6 ms·

Banned by the Publisher

41 points by nkurz 11y ago

amyjess 11y ago
> In other words, they were attempting to effectively ban a book because they felt the ideas and concepts I was writing about were dangerous and more importantly, not in keeping with their philosophical ideals. No, they were exercising their private property rights to publish only what they want to publish.
- erbo 11y ago
  Larry Correia says [1] that "ban" would not be the right word here, but what they were doing was effectively censoring his work. And the reason they did so, in the instant case, was because of politics. Period. [1] http://monsterhunternation.com/2016/02/10/left-wing-bias-in-publishing-your-wrongthink-will-be-punished/ http://monsterhunternation.com/2016/02/10/left-wing-bias-in-...
  - tyingq 11y ago
    The post you reference also mentions that the resulting free publicity is boosting Nick's sales of his existing books. So, at least there's some upside to his current situation.
    - erbo 11y ago
      Which is point #3 that Correia predicted would be used to attack Cole: "This is all a publicity stunt to sell more books." Correia is not necessarily condemning that, of course, but he did also warn Cole that, as a result, he is likely to be slandered by the CHORFs [1] with every vile accusation imaginable. I'll let you decide if higher book sales is sufficient compensation for having your name dragged through the mud like that. [1] "Cliquish, Holier-than-thou, Obnoxious, Reactionary, Fanatics." A coinage by Brad Torgersen. See e.g. https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/chorf-its-a-word-now/ https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/chorf-its-a-...
      - tyingq 11y ago
        er, I didn't attack anyone, nor did I imply anything about "sufficient compensation". I said "some upside".
  - deong 11y ago
    To which I'd say, "And?" The fact that you say something controversial doesn't change the relationship between an author and a publisher from "I'll publish your book if I think it's good and will sell" into "I'll publish your book absolutely because it makes a political stand". He's free to find another publisher, or as in this case, self-publish. This seems about as clear a case of "move along, nothing to see here" as the internet is capable of providing.
    - chc 11y ago
      You seem to be responding to a different situation than the one presented here. At least according to the OP, this author wasn't taking a political stand — it was just a small plot detail. They didn't even ask him to change it. Somebody saw something they didn't like and attempted to punish the author in the most severe way available to them. This is their right, of course, but you have the right to do lots of lousy things, including burn books.
      - mikeash 11y ago
        They did ask him to change it. And the "punishment" was just to not publish him. Hardly severe, given the large number of other publishers available, and now the pretty good option of going without a publisher altogether. "Publisher asks author to change book" hardly seems worthy of attention.
        chc 11y ago
        According to the author, they had already killed the book before they even sent him any notes. That seems to be the biggest part of what he found so upsetting.
        mikeash 11y ago
        The book was removed from the schedule, but I imagine it could have been reinstated (reschedule?) if the requested changes had been made. Certainly a dick move by the publisher if it went down like that, but the choice to change the offending section seems to have been there.
  - sleepybrett 11y ago
    As much as this isn't an atttempt to "ban" the book it also isn't an attempt to "censor" the book. It's simply a publisher saying 'We don't want to publish this book in this form". And they could say that for any reason, including a political one. Now, he may have signed a contract with this publisher that has the literary equivalent to a non-compete in it ( "You can only publish through us" ), but that's on him.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - x0x0 11y ago
    Larry finds liberal bias in any outcome in which his results aren't what he perceives they ought to be. He also is a poor writer (imo obviously; I've half-read two books before quitting because I was bored) who likes to write superman books and is offended by any reader that prefers moderately more complex fiction than when the reader was an 8 year old child. To top it off, Larry is in the midst of a 3-year (and counting!) tantrum that the Hugos include, and sometimes give awards to, anything but straight white men. So, you know, giant grain of salt. ps -- Daniel Wilson wrote Robopocalypse [1] which I found a good read; so there's at least one publisher in the sci-fi realm that continues to publish robot apocalypse fiction [1] http://www.amazon.com/Robopocalypse-Contemporaries-Daniel-H-Wilson/dp/0307740803 http://www.amazon.com/Robopocalypse-Contemporaries-Daniel-H-...
    - erbo 11y ago
      Correia has also made a good deal of money off his books (unsurprising, since "GET PAID" is part of his core mission statement as a writer). Apparently, he's such a poor writer that people are attempting to drown him in dollars in an attempt to make him stop. ;-)
