Tag: books

You Don’t Own Your Ebooks

The wisdom of owning actual books printed on archival paper and bound in leather is once more confirmed, this time by Amazon:

Starting on February 26th, 2025, Amazon is removing a feature from its website allowing you to download purchased books to a computer and then copy them manually to a Kindle over USB. It’s a feature that a lot of Kindle users are probably not aware of, given books can be more easily sent to devices over Wi-Fi, but it’s especially useful for backing up purchases or converting them to other formats compatible with non-Kindle e-readers.

Amazon confirmed the removal of the book download feature in a statement to The Verge. “Customers can continue reading books previously downloaded on their Kindle device, and access new content through the Kindle app, Kindle for web, as well as directly through Kindle devices with WiFi capability,” said Amazon spokesperson Jackie Burke.

Once this feature goes away, you’ll still be able to manually copy ebook files and other documents to Kindles over USB using Amazon’s apps or third-party solutions like Calibre. You just won’t be able to download copies of your purchased books to a computer.

A comment from a former Amazon employee underlines the bitter irony.

I worked for the Kindle team at Amazon 2009-2011 when Kindle was brand new. It’s amazing to think that back in those days we thought we were working on a technology that may eventually replace most physical books and especially ironic to now think that the best way to maintain ownership over books and copies of controversial or “banned” books is to own physical copies.

Never trust the corpocracy. Every new freedom they give you turns out to be an illusion.

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Based Books Sale: Spring Edition

Tired of mainstream traditionally published books with their diversity checklist characters and tired social justice themes? Then check out the Spring 2025 Based Book Sale running through the end of the day, Tuesday February 18, where you’ll find nearly 300 books that defy the politically correct gatekeeping and deliver traditional storytelling that upholds the good, the beautiful, and the true. All for $0.99 or free!

Here are some of the early Based Book Sale leaders, and we have a host of new faces among the most popular authors. Top sellers in the first day of the sale included John C. Wright’s One Bright Star to Guide Them, Robert Kroese’s Starship Grifters, Steven G. Johnson’s Operation Vampire (Murphy’s War Book 1), EJ Fisch’s three-book Ziva Payvan trilogy, Kevin Bates’, Quarantine and Even if by Fire, Michael F. Kane’s After Moses, Ryan M. Patrick’s The Martian Incident and Lag Delay: A Technothriller (Grace Parkowski Thrillers), Zakalog the Great’s The Mayor of Christ Mountain, Gregory Michael’s Chloe’s Kingdom, Russell May’s long awaited Solarvoid, sequel to Eta Cancri, Richard Paolinelli’s Sea Dragon, Brian Heming’s Murder on the Stellar Schooner: Illustrated Detective Scifi, the five-volume Exile War boxed set by Bowen Greenwood, J.Z. Pitts Virtual Rebel: A Sci-Fi Action Adventure (The Haven Trilogy Book 1), Terra Nullius (Slipspace Book 1) by Zachary Forbes, Asterius (Timelessness) by Susana Imaginário, the Shoot the Devil 3: Militia of Martyrs anthology, by a host of talented authors, Christopher G. Nutall’s Ark Royal, Michael Dibaggio’s House of Refuge, and classic works by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, G.K. Chesterton.

My Favorite Japanese Novels

In the 35 years since I graduated with an East Asian studies degree, I’ve read a considerable amount of Japanese literature. So, my little contribution to Fandom Pulse is a list of my 10 favorite novels, with the caveat that only one novel per author was allowed.

Japanese literature is like no other. What the wedding is to the English novel, the suicide is to the Japanese novel. Furthermore, the absence of Christian sexual mores, the cultural inclination toward passivity and fatalism, and the lack of an individualist hero tradition will tend to strike the average Western reader as strange and, in some cases, even bordering on the perverse.

But the technical skill of Japanese novelists, combined with their very different takes on the human condition, makes Japanese literature one of the most interesting and rewarding literatures available for reading on the planet. Below are my favorite books by ten different Japanese authors translated into English, since I don’t read kanji, and a list of my ten favorite Japanese novels would amount to little more than an incomplete bibliography of Haruki Murakami.

Read the whole thing there. And yes, I’ve read Natsumi Soseki, Ryu Murakami, Kenzaburo Oe, Banana Yoshimoto, and all the other big names. This is a list of my favorite novels, not the technically best or most representative, or most important.

