#Patrick Nielsen Hayden

[theoutcastrogue]

“This is the rule, only white people are allowed to sing about outlaws. When black people do it, it's evil rap music and it's contributing to delinquency.”

– Patrick Nielsen Hayden, in Censorship and Information Control panel #6: Changes in Media Technology Small and Large

[neil-gaiman]

This was a conversation on the Internet almost 25 years ago. It's about physical fandom, and ways of talking and communicating in physical fandom, some of which we would now talk about in reference to neurointerestingess rather than to fandom. It came up over on Bluesky talking about people who pronounce words wrongly because they have only encountered them on the page.

The poster who brought it to my attention, Scott Kullberg, said "I remember an old USENET post about a speech therapist's analysis of fannish speech. One of the things she noticed is that it's common and not considered rude to interrupt with this kind of correction."

Fascinating for me because a) it checks out in some ways, b) I wasn't at the event it describes but I could have been and c) reading the thread makes me nostalgic for an Internet that's been eaten by something else. (I also very much enjoyed Patrick Nielsen Hayden's contribution.)

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Too big to care

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in BOSTON with Randall "XKCD" Munroe (Apr 11), then PROVIDENCE (Apr 12), and beyond!

Remember the first time you used Google search? It was like magic. After years of progressively worsening search quality from Altavista and Yahoo, Google was literally stunning, a gateway to the very best things on the internet.

Today, Google has a 90% search market-share. They got it the hard way: they cheated. Google spends tens of billions of dollars on payola in order to ensure that they are the default search engine behind every search box you encounter on every device, every service and every website:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/03/not-feeling-lucky/#fundamental-laws-of-economics

Not coincidentally, Google's search is getting progressively, monotonically worse. It is a cesspool of botshit, spam, scams, and nonsense. Important resources that I never bothered to bookmark because I could find them with a quick Google search no longer show up in the first ten screens of results:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task

Even after all that payola, Google is still absurdly profitable. They have so much money, they were able to do a $80 billion stock buyback. Just a few months later, Google fired 12,000 skilled technical workers. Essentially, Google is saying that they don't need to spend money on quality, because we're all locked into using Google search. It's cheaper to buy the default search box everywhere in the world than it is to make a product that is so good that even if we tried another search engine, we'd still prefer Google.

This is enshittification. Google is shifting value away from end users (searchers) and business customers (advertisers, publishers and merchants) to itself:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/05/the-map-is-not-the-territory/#apor-locksmith

And here's the thing: there are search engines out there that are so good that if you just try them, you'll get that same feeling you got the first time you tried Google.

When I was in Tucson last month on my book-tour for my new novel The Bezzle, I crashed with my pals Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden. I've know them since I was a teenager (Patrick is my editor).

We were sitting in his living room on our laptops – just like old times! – and Patrick asked me if I'd tried Kagi, a new search-engine.

Teresa chimed in, extolling the advanced search features, the "lenses" that surfaced specific kinds of resources on the web.

I hadn't even heard of Kagi, but the Nielsen Haydens are among the most effective researchers I know – both in their professional editorial lives and in their many obsessive hobbies. If it was good enough for them…

I tried it. It was magic.

No, seriously. All those things Google couldn't find anymore? Top of the search pile. Queries that generated pages of spam in Google results? Fucking pristine on Kagi – the right answers, over and over again.

That was before I started playing with Kagi's lenses and other bells and whistles, which elevated the search experience from "magic" to sorcerous.

The catch is that Kagi costs money – after 100 queries, they want you to cough up $10/month ($14 for a couple or $20 for a family with up to six accounts, and some kid-specific features):

https://kagi.com/settings?p=billing_plan&plan=family

I immediately bought a family plan. I've been using it for a month. I've basically stopped using Google search altogether.

Kagi just let me get a lot more done, and I assumed that they were some kind of wildly capitalized startup that was running their own crawl and and their own data-centers. But this morning, I read Jason Koebler's 404 Media report on his own experiences using it:

https://www.404media.co/friendship-ended-with-google-now-kagi-is-my-best-friend/

Koebler's piece contained a key detail that I'd somehow missed:

When you search on Kagi, the service makes a series of “anonymized API calls to traditional search indexes like Google, Yandex, Mojeek, and Brave,” as well as a handful of other specialized search engines, Wikimedia Commons, Flickr, etc. Kagi then combines this with its own web index and news index (for news searches) to build the results pages that you see. So, essentially, you are getting some mix of Google search results combined with results from other indexes.

In other words: Kagi is a heavily customized, anonymized front-end to Google.

The implications of this are stunning. It means that Google's enshittified search-results are a choice. Those ad-strewn, sub-Altavista, spam-drowned search pages are a feature, not a bug. Google prefers those results to Kagi, because Google makes more money out of shit than they would out of delivering a good product:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/2/24117976/best-printer-2024-home-use-office-use-labels-school-homework

No wonder Google spends a whole-ass Twitter every year to make sure you never try a rival search engine. Bottom line: they ran the numbers and figured out their most profitable course of action is to enshittify their flagship product and bribe their "competitors" like Apple and Samsung so that you never try another search engine and have another one of those magic moments that sent all those Jeeves-askin' Yahooers to Google a quarter-century ago.

One of my favorite TV comedy bits is Lily Tomlin as Ernestine the AT&T operator; Tomlin would do these pitches for the Bell System and end every ad with "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company":

https://snltranscripts.jt.org/76/76aphonecompany.phtml

Speaking of TV comedy: this week saw FTC chair Lina Khan appear on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. It was amazing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaDTiWaYfcM

The coverage of Khan's appearance has focused on Stewart's revelation that when he was doing a show on Apple TV, the company prohibited him from interviewing her (presumably because of her hostility to tech monopolies):

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/apple-got-caught-censoring-its-own

But for me, the big moment came when Khan described tech monopolists as "too big to care."

What a phrase!

Since the subprime crisis, we're all familiar with businesses being "too big to fail" and "too big to jail." But "too big to care?" Oof, that got me right in the feels.

Because that's what it feels like to use enshittified Google. That's what it feels like to discover that Kagi – the good search engine – is mostly Google with the weights adjusted to serve users, not shareholders.