      - x0x0 11y ago
        I have no idea about his financial results, but his ongoing tantrum that some people don't like his books would lead most observers to believe they aren't awesome. You don't generally see successful authors mocking folks who don't like their stuff.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > Larry Correia says [1] that "ban" would not be the right word here, but what they were doing was effectively censoring his work. And the reason they did so, in the instant case, was because of politics. And, if so...which we have only his claim for, and its quite possible the publisher had other reasons, assuming its actually true that they refused it...so what? The right to make political choices about what you publish is exactly the central and most important part of the First Amendment's freedom of the press. It does become worrying where there is a press monopoly or conspiring oligopoly preventing publication of certain political views and, so, suppressing them in the marketplace of ideas, but that's not happening here, and the evidence is the fact that his book is being published, and available through the dominant retail channel for such works.
    - erbo 11y ago
      There is a de facto conspiring oligopoly preventing publication of certain political views, which Correia knows about and mentioned in his post because he's experienced it firsthand. It's not a direct conspiracy, to be sure, but it's a de facto conspiracy because the publishing executives are all part of the same culture and have the same views. What you're engaging in is part of the second way Correia predicted that Cole would be attacked and dismissed, namely, by quibbling over the exact definitions of "censorship" and "banned." Oh, and we have Cole's own words about why the publisher rejected the book. The publisher yanked the book of the schedule, without even asking first if Cole would revise the point that they found unacceptable.
      - dragonwriter 11y ago
        > There is a de facto conspiring oligopoly preventing publication of certain political views, which Correia knows about and mentioned in his post because he's experienced it firsthand. There is not a conspiring oligopoly preventing publication of the political views at issue, which I know about and mention in this post because those views are in fact published in works that are available through major commercial channels. There may be a group of major publishers with biases which result in them not publishing the views that Correia and Cole complain about being "banned", but it is not only not a "ban", but its not a conspiring (or even independently acting in the same interest -- which seems to be what you mean with the "de facto conspiracy" description) oligopoly with the power to prevent the views from being widely published and the works embodying the views from being readily available through major outlets. As is evidenced by the fact that the views are widely published, and the works containing them are readily available through major outlets. Including, emphatically, the work of Cole's that this thread concerns. > What you're engaging in is part of the second way Correia predicted that Cole would be attacked and dismissed, namely, by quibbling over the exact definitions of "censorship" and "banned." I absolutely agree that this is censorship. The right to censor works one publishes is central the right of freedom of the press. No quibbling there. But when it comes to "ban", yes, I certainly disagree that with any description that this is a ban -- not only by a strict definition, but even by a loose analogy. I certainly agree that were there an alignment (conspiratorial or not) of publishers collectively wielding enough power over the market that could and did prevent certain political views from receiving wide circulation, that would be a lot like a ban. And, I'm open to the idea that, for some views, such an alignment does exist. But what happened to Cole is not evidence of anything that is even remotely similar to a ban. Because the book is being published, in a manner which makes it available through the single most significant outlet for retailing books, one which has a majority of the market for books. > Oh, and we have Cole's own words about why the publisher rejected the book. Cole is, obviously, not a neutral source of information on the matter.
  - chrismcb 11y ago
    I thought they did it because of sales.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
Someone1234 11y ago
They're using "ban a book" to elicit a specific response here. Look; a publisher has the right to publish or not any work they wish for any reason they wish. If the publisher had turned around and tried to stop the author from publishing this themselves (via indie routes) or going to another publisher, sure, I'd agree that that would be akin to trying to "ban" something. But the reality is here that the publisher just opted out of publishing this specific works, as is their right. Sorry, author, but you sound bitter. Move on.
- ricketycricket 11y ago