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The Most Based Book of All

Is A SEA OF SKULLS, apparently. The director of the Based Book Sale issues a report preparatory to the Spring sale, in which both Castalia and Arkhaven will be participating.

A Sea of Skulls by Vox Day took top honors. John C. Wright authored the next two most popular books. In second place was his first Starquest book, Space Pirates of Andromeda, followed by his 2016 Dragon Award winning Best Novel, Somewither. Vox Day closely follows in fourth and fifth place with A Throne of Bones (Arts of Dark and Light Book 1) and Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy (Arts of Dark and Light). In sixth place was sale newcomer, Devon Eriksen, with Theft of Fire: Orbital Space #1. Michael F. Kane secured seventh place honors with After Moses. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon came in eighth place. Based Book Sale perennial offering, The Hidden Truth was ninth. Henry Brown’s six-book Paradox series in a box set completed the top ten.

And you know, A SEA OF SKULLS is based. Speaking of which, the interiors of volumes I and II have just been printed for the leather editions.

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The Pointlessness of Posturing

Either a number of people associated with Baen Books are less dialed-in to what is happening on the business side than they believe themselves to be or they desperately need lessons in some of the basics of public relations.

  • PR 101: Never deny anything that you know someone else can prove.
  • PR 102: Never get into a fight with anyone who buys ink by the barrel.

Larry Correia posted a long-winded rant both on his blog and on X regarding the piece, opening with the personal attack, “So I hear certain people are trying to stir up outrage clicks spreading dumb rumors about some publishers again.”

Our article, however, does not contain any speculation, only a reporting of facts that have been verified and direct commentary from several Baen Books authors and employees, as previously noted.

Correia did, however, elaborate that he intends to diversify his book portfolio from Baen Books even further in the coming years. He said, “Here, I’ll even add to the freak out, I’m also going to be doing some pure indy stuff in the future too. Why? Because I can, and I want to see what happens when I do. It has been a long time since I’ve experimented in that, the market has changed a ton since then, and has a lot of potential. I like making money. Me doing an indy project might make money. Go figure.”

Many of Correia’s fans reacted to his rant, voicing support for the author and making odd comments mocking his “career-ending,” responding to everything he said but not any of the information in Fandom Pulse’s article, as Correia obfuscated as to what the topic was at hand.

Former Sad Puppy Sarah A. Hoyt, who was dropped from Baen due to her poor sales and is not an American, replied with a bizarre comment, “Yeah. People asked, so I actually read the idiocy. It’s all a thinly veiled tissue of hallucinations…. Having been the subject of such ‘reporting’ before, I’m not even amused.” It’s unclear what she’s talking about.

It doesn’t take a genius to observe that Baen Books is unlikely to survive the loss of Larry Correia to both a) another publisher and b) going independent. Perhaps some of the people quoted don’t know this, but Baen is 25 percent owned by Tor Books and has a very limited number of distribution slots through its distribution partner. As with most mainstream publishers, it is heavily dependent upon its bestselling author or two propping up the rest of its authors.

This is the problem that Tor Books faces as well. The reason John Scalzi was given a massive lead author contract was because Tor needed to replace Brandon Sanderson, the late Robert Jordan, and the game tie-in business that it lost, unfortunately for Tor and Scalzi, he has been unable to do so. He still sells, he just doesn’t sell well enough.

The fact that Larry Correia walked means that Baen Books couldn’t afford the right of first refusal to his new series, which is hardly surprising. I told Larry back in 2015 that he should go independent and I’ve expected to see him do so ever since Brandon Sanderson demonstrated how high the ceiling can be for an independent author. The fact that he was willing to prop up Baen for nearly ten years longer than he probably should have from a financial perspective is testimony to his loyalty and gratitude to his longtime publisher.

But Baen has been circling the drain for years anyhow, because its business practices are out of date. It ignored the authors it should have been courting – including Nick Cole, Jason Anspach, John C. Wright, JDA, and myself, among others – while also ignoring the advent of crowdfunding and the negative impact of Kindle Unlimited. And now its window of opportunity has closed.

People can preen and posture all they like, but what will be will be. And it’s both foolish and futile to get one’s panties in a bunch over educated observers simply noting what has happened, what is happening, and what is likely to happen. Let bygones be bygones and make hay while the sun is shining; just yesterday one of my more vehement past critics and I achieved mutual understanding on a potential future project with excellent prospects for both of us; whether we follow through on it or not, the mere fact of our discussion is a testimony to the professional approach to these things.