Google used to care. They cared because they were worried about competitors and regulators. They cared because their workers made them care:

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/4/4/18295933/google-cancels-ai-ethics-board

Google doesn't care anymore. They don't have to. They're the search company.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/#kagi

[jscalzi]

Hey, Look at That

Starter Villain won this year’s Dragon Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. Neat! Thank you to everyone at Tor, particularly my editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden, my cover artist Tristan Elwell, and everyone who voted for the novel. I’m thrilled and delighted. It’s fun to win awards, and an honor to be part of the field of finalists. — JS

[whateveradjunct]

Hey, Look at That

Starter Villain won this year’s Dragon Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. Neat! Thank you to everyone at Tor, particularly my editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden, my cover artist Tristan Elwell, and everyone who voted for the novel. I’m thrilled and delighted. It’s fun to win awards, and an honor to be part of the field of finalists. — JS

[operation-teleport]

Patrick & Teresa Nielsen Hayden.

Sh tk my fckng vwls n th dvrc

[noratilney]

Fancast Friday #3: Might Tell You Tonight

THE STANDISHES (Delilah, Charlotte, Alicia, Abby, Andrew)

Juno Temple as Delilah Standish

Brianne Howey as Charlotte Standish

Aisha Dee as Alicia Jordan

Sofia Carson as Abigail Abby Cardenas

Diesel La Torraca as Andrew Elliott

THE COHENS (Gabriel, Isaac, Emmie)

Anthony Natale as Gabriel Cohen

Sean Berdy as Isaac Cohen

Elodie Blomfield as Emmie Cohen

MYSTIC FALLS HIGH

FRESHMEN (

SOPHOMORES

Isabel Durant as Kelsey Baker

Vanessa Marano as Alexis Barnes

Cameron Boyce as Anthony Cartullo

Owen Patrick Joyner as Peter Chase

Felix Mallard as Nathan Cooper

Connor Paolo as Brandon Edgecombe

Gage Golightly as Lauren Grant

Becca Tobin as Emily Gregory

China McClain as Morgan Hayden

Claudia Lee as Jessica Hollis

X

Taylor Momsen as Claire Honeycutt

X

Dove Cameron as Delia Honeycutt

Iman Meskini as Laila Kamoun

Maya Hawke as Rachel Kuschner

Dominic Sherwood as Jeffrey Lambert

Nicole Maines as Mary Lawrence

Curran Walters as Jason Matthews

X

Katie Stevens as Rory McGovern

Peyton Meyer as Connor Miller

Dylan Llewellyn as Evan Parry

X

Emilija Baranac as Jennifer Nielsen

Mitchell Hope as Benjamin Peterson

Victoria Justice as Michelle Porter

Brenna D'Amico as Stephanie Rand

Elise Bauman as Melissa Roberts

X

Sofia Black D’Elia as Hannah Sheridan

Eli Brown as Corey Wilson

Arden Cho as ? Wong

Casey Cott as Adam ?

X

Ashleigh Murray as Courtney ?

X

Kit Young as ?

X

Jordan Fisher as ?

X

Barrett Carnahan as ?

X

Nathaniel James Potvin as ?

X

Isabel May as ?

as Tristan ?

X

as Michael ?

X

as Daniel ?

X

as Josh ?

X

as Eli ?

JUNIORS (

X

Madison McLaughlin as Miranda Carter

X

Vanessa Hudgens as Veronica Delgado

X

Ross Lynch as Bryce Honeycutt

X

Danielle Galligan as Kristin Lieberman

X

Mae Whitman as Natalie Piper

X

Matthew Daddario as Scott Tucker

Willa Holland as Amy ?

SENIORS (

X

Sophie Cookson as Melanie Anderson

X

Chord Overstreet as Frederick Dean Honeycutt

X

Brenton Thwaites as Jesse ?

DELILAH’S BOOK CLUB

JoAnna García Swisher as ?, mom of ?, aged eight and ?, age six

Michaela Conlin as ?, mom of ?, aged nine

Anna Torv as ?, mom of ?, aged eleven, ?, age nine, and ?, age six

OTHERS (Mary McCullough, Joanna Fell)

Rachel McAdams as Mary McCullough

Sharon Belle as Joanna Fell

[tkmedia]

NHL Expansion Draft 2021: Full list of players available for Seattle Kraken

The NHL announced the protected lists for the 30 teams involved in the NHL Expansion Draft. (Vegas is exempt.) With the names of those protected come the guys who could be snatched up by the Seattle Kraken. There are a number of big names that have everyone trying to figure out just what general manager Ron Francis will do. Will he take Canadiens netminder, and future Hall of Famer, Carey Price and his hefty cap hit? Is Vladimir Tarasenko the sniper he needs or is his health a big question mark? There's also a number of guys who would fit in nicely but are free agents and the chances of signing them are not high (i.e. Alex Ovechkin).  EXPANSION DRAFT: Date, time, rules & more for Seattle Kraken team selectionRegardless of what Francis, coach Dave Hakstrol and Co. end up doing, there's a good chance the Kraken will be a playoff contender in just their first season. For now, let the intrigue and the guessing WWRFD (that's: what will Ron Francis do?) begin. Here's a look at every player they can pick.

