Prometheus – finalists

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 5, 2023 PROMETHEUS AWARD FINALISTS CHOSEN FOR BEST NOVEL Works by Carey, Freer, Gallagher, Hanka and Van Stry selected as finalists The Libertarian Futurist Society, a nonprofit all-volunteer international organization of freedom-loving science fiction fans, has announced five finalists for the Best Novel category of the 43rd annual Prometheus Awards. The... Continue Reading →

Help! There’s Religion in my Story!

It's OK. Deities happen to the best of us. There you are, standing by the corner of your desk, minding your own business, when ZOT! a character gets religion. Oh dear. How awkward. Now what? For a while, science fiction in particular was supposed to be faith-free. Oh, the character might use a deity name... Continue Reading →

Push

I was watching the epic melt-down on twitter, with some bemusement. Oh, there is a fair amount of 'why would I care?' It was never my playground, and probably never will be (I am davefreersf for what it is worth). But seriously, 'if you don't like what someone says, block them', seemed fairly intuitive to... Continue Reading →

Books as a propaganda medium

I recently came across a series of tweets by Sergej Sumlenny, discussing how Russia had used books, as well as other entertainment media, to prepare its citizens for war in general, prior to its invasion of Ukraine.  Here's an excerpt from Threadreader's aggregation of the tweets. Let's start a long thread about how Russian book... Continue Reading →

State Supported Artists…

The image of the starving artist/writer/musician in the garret has existed for a long, long time. So has the fact, in many cases. In many cases, too, at the same time as producing books or art or music that endured and is loved by millions. In sf, H Beam Piper springs to mind, but the... Continue Reading →

Censorship rears its ugly head again

It seems that anti-Semitic prejudice is impacting the publishing world, particularly in Europe, but here in the USA as well. The publishing world today is extremely woke. And woke-approved manuscripts on Jewish themes must now pass a simple purity test: Thou shalt not portray Israel or Zionism in a positive light. American novelist and former... Continue Reading →

The privatization of censorship

Fred Reed asks some pointed questions about censorship, and how it's been outsourced from "officialdom" to private companies.  Here's an excerpt. Governments never like freedom of expression. In America, though, there was the First Amendment to which ritual obeisance need be paid. How to prevent expression of Bad Thought? The answer was to have private... Continue Reading →

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