Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024
Captain Hate 2023
moon_over_vermont 2023
westminsterdogshow 2023
Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022 Dave In Texas 2022
Jesse in D.C. 2022 OregonMuse 2022
redc1c4 2021
Tami 2021
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published.
Contact OrangeEnt for info: maildrop62 at proton dot me
Harper Collins Blacklists Author's Book Because Of a Single Chapter Where He Posited AIs Destroy Humanity For Fear Humanity Will Destroy Them First, as "Inconvenient"
He didn't intend it as an abortion metaphor. Just as a reason for an AI attack. He wanted to give the AIs some motivation, and this was the one he chose.
But his editor at Harper Collins proclaimed herself "deeply offended" by his not-even-a-metaphor metaphor, and began insisting he change the book to keep her politics from being undermined by a mere author.
You know, the guy people are actually paying to read.
But apparently advancing the thought that a brand new life form might see us, humanity, as dangerous because we terminate our young, apparently....that's a ThoughtCrime most heinous over at Harper Collins. Even for one tiny little chapter.
Here’s what happened next. I was not given notes as writers are typically given during the editorial process. I was told by my agent that my editor was upset and "deeply offended" that I had even dared advanced this idea. As though I had no right to have such a thought or even game the idea within a science fiction universe. I was immediately removed from the publication schedule which as far as I know is odd and unprecedented, especially for an author who has had both critical and commercial success. This, being removed from the production schedule, happened before my agent had even communicated the editor’s demand that I immediately change the offending chapter to something more "socially" (read "progressive") acceptable. That seemed odd. How could they possibly have known that I would or would not change it?
Every age is defined by its sins, and ours is defined by Vanity, and narcissism.
That presents itself often in the form of dogmatism, the Sacralizing of each and every belief and preference you have. For if you are utterly perfect and divine, then it must be that your unfailingly perfect mind and heart have selected for you a series of beliefs and preferences, each of which is, in turn, utterly perfect and divine.
And thus does every twitch and wiggle of our Cult of Me society become Sacred, sacralized, holy, unchallengeable. And a sword to wield against all others, for the pristine holiness of the self must be vigorously defended from even a shadow of doubt.
There is no greater dogmatist than the narcissist, for no other person can be such a fervent zealot in his dogmas than the person who believes she is, by definition, perfect.
The dogma of self is the foundational dogma for a welter of dogmas to come after.