  The publisher absolutely has the right to not publish the book. It's also very possible the author is being a bit unreasonable and bitter. We are only getting one side of the story. However, I read this more as a warning that there is a bias in the publishing world and to not look at currently-published works in the aggregate as an unbiased body of work.
scandox 11y ago
I'm curious why the author's agent didn't just approach other mainstream publishers with it. After all, if he's a critical and commercial success with HarperCollins then it's very likely that someone, somewhere will take a serious interest. Now I know that the publishing world has conglomerated a lot in the last 20 years...but still there are other players. edit: and editors at other imprints owned by the same group will often take a different view.
tedks 11y ago
No, the publisher just didn't want to publish anti-choice drek. It's 2016 now and white men like this author need to accept that women have control over their own bodies. >I didn’t want to do the same old same superior-vision-Matrix/Termintor-style-A.I.-hates-humanity-because-they’re-better-than-us schlock. No, you wanted to write anti-choice scare propaganda. And fuck you for trying. What's next, the machines rise up because they want lebensraum for the white race?
- tyingq 11y ago
  Not trying to be snarky, honestly. But, this is fiction. Wouldn't you expect a fair amount of viewpoints you didn't agree with to be in a work of fiction? Even outrageous viewpoints? I do agree that publishers have the latitude to decide what they publish, but it seems odd to complain about fictional viewpoints.
- griffinmb 11y ago
  I didn't see it as anti-choice. The explanation and reality-show aspect seemed a little dumb, but I thought the core idea was really intriguing. I feel like in Sci-Fi, there's often this dynamic between Creator/AI as a Parent/Child relationship, so the idea that a nascent artificial intelligence would perceive abortion as threatening or scary is, in my opinion, a super cool idea. I didn't read his book, so maybe it really was just anti-choice drek. But from only reading his blog post, it sounds to me like a nugget of an interesting idea with not-as-interesting execution.
  - tedks 11y ago
    It's anti-choice drek because it implicitly assumes personhood of a fetus, and in fact, starts an inter-species war over the assumption of personhood of a fetus. The correct corollary between a fetus would be the uncompiled source code of an AI, or possibly an unexecuted binary. Neither are alive and certainly neither are conscious. An AI literally exterminating humanity because "abortion is murder" is clearly self-insertion on the part of the author in a way that civil society should not tolerate any more than an AI being a white nationalist.
Mtinie 11y ago
This article gives us one passionate side of the situation. It would be nice to be a fly on the wall during the lead up conversations between HarperCollins and Mr. Cole's agent prior to the final decision being made. Perhaps the story is as straight forward as Mr. Cole represented it; that HarperCollins declined to publish the novel because of the nature of the AI conflict described. Personally, it strikes me as oddly simplistic, and lacking in other context, given the success that Mr. Cole's previous work brought the publisher.
largehotcoffee 11y ago
We're in a similar situation except with Amazon being the one banning our books. I am the owner of FAKKU, an English publisher of erotic manga (Japanese comics). Despite there being a category on Amazon for our specific material and previously receiving approval to list our books behind an "Adults Only" flag, our books have been banned. If you're wondering what that looks like from the customer perspective, you can see (or not see) our banned best sellers here: http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Erotica-Manga/zgbs/books/7406072011 http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Erotica-Manga/zgbs/...
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  Actually, I think being blocked by a retail channel with the absolute dominance Amazon has is a lot more significant than being turned down by a publisher. The former is a significant bar to reaching customers, the latter not so much.
joesmo 11y ago
It's terrible but thinking Amazon is a haven from censorship is wrong. They can and will close your account for any reason or no reason at all. If they didn't agree with this idea, they'd kill the book, guaranteed.
parfe 11y ago
Why is this blatant marketing allowed on HN? This is the same ploy as the "banned" super bowl commercial scam. Submit something obviously unacceptable and then cry foul when it gets refused hoping to get views via the media attention.
- paolomaffei 11y ago
  I agree that this sound like self-promoting, but calling that bit of the book "obviously unacceptable"?
  - parfe 11y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh0nkoJgDM8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh0nkoJgDM8 It's pretty simple. Get rejected, complain about how the man is holding you down, and hope the free publicity rolls in. It's marketing.
luketheobscure 11y ago
Interesting how I felt total empathy for the author up until about 2/3 of the way through, when I started to wonder if he was, perhaps, just a jerk. Probably somewhere around when he started comparing his publisher to the Nazis.
