when it could have been wiped at any time. For example, I just wiped my external hard drive to make room for a new backup. Are you going to argue that I shouldn’t have done that, because there’s actually a little “person” in that hard drive?
Similarly, I would think an artificial intelligence would be bound by science and not by dubious human religious values, and would therefore realize that the real “person” in this scenario is the living breathing sentient woman with an absolute right to her own body.
As far as I’m concerned, the plot point in and of itself does not make any sense. And if Mr. Cole threw a conniption fit when asked about it, and refused to edit it according to the editor’s requests…well, if I was that editor, I probably would have refused to publish the book too.
So why is everybody complaining? Mr. Cole self-published the book, and due to the manufactured “outrage,” will probably be raking in the bucks. Hey, this is no more than the free market at work.
Should they have rejected it just because their editor had a significant personal problem with the abortion aspect of the plot?
Publishing companies hire editors for their judgment. Making decisions like that is part of their job. Note also that the communication from Harper Collins was that keeping the plot point in question intact would have reduced the book’s marketability. It isn’t simply that a single editor had a personal problem with the abortion aspect of the plot. It was that Harper Collins felt it would hurt the sales of the book, apparently to the point where they determined it was not worth publishing.
@RedWombat
I think it’s ok not to like Orson Scott Card. I didn’t care for his writing before I knew anything about him and his politics.
The fighting Viking sheep and wolves sounds interesting. Now that your self-publishing some of your work has that story come back to haunt you?
@Cheryl S
Unfortunately I’ve yet to find a way to get better class trolls.
I also thought his concept sounded interesting. Unfortunately I’ll never find out if he implements it well as I have a policy of not buying books by authors who can’t use words properly on their blog posts. I also find conspiracy theorists usually bore me. Given @Dann states the characters are whiff cardboard and he didn’t find the first chapter super duper exciting. Cover didn’t grab me. I’m afraid he was unable to sell what could have been a good read to me. Oh insulting SJWs didn’t help his cause.
I suspect that might be *why* the manufactured outrage–to sell more of the books.
Well, if we’re talking dubious science, the AI should have come to earth long before to wipe out the hamsters…and rabbits…and lions, langurs, dolphins, wild dogs, gorillas, chimps, sloth bears, ordinary bears, prairie dogs, rats, mice, cheetahs, weasels, pigs, etc etc ad nauseum, all of whom practice infanticide and usually combine it with cannibalism in the bargain. But perhaps they weren’t monitoring the nature shows.
Well it could be that, or it could be a sign that publishers are abusing their position in any number of ways, or it could be just a good idea anyway,
Irregardless of your characterisation, more bargaining power and greater protections would be the simple and obvious answer.
I was advised against going ahead with revisions of a book because it had a female lead. It wasn’t simple sexism – the advisers were all female publishing professionals and there are plenty of highly successful children’s/YA books out there with female leads and everyone seemed to love the female co-protagonist in my first book. I think it boiled down to a new male author building an audience supposedly needing a male lead to draw in young male readers. I think. People tend to be shocked when I tell this story, but because of the professionalism and goodwill of everyone involved it was more depressing than outrageous. Nor was it censorship. Nor monopolistic abuse. If there was a Union, I wouldn’t have taken it to my rep.
I’m rewriting it anyway, with a new male character, but with my female lead given equal time, and I made her black because it occurred to me that it was peculiar that despite there being so many immigrants and immigrant’s children in Ireland, I had none of them in my writing. We’ll see how that goes.
Re: Cole’s Alt-Revolt
After seeing this incident mentioned in another forum, I read the blog post and came away with what seems to be the prevailing opinion here: the publisher had right of first refusal on this book by way of the previous contract, they exercised it, and the rest is drama of dubious veracity. Based on the plot point as described in the post, I concluded that the AI was being very silly and illogical.