I may not be fond of John Scalzi, just to give one example, but if the man ever decides he wants to do a deluxe edition of Old Man’s War in leather, I’ll not only agree to work with him, I’ll guarantee him that we will make him a higher-quality and more attractive edition than Easton or Folio Society will give him. Because an important part of being professional is learning how to set aside one’s personal predilections.

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Forbes on The Folio Society

A gushing Forbes article on the importance and elegance of deluxe books:

When Joanna Reynolds first became CEO of The Folio Society in 2016, the London-based publishing company known for its beautifully illustrated hardcover editions of classic books had been steadily losing money for a decade and was on the verge of being sold. “It kind of lost its way,” Reynolds, a veteran of Time Life Europe and Reader’s Digest, tells me over Zoom. From its post-war inception in 1947, Folio operated as an annual book club, with members signing up to receive four titles a year. “That model everywhere had kind of died, really,” adds Reynolds. “So we [made] a complete change.”

That 21st century innovation not only required the phasing out of an obsolete business model, but also the expansion of what Folio could publish in terms of genre (i.e. moving into science fiction, fantasy, and children’s content), the number of books it could release a year (from four to between 40 and 50), and how those books were marketed to the public.

Most important, however, is maintaining a brand associated with handcrafted beauty and elegance. Every deluxe edition put out by Folio is made with the intention of having the resultant tome occupy prime real estate on a book lover’s shelf for years to come. Such commitment to visual sophistication attracts acclaimed authors, artists, and even fellow publishers like Marvel Entertainment.

Still, I couldn’t help noticing that the Forbes article left out one rather significant element that one would think would have been both timely and relevant.

Neil Gaiman has been removed from UK agent Casarotto Ramsay & Associates’ client list after the Good Omens writer has faced a string of sexual misconduct allegations over the past six months. The change to Casarotto Ramsay’s client list comes amid a wave of creative partners severing ties with Gaiman and his work. Anansi Boys publisher Dark Horse Comics has dropped the once-celebrated writer, while a UK stage production of Coraline was canceled this week.

The Terry Pratchett Estate has now cut ties to Gaiman as well. Apparently pTerry’s heirs have had their fill of Gaiman attempting to trade on a close friendship that was, at the very least, greatly exaggerated, if not entirely fabricated. A one-time co-writing experience is seldom indicative of being bestest buddies, especially when one of the co-writers a) did most of the work and b) is observably disinclined to ever repeat the experience.

Below is a screenshot of the Folio Society’s website from this very morning, only six months after the beginning of #GaimanGate. The reason all the novels by other authors are on the list of 32 (!) Gaiman-related books is because Folio asked Gaiman to provide their deluxe editions with forewords and introductions, although what a mediocrity like Gaiman could possibly have to say about Gene Wolfe defies belief. Now, doesn’t it seem a little odd that Forbes didn’t even ask Folio about this apparent contradiction between their oft-expressed social justice values and the particular authors they choose to feature?

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Peter Thiel Guts Baen Books

Fandom Pulse reports that Peter Thiel tried to buy Baen Books, was rebuffed, and responded by poaching their top authors and editors for a new science fiction and fantasy publishing house.

Baen Books has fallen into the trap of a lot of mainstream publishing, not building up a stable of modern talent to come up as the next generation… Enter Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal and Donald Trump Advisor with his giant venture capital fund. While he’d been in publishing before, he came to Baen Books with an offer to buy the company and inject capital to modernize it and preserve Baen for the next generation. Fandom Pulse spoke with multiple industry insiders who confirmed this buyout offer. While the details of the offer are not known, Toni Weisskopf, Editor in Chief of Baen Books, reportedly declined, but that didn’t stop Thiel’s hunger to enter the science fiction and fantasy space.

One Baen Books author who asked to be anonymous told Fandom Pulse that the company has a “kill switch” clause in every author contract that would make such a buyout impossible. Fandom Pulse was told that in the event the company sells, rights to books automatically revert to authors. This effectively prevents a sale of the company from occurring, as it would be worthless without the contracts of its top authors in place.

Thiel and his investment group were not deterred but decided to take over genre fiction themselves in a move that would take a lot of Baen’s top remaining talent with them.

Ark Press was formed as Thiel and his investors began a new publishing company to run in tandem with Passage Press, whose face became former Baen author D.J. Butler. Butler had been rumored to be on the shortlist to take over Baen Books once Toni Weisskopf retired and is well-liked in author circles, best-known for his book Witchy Eye, which was highly promoted by his long-time friend Larry Correia.

