The amusing thing is that the author, and the publishing industry, imagines this somehow says anything about the decline of young white literary men as opposed to the death of the literary mainstream:
It’s easy enough to trace the decline of young white men in American letters—just browse The New York Times’s “Notable Fiction” list. In 2012 the Times included seven white American men under the age of 43 (the cut-off for a millennial today); in 2013 there were six, in 2014 there were six.
And then the doors shut.
By 2021, there was not one white male millennial on the “Notable Fiction” list. There were none again in 2022, and just one apiece in 2023 and 2024 (since 2021, just 2 of 72 millennials featured were white American men). There were no white male millennials featured in Vulture’s 2024 year-end fiction list, none in Vanity Fair’s, none in The Atlantic’s. Esquire, a magazine ostensibly geared towards male millennials, has featured 53 millennial fiction writers on its year-end book lists since 2020. Only one was a white American man.
Over the course of the 2010s, the literary pipeline for white men was effectively shut down. Between 2001 and 2011, six white men won the New York Public Library’s Young Lions prize for debut fiction. Since 2020, not a single white man has even been nominated (of 25 total nominations). The past decade has seen 70 finalists for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize—with again, not a single straight white American millennial man. Of 14 millennial finalists for the National Book Award during that same time period, exactly zero are white men.
In other words, they’ll publish inferior work that no one wants to read, their audiences will dwindle, and their publications and awards will become completely irrelevant until their only hope for survival is lobbying for government grants based on the idea that they used to be important.
Meanwhile, young white men will continue to write, continue to innovate, and continue to invent just as they have been doing for centuries. And they will build new institutions to replace those their ancestors built, and perhaps next time, they won’t fall for all the arguments about the need to relax their rules and lower their standards in order to let the women qualify.
Does anyone think the Hugo and Nebula winners of today are better than they were 50 years ago? Does anyone believe that what is published in The Atlantic matters anymore? Of course not. We don’t even read any of these things anymore, precisely because they no longer matter.
No magazine has ever discussed my fiction. And yet the readers compare it to Tolkien (unfavorably) and Martin (favorably), and when the playing field was level – as opposed to algorithmically managed – my works on political philosophy were outselling both Marx and Machiavelli.
Bill Burr is not dead. But his comedy career is. Not his career; no doubt that will continue to ascend with his appearances in Disney Wars television shows and very serious dramatic movies. But he’s not a comedian anymore.
What happened?! That guy was funny. He didn’t give a shit. He certainly didn’t virtue-signal, as you can see from that last clip.
But now? My God. He’s just awful. Spewing lies about Elon Musk. Just … lies. Like, I can’t believe he’s still on the Hitler thing. Seriously, I can’t believe it. Nobody with half a brain actually believed any of that crap the left tried to pull with Elon earlier this year, yet the Dems just keep going back to the well.
It’s amazing, really, how dumb they are. They think that resonates with people. Does Bill Bull actually think Elon Musk is a Nazi? I mean, come on. What are we doing here? Really, Bill? That’s the hill you’re gonna die on? The hill you’re gonna tank your career on? The Elon-Nazi hill?
Insane. They’re all just insane.
We’ve lost Bill Burr.
What happened? He got converged. And convergence eliminates an individual’s ability to fulfill his purpose just as certainly as it eliminates an organizations ability to fulfill its primary purpose.
It doesn’t bode well that the Amazon producers’ opinions were so vehemently disregarded by the people who preserved the Bond legacy and maintained it as an engine of profitability. It bodes even less well that instead of taking that into consideration, those opinions were the reason for ejecting them from the franchise.
Amazon acquired MGM in 2022, gaining distribution rights to the films, but creative control remained with Eon Productions under Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson. The duo resisted Amazon’s proposed spin-offs, including a Moneypenny series and a female-led 007 project, preferring to maintain James Bond’s traditional narrative.
Tensions between Broccoli, Wilson, and Amazon executives escalated in late 2024. In December, the Wall Street Journal reported that Broccoli privately told friends she did not trust “algorithm-centric Amazon with a character she helped to mythologize through big-screen storytelling and gut instinct.” She also described the status of the next Bond film as dire, with no script, no story, and no actor chosen for the role. In the same conversation, referring to the company while among executives, she said, “These people are f**king idiots.”
The comment enraged Bezos, prompting him to take drastic action, the Hollywood Reporter stated. “He read her quote in the Journal and got on the phone and said, ‘I don’t care what it costs, get rid of her,’” an insider told the magazine. Soon afterwards, Amazon struck a deal worth nearly $1 billion to remove Broccoli and Wilson from creative control and bring the franchise under Amazon MGM Studios.