List of players made available by all 30 NHL teams

Anaheim DucksAndrew Agozzino (F) David Backes (F) Sam Carrick (F) Chase De Leo (F) Ryan Getzlaf (F) Derek Grant (F) Danton Heinen (F) Adam Henrique (F) Vinni Lettieri (F) Sonny Milano (F) Andrew Poturalski (F) Carter Rowney (F) Nick Sorensen (F) Alexander Volkov (F) Trevor Carrick (D) Haydn Fleury (D) Brendan Guhle (D) Jacob Larsson (D) Josh Mahura (D) Kevin Shattenkirk (D) Andy Welinski (D) Ryan Miller (G) Anthony Stolarz (G)Arizona CoyotesDerick Brassard (F) Michael Bunting (F) Brayden Burke (F) Michael Chaput (F) Hudson Fasching (F) Christian Fischer (F) Frederik Gauthier (F) John Hayden (F) Dryden Hunt (F) Andrew Ladd (F) Lane Pederson (F) Tyler Pitlick (F) Blake Speers (F) Tyler Steenbergen (F) Jason Demers (D) Cam Dineen (D) Alex Goligoski (D) Jordan Gross (D) Niklas Hjalmarsson (D) Ilya Lyubushkin (D) Dysin Mayo (D) Aaron Ness (D) Jordan Oesterle (D) Vili Saarijarvi (D) Josef Korenar (G) Marek Langhamer (G) Antti Raanta (G)Boston BruinsAnton Blidh (F) Paul Carey (F) Peter Cehlarik (F) Jakob Forsbacka Karlsson (F) Taylor Hall (F) Cameron Hughes (F) Ondrej Kase (F) Alex Khokhlachev (F) Joona Koppanen (F) David Krejci (F) Karson Kuhlman (F) Sean Kuraly (F) Curtis Lazar (F) Greg McKegg (F) Nick Ritchie (F) Zach Senyshyn (F) Chris Wagner (F) Linus Arnesson (D) Connor Clifton (D) Steven Kampfer (D) Jeremy Lauzon (D) Kevan Miller (D) John Moore (D) Mike Reilly (D) Jarred Tinordi (D) Jakub Zboril (D) Callum Booth (G) Jaroslav Halak (G) Tuukka Rask (G)Buffalo SabresDrake Caggiula (F) Jean-Sebastien Dea (F) Cody Eakin (F) Steven Fogarty (F) Zemgus Girgensons (F) Andrew Oglevie (F) Kyle Okposo (F) Tobias Rieder (F) Riley Sheahan (F) Jeff Skinner (F) C.J. Smith (F) Will Borgen (D) Brandon Davidson (D) Matt Irwin (D) Jake McCabe (D) Colin Miller (D) Casey Nelson (D) Michael Houser (G) Carter Hutton (G) Dustin Tokarski (G)Calgary FlamesByron Froese (F) Glenn Gawdin (F) Justin Kirkland (F) Josh Leivo (F) Milan Lucic (F) Joakim Nordstrom (F) Matthew Phillips (F) Zac Rinaldo (F) Brett Ritchie (F) Buddy Robinson (F) Derek Ryan (F) Dominik Simon (F) Mark Giordano (D) Oliver Kylington (D) Nikita Nesterov (D) Alexander Petrovic (D) Michael Stone (D) Louis Domingue (G) Tyler Parsons (G)Carolina HurricanesMorgan Geekie (F) Steven Lorentz (F) Jordan Martinook (F) Max McCormick (F) Brock McGinn (F) Nino Niederreiter (F) Cedric Paquette (F) Sheldon Rempal (F) Drew Shore (F) Spencer Smallman (F) Jake Bean (D) Jake Gardiner (D) Eric Gelinas (D) Jani Hakanpaa (D) Dougie Hamilton (D) Maxime Lajoie (D) Roland McKeown (D) Joakim Ryan (D) David Warsofsky (D) Antoine Bibeau (G) Jeremy Helvig (G) Petr Mrazek (G) James Reimer (G) Dylan Wells (G)Chicago BlackhawksRyan Carpenter (F) Brett Connolly (F) Josh Dickinson (F) Adam Gaudette (F) Vinnie Hinostroza (F) Brandon Pirri (F) John Quenneville (F) Zack Smith (F) Calvin de Haan (D) Anton Lindholm (D) Nikita Zadorov (D) Collin Delia (G) Malcolm Subban (G)Colorado AvalancheTravis Barron (F) Pierre-Edouard Bellemare (F) Matt Calvert (F) J.T. Compher (F) Joonas Donskoi (F) Sheldon Dries (F) Vladislav Kamenev (F) Gabriel Landeskog (F) Ty Lewis (F) Jayson Megna (F) Liam O'Brien (F) Brandon Saad (F) Miikka Salomaki (F) Kiefer Sherwood (F) Carl Soderberg (F) T.J. Tynan (F) Mike Vecchione (F) Kyle Burroughs (D) Dennis Gilbert (D) Erik Johnson (D) Jacob MacDonald (D) Patrik Nemeth (D) Dan Renouf (D) Devan Dubnyk (G) Jonas Johansson (G) Hunter Miska (G)Columbus Blue JacketsZac Dalpe (F) Max Domi (F) Nathan Gerbe (F) Mikhail Grigorenko (F) Ryan MacInnis (F) Stefan Matteau (F) Cliff Pu (F) Kole Sherwood (F) Kevin Stenlund (F) Calvin Thurkauf (F) Daniel Zaar (F) Gavin Bayreuther (D) Gabriel Carlsson (D) Adam Clendening (D) Michael Del Zotto (D) Scott Harrington (D) Dean Kukan (D) Cameron Johnson (G)Dallas StarsNick Caamano (F) Andrew Cogliano (F) Blake Comeau (F) Justin Dowling (F) Tanner Kero (F) Joel L'Esperance (F) Adam Mascherin (F) Matej Stransky (F) Taylor Fedun (D) Ben Gleason (D) Joel Hanley (D) Niklas Hansson (D) Julius Honka (D) Jamie Oleksiak (D) Mark Pysyk (D) Andrej Sekera (D) Sami Vatanen (D) Ben Bishop (G) Landon Bow (G) Colton Point (G)Detroit Red WingsRiley Barber (F) Kyle Criscuolo (F) Turner Elson (F) Valtteri Filppula (F) Sam Gagner (F) Luke Glendening (F) Darren Helm (F) Taro Hirose (F) Vladislav Namestnikov (F) Frans Nielsen (F) Bobby Ryan (F) Evgeny Svechnikov (F) Dominic Turgeon (F) Hayden Verbeek (F) Alex Biega (D) Dennis Cholowski (D) Danny DeKeyser (D) Christian Djoos (D) Joe Hicketts (D) Dylan McIlrath (D) Marc Staal (D) Troy Stecher (D) Jonathan Bernier (G) Kevin Boyle (G) Kaden Fulcher (G) Calvin Pickard (G)EXPANSION DRAFT: Full list of players protected by all 30 teamsEdmonton OilersTyler Benson (F) Alex Chiasson (F) Adam Cracknell (F) Tyler Ennis (F) Joseph Gambardella (F) Seth Griffith (F) Dominik Kahun (F) Jujhar Khaira (F) Cooper Marody (F) James Neal (F) Alan Quine (F) Patrick Russell (F) Devin Shore (F) Anton Slepyshev (F) Kyle Turris (F) Bogdan Yakimov (F) Tyson Barrie (D) Oscar Klefbom (D) Slater Koekkoek (D) Dmitry Kulikov (D) William Lagesson (D) Adam Larsson (D) Kris Russell (D) Mikko Koskinen (G) Mike Smith (G) Alex Stalock (G)DUNCAN KEITH: Oilers add three-time Stanley Cup championFlorida PanthersNoel Acciari (F) Patrick Bajkov (F) Juho Lammikko (F) Ryan Lomberg (F) Brad Morrison (F) Aleksi Saarela (F) Frank Vatrano (F) Lucas Wallmark (F) Alex Wennberg (F) Scott Wilson (F) Lucas Carlsson (D) Kevin Connauton (D) Tommy Cross (D) Radko Gudas (D) Noah Juulsen (D) Brady Keeper (D) Brandon Montour (D) Markus Nutivaara (D) Ethan Prow (D) Anton Stralman (D) Philippe Desrosiers (G) Chris Driedger (G) Sam Montembeault (G)Los Angeles KingsAndreas Athanasiou (F) Michael Eyssimont (F) Martin Frk (F) Carl Grundstrom (F) Bokondji Imama (F) Brendan Lemieux (F) Blake Lizotte (F) Matt Luff (F) Drake Rymsha (F) Austin Wagner (F) Mark Alt (D) Daniel Brickley (D) Kale Clague (D) Olli Maatta (D) Kurtis MacDermid (D) Jacob Moverare (D) Austin Strand (D) Christian Wolanin (D) Troy Grosenick (G) Jonathan Quick (G)Minnesota WildWilliam Bitten (F) Nick Bjugstad (F) Nick Bonino (F) Joseph Cramarossa (F) Gabriel Dumont (F) Marcus Johansson (F) Luke Johnson (F) Victor Rask (F) Kyle Rau (F) Mason Shaw (F) Dmitry Sokolov (F) Matt Bartkowski (D) Louie Belpedio (D) Ian Cole (D) Brad Hunt (D) Ian McCoshen (D) Brennan Menell (D) Dakota Mermis (D) Carson Soucy (D) Andrew Hammond (G) Kaapo Kahkonen (G)Montreal CanadiensBrandon Baddock (F) Joseph Blandisi (F) Paul Byron (F) Phillip Danault (F) Laurent Dauphin (F) Jonathan Drouin (F) Michael Frolik (F) Charles Hudon (F) Corey Perry (F) Michael Pezzetta (F) Eric Staal (F) Tomas Tatar (F) Lukas Vejdemo (F) Jordan Weal (F) Cale Fleury (D) Erik Gustafsson (D) Brett Kulak (D) Jon Merrill (D) Gustav Olofsson (D) Xavier Ouellet (D) Shea Weber (D) Charlie Lindgren (G) Michael McNiven (G) Carey Price (G)Nashville PredatorsMichael Carcone (F) Nick Cousins (F) Matt Duchene (F) Mikael Granlund (F) Rocco Grimaldi (F) Erik Haula (F) Calle Jarnkrok (F) Ryan Johansen (F) Sean Malone (F) Michael McCarron (F) Rem Pitlick (F) Anthony Richard (F) Brad Richardson (F) Colton Sissons (F) Yakov Trenin (F) Frederic Allard (D) Matt Benning (D) Mark Borowiecki (D) Erik Gudbranson (D) Ben Harpur (D) Josh Healey (D) Tyler Lewington (D) Connor Ingram (G) Kasimir Kaskisuo (G) Pekka Rinne (G)New Jersey DevilsNathan Bastian (F) Christoph Bertschy (F) Brandon Gignac (F) A.J. Greer (F) Andreas Johnsson (F) Ivan Khomutov (F) Nicholas Merkley (F) Brett Seney (F) Ben Street (F) Marian Studenic (F) Will Butcher (D) Connor Carrick (D) Josh Jacobs (D) Ryan Murray (D) David Quenneville (D) Colby Sissons (D) P.K. Subban (D) Matt Tennyson (D) Colton White (D) Evan Cormier (G) Aaron Dell (G) Scott Wedgewood (G)New York IslandersJosh Bailey (F) Cole Bardreau (F) Kieffer Bellows (F) Casey Cizikas (F) Austin Czarnik (F) Michael Dal Colle (F) Jordan Eberle (F) Tanner Fritz (F) Joshua Ho-Sang (F) Ross Johnston (F) Otto Koivula (F) Leo Komarov (F) Kyle Palmieri (F) Richard Panik (F) Dmytro Timashov (F) Travis Zajac (F) Sebastian Aho (D) Braydon Coburn (D) Andy Greene (D) Thomas Hickey (D) Mitchell Vande Sompel (D) Parker Wotherspoon (D) Ken Appleby (G) Cory Schneider (G)New York RangersColin Blackwell (F) Jonny Brodzinski (F) Phillip Di Giuseppe (F) Gabriel Fontaine (F) Julien Gauthier (F) Tim Gettinger (F) Barclay Goodrow (F) Anthony Greco (F) Ty Ronning (F) Anthony Bitetto (D) Brandon Crawley (D) Tony DeAngelo (D) Nick DeSimone (D) Mason Geertsen (D) Jack Johnson (D) Darren Raddysh (D) Brendan Smith (D) Keith Kinkaid (G)EXPANSION DRAFT FRENZY: Ryan Ellis, Jared McCann, Barclay Goodrow among players swapped before trade freezeOttawa SenatorsAvailable Vitaly Abramov (F) Michael Amadio (F) Artem Anisimov (F) J.C. Beaudin (F) Clark Bishop (F) Evgenii