Heliotrope is a free quarterly magazine of speculative fiction that publishes stories, poetry and articles. This issue features a story by Neil Gaiman called One Life, Furnished in Early Moorcock. There are also several articles about writer Michael Moorcock’s profound influence on the science fiction and fantasy genres. His most popular works are the Elric of Melniboné stories.
In what appears to be one of the worst cases of literary censorship in modern United States history, Amazon.com has listed a wide range of books as what the company calls ‘adult material.’ It would appear that they have included any title that contains any material related in any way to homosexuality. By being placed on this ‘adult material list’, the books were essentially stripped away from any search results and made very difficult to find by browsing.
The following is from Amazon:
In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude “adult” material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.
Candlelight Stories thinks that this represents one of the single most moronic statements ever delivered to the public by a prominent book seller.
The company has announced that this was due to a ‘technical glitch’ but there are very few bloggers who seem to believe that explanation. It would seem that plenty of ‘adult material’ was left available and that this effort was focused largely on non-heterosexual material. This is a terrible thing for a major bookseller to do. It’s a form of book banning. It reeks of ultra-conservative fear of ideas or differing lifestyles. Amazon says it was engaged in an initiative to protect its wide customer base by listing certain books as ‘adult material’ so that they would not appear at the top of search results and possibly offend someone. The complaints of someone who is offended by a book for adults showing up in a list of search results should not be listened to for even a moment. It is a very short step from this kind of censorship to a book burning. This is truly indicative of the danger in primarily relying upon a single online source for books.
It would be advisable to immediately move away from Amazon as a source for books. This kind of behavior, though given a flimsy explanation by the company, tends to indicate a general direction or pattern of behavior in a company. Candlelight Stories is looking into fully disengaging from our relationship with Amazon and will not be offering their products through our site. This blog stands fully opposed to discrimination, censorship or book banning of any kind whatsoever.
Once again, we cannot over-emphasize the importance of moving away from Amazon for book purchases. This is a very serious problem and the company’s explanation is insultingly false.
Here are links to several of the best book sellers on the internet:
Mature Content
The Pothole is the latest offering from Well Told Tales, a blog specializing in the production of pulp fiction podcasts. They have recently transitioned from offering only their own audio productions to allowing users to upload their own audio stories, films and written stories. It’s an excellent idea.
I had a blast listening to The Pothole a few evenings ago. It’s genuinely disturbing and offers a unique perspective on its genre. I won’t tell you which genre it is because I don’t want to spoil the suspense for you. The writing by Kris Ashton hooks you immediately. His characters are vivid. The story is pulp fiction at its best. The narrator is John Wooley, actor, author, film teacher and columnist. His reading is superb, with a relaxed and gravelly voice that lets the story unwind with just the right touch of dread.
These guys are very accomplished and are making some of the best audio stories I’ve heard anywhere. Give Well Told Tales a visit.
On Thursday, April 9, 2009, The Los Angeles Times newspaper placed an advertisement disguised as a column of news on its front page! A major American newspaper cannot do this. It is totally unacceptable. The cheapening of the LA Times over the past year due to financial problems and poor management has gradually gutted the paper. It’s once high-quality book review section on Sundays is now part of another section and has become a smattering of generalized culture articles.
As soon as I found out about the disguised ad on Thursday I ran to the phone and cancelled my 12-year subscription to the paper. The woman on the phone asked what my reason was and I told her I was disgusted by the ad placement. Perhaps someone in the paper’s management will realize that the end has arrived and save us all some trees by shutting down the presses and letting the reporters go work for an internet news organization.
Newspapers are in trouble. It’s imbeciles like the ones running the LA Times that make a recovery impossible for them.
Rest in peace, Los Angeles Times.
Set to open on April 21, 2009, the World Digital Library will make freely available in multilingual format, significant materials from different cultures, including manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, and others. The library promises to promote cross-cultural understanding and provide resources to educators. The Library of Congress is involved in the project along with the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the National Library of Brazil, the National Library and Archives of Egypt, and the National Library of Russia.
There are a couple of videos that claim to show prototypes of the library. These look to me like quickly produced mock-ups of very little substance. If you were really building such a library online, you would not have only four or five paragraphs of text and two videos on your web site to show for your efforts. You’d be trying to show off how great your project is and how well it works.
I could be wrong, but this kind of mystery project that sits for years in ‘development’ and includes such enormous claims from such an international cast of characters always makes me suspicious. I take an ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’ attitude. Sort of the like the absolutely transparent $100 laptop con job otherwise known as One Laptop Per Child, which has received a Fiasco Award.
After all, we already have The Internet Archive. It actually works. It has material from all over the world. It’s free. It’s easy to use. Why don’t these great libraries just use that?