Obviously we don’t know, we can’t know, how this will play out yet. But the most dire sign of all is this: Amazon has not fired every single person who had anything to do with Dem Rangz o’ Power.
ITEM:Rumours abound that Doctor Who star Ncuti Gatwa is set to walk away from the sci-fi drama leaving the future of the show in doubt.
ITEM:The James Bond film franchise will no longer be controlled by the Broccoli dynasty, after long-serving masterminds Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson announced they are stepping down. The pair will now give creative control to Amazon MGM Studios, which was formed when Amazon bought Bond’s parent studio in 2022.
I think we not only know that the next James Bond will be black and gay, we also have a very good idea of who it is going to be.
I don’t want wacky, I don’t want diversity, and I don’t want inclusivity when I’m travelling. I want serious, highly-competent ex-military men in their mid-50s who could land a plane in their sleep. And if I owned this airline, I’d immediately fire every single one of these jokers for degrading confidence in the company’s ability to safely fly its planes.
Not only did President Donald Trump sign an executive order effectively banning males from competing in women’s sports at publicly-funded institutions (like schools), but Trump also announced he plans to deny foreign transgender athletes entry into the country for the 2028 Summer Olympics.
Trump says he instructed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to “make [it] clear to the International Olympics Committee that America categorically rejects transgender lunacy. We want them to change everything having to do with the Olympics and having to do with this absolutely ridiculous subject… In Los Angeles in 2028, my administration will not stand by and watch men beat and batter female athletes.”
Men who are US citizens won’t be permitted to compete with the women either. That’s the best way to deal with this wicked madness: call it out for what it is, then ban it.
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?
The man accused of sexually assaulting and/or raping 8 women and counting finally breaks cover to issue a denial that directly contradicts his previous dictate to believe all women. Fandom Pulse provides the text and the context:
Over the past many months, I have watched the stories circulating the internet about me with horror and dismay. I’ve stayed quiet until now, both out of respect for the people who were sharing their stories and out of a desire not to draw even more attention to a lot of misinformation. I’ve always tried to be a private person, and felt increasingly that social media was the wrong place to talk about important personal matters. I’ve now reached the point where I feel that I should say something.
As I read through this latest collection of accounts, there are moments I half-recognise and moments I don’t, descriptions of things that happened sitting beside things that emphatically did not happen. I’m far from a perfect person, but I have never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity with anyone. Ever.
I went back to read the messages I exchanged with the women around and following the occasions that have subsequently been reported as being abusive. These messages read now as they did when I received them – of two people enjoying entirely consensual sexual relationships and wanting to see one another again. At the time I was in those relationships, they seemed positive and happy on both sides.
And I also realise, looking through them, years later, that I could have and should have done so much better. I was emotionally unavailable while being sexually available, self-focused and not as thoughtful as I could or should have been. I was obviously careless with people’s hearts and feelings, and that’s something that I really, deeply regret. It was selfish of me. I was caught up in my own story and I ignored other people’s.
I’ve spent some months now taking a long, hard look at who I have been and how I have made people feel.
Like most of us, I’m learning, and I’m trying to do the work needed, and I know that that’s not an overnight process. I hope that with the help of good people, I’ll continue to grow. I understand that not everyone will believe me or even care what I say but I’ll be doing the work anyway, for myself, my family and the people I love. I will be doing my very best to deserve their trust, as well as the trust of my readers.
At the same time, as I reflect on my past – and as I re-review everything that actually happened as opposed to what is being alleged – I don’t accept there was any abuse. To repeat, I have never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity with anyone.
Some of the horrible stories now being told simply never happened, while others have been so distorted from what actually took place that they bear no relationship to reality. I am prepared to take responsibility for any missteps I made. I’m not willing to turn my back on the truth, and I can’t accept being described as someone I am not, and cannot and will not admit to doing things I didn’t do.
And once more, we see conclusive evidence that Neil Gaiman is a mediocre writer of fiction. I very much hope that some of his accusers will take him to court for defamation, because his absurd statement literally stinks of evasiveness, Machiavellianism, spin, ex post facto revisionism, and lies.
Perhaps the most amusing claim is that the objectively biggest fame-whore in BOTH comics and science fiction over the last four decades has “always tried to be a private person”. Think about the massive scope and scale of that obvious and so easily disproven lie, think about the chutzpah required to conclude that your naked assertion will outweigh the literally tens of thousands of items of evidence to the contrary, and then consider the probability that he is telling the truth about anything else.