Dadonov (F) Jonathan Davidsson (F) Ryan Dzingel (F) Micheal Haley (F) Jack Kopacka (F) Zachary Magwood (F) Matthew Peca (F) Logan Shaw (F) Derek Stepan (F) Chris Tierney (F) Josh Brown (D) Cody Goloubef (D) Mikael Wikstrand (D) Joey Daccord (G) Anton Forsberg (G) Marcus Hogberg (G) Matt Murray (G)Philadelphia FlyersAndy Andreoff (F) Connor Bunnaman (F) David Kase (F) Pascal Laberge (F) Samuel Morin (F) German Rubtsov (F) Carsen Twarynski (F) James van Riemsdyk (F) Jakub Voracek (F) Mikhail Vorobyev (F) Chris Bigras (D) Justin Braun (D) Shayne Gostisbehere (D) Robert Hagg (D) Derrick Pouliot (D) Nate Prosser (D) Tyler Wotherspoon (D) Brian Elliott (G) Alex Lyon (G) Felix Sandstrom (G)Pittsburgh PenguinsPontus Aberg (F) Anthony Angello (F) Zach Aston-Reese (F) Josh Currie (F) Frederick Gaudreau (F) Mark Jankowski (F) Sam Lafferty (F) Sam Miletic (F) Evan Rodrigues (F) Colton Sceviour (F) Brandon Tanev (F) Jason Zucker (F) Cody Ceci (D) Kevin Czuczman (D) Mark Friedman (D) Jesper Lindgren (D) Andrey Pedan (D) Marcus Pettersson (D) Juuso Riikola (D) Chad Ruhwedel (D) Yannick Weber (D) Casey DeSmith (G) Maxime Lagace (G)San Jose SharksRyan Donato (F) Kurtis Gabriel (F) Dylan Gambrell (F) Jayden Halbgewachs (F) Maxim Letunov (F) Patrick Marleau (F) Matt Nieto (F) Marcus Sorensen (F) Alexander True (F) Christian Jaros (D) Nicolas Meloche (D) Jacob Middleton (D) Greg Pateryn (D) Radim Simek (D) Martin Jones (G)St. Louis BluesSam Anas (F) Sammy Blais (F) Tyler Bozak (F) Kyle Clifford (F) Jacob de la Rose (F) Mike Hoffman (F) Tanner Kaspick (F) Mackenzie MacEachern (F) Curtis McKenzie (F) Austin Poganski (F) Zach Sanford (F) Jaden Schwartz (F) Nolan Stevens (F) Vladimir Tarasenko (F) Nathan Walker (F) Robert Bortuzzo (D) Vince Dunn (D) Petteri Lindbohm (D) Niko Mikkola (D) Mitch Reinke (D) Steven Santini (D) Marco Scandella (D) Jake Walman (D) Evan Fitzpatrick (G) Jon Gillies (G) Ville Husso (G)Tampa Bay LightningAlex Barre-Boulet (F) Blake Coleman (F) Ross Colton (F) Yanni Gourde (F) Tyler Johnson (F) Mathieu Joseph (F) Boris Katchouk (F) Alex Killorn (F) Pat Maroon (F) Boo Nieves (F) Ondrej Palat (F) Taylor Raddysh (F) Gemel Smith (F) Otto Somppi (F) Mitchell Stephens (F) Daniel Walcott (F) Luke Witkowski (F) Andreas Borgman (D) Fredrik Claesson (D) Sean Day (D) Cal Foote (D) Brian Lashoff (D) Dominik Masin (D) Jan Rutta (D) David Savard (D) Luke Schenn (D) Ben Thomas (D) Christopher Gibson (G) Spencer Martin (G) Curtis McElhinney (G)MORE: Maroon fourth player to win three straight Stanley Cups with two different teamsToronto Maple LeafsAvailable Kenny Agostino (F) Joey Anderson (F) Adam Brooks (F) Pierre Engvall (F) Nick Foligno (F) Alex Galchenyuk (F) Zach Hyman (F) Alexander Kerfoot (F) Kalle Kossila (F) Denis Malgin (F) Jared McCann (F) Riley Nash (F) Stefan Noesen (F) Nic Petan (F) Scott Sabourin (F) Wayne Simmonds (F) Jason Spezza (F) Antti Suomela (F) Joe Thornton (F) Zach Bogosian (D) Travis Dermott (D) Ben Hutton (D) Martin Marincin (D) Calle Rosen (D) Frederik Andersen (G) Michael Hutchinson (G) David Rittich (G)Vancouver CanucksSven Baertschi (F) Justin Bailey (F) Jay Beagle (F) Travis Boyd (F) Loui Eriksson (F) Jonah Gadjovich (F) Tyler Graovac (F) Jayce Hawryluk (F) Matthew Highmore (F) Lukas Jasek (F) Kole Lind (F) Zack MacEwen (F) Petrus Palmu (F) Antoine Roussel (F) Brandon Sutter (F) Jimmy Vesey (F) Jake Virtanen (F) Madison Bowey (D) Guillaume Brisebois (D) Jalen Chatfield (D) Alexander Edler (D) Travis Hamonic (D) Brogan Rafferty (D) Ashton Sautner (D) Josh Teves (D) Braden Holtby (G)Washington CapitalsDaniel Carr (F) Nic Dowd (F) Shane Gersich (F) Carl Hagelin (F) Garnet Hathaway (F) Axel Jonsson-Fjallby (F) Alex Ovechkin (F) Garrett Pilon (F) Brian Pinho (F) Michael Raffl (F) Michael Sgarbossa (F) Conor Sheary (F) Zdeno Chara (D) Brenden Dillon (D) Nick Jensen (D) Lucas Johansen (D) Michal Kempny (D) Paul LaDue (D) Cameron Schilling (D) Justin Schultz (D) Craig Anderson (G) Pheonix Copley (G) Zach Fucale (G) Vitek Vanecek (G)Winnipeg JetsMason Appleton (F) Marko Dano (F) Jansen Harkins (F) Trevor Lewis (F) Skyler McKenzie (F) Mathieu Perreault (F) Paul Stastny (F) CJ Suess (F) Nate Thompson (F) Dominic Toninato (F) Nathan Beaulieu (D) Jordie Benn (D) Dylan DeMelo (D) Derek Forbort (D) Luke Green (D) Sami Niku (D) Nelson Nogier (D) Tucker Poolman (D) Mikhail Berdin (G) Laurent Brossoit (G) Eric Comrie (G) Cole Kehler (G) Read the full article