Then I went to Amazon to read the beginning of the book, to make sure I was judging it fairly, and… well, the abortion thing is probably the least of its problems. As I said in that other forum:
What I read offended me on some level, but not because of abortion. What offended me was that the author thought this was a finished book, ready to be inflicted upon the world, and whined when a major publisher said it wasn’t. I suppose that does mean his politics offended me, but it was his misunderstanding of censorship and the free market, not his stance on social issues.
@Nigel
Good luck. Make sure to let us know how it goes.
I don’t know why people are shocked it sounds like publishing house reasoning to me. I’m sure they will be marketing it to the male market. Girls will buy it anyways since they are more likely to ignore the marketing as we do.
Unfortunately marketing of books to girls are still given pink covers much of the time. Most of the breakout surprises weren’t. So your publishers may not know how to market a book to both genders. And we all know boys don’t read books with girls as the main protagonist. *rolls eyes* Remember women can be just as sexist. We grow up in the same society after all.
I like how your approaching it. I really do. 😀
The Phantom :
That’s generally the way the free market works. I’ll join with all the other commentators in pointing out that Cole was NOT censored – he’s self-publishing the book in question.
However, I’ll also point out that the plot point mentioned – AI getting into a snit over abortion and assuming it means an Existential Threat to themselves – sounds positively stupid. I probably wouldn’t bother to read the book in the first place if I knew that was a plot point, and I suspect that Harper Collins tried making the point to Cole that critics were going to pan it as stupid.
But, hey, maybe he’s a genius and he can get it to work, so it becomes a NYT bestseller and redefines the AI subgenre.
Or maybe he’s just ginning up a “controversy” where none exists so he can join in in selling yet another low-grade hack sf novel to a niche market of right-wingers pumped up on outrage.
I suspect it’s not just my publishers, but yeah, and I would most definitely see my stuff as aimed at all genders, or at least that’s what I want it to be.
I actually like the way it’s turning out and hope to get back to it during the summer when I have the next book turned in, so yay expert editorial feedback.
Look at them eating crackers like a jerk!
Worse is when they’re “sitting there” doing it. “Sitting there” always seems to make things worse.
redheadedfemme:
More to the point, there’s a goldmine to be delved into in the differences between our views and those of a digital lifeform on the value of life, potentiality vs actuality, and continuity of identity – one only vaguely touched on now by such stories as Richard Morgan’s Kovacs trilogy (the cortical stacks technology).
But I’m pretty certain it’s not going to lead in the direction of conservative Christian morality with regards considering a fetus the same as an adult human.
@Kip W: ““Sitting there” always seems to make things worse.”
Could be worse. They could be strutting like peacocks.
Look at him, just sitting there, eating crackers like a jerk!
That ain’t working, that’s the way you do it — get your money for nothing, and your chicks for free.
@ Rev Bob – Struttin’ around with their goddamn crackers like they freakin’ own the place or something.
That ain’t working, that’s the way you do it — get your money for nothing, and your chicks for free.
Clicks. Your clicks for free. 😉
Get your pixels for nothin and your clicks for free.
I’d love it if Mike used that one. And credit everybody who contributed a word. We’d strut like peacocks.
We’d strut like peacocks.
While eating crackers like jerks.
Ok so I downloaded a sample from Amazon of Nick Cole’s latest. My biggest problem with what I read was that I was unable to suspend disbelief for the way the AI seems to come to the conclusion abortion/genocide/war = humans will delete me if they find out about me. The book would also get CN based on the sample I read: overt sexism, strange handling of disabled people, possible racism.
Granted I went into it biased by his blog post. We had beautiful girl this, beautiful girl that, all being used to express prestige of men/corporations trope which I hate, hate, hate. We know a man is black by his voice – tone – not the language, dialect or slang – wahh?
The book is in need of an editor and a proofreader IMHO.
Mind you I just read a really interesting romance by Laura Leone a.k.a Laura Resnick and have read Heather Rose Jones and T. Kingfisher in the past week so the poor guy is being compared to Hugo/RITA level authors IMHO which may not be fair.