I think Reddit might actually melt down in response to this. I cannot believe either his legal team or his PR team thought this was a good idea, no matter how completely the news of his alleged crimes has broken contain.
UPDATE: Even his biggest fans from the subreddit devoted to him aren’t buying this. They’re not buying ANY of it at all.
Neil Gaiman had an extraordinary career. And I mean that literally. It was Extra Ordinary.
Writers who’ve hit it big all have the same complaint. Some rando will come up to them and make the following offer; “I’ve got this absolutely amazing idea for a story. Here’s the deal, I’ll tell you about the idea, then you write the book and then we split the money.” Gaiman’s biggest successes were in getting people to actually do that for him. Anyone who’s read Terry Pratchett knows damn good and well who did all of the heavy lifting in Good Omens. Even Gaiman admitted it. As for Sandman, the most amazing comic book of all time, how much of that comic’s success was due to the artwork? Without Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg, Jill Thompson, Shawn McManus, Marc Hempel, Bryan Talbot, and Michael Zulli, would anyone have the vivid impressions of that title that they do? They were the real storytellers, Gaiman just had the ‘amazing idea.’ Which half the time were retreads of somebody else’s work.
As for the King of Dreams, let’s be honest here, Morpheus was nothing more than a Mary Sue and a pretty obvious one at that. And one that no one can look at now without seeing the true horror it was masking. Sandman is about to be swept under the rug alongside his “creator.”
It is over. It is ended.
But Larry Correia most definitely won the best quote competition:
Years ago John Scalzi declared me teaching armed self-defense classes to women was “victim blaming”. Turns out Scalzi just didn’t want his friend Neil Gaiman to get shot.
And speaking of John Scalzi, he managed to both a) avoid condemning Gaiman and b) make the entire scandal about himself and his feelings. Again. The man really chose the wrong career, as instead of a mediocre pop SF writer, he could have been the greatest White House press officer the world has ever seen.
I hate every single possible thing about this, and I’m heartbroken about all of it.
I’ve admired Neil’s work immensely, but my connection is, we’re friends and have been for some time. All this has been a set of punches to the gut. I’ve been (reasonably) criticized about not being louder sooner, but processing bad news about friends is a thing, and it hurts.
This is at odds with my public persona of “moderately famous nerd has opinions online,” plus there are folks who believe that the SF/F field has been unusually silent on Neil and find that troubling. So, some backlash for me on it. Fair enough. There’s no response that’ll make everyone happy. If I don’t comment there will be “his silence is telling,” and if I do respond there will be “way to make it about you,” and if I acknowledge any grief, I’ll get knocked for my “processing,” etc. I accept a ration of crap is mine no matter what.
And finally, two women on Reddit reveal that women on the science fiction tour circuit have known about Gaiman for 25 years, but it’s been swept under the table and kept quiet by a conspiracy of bookstore owners and people working in the publishing industry.
I was warned to stay away from Neil Gaiman when I was in college. So approximately 25 years ago. Despite never having been at an event he was present at. Women in the science fiction and con communities have been trying to keep each other safe from him for a long time. When the public allegations came out, the reaction I heard from a lot of women was “good, we’re allowed to talk about this now”.
I had the same experience in the early aughts. I was a pratchett fan, found good omens through that route, and was talking to an older woman in the sci fi community about the book. She warned me to stay away from Neil Gaiman and said he liked to take advantage of young fans. Now that all this news is coming out I’m so, so grateful to her but horrified that nothings come to light sooner.
And to absolutely no one’s surprise, the meme masters at Neil Gaiman Memes do not disappoint.
New York Magazine publishes a cover article going into copious detail on Neil Gaiman’s alleged sex crimes. There is only one new accuser, and the article abruptly shies away from the obvious question about his current relationship to Scientology and how that has benefited his career, but the details of the existing accusations are worse than even those of us with longtime suspicious about the man had imagined. Note that the quoted section below is about as innocuous as it gets, be warned that Gaiman’s described behavior isn’t merely immoral, illegal, and offensive, but very literally disgusting.
