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RE: Was John Norman blacklisted? - 3/6/2010 8:29:05 PM

Smutmonger

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Is "muchly" actually a word?

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RE: Was John Norman blacklisted? - 3/6/2010 8:30:53 PM

FukinTroll

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Smutmonger

Is "muchly" actually a word?

That depends on if you are an American or not.

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RE: Was John Norman blacklisted? - 3/6/2010 8:37:59 PM

Cherylmazana

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If you wish proof such as a letter from a publisher saying that his books were not published due to the nature of his writings etc you won’t find one. The whole point about blacklisting is that it is not done openly to avoid accusations of censorship and prejudice.

The only thing you can do is look at sales figures at the time, new markets opening up etc and their sales and then see if the publishing companies were losing money/breaking even with his books and decide for yourself.

Dark Horse was put under extreme pressure to stop publishing his books by their feminist authors who even started a campaign to have them stop printing, however while I remember reading a blog by a prominent author at Dark Horse and her attempts to have John Norman removed from the publishing company by getting other authors on her side I can’t find the link any more as it was years ago.

But this is John Normans own beliefs from before this last successful attempt.

http://www.pantheus.com/TGV/archive92002/TGV/biblio.shtml

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RE: Was John Norman blacklisted? - 3/7/2010 5:22:40 AM

ResidentSadist

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Cheryl,
Nice reply and link. John's blacklisting has always been an interest of mine. The article you linked is well put together and acurate. The only thing missing was a transcript of the 1988 interview with John when the reported asked him how it felt to be blacklisted. John said being blacklisted would be more fun if he had known. As far as blacklisting goes, Gor made profits from a dedicated audiance. It's not like they would be experimenting with a new author in untested waters. Who in their right business mind wouldn't want to publish to an established market with predictable sales?

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RE: Was John Norman blacklisted? - 3/7/2010 11:44:50 AM

Moonhead

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Cherylmazana
Dark Horse was put under extreme pressure to stop publishing his books by their feminist authors who even started a campaign to have them stop printing, however while I remember reading a blog by a prominent author at Dark Horse and her attempts to have John Norman removed from the publishing company by getting other authors on her side I can’t find the link any more as it was years ago.

So there's at least one case of him definitely not being blacklisted and the feminazi conspiracy being unable to touch him, then?
Another point occurs reading that link as well, Cheryl: how do you think Norman would have responded if he was aware of an editor talking about him and/or his work in such a scathing and contemptuous tone?

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RE: Was John Norman blacklisted? - 3/7/2010 12:52:47 PM

Nephilim

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"The only thing you can do is look at sales figures at the time, new markets opening up etc and their sales and then see if the publishing companies were losing money/breaking even with his books and decide for yourself."

First, somehow you think that as long as an author makes sales, he will be published. This isn't the case, any piece of shit you put to paper will get "some" sales. Instead, the way publishing and any business works, is comparing your opportunity to what else is available. If I have two authors, they will both sell some, maybe both will even "break even or better", but as a publisher, you can only print so many books, so you choose to print the one who will sell more and not ruin your reputation. As an author's sales drop and they continue to ask for large advances, it becomes more attractive to drop them. Especially if they will never do better than a small fraction of an already niche market.

Then, you figure that it is a good idea to "decide for yourself". Apparently you aren't equipped to do that, since you are willing to accept this claim as fact with no evidence. The only reason that it matters to me, is that it seems to want to sell JN on the whole persecuted author premise. Which, ironically, is the opposite of what the books seem to claim as ideal. One should accept nature, and achieve what their swords (and abilities) will allow them. I never read the part in the books that said that if you aren't good with the sword or the tool of your trade, you should whine and point to non-existent conspiracies.

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RE: Was John Norman blacklisted? - 3/7/2010 1:00:43 PM

Moonhead

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Was that actually aimed at me? None of the points you're raising seem to have anything to do with what I said.

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RE: Was John Norman blacklisted? - 3/7/2010 1:04:37 PM

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No, I quoted the part of the previous post that I was responding to.

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RE: Was John Norman blacklisted? - 3/7/2010 1:08:44 PM

Moonhead

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Mea culpa.

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RE: Was John Norman blacklisted? - 3/7/2010 8:17:12 PM

Cherylmazana

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Moonhead, it seems I didn’t explain myself well.

Dark Horse did stop printing his books, they decided to keep their other authors happy, which does make good business sense. Why loose many well established new authors with good records to print one author whose main attraction is to a small specific audience, they are in the business of making money after all.