Fandom Pulse reached out to Butler to confirm Thiel’s investment group involvement and he said, “we’re in the same corporate group [as Passage Press]. Ark has separate editorial and management from Passage. We wish those guys well, and we hope they feel benevolently disposed toward us.”

With the announcement of Ark Press came word that Larry Correia would be penning a new modern fantasy series in the vein of Monster Hunter International for the budding company. It appears that Thiel’s investment group, unable to procure Baen and the Monster Hunter series, decided to take the talent from Baen and directly compete as the Monster Hunter series is still under Baen’s contract.

Fandom Pulse learned that Correia pitched the new series to Baen Books and that Baen Books passed on the series. We reached out to Toni Weisskopf for comment on this and the purchase offer, but she has not responded as of this writing.

Thiel’s move didn’t stop with Baen talent D.J. Butler and Larry Correia, but he also brought Tony Daniel, one of Baen’s former top editors who had previously left for Regency as editor-in-chief of the new company, as well as Baen editor David Afsharirad.

It should be interesting to see how this plays out over time. Ark Press may or may not elect to cooperate with Castalia in the future, but even if they don’t, it’s not as if Baen, or Tor, or anyone else in our space ever has. Passage Press is competent, so I don’t see any reason to assume the Ark Press team won’t be as well. JDA says it’s game-changing, and given the feeble state of Tor Books and the rest of SF/F publishing, he may well be right.

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Little Black House on the Prairie

There are just so many ways this is almost certain to go very, very wrong:

Little House on the Prairie fans are voicing their concern after Netflix revealed plans to release a new take on the beloved Western series, which aired from 1974 to 1982. On Wednesday, the streaming giant announced they were working on a ‘fresh adaptation’ of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s series of American children’s novels.

It has been more than 40 years since the original, long-running series wrapped its final episode after nine seasons in 1984.

In a statement, obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, Jinny Howe, vp drama series for Netflix, revealed that the reboot will be a ‘fresh take on this iconic story.’

Fresh take = Pa is going to be an escaped slave, Ma is going to be a strong, independent Jewish feminist, Mary will be crippled by polio because she didn’t get vaccinated, and Laura and Nellie will have an ambiguously lesbian relationship.

There is some real Rings of Power potential for disaster here.

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Auditor 202

The extent to which the Church of Scientology supported Auditor 202’s career and perceived success is gradually coming to light, despite his very public and apparently untruthful denials.

Neil Gaiman has consistently stated that he is not a Scientologist, despite his family’s deep ties to the Church of Scientology. In a 2013 interview with The Guardian, Neil addressed rumors about his involvement with the church, suggesting that he had not been a practicing member since becoming an adult.

However, some documentary evidence has surfaced which appears to directly contradict this claim, especially since he appears to have still been completing Scientology courses between the ages of 26 and 28, and to have been a donating member in good standing at the age of 49.

  • Neil Gaiman’s name appears in graduate lists in The Auditor Worldwide (published by AOSH UK copyright 1986) as Auditor #202. Neil is listed as completing three courses: the Hubbard Senior Sec Checker Course #222 (1988), the 21 Dept Org Board Course #227 (1988) and the Hubbard Basic Art Course.
  • Cornerstone Newsletter, November 2009: List of Members in GOOD STANDING: MARY AND NEIL GAIMAN ($35,000.00)

It would also appear The Simpsons saw through Neil Gaiman all along. While some might think that Gaiman being in on the joke would tend to exonerate him, that’s not the way imposters play the game. It’s just what the psychological operators call Revelation of the Method, or blown cover as cover.

“The Book Job” is the sixth episode of the twenty-third season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on November 20, 2011. In the episode, Lisa is shocked to discover that all popular young-adult novels are conceived by book publishing executives through use of market research and ghostwriters to make money. Homer decides to get rich by making a fantasy novel about trolls, with help from Bart, Principal Skinner, Patty, Moe, Professor Frink, and author Neil Gaiman. Lisa does not think writing should be about money, and decides to write her own novel.

However, when Lisa opens a copy of the book, she discovers that Gaiman is listed as the author, not her. It turns out that by slipping a third flash drive with his name onto Lisa’s possession with his secret co-conspirator Moe’s help, Gaiman has heisted his way to the best-seller list “once again” despite being illiterate. During the credits, Gaiman and Moe celebrate with a toast at Shelbyville Beach, but Gaiman double-crosses Moe and poisons his drink.