[self-loving-vampire]

Personally, I’ve been hearing all my life about the serious philosophical issues posed by life extension, and my attitude has always been that I’m willing to grapple with those issues for as many centuries as it takes.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden.

[highladyluck]

Third Age Relics: Jokes about the Cover Art

Wheel of Time is kind of... infamous... for having questionable cover art. By all accounts Darrell K. Sweet did his best with the information available to him- the extra person on the Eye of the World cover was actually in an earlier draft of the book, for instance- but the covers got a lot of flack, then as now...

Patrick Nielsen Hayden (pnh@tor.com) wrote: Darrell Sweet is a careful reader and an intelligent man who skillfully paints what his clients ask him to paint; please don't blame him for the decisions of others. Well, who can we blame for the cover fiasco, then? :) -- Geoffrey Wiseman

The Eye of The World

Lan with TWO swords? Who does he think he is, Gaidal Cain? (Roy Navarre)

Timothy Bruening: On the front cover of tEotW, Moiraine is sitting crosslegged on a horse. How does she stay on? Patrick Nielsen Hayden: Remember all that glue we saved by not attaching the covers firmly enough? Well, it had to get used somewhere.

The Great Hunt

Selene (Lanfear) is wearing one of those dopey dresses -- this one with a ton of elastic banding. Do they have elastic in the third age or is this another lost art of the Age of Legends. (Roy Navarre)

The Dragon Reborn

On the very side of the book is a picture of I suppose Ba'alzamon. Boy is he ugly or what? And wearing that Blue and Purple hat? I wonder what he had to do to pick out something that matched his glowing teeth so well. Why would anyone's teeth glow? Too much fluoride? (Roy Navarre)

Lord of Chaos

David Wren-Hardin: I looked at the cover of LoC in Locus. I think it sucks. It looks like a romance novel. Passion of the Aes Sedai, or Untamed Aiel or something.

The flying being in the upper right remains    (a) a draghkar;    (b) a pterodactyl;    (c) Dracula    (d) Seanchan flying-thing. I would vote for (a), but, given the influence of Jurassic Park this past year, I would not reject (b) out of hand. {Note that whatever it was, it was NOT in the depicted scene--Pam Korda}

Rand is posed like Elvis. Imagine a microphone is his right (clenched) hand, and you can just see him waggling his pelvis. His facial expression even looks like he just said "uh-huh". And Kiruna the Groupie is swooning over the King.--Keith Casner  

A Crown of Swords

[...] And worst of all, this is the seventh Rand we've had! He doesn't look _anything_ like _any_ of the characters on previous book covers! Rand is on every goddam cover of every goddam book, and every goddam incarnation of Rand is distinct and different! They don't even _resemble_ each other! No truce with the Shadow. No excuses for crap. (John Novak)

Pam Korda: What I love is that "Rand" has this Conanesque musculature on his arm, and these teeny-weeny, skinny little legs. (That's what happens when you only work the upper body.--Novak) And what is that glowing hole in the ground supposed to be? I can usually respect Sweet's depiction of non-human things; he usually does a decent job with landscapes and buildings. However, SL on the COS cover looks like he recycled it from his cover art for Asimov's The Currents of Space.

[theoutcastrogue]

“By the year 2000, Walmart is the single largest retailer of recorded music in the world. They control something like a third of the entire American retail market. And they started it with... censorious policies... where they would tell record labels, not necessarily because of overtly sexual or violent content but on the basis of values, ‘we don't like what this song is about, we don't like the art on this album cover, guess what, major labels, you have to change it for us to stock it, and if we don't stock it, you're not gonna have a hit.’ ”

“Yeah, this is the rule, only white people are allowed to sing about outlaws. When black people do it, it's evil rap music and it's contributing to delinquency.”

“You're absolutely right, rap and hip hop and R&B were the primary targets of the censorship in that era.”

– Aram Sinnreich & Patrick Nielsen Hayden, in Censorship and Information Control panel #6: Changes in Media Technology Small and Large.

[leafsbabe]

Okay Hanna, who in the nhl do you think is to nipple piercings, who has a lactation kink, who is into titty f*cking, etc? Love your lists and endless wisdom ❤️

buckle up babes, here is the boob-focused-sex-stuff masterlist (i ran out of ideas on how to include in the list and even had to ask the gc for help so if you have even more ideas let me know so i can make a part two) ❤️

there’s also too many players but i tried to tag everyone…. sorry if not all of them are tagged please tell me if i need to fix stuff

i’ll put it under read more because it’s massive (read more only works on pc so if you’re on mobile i’m sorry you have to scroll past all of this)