This is why his books were then published by fictionwise first as e-books and now in paper format. They had no outraged feminists to upset.

Was it a blacklisting? I wouldn’t call it that exactly, what it was, was more simple than that. Feminists hate his work and put pressure on publishers to stop publishing his books, and the feminists won. I suppose that you could call it instead the death of freedom of speech or a conspiracy by other radical groups instead. But whatever it was it does seem to be a constant theme, many women are deeply offended by his work, and those that are and have the power to stop them from being more widely available will try to stop them. The internet must really gall them.

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RE: Was John Norman blacklisted? - 3/7/2010 8:26:19 PM

Cherylmazana

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Actually Nephilim I find it all quite amusing, I watched the whole fiasco with Dark Horse played out on the internet, I saw the women foaming at the mouth about this misogynistic author whom most admitted they had never read because they wouldn’t sully themselves with such filth.

I saw the women rise up to protect their children and the rest of western civilization against such hatred towards women and I saw the men nodding and agreeing with them. It was everything that Norman said Earth was like in his books, the herd following the herd with the women leading and none of them having taken the time to learn what they were fighting against. You could almost hear the baa’ss as they wisely nodded their heads together.

I saw why john Norman used sarcasm and satire against the feminists of his time and why they hate him so much, when I and others spoke out against this ignorance of what they were saying we were accused of being the same person, of telling lies and deceiving them.

Ignorance is much easier than knowledge.

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RE: Was John Norman blacklisted? - 3/7/2010 11:28:56 PM

Malkinius

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{fast reply}

Tal and greetings all.....

I am going to step into this one again as I have been on the science fiction side of it for years as well as the Gorean side. I have friends who are members of SFWA who have asked questions for me of the people who worked for DAW while Norman was being published. I am also a long time part of SF Fandom and have both run and helped run SF conventions so I know the people involved in some of the cases involving Norman being disinvited and the con in Memphis with Marion Zimmer Bradly and John Norman as co-Guest of Honors. I also saw many of the blogs during the Dark Horse incident.

The simple summation is that yes, Norman was and still is blacklisted by many groups and people. He is treated less well than George Soros and his MoveOn organization treated the second President Bush. It is mostly feminists and political correctness types who started and instigated it but dislike of him and his writing has gone beyond that to people who respond that way because others do and most of whom have never read the books. There was a semi-organized campaign to get Dark Horse to not reprint the books. (They were going to reprint them in groups of three as one volume.) If I hunt hard enough I might still have working links to some of the blogs demonizing him and Dark Horse for the idea of doing it and said worse things would happen if they actually published the books. Dark Horse did cave.

Norman does go to a few SF cons. PhilCon (Philadelphia, PA) and ICon (Islip, NY) on a regular basis but apparently doesn't travel much beyond them. He teaches at Islip so it is a home SF con for him. The hate he got the last time he went much beyond those two (Memphis) was enough that he pulled back from going much of any where. The hate and yes, I use the term specifically, that was generated by the con committee daring to have him as a GoH was tremendous. Being paired with MZB didn't help, especially because supposedly they didn't tell their GoH's who was sharing the bill with them until they got there. Yes, it was a disaster. No, I wasn't there but I have talked to people who were.

So....from the inside of Science Fiction fandom, the Science Fiction Writer's Association and other things I have learned over the years, it was no only what he wrote but that he wouldn't cave in to the politically correct types or feminists groups and toe their line as Sharon Greene did when she changed what she was writing. She once was called the female John Norman for some of her early books. I also gather he was a libertarian while still a college student as well as an atheist and rather strident about both so that didn't endear him to many people.

Be well all.....

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RE: Was John Norman blacklisted? - 3/7/2010 11:58:28 PM

Nephilim

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I think there is little doubt that many people don't like John Norman. Also, no doubt he has offended many. He may have been bumped from some conventions because bigger authors didn't want to share a stage with him. He may even have people ask publishers not to publish him, or they may chose to stop publishing him for various reasons; things like poor ability, not enough sales to justify the hassle, etc. That does not make some grand conspiracy. That is like saying that because many people find his views distasteful, they are in some sort of conspiracy. As I understand it, the Dark horse thing was about republishing not contracting for new novels. So, in that case, even if it were canceled, nothing would be less available or was not published due to the "uprising" at that company. Does make you wonder that if it played out online, was it a marketing tactic.