Whether Gaiman is, or is no longer, a Scientologist remains an open question. The more interesting question, of course, is what percentage of those 50 million books Gaiman has reportedly sold were purchased by members of the Church of Scientology. Because Gen Xers will recall another erstwhile Scientologist who wrote science fiction novels that appeared even more often on the bestseller charts, and for much longer periods of time, an author by the name of L. Ron Hubbard.

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A Tale of Two Remembrances

Castalia House’s Morgan recalls his friendship with the late author, Howard Andrew Jones:

It was late 1997 or early 1998 that Howard Jones had contacted me. I was the Official Editor of the Robert E. Howard United Press Association at the time. Periodically someone would contact me on how to get their pastiche Conan novel sold or how to get on the syndicated Conan T. V. show which was showing at the time. I never saw that show.

I received an e-mail from Howard who introduced himself and told me that he wanted to be to Harold Lamb what Glenn Lord was to Robert E. Howard. Glenn Lord was the agent for the Robert E. Howard copyright holders for around 28 years. Those Zebra and Ace non-Conan Robert E. Howard paperback collections. Glenn Lord was the agent who made the deals. He was a breath of fresh air.

Thus began a decades long friendship with Howard. We discussed fantasy fiction and historical novels we liked. We discovered new authors through each other. He seemed to like Fritz Leiber more than Robert E. Howard when I first knew him. We both tracked down old obscure hardbacks of historical fiction from the pulps. I seemed to like Arthur D. Howden Smith more than he did. Despite that, he had a copy of the first Grey Maiden story by Smith and sent me a photocopy of it. He also lent me a bound set of pulp stories including Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur’s “He Rules Who Can,” Joseph Ivers Lawrence “Swords on the Northern Sea,” and a Sargasso Sea story by F. van Wyck Mason.

He got Harold Lamb’s fiction back into print with University of Nebraska’s Bison Books. Before this, there were two collections of Harold Lamb’s cossack stories from the 1960s. Bison Books produced eight large volumes of Harold Lamb’s fiction from both the pulp and slick magazines. Howard organized them in a logical manner. We had discussed at one time of co-editing a volume of sword & sorcery fiction covering the early and middle years as an introductory volume to new readers.

At the same time, he was the fiction editor for Black Gate magazine. He championed getting new sword & sorcery fiction published. Sword & sorcery had been banished by the big publishers (for probably ideological reasons) but Howard knew there was a desire for it.

John O’Neill of the late and much-lamented Black Gate magazine also paid tribute to his former editor:

Howard has been a huge part of my personal and professional life since 2002, when I opened a submission to Black Gate magazine and found a long, rambling, and extremely enthusiastic cover letter from him, expressing his delight at finding a quality magazine devoted to heroic fantasy. The letter ended with “I want in, bad,” and was attached to a terrific tale featuring two adventurers named Dabir and Asim.

We eventually published three Dabir and Asim tales in Black Gate, and within a few years Howard’s editorial contributions had become so essential to the magazine that we named him our first Managing Editor. He ran our non-fiction department, single-handedly recruiting and managing over a dozen contributors to fill some 80 pages every issue with thoughtful essays, book reviews, gaming coverage, and much more.

In November 2008 Howard told me he wanted to remake our website, and post new articles every single day, instead of a few times a month. I told him he was crazy. How in the world could we produce that much content, especially without a budget?

Undaunted, Howard put together a top-notch team of writers, and committed to putting daily content on the Black Gate blog. It was his vision, and he executed it magnificently, with a little help from Bill Ward, David Soyka, Scott Oden, James Enge, EE Knight, Ryan Harvey, and others. Eight years later, the website won a World Fantasy Award — an honor that I still believe should have been presented to Howard.

Before long Howard’s own writing career had taken off with such magnitude that he had to step back from day-to-day duties at the magazine. Over the next fifteen years he released fifteen books, including three featuring Dabir and Asim, four novels in the Pathfinder universe, the Ring-Sworn Trilogy, three volumes in The Chronicles of Hanuvar, and the Harold Lamb collections Swords from the East and Swords from the West.

Howard was a wonderful writer. He believed in heroes, and that steadfast conviction informed all of his writing. But despite all his success Howard never lost touch with his other major talent — finding and nurturing new writers. Howard was an enormously gifted editor, and a tireless champion of underappreciated writers.

Many men have lived much longer, and left behind legacies that will not be remembered nearly as long, than Howard Andrew Jones.

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