Around four in the afternoon on February 4, Pavlovich took the ferry from Auckland to Waiheke, then sat on a bus and walked through the woods until she arrived at Gaiman’s house, an asymmetrical A-frame of dark burnished wood with picture windows overlooking the sea. Palmer had arranged a playdate for the child, so not long after Pavlovich arrived, she found herself alone in the house with the author. For a little while, Gaiman worked in his office while she read on the couch. Then he emerged and offered her a tour of the grounds. A striking figure at 61, his wild black curls threaded with strands of silver, the author picked a fig — her favorite fruit — and handed it to her. Around 8 p.m., they sat down for pizza. Gaiman poured Pavlovich a glass of rosé and then another. He drank only water. They made awkward conversation about New Zealand, about COVID. Pavlovich had never read any of his work, but she was anxious to make a good impression. After she’d cleaned up their plates, Gaiman noted that there was still time before they would have to pick up his son from the playdate. “‘I’ve had a thought,’” she recalls him saying. “‘Why don’t you have a bath in the beautiful claw bathtub in the garden? It’s absolutely enchanting.’” Pavlovich told Gaiman that she was fine as she was but ultimately agreed. He needed to make a work call, he said, and didn’t want Pavlovich to be bored.
Gaiman led Pavlovich down a stone path into the garden to an old-fashioned tub with a roll top and walked away. She got undressed and sank into the bath, looking up at the furry magenta blossoms of the pohutukawa tree overhead. A few minutes later, she was surprised to hear Gaiman’s footsteps on the stones in the dark. She tried to cover her breasts with her arms. When he arrived at the bath, she saw that he was naked. Gaiman put out a couple of citronella candles, lit them, and got into the bath. He stretched out, facing her, and, for a few minutes, made small talk. He bitched about Palmer’s schedule. He talked about his kid’s school. Then he told her to stretch her legs out and “get comfortable.”
“I said ‘no.’ I said, ‘I’m not confident with my body,’” Pavlovich recalls. “He said, ‘It’s okay — it’s only me. Just relax. Just have a chat.’” She didn’t move. He looked at her again and said, “Don’t ruin the moment.” She did as instructed, and he began to stroke her feet. At that point, she recalls, she felt “a subtle terror.”
Now that a mainstream magazine is willing to directly address the issue, and now that it’s apparent from the details provided that this guy is not merely bumping up against the borders of consent, but is a full-fledged predator and rapist, it’s going to be a lot harder for publishers like Harper Collins, Folio Society, Easton Press, and Penguin Random House to blithely continue publishing his work while simultaneously asserting their dedication to social justice.
In fact, I was reliably informed that the Folio Society didn’t want to have anything to do with me because their executives believe I am a Very Bad Man, and yet they continue to market and sell Neil Gaiman’s books despite the fact that they know perfectly well multiple women have been publicly accusing Gaiman of raping them for more than six months.
I suggest that Folio Society executives like Lauren Juster and Joanna Reynolds take the time to read today’s New York Magazine article which details, at great length, their publishing partner’s crimes against women. And there is absolutely no way that there isn’t more, and quite possibly worse, forthcoming.
That picture is both apt and hysterical, especially after decades of media images seeking to present him as some sort of dweeby neo-rock star. How the foul are fallen! But the physiognomy was warning us all along. And even though there isn’t much in the way of new accusations, the sheer volume of detail is apparently proving enough to convince some of Gaiman’s most stubborn defenders, such as this disappointed fan.
Neil Gaiman has been one of my favorite creators since I first picked up The Sandman with issue #7. His work has been a constant in my life since, and I treasured everything the man has written. He seemed like a truly decent human being. I even got to interact with him once on Tumblr, that felt like a really great moment in my life. Since the allegations of SA surfaced last year, I have been quietly hoping against hope, that my impression of his decency would survive. Now that I’ve taken the plunge, reading this article, and diving into this rabbit hole with other sources, I have to admit to myself that Gaiman is likely guilty of what he’s accused of. And while it’s disappointing to learn the awful truth about an artist you respected (adored), my deeper sorrow lies with these women he most likely assaulted and abused. And I feel more than a touch of shame for burying my head in the sand because I didn’t want to be dissapointed in yet another person.
It’s also remarkable to see the pictures of his accusers and observe how all the women upon whom he allegedly preyed look so much alike. If you were a Gaiman fan who was young, plain, insecure, brown-haired, and weren’t overweight, you were in trouble.
UPDATE: /pol/ has taken notice. If the weaponized autists get rolling on the subject, a lot of things will be learned that the investigative journalists haven’t uncovered yet.
UPDATE: Fandom Pulse is on it as well. Please note that they were a little less delicate with regards to the quotes from the article regarding Gaiman’s alleged violent perversions.
UPDATE: JK Rowling calls out the SJWs who are normally so quick to denounce people, but have been uncharacteristically reticent to call for Gaiman’s cancellation and deplatforming.
The literary crowd that had a hell of a lot to say about Harvey Weinstein before he was convicted has been strangely muted in its responses to multiple accusations against Neil Gaiman from young women who’d never met, yet – as with Weinstein – tell remarkably similar stories.