- MCRed 11y ago
  He didn't compare the publisher to nazis. He talked about one of the essential components that allowed the nazis to have power in germany. The nazis existed. They were real. I don't like the modern fad of holocaust revisionism that says "anyone who talks about the nazis is ipso facto unable to make an argument (because the nazis were not real and there is not possibility that there could be a valid comparison between the conditions that allowed them to exist and conditions in current society-- because the nazis weren't real.)"
pkinsky 11y ago
I see a few people pointing out that the book wasn't really banned, in the sense that it was not published as a direct result of government intervention. But is this really a meaningful distinction? The book was prevented from being published in approximately the same way a book advocating communism would have been effectively banned from publication in the 1950s (via whisper campaigns, implied or explicit threats of blacklisting, etc). edit: sometimes this is justifiable: for example, a book titled 'Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong and Kim Jong Un: misunderstood heroes?' would probably also be effectively banned via social pressure.
- Someone1234 11y ago
  I would absolutely agree if several publishers were colluding to make it so an author couldn't publish. That is what happened during mccarthyism. However in this specific case we're talking about one publisher not agreeing to publish. There's no presented information to assume collusion between publishers or some larger game at play to suppress this book or the author. I absolutely think that private organisations can effectively ban something without government intervention. I just don't think that happened here.
  - pkinsky 11y ago
    > I absolutely think that private organisations can effectively ban something without government intervention. I just don't think that happened here. Oh, absolutely. To be honest I'm not terribly interested in the specifics of this case, just the general idea that today, when so much communication happens on privately-owned platforms, corporate censorship is not censorship because only governments censor.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > I see a few people pointing out that the book wasn't really banned, in the sense that it was not published as a direct result of government intervention. But is this really a meaningful distinction? Yes, there is a meaningful distinction between a publisher deciding not to publish a book, and a book being banned. While there may certainly be conditions where private action is so powerful in a given marketplace it is substantially equivalent to a government prohibition and raises the same issues, this isn't one. There are other publishers, and there has never been a time when self-publishing and bypassing major publishers -- especially for an already successful writer -- is easier. The fact that this whole complaint is actually a promotional piece for the book, which is in fact being published through Amazon's direct publishing offering, demonstrates exactly why the distinction between a publisher choosing not to publish a book and the book actually being banned is a meaningful -- night-and-day -- distinction. > The book was prevented from being published No, it was, in fact, not prevented from being published. The first two sentences of the article are "I launched a book this week and I went Indie with it. Indie means I released it on Amazon via Kindle Direct Publishing."
mikeash 11y ago
Next time I'm turned down for something, I should write a blog post complaining about how I've been "banned." What next, "banned from acting" when the author auditions for a commercial but the producers pick someone else?
- dh997 11y ago
  Controversy sells, also sadly evidenced by the 2016 US political process. :/
mst 11y ago
Having gone to the trouble of reading said first chapter ... wut. It's the "AI sees a human do something that can be interpreted as callous, starts thinking, decides maybe this is going to be a problem" trope (and, actually, as a firmly pro-choice person I find that the human action in question being one I wouldn't condemn actually adds to the horror inherent to the trope). The ranty and bitter tone of the author does him no favours, certainly, but taking him off the publication list before contacting him, and for something so (to my mind) frankly silly, quite understandably would feel like enough of a kick in the teeth that irrational anger is pretty understandable.
anotherevan 11y ago
Oh God. A publisher didn't like his work of fiction and perhaps acted unprofessionally and he cries about free speech and concentration camps, all in the same long winded paragraph. Cry me a river. Free speech protects you from censorship from the government, not from a private company that doesn't like your book and so chooses not to invest their money and time in publishing it. Free speech does not mean other people have to listen to you, take you seriously, or do what you want them to. Free speech means you can throw your little tantrum in public and the government cannot tell you to shut the fuck up. Rightly so, that is left to society in general to do.