If a racist author prints a book, and bookstores independently choose not to carry it, publishers chose not to sully their name with it for marginal profits, it doesn't signify a conspiracy. If that author finds an outlet and is published, it is even proof of the fact that there was no blacklist, only independent judgments based on business decisions. Is there a grand conspiracy against the KKK?

As many have pointed out, this guy has had a huge run of publications and reprints. Considering his ability, I would say the perception of persecution and controversy have only given him more of a buzz and helped sales. Can you be "blacklisted" and published at the same time? Does that make sense?

I'm sure there will always be those who prefer to believe that they, or someone they are fans of is persecuted and held back by some conspiracy just as there are truthers, holocaust deniers, etc.

< Message edited by Nephilim -- 3/8/2010 12:07:53 AM >

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RE: Was John Norman blacklisted? - 3/8/2010 3:58:56 AM

Moonhead

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Malkinius
I also gather he was a libertarian while still a college student as well as an atheist and rather strident about both so that didn't endear him to many people.

Be well all.....

Malkinius

Which is why Jerry Pournelle, Jack Vance, Robert Anson Wilson, Ayn Rand and Robert Heinlein have nothing in print at the moment, no doubt. The science fiction field hates libertarian with a passion, doesn't it?

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RE: Was John Norman blacklisted? - 3/8/2010 8:05:54 AM

Musicmystery

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Nephilim

Can you be "blacklisted" and published at the same time? Does that make sense?

From some SciFi conventions and still be published? Of course.

quote:

I'm sure there will always be those who prefer to believe that they, or someone they are fans of is persecuted and held back by some conspiracy

This is really the problem---you've a pet theory to prove, and you're out to establish it, whether the facts work that way or not.

Again, you're overdramatizing.

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RE: Was John Norman blacklisted? - 3/8/2010 8:08:06 AM

Musicmystery

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Moonhead

quote:

ORIGINAL: Malkinius
I also gather he was a libertarian while still a college student as well as an atheist and rather strident about both so that didn't endear him to many people.

Be well all.....

Malkinius

Which is why Jerry Pournelle, Jack Vance, Robert Anson Wilson, Ayn Rand and Robert Heinlein have nothing in print at the moment, no doubt. The science fiction field hates libertarian with a passion, doesn't it?

Incidentally, you're overdramatizing as well.

Given the changes in the publishing industry, we could make a similar case for pretty much anything with a pet theory and a little cherry picking for examples.

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RE: Was John Norman blacklisted? - 3/8/2010 9:17:01 AM

Moonhead

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Not really overdramatising. There's plenty of libertarian SF writers and if anything the SF field seems a lot more slanted to the right than the left. Even Andrew "The Turner Diaries" MacDonald hasn't been blacklisted as such as he's never sought to publish his book through conventional channels rather than as survivalist samizdat.

As for cherry picking examples: Robert Heinlein is probably the single biggest influence on modern SF and Vance Pournelle and Wilson are all hugely successful. There's definitely a load more libertarian (or out and out crypto fascist, come to that) SF writers than there are liberals working in the field. I'm not sure that the Marxists Ian Watson and Iain M Banks have quite the same influence on the field that anybody I've named has, and I could name a lot more. The rather conservative bias displayed by the field as a whole is probably the reason why so many female writers take issue with John Norman's sexual politics. In that light the fact that the complaints are all over the slavery/women are inferior thing rather than the not quite feudal social order described in the fiction, is telling. If there was a conspiracy of liberal editors, wouldn't they all be shitting blood over stuff like Oath of Fealty and Hammer's Slammers as well?

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RE: Was John Norman blacklisted? - 3/8/2010 9:54:26 AM

Musicmystery

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Seriously. Read what you just wrote.

The Age of Hysteria has preprogrammed people to see conspiracies at every turn. Meanwhile, in the everyday world of business reality, decisions are made for more practical reasons.

Yes, the industry is a cautious one, nervous about taking risks. I'll give you that much. The rest has little to do with ideology. If publishers thought they'd sell well, they'd publish whatever.

And do.

< Message edited by Musicmystery -- 3/8/2010 9:58:42 AM >

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RE: Was John Norman blacklisted? - 3/8/2010 10:45:15 AM

Moonhead

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When did I claim that there was a conspiracy? I merely pointed out that Nephilim's argument about Norman's career being harmed by his being a libertarian was a load of crap.

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RE: Was John Norman blacklisted? - 3/8/2010 10:51:57 AM

Jeffff