We. Are. Amused.

Meanwhile, The Collapsing Empire on Kindle is falling while Corrosion: The Corroding Empire is climbing. 194 to 918 830 748 683 666. Make it happen. You know you want to see it happen. It’s also telling that most of the 5-star reviews for Collapsing and all of the 1-star reviews for Corrosion are from people who haven’t even pretended to read the book “reviewed”. This is a good sign, as this kind of engagement is a certain sign that SF-SJWs have been successfully triggered.

Here is the thing: the more people that actually read Corrosion, the higher the good/bad review ratio will increase. The reverse is true for The Collapsing Empire. It’s terrible and word from inside Tor Books is that everyone involved with the book knew it even before it was released.

Meanwhile, Allan Davis proposes a solution to solve the terrible problem of racism and discrimination and excessive white maleness in science fiction:

I propose a tax on science fiction novels, to level the playing field in the same fashion that carbon taxes are designed to punish those who use more resources than their fair share.

Call it the “Bergeron Tax.”

Those authors writing for any mainstream international science fiction publishers have obviously been profiting from this industry-wide discrimination, so the structure of the Bergeron Tax should be arranged like this:

For each novel the author has previously published (with one of the big mainstream publishers), add 10% to the cost of the book.

Add on 5% for each Hugo or Nebula award the author has already won.

If the author is white, add an additional 10%.

If the author is male, add another 10%.

Finally, if the author has a beard, add on an additional 5%.

The windfall proceeds from this tax should then be shared among authors and publishers who have not been part of this industry-wide and genre-wide discrimination.

I don’t know. If you look at Tor’s prices, it looks like they’re already implementing this tax. $13 for a 300-page Kindle book would be a ripoff even if book was any good.

Also, on a completely unrelated subject, I’m delighted to announce that thanks to the Dread Ilk, we will have Dark Lords! Autaruch sent out the following notice to the backers of its latest kickstarter.

Thanks to all of our backers for the tremendous outpouring of support. Since we started we’ve seen huge contributions come in from our first Patron Diety-level backer, Jeff Binder, from five Emperor-level backers, and from a legion of backers that really, really want to see a a Dark Lord class (and, yes, it has been funded and will be added to the book).