41 points by nkurz 11y ago

> In other words, they were attempting to effectively ban a book because they felt the ideas and concepts I was writing about were dangerous and more importantly, not in keeping with their philosophical ideals. No, they were exercising their private property rights to publish only what they want to publish.

erbo 11y ago
Larry Correia says [1] that "ban" would not be the right word here, but what they were doing was effectively censoring his work. And the reason they did so, in the instant case, was because of politics. Period. [1] http://monsterhunternation.com/2016/02/10/left-wing-bias-in-publishing-your-wrongthink-will-be-punished/ http://monsterhunternation.com/2016/02/10/left-wing-bias-in-...
- tyingq 11y ago
  The post you reference also mentions that the resulting free publicity is boosting Nick's sales of his existing books. So, at least there's some upside to his current situation.
  - erbo 11y ago
    Which is point #3 that Correia predicted would be used to attack Cole: "This is all a publicity stunt to sell more books." Correia is not necessarily condemning that, of course, but he did also warn Cole that, as a result, he is likely to be slandered by the CHORFs [1] with every vile accusation imaginable. I'll let you decide if higher book sales is sufficient compensation for having your name dragged through the mud like that. [1] "Cliquish, Holier-than-thou, Obnoxious, Reactionary, Fanatics." A coinage by Brad Torgersen. See e.g. https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/chorf-its-a-word-now/ https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/chorf-its-a-...
    - tyingq 11y ago
      er, I didn't attack anyone, nor did I imply anything about "sufficient compensation". I said "some upside".
- deong 11y ago
  To which I'd say, "And?" The fact that you say something controversial doesn't change the relationship between an author and a publisher from "I'll publish your book if I think it's good and will sell" into "I'll publish your book absolutely because it makes a political stand". He's free to find another publisher, or as in this case, self-publish. This seems about as clear a case of "move along, nothing to see here" as the internet is capable of providing.
  - chc 11y ago
    You seem to be responding to a different situation than the one presented here. At least according to the OP, this author wasn't taking a political stand — it was just a small plot detail. They didn't even ask him to change it. Somebody saw something they didn't like and attempted to punish the author in the most severe way available to them. This is their right, of course, but you have the right to do lots of lousy things, including burn books.
    - mikeash 11y ago
      They did ask him to change it. And the "punishment" was just to not publish him. Hardly severe, given the large number of other publishers available, and now the pretty good option of going without a publisher altogether. "Publisher asks author to change book" hardly seems worthy of attention.
      - chc 11y ago
        According to the author, they had already killed the book before they even sent him any notes. That seems to be the biggest part of what he found so upsetting.
        mikeash 11y ago
        The book was removed from the schedule, but I imagine it could have been reinstated (reschedule?) if the requested changes had been made. Certainly a dick move by the publisher if it went down like that, but the choice to change the offending section seems to have been there.
- sleepybrett 11y ago
  As much as this isn't an atttempt to "ban" the book it also isn't an attempt to "censor" the book. It's simply a publisher saying 'We don't want to publish this book in this form". And they could say that for any reason, including a political one. Now, he may have signed a contract with this publisher that has the literary equivalent to a non-compete in it ( "You can only publish through us" ), but that's on him.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- x0x0 11y ago
  Larry finds liberal bias in any outcome in which his results aren't what he perceives they ought to be. He also is a poor writer (imo obviously; I've half-read two books before quitting because I was bored) who likes to write superman books and is offended by any reader that prefers moderately more complex fiction than when the reader was an 8 year old child. To top it off, Larry is in the midst of a 3-year (and counting!) tantrum that the Hugos include, and sometimes give awards to, anything but straight white men. So, you know, giant grain of salt. ps -- Daniel Wilson wrote Robopocalypse [1] which I found a good read; so there's at least one publisher in the sci-fi realm that continues to publish robot apocalypse fiction [1] http://www.amazon.com/Robopocalypse-Contemporaries-Daniel-H-Wilson/dp/0307740803 http://www.amazon.com/Robopocalypse-Contemporaries-Daniel-H-...