nipple piercings

Adrian Kempe

Alex DeBrincat

Alex Galchenyuk

Alex Nylander

Alex Ovechkin

Alex Turcotte

Alexander Radulov

Anthony Beauvillier

Beau Bennett

David Pastrnak

Jake Virtanen

Jakub Vrana

John Hayden

Kailer Yamamoto

Mat Barzal

Matthew Tkachuk

Noah Hanifin

Patrik Laine

Paul Bissonnette

Taylor Hall

Travis Konecny

Tyler Seguin

Tyson Barrie

Tyson Jost

Zach Werenski

lactation kink

Adrian Kempe

Alex Ovechkin

Alexander Radulov

Andre Burakovsky

Andrew Nielsen

Brad Marchand

Braden Holtby

Brock McGinn

Casey Mittelstadt

Chris Kreider

Christian Djoos

Colin Wilson

Colton Parayko

Dougie Hamilton

Elias Pettersson

Erik Johnson

Erik Karlsson

Gabriel Landeskog

Henrik Lundqvist

Jake DeBrusk

Jason Demers

Jonathan Toews

Laurent Brossoit

Mark Scheifele

Mats Zuccarello

Michael Latta

Nicklas Backstrom

Patrice Bergeron

Paul Bissonnette

Pekka Rinne

Philipp Grubauer

titty fucking

Alex DeBrincat

Alex Galchenyuk

Alex Nylander

Alex Ovechkin

Alex Turcotte

Alexander Wennberg

Andre Burakovsky

Andreas Johnson

Andrei Svechnikov

Andrew Nielsen

Anthony Beauvillier

Auston Matthews

Axel Jonson-Fjällby

Beau Bennett

Ben Bishop

Brad Marchand

Brady Skjei

Brady Tkachuk

Brock Boeser

Brock McGinn

Cale Makar

Carter Hart

Casey Mittelstadt

Charlie McAvoy

Chris Kreider

Claude Giroux

Clayton Keller

Cody Glass

Colton Parayko

David Pastrnak

Dominik Kahun

Dylan Larkin

Dylan Strome

Elias Pettersson

Elvis Merzlikins

Frederik Gauthier

Jack Hughes

Jake Bean

Jake DeBrusk

Jake Virtanen

Jakob Chychrun

Jakub Vrana

Jeff Skinner

Jesperi Kotkaniemi

Jesse Puljujarvi

Jimmy Vesey

Josh Anderson

Josh Morrissey

Julius Honka

Juuse Saros

Kailer Yamamoto

Kale Clague

Kasperi Kapanen

Laurent Brossoit

Leon Draisaitl

Lias Andersson

Madison Bowey

Mark Scheifele

Mat Barzal

Matthew Tkachuk

Mikko Rantanen

Miles Wood

Miro Heiskanen

Mitch Marner

Nathan MacKinnon

Nico Hischier

Noah Hanifin

Nolan Patrick

Paul Bissonnette

Pierre-Luc Dubois

Quinn Hughes

Roope Hintz

Sebastian Aho

Spencer Knight

Taylor Hall

Tom Wilson

Travis Dermott

Travis Konecny

Trevor Zegras

Tyler Ennis

Tyler Seguin

Tyson Barrie

Tyson Jost

Warren Foegele

William Karlsson

William Nylander

Zach Hyman

Zach Werenski

marking your boobs up/love bites/hickeys

Adrian Kempe

Alex DeBrincat

Alex Galchenyuk

Alex Ovechkin

Alexander Wennberg

Andre Burakovsky

Auston Matthews

Brad Marchand

Brady Tkachuk

Brock Boeser

Carter Hart

Charlie McAvoy

Chris Kreider

Claude Giroux

Clayton Keller

Cody Glass

Colin Wilson

Colton Parayko

Connor McDavid

Dante Fabbro

David Pastrnak

Dominik Kahun

Dougie Hamilton

Dylan Strome

Elias Pettersson

Elvis Merzlikins

Erik Johnson

Ivan Provorov

J.T. Compher

Jake DeBrusk

Jake Virtanen

Jakub Vrana

Jason Demers

Jesperi Kotkaniemi

Jesse Puljujarvi

Jimmy Vesey

Julius Honka

Juuse Saros

Kailer Yamamoto

Kale Clague

Kasperi Kapanen

Leon Draisaitl

Lias Andersson

Madison Bowey

Mat Barzal

Matthew Tkachuk

Michael Latta

Mika Zibanejad

Mikko Rantanen

Mitch Marner

Morgan Rielly

Nico Hischier

Noah Hanifin

Nolan Patrick

Paul Bissonnette

Pekka Rinne

Philipp Grubauer

Pierre-Luc Dubois

Roope Hintz

Ryan Graves

Spencer Knight

Taylor Hall

Tom Wilson

Travis Konecny

Trevor Zegras

Tyler Seguin

Tyson Barrie

Tyson Jost

William Nylander

Zach Werenski

cumming on them (with lingerie or without)

