Three-book deals. Manuscripts going to auction. Offers from the Big 5 Publishers.
These had all seemed like dreams to me. Literally, dreams towards which I could reach yet never even hope to achieve, to cross that yawning abyss in-between. Wishes from the highest star in the skyat which I could only gaze and gaze and gaze.
Until last month.
I don’t think it’s sunk in until this very moment, when I sat down to write this post — that I am going to be a published author.
I AM GOING TO BE A PUBLISHED AUTHOR!!!!!!
Learning to Love Big Brother
From the American Conservative:
I keep talking about how in the West, we are swiftly moving into a culture that resembles communist totalitarianism — this, based on what people who grew up under communism tell me. It’s not about gulags or secret police; it’s about building a post-liberal culture defined by militant progressive ideology, and enforcing it by destroying, personally and professionally, those who dissent. Part of this is inculcating fear and self-loathing within the minds of people living in those cultures. You don’t need the secret police when you have taught people to police themselves according to your totalitarian principles.
Today the New Totalitarianism took a new scalp, in a way that ought to scare the hell out of all of us, on both the left and the right, who value free speech and inquiry. And it happened to someone born in a communist country.
Amelie Wen Zhao is a Young Adult author whose debut sci-fi/fantasy novel, Blood Heir, was set for a June release from a major publisher, as part of a three-book deal.
When the deal was announced a year ago, Zhao, who is just starting her career, made her excitement public:
She continued:
I’ve kept my writing dream a secret my entire life — less than ten people knew I was working towards finishing a book …
Amelie Wen Zhao
Well, guess what? The book, which had positive buzz (Barnes & Noble called it one of the most anticipate YA releases of the year), has been the subject of a massive Social Justice Warrior pile-on on social media, as Jesse Singal discussed in a tweetstorm.
Very few people have even read the novel, but the mob attacked it as racist for a variety of reasons, one of them being that Zhao created a fantasy world where “oppression is blind to skin color” (this, from the press release).
It’s a fantasy world, and people haven’t even read the book, but the mob was certain that Blood Heir is racist, and that its author — a young woman raised in Peking, but now living in New York City — ought to be shut down.
Today, they got their wish.
They shamed this woman into surrendering her dream! This immigrant from communist China has submitted to the verdict of an online struggle session, straight out of Mao’s Cultural Revolution! As one Twitter commenter said:
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
January 31, 2019 @ 3:45 pm