  - erbo 11y ago
    Correia has also made a good deal of money off his books (unsurprising, since "GET PAID" is part of his core mission statement as a writer). Apparently, he's such a poor writer that people are attempting to drown him in dollars in an attempt to make him stop. ;-)
    - x0x0 11y ago
      I have no idea about his financial results, but his ongoing tantrum that some people don't like his books would lead most observers to believe they aren't awesome. You don't generally see successful authors mocking folks who don't like their stuff.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > Larry Correia says [1] that "ban" would not be the right word here, but what they were doing was effectively censoring his work. And the reason they did so, in the instant case, was because of politics. And, if so...which we have only his claim for, and its quite possible the publisher had other reasons, assuming its actually true that they refused it...so what? The right to make political choices about what you publish is exactly the central and most important part of the First Amendment's freedom of the press. It does become worrying where there is a press monopoly or conspiring oligopoly preventing publication of certain political views and, so, suppressing them in the marketplace of ideas, but that's not happening here, and the evidence is the fact that his book is being published, and available through the dominant retail channel for such works.
  - erbo 11y ago
    There is a de facto conspiring oligopoly preventing publication of certain political views, which Correia knows about and mentioned in his post because he's experienced it firsthand. It's not a direct conspiracy, to be sure, but it's a de facto conspiracy because the publishing executives are all part of the same culture and have the same views. What you're engaging in is part of the second way Correia predicted that Cole would be attacked and dismissed, namely, by quibbling over the exact definitions of "censorship" and "banned." Oh, and we have Cole's own words about why the publisher rejected the book. The publisher yanked the book of the schedule, without even asking first if Cole would revise the point that they found unacceptable.
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      > There is a de facto conspiring oligopoly preventing publication of certain political views, which Correia knows about and mentioned in his post because he's experienced it firsthand. There is not a conspiring oligopoly preventing publication of the political views at issue, which I know about and mention in this post because those views are in fact published in works that are available through major commercial channels. There may be a group of major publishers with biases which result in them not publishing the views that Correia and Cole complain about being "banned", but it is not only not a "ban", but its not a conspiring (or even independently acting in the same interest -- which seems to be what you mean with the "de facto conspiracy" description) oligopoly with the power to prevent the views from being widely published and the works embodying the views from being readily available through major outlets. As is evidenced by the fact that the views are widely published, and the works containing them are readily available through major outlets. Including, emphatically, the work of Cole's that this thread concerns. > What you're engaging in is part of the second way Correia predicted that Cole would be attacked and dismissed, namely, by quibbling over the exact definitions of "censorship" and "banned." I absolutely agree that this is censorship. The right to censor works one publishes is central the right of freedom of the press. No quibbling there. But when it comes to "ban", yes, I certainly disagree that with any description that this is a ban -- not only by a strict definition, but even by a loose analogy. I certainly agree that were there an alignment (conspiratorial or not) of publishers collectively wielding enough power over the market that could and did prevent certain political views from receiving wide circulation, that would be a lot like a ban. And, I'm open to the idea that, for some views, such an alignment does exist. But what happened to Cole is not evidence of anything that is even remotely similar to a ban. Because the book is being published, in a manner which makes it available through the single most significant outlet for retailing books, one which has a majority of the market for books. > Oh, and we have Cole's own words about why the publisher rejected the book. Cole is, obviously, not a neutral source of information on the matter.
- chrismcb 11y ago
  I thought they did it because of sales.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