Alex Galchenyuk

Alex Nylander

Andre Burakovsky

Andreas Johnson

Andrei Svechnikov

Anthony Beauvillier

Auston Matthews

Beau Bennett

Brock Boeser

Cale Makar

Carter Hart

Charlie McAvoy

Chris Kreider

Claude Giroux

Clayton Keller

Colton Parayko

Connor McDavid

David Pastrnak

Dominik Kahun

Dougie Hamilton

Dylan Larkin

Dylan Strome

Elias Pettersson

Elvis Merzlikins

Erik Johnson

Gabriel Landeskog

Ivan Provorov

J.T. Compher

Jack Hughes

Jake DeBrusk

Jake Virtanen

Jakob Chychrun

Jakub Vrana

Jason Demers

Jeff Skinner

Jesperi Kotkaniemi

Jesse Puljujarvi

Jimmy Vesey

John Hayden

Kailer Yamamoto

Kasperi Kapanen

Leon Draisaitl

Lias Andersson

Mat Barzal

Matthew Tkachuk

Nathan MacKinnon

Noah Hanifin

Nolan Patrick

Paul Bissonnette

Pierre-Luc Dubois

Quinn Hughes

Sebastian Aho

Spencer Knight

Travis Konecny

Trevor Zegras

Tyler Ennis

Tyler Seguin

Tyson Barrie

Tyson Jost

William Nylander

Zach Werenski

“maybe like… smothering? with the tiddies?” - possum, 2019

Alex DeBrincat

Alex Galchenyuk

Alex Nylander

Alex Ovechkin

Alex Turcotte

Andre Burakovsky

Andrei Svechnikov

Andrew Nielsen

Auston Matthews

Beau Bennett

Brady Tkachuk

Brock Boeser

Cale Makar

Carter Hart

Casey Mittelstadt

Charlie McAvoy

Chris Kreider

Cody Glass

Colin Wilson

Colton Parayko

Connor McDavid

David Pastrnak

Dougie Hamilton

Elias Pettersson

Erik Johnson

Jakub Vrana

Jamie Benn

Jason Demers

Jeff Skinner

Jesperi Kotkaniemi

Jesse Puljujarvi

Josh Morrissey

Juuse Saros

Kasperi Kapanen

Leon Draisaitl

Mark Scheifele

Mat Barzal

Mats Zuccarello

Mika Zibanejad

Miro Heiskanen

Morgan Rielly

Nathan MacKinnon

Nicklas Backstrom

Nico Hischier

Nolan Patrick

Oskar Lindblom

Paul Bissonnette

Pierre-Luc Dubois

Rasmus Dahlin

Rich Clune

Roope Hintz

Ryan Graves

Sam Reinhart

Sebastian Aho

Travis Dermott

Travis Konecny

Trevor Zegras

Tyler Ennis

Tyler Seguin

Tyson Barrie

Tyson Jost

William Karlsson

William Nylander

Zach Hyman

Zach Werenski

nipple clamps

Adrian Kempe

Alex DeBrincat

Alex Ovechkin

Beau Bennett

Brad Marchand

Brock McGinn

Chris Kreider

Claude Giroux

David Pastrnak

Erik Karlsson

Frederik Andersen

Henrik Lundqvist

Jamie Oleksiak

Jason Demers

John Klingberg

Jonathan Toews

Matthew Tkachuk

Oliver Ekman-Larsson

Paul Bissonnette

Pekka Rinne

Taylor Hall

motorboating

Alex DeBrincat

Alex Galchenyuk

Alex Ovechkin

Alex Turcotte

Alexander Kerfoot

Alexander Radulov

Alexander Wennberg

Andre Burakovsky

Andrew Nielsen

Anthony Beauvillier

Auston Matthews

Axel Jonson-Fjällby

Beau Bennett

Brad Marchand

Brady Tkachuk

Brock Boeser

Cale Makar

Charlie McAvoy

Chris Kreider

Christian Dvorak

Claude Giroux

Clayton Keller

Cody Glass

Dante Fabbro

Darcy Kuemper

David Pastrnak

Dominik Kahun

Dylan Strome

Elvis Merzlikins

Erik Johnson

Erik Karlsson

Gabriel Landeskog

Garret Sparks

Hampus Lindholm

J.T. Compher

Jack Hughes

Jake Bean

Jake DeBrusk

Jake Virtanen

Jakub Vrana

Jamie Benn

Jamiw Oleksiak

Jason Demers

Jeff Skinner

Jesperi Kotkaniemi

Jesse Puljujarvi

John Hayden

Josh Morrissey

Julius Honka

Kailer Yamamoto

Kale Clague

Kasperi Kapanen

Laurent Brossoit

Leon Draisaitl

Lias Andersson

Madison Bowey

Mario Kempe

Mark Scheifele

Mat Barzal

Matt Grzelcyk

Matthew Tkachuk

Michael Latta

Miles Wood

Mitch Marner

Noah Hanifin

Nolan Patrick

Oliver Ekman-Larsson

Oskar Lindblom

Owen Tippett

Paul Bissonnette

Pierre-Luc Dubois

Quinn Hughes

Rich Clune

Roman Josi

Roope Hintz

Sam Reinhart

Spencer Knight

Taylor Hall

Tom Wilson

Travis Dermott

Travis Konecny

Trevor Zegras

Tyler Seguin

Tyson Barrie

Tyson Jost

William Karlsson

William Nylander

Zach Werenski

boob worship

Alex DeBrincat

Alex Galchenyuk

Alex Ovechkin

Alex Turcotte

Alexander Kerfoot

Alexander Radulov

Alexander Wennberg

Andre Burakovsky

Andreas Johnson

Auston Matthews

Beau Bennett

Ben Bishop

Brad Marchand

Braden Holtby

Brady Skjei

Brock Boeser

Brock McGinn

Cale Makar

Carter Hart

Casey Mittelstadt

Chris Kreider

Colin Wilson

Colton Parayko

David Pastrnak

Dougie Hamilton

Dylan Larkin

Elvis Merzlikins

Erik Karlsson

Frederik Andersen

Frederik Gauthier

Gabriel Landeskog

Henrik Lundqvist

Ivan Provorov

Jake Bean

Jake Virtanen

Jakob Chychrun

Jakub Vrana

Jamie Benn

Jamie Oleksiak

Jason Demers

Jeff Skinner

Jonathan Toews

Josh Anderson

Josh Morrissey

Kasperi Kapanen

Laurent Brossoit

Leon Draisaitl

Madison Bowey

Mark Scheifele

Mats Zuccarello

Matt Grzelcyk

Michael Latta

Mika Zibanejad

Morgan Rielly

Nicklas Backstrom

Oliver Ekman-Larsson

Patrice Bergeron

Paul Bissonnette

Pekka Rinne

Philipp Grubauer

Rich Clune

Ryan Graves

Sam Reinhart

Sebastian Aho

Spencer Knight

Travis Dermott

Travis Konecny

Trevor Zegras

Tyler Ennis

Tyson Barrie

Tyson Jost

Zach Hyman

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How a billionaire’s mediocre pump-and-dump “book” became a “bestseller”

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/15/your-new-first-name/#that-dagger-tho

I was on a book tour the day my editor called me and told me, "From now on, your middle name is 'Cory.'"

"That's weird. Why?"

"Because from now on, your first name is 'New York Times Bestselling Author.'"

That was how I found out I'd hit the NYT list for the first time. It was a huge moment – just as it has been each subsequent time it's happened. First, because of how it warmed my little ego, but second, and more importantly, because of how it affected my book and all the books afterwards.

Once your book is a Times bestseller, every bookseller in America orders enough copies to fill a front-facing display on a new release shelf or a stack on a bestseller table. They order more copies of your backlist. Foreign rights buyers at Frankfurt crowd around your international agents to bid on your book. Movie studios come calling. It's a huge deal.

My books became Times bestsellers the old-fashioned way: people bought and read them and told their friends, who bought and read them. Booksellers who enjoyed them wrote "shelf-talkers" – short reviews – and displayed them alongside the book.

That "From now on your first name is 'New York Times Bestselling Author' gag is a tradition. When @wilwheaton's memoir Still Just A Geek hit the Times list, I texted the joke to him and he texted back to say @jscalzi had already sent him the same joke (and of course, Scalzi and I have the same editor, Patrick Nielsen Hayden):

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/still-just-a-geek-wil-wheaton

But not everyone earns that first name the same way. Some people cheat.

Famously, the Church of Scientology was caught buying truckloads of L Ron Hubbard books (published by Scientology's own publishing arm) from booksellers, returning them to their warehouse, then shipping them back to the booksellers when they re-ordered the sold out titles. The tip-off came when booksellers opened cases of books and found that they already bore the store's own price-stickers:

https://www.latimes.com/local/la-scientology062890-story.html

The reason Scientology was willing to go to such great lengths wasn't merely that readers used "NYT Bestseller* to choose which books to buy. Far more important was the signal that this sent to the entire book trade, from reviewers to librarians to booksellers, who made important decisions about how many copies of the books to stock, whether to display them spine- or face out, and whether to return unsold stock or leave it on the shelf.

Publishers go to great lengths to send these messages to the trade: sending out fancy advance review copies in elaborate packaging, taking out ads in the trade magazines, featuring titles in their catalogs and sending their sales-force out to impress the publisher's enthusiasm on their accounts.

Even the advance can be a way to signal the trade: when a publisher announces that it just acquired a book for an eyebrow-raising sum, it's not trumpeting the size of its capital reserves – it's telling the trade that this book is a Big Deal that they should pay attention to.

(Of all the signals, this one may be the weakest, even if it's the most expensive for publishers to send. Take the $1.25m advance that Rupert Murdoch's Harpercollins paid to Sarah Palin for her unreadable memoir, Going Rogue. As with so many of the outsized sums Murdoch's press and papers pay to right wing politicians, the