Book Burning: Now Available Digitally · 10:21pm Feb 1st, 2019
So by now, if you’ve got your focus enough on the book industry that you’ve got a decent feel for the pulse, you’ve probably heard a little about Amélie Wen Zhao. If not, well, here’s the basics of it.
Zhao was one of those individuals who wanted to be an author. So she worked hard, polished her craft, wrote a trilogy, and with a little (okay, a lot, it’s publishing) luck, got a publisher to bite for her first trilogy.
Note that I used the word “was” rather than “is” in that paragraph. That’s because Zhao no longer is. Why? Well, because the “eternally socially conscious” crowd descended upon her before her books had even been released, slamming her with one-star reviews and accusations of racism to the extent that she contacted her publisher and asked to please cancel the publication.
Why? What grave crime did this woman commit that could see her so hounded that she asked her publisher to cancel everything? Everything, mind, on the first of threebooks, which had already made it as an ARC to early reviewers where the feedback was averaging four out of five stars, no mean feat for a first release? What sort of horrible, socially unjust thing was she doing?
Actually it was two things. One was that she dared write a book where oppression was not based on skin color, but on something else. And, as one one-star Goodreads review put it, that ‘is just bad.’ Because clearly all oppression should be based on skin color, apparently. How dare Zhao write about people finding other ways to oppress people?
But second? She wrote about slavery, and she is not Black. Yes, you read that right. She was attacked for writing a book that had slavery in it because she’s Asian, and as such should not be allowed to write about slavery. Because clearly China never had slavery or anything like that.
So yeah. In the face of mass harassment from these “socially minded” individuals (and sadly, even other authors), Zhao pulled her book, issued an apology, and backed out.
I assume you've seen Larry Correia's glorious, no-fucks-given open letters on the subject?
5006409
Oh yes. And it needed to be said. I'm glad he said it.
This... this is why I have no hope for humanity....
Thanks for posting this ZX, would never have heard of it otherwise
Well, that's disappointing but hardly surprising. I wish that author the best of luck and courage in getting their work read.
Because what use is a book that nobody reads?
A bit late to this blog post, but I've been intermittently following this awful shitshow over on Reddit. The worst thing she did was to apologize. She did absolutely nothing wrong, but she got on her knees and begged for the mob's forgiveness anyway, and now they feel like they've won something of value. And the next author who doesn't "stay in their lane" and write for the approval of a pack of untalented, bitter, spiteful little social morons will get it that much worse.