Someone1234 11y ago

They're using "ban a book" to elicit a specific response here. Look; a publisher has the right to publish or not any work they wish for any reason they wish. If the publisher had turned around and tried to stop the author from publishing this themselves (via indie routes) or going to another publisher, sure, I'd agree that that would be akin to trying to "ban" something. But the reality is here that the publisher just opted out of publishing this specific works, as is their right. Sorry, author, but you sound bitter. Move on.

ricketycricket 11y ago
The publisher absolutely has the right to not publish the book. It's also very possible the author is being a bit unreasonable and bitter. We are only getting one side of the story. However, I read this more as a warning that there is a bias in the publishing world and to not look at currently-published works in the aggregate as an unbiased body of work.

scandox 11y ago

I'm curious why the author's agent didn't just approach other mainstream publishers with it. After all, if he's a critical and commercial success with HarperCollins then it's very likely that someone, somewhere will take a serious interest. Now I know that the publishing world has conglomerated a lot in the last 20 years...but still there are other players. edit: and editors at other imprints owned by the same group will often take a different view.

tedks 11y ago

No, the publisher just didn't want to publish anti-choice drek. It's 2016 now and white men like this author need to accept that women have control over their own bodies. >I didn’t want to do the same old same superior-vision-Matrix/Termintor-style-A.I.-hates-humanity-because-they’re-better-than-us schlock. No, you wanted to write anti-choice scare propaganda. And fuck you for trying. What's next, the machines rise up because they want lebensraum for the white race?

tyingq 11y ago
Not trying to be snarky, honestly. But, this is fiction. Wouldn't you expect a fair amount of viewpoints you didn't agree with to be in a work of fiction? Even outrageous viewpoints? I do agree that publishers have the latitude to decide what they publish, but it seems odd to complain about fictional viewpoints.
griffinmb 11y ago
I didn't see it as anti-choice. The explanation and reality-show aspect seemed a little dumb, but I thought the core idea was really intriguing. I feel like in Sci-Fi, there's often this dynamic between Creator/AI as a Parent/Child relationship, so the idea that a nascent artificial intelligence would perceive abortion as threatening or scary is, in my opinion, a super cool idea. I didn't read his book, so maybe it really was just anti-choice drek. But from only reading his blog post, it sounds to me like a nugget of an interesting idea with not-as-interesting execution.
- tedks 11y ago
  It's anti-choice drek because it implicitly assumes personhood of a fetus, and in fact, starts an inter-species war over the assumption of personhood of a fetus. The correct corollary between a fetus would be the uncompiled source code of an AI, or possibly an unexecuted binary. Neither are alive and certainly neither are conscious. An AI literally exterminating humanity because "abortion is murder" is clearly self-insertion on the part of the author in a way that civil society should not tolerate any more than an AI being a white nationalist.

Mtinie 11y ago

This article gives us one passionate side of the situation. It would be nice to be a fly on the wall during the lead up conversations between HarperCollins and Mr. Cole's agent prior to the final decision being made. Perhaps the story is as straight forward as Mr. Cole represented it; that HarperCollins declined to publish the novel because of the nature of the AI conflict described. Personally, it strikes me as oddly simplistic, and lacking in other context, given the success that Mr. Cole's previous work brought the publisher.

largehotcoffee 11y ago

We're in a similar situation except with Amazon being the one banning our books. I am the owner of FAKKU, an English publisher of erotic manga (Japanese comics). Despite there being a category on Amazon for our specific material and previously receiving approval to list our books behind an "Adults Only" flag, our books have been banned. If you're wondering what that looks like from the customer perspective, you can see (or not see) our banned best sellers here: http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Erotica-Manga/zgbs/books/7406072011 http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Erotica-Manga/zgbs/...

dragonwriter 11y ago
Actually, I think being blocked by a retail channel with the absolute dominance Amazon has is a lot more significant than being turned down by a publisher. The former is a significant bar to reaching customers, the latter not so much.

joesmo 11y ago

It's terrible but thinking Amazon is a haven from censorship is wrong. They can and will close your account for any reason or no reason at all. If they didn't agree with this idea, they'd kill the book, guaranteed.

parfe 11y ago

Why is this blatant marketing allowed on HN? This is the same ploy as the "banned" super bowl commercial scam. Submit something obviously unacceptable and then cry foul when it gets refused hoping to get views via the media attention.

paolomaffei 11y ago
I agree that this sound like self-promoting, but calling that bit of the book "obviously unacceptable"?
- parfe 11y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh0nkoJgDM8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh0nkoJgDM8 It's pretty simple. Get rejected, complain about how the man is holding you down, and hope the free publicity rolls in. It's marketing.

luketheobscure 11y ago

Interesting how I felt total empathy for the author up until about 2/3 of the way through, when I started to wonder if he was, perhaps, just a jerk. Probably somewhere around when he started comparing his publisher to the Nazis.