Kip W.: Who all contributed words — you, Cheryl and JJ? Did I miss anybody.
Wait a minute, he didn’t have a contract for this book yet?
Dude. I’ve had books get refused on right-of-first-refusal. Happens all the time. That’s just life. I always turned around and sold them another one. And self-published the one that got passed on, more than once, if it was a story I really felt like telling….I just didn’t cry in my beer about the fact I was doing so.
Mind you, I also didn’t burn the hell outta my bridges online, either. My coping mechanisms tend more toward writing the NEXT book (and occasionally pie.) since nothing soothes the sting like money.
But eh. I wish him luck with his future career either way. May he find his niche and a publisher that thinks he’s worth it.
(Hey, Rev. Bob, was it NeoGaf?)
@Nigel I suspect it’s not just my publishers, but yeah, and I would most definitely see my stuff as aimed at all genders, or at least that’s what I want it to be.
No, unfortunately it’s not just your publisher. It’s a common problem. I think it’s one place a number of indies do better than big publishers. They aren’t thinking in the same limited box terms and are talking directly to readers rather than bookstore buyers. I think it’s going to take big publishers another 5-15 years to catch up with where readers are at. Some imprints are moving faster than others.
Mike
That seems to be it for where it was when I posted that. RedWombat provided the original crackers, but they’re not explicitly in the final formulation. (And they were such good crackers, too.)
@RedWombat
According to his blog post
As I say above he really doesn’t seem to have much understanding of the publishing world. I’ve now read his post 3-4 times. The number of things he seems confused or mistaken over grows with each reading.
I’m mostly against traditional publishing’s contracts which I don’t think someone would guess reading my criticism of Nick Cole’s post. I’m very, very indie. But I believe you should understand the industry not just your little corner of it. There are good reasons to go traditional publishing. Make sure you understand your contract. As an indie you probably have many more contracts you need to understand. Know your industry. Writing is a business. Hopefully it’s fun most of the time.
ETA: Added more to the quote so it made sense
As I say above he really doesn’t seem to have much understanding of the publishing world.
Or contracts. If you read his post it is quite clear that their “threat” was “if you don’t hold up your end of the contract (by working with our editorial direction), then we won’t publish you”. In short, they “threatened” a writer with a signed contract by using the contract.
redheadedfemme: For example, I just wiped my external hard drive to make room for a new backup.
You know, all of a sudden I want to write a story about brand-newborn AIs who go to war against humanity because of Staples commercials . . . or maybe an AI that goes comatose with shock after it stumbles on the Apple website or something?
Thanks, Tasha, I was having a hard time parsing past the vitriol. Well, that’s gonna be an awkward contract resolution, I expect.
Part of the problem, or the perceived problem, is that the age group I’m writing for, a lot of books are bought for kids by adults, and they will often go by various gender codes, boys books for boys, girls books for girls, and they are more likely to buy a boys book for a girl than a girls books for a boy. Anecdotally, it seems to happen all the time, making everyone’s – publishers, booksellers, librarians, teachers, authors and presumably the kids – teeth grind.
@Mary Frances
Now I want to write a story about an AI who comes to sentience in the US and thinks that the prevailing political American attitude to firearms is batcrazy insane. Colossus, but with guns instead of nuclear weapons.
Maybe I could get Castalia House to publish it?
@Nigel Anecdotally, it seems to happen all the time
Yeah. I think I’ve mentioned in the past the need for real market testing in the toy and game industry. Let me add book industry to that. Test marketing where you talk to the final consumer/reader/kid/parent will probably show you your anecdotal evidence is worth bubkas.
@RedWombat
Since he self-published the book either they let him out of the contract and ate the advance/he bought his contract out or he is in for some more ugly surprises.
@Mary Frances & Paul Weimer
Some great story ideas. LOL