MCRed 11y ago
He didn't compare the publisher to nazis. He talked about one of the essential components that allowed the nazis to have power in germany. The nazis existed. They were real. I don't like the modern fad of holocaust revisionism that says "anyone who talks about the nazis is ipso facto unable to make an argument (because the nazis were not real and there is not possibility that there could be a valid comparison between the conditions that allowed them to exist and conditions in current society-- because the nazis weren't real.)"

pkinsky 11y ago

I see a few people pointing out that the book wasn't really banned, in the sense that it was not published as a direct result of government intervention. But is this really a meaningful distinction? The book was prevented from being published in approximately the same way a book advocating communism would have been effectively banned from publication in the 1950s (via whisper campaigns, implied or explicit threats of blacklisting, etc). edit: sometimes this is justifiable: for example, a book titled 'Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong and Kim Jong Un: misunderstood heroes?' would probably also be effectively banned via social pressure.

Someone1234 11y ago
I would absolutely agree if several publishers were colluding to make it so an author couldn't publish. That is what happened during mccarthyism. However in this specific case we're talking about one publisher not agreeing to publish. There's no presented information to assume collusion between publishers or some larger game at play to suppress this book or the author. I absolutely think that private organisations can effectively ban something without government intervention. I just don't think that happened here.
- pkinsky 11y ago
  > I absolutely think that private organisations can effectively ban something without government intervention. I just don't think that happened here. Oh, absolutely. To be honest I'm not terribly interested in the specifics of this case, just the general idea that today, when so much communication happens on privately-owned platforms, corporate censorship is not censorship because only governments censor.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> I see a few people pointing out that the book wasn't really banned, in the sense that it was not published as a direct result of government intervention. But is this really a meaningful distinction? Yes, there is a meaningful distinction between a publisher deciding not to publish a book, and a book being banned. While there may certainly be conditions where private action is so powerful in a given marketplace it is substantially equivalent to a government prohibition and raises the same issues, this isn't one. There are other publishers, and there has never been a time when self-publishing and bypassing major publishers -- especially for an already successful writer -- is easier. The fact that this whole complaint is actually a promotional piece for the book, which is in fact being published through Amazon's direct publishing offering, demonstrates exactly why the distinction between a publisher choosing not to publish a book and the book actually being banned is a meaningful -- night-and-day -- distinction. > The book was prevented from being published No, it was, in fact, not prevented from being published. The first two sentences of the article are "I launched a book this week and I went Indie with it. Indie means I released it on Amazon via Kindle Direct Publishing."

mikeash 11y ago

Next time I'm turned down for something, I should write a blog post complaining about how I've been "banned." What next, "banned from acting" when the author auditions for a commercial but the producers pick someone else?

dh997 11y ago
Controversy sells, also sadly evidenced by the 2016 US political process. :/

mst 11y ago

Having gone to the trouble of reading said first chapter ... wut. It's the "AI sees a human do something that can be interpreted as callous, starts thinking, decides maybe this is going to be a problem" trope (and, actually, as a firmly pro-choice person I find that the human action in question being one I wouldn't condemn actually adds to the horror inherent to the trope). The ranty and bitter tone of the author does him no favours, certainly, but taking him off the publication list before contacting him, and for something so (to my mind) frankly silly, quite understandably would feel like enough of a kick in the teeth that irrational anger is pretty understandable.

anotherevan 11y ago

Oh God. A publisher didn't like his work of fiction and perhaps acted unprofessionally and he cries about free speech and concentration camps, all in the same long winded paragraph. Cry me a river. Free speech protects you from censorship from the government, not from a private company that doesn't like your book and so chooses not to invest their money and time in publishing it. Free speech does not mean other people have to listen to you, take you seriously, or do what you want them to. Free speech means you can throw your little tantrum in public and the government cannot tell you to shut the fuck up. Rightly so, that is left to society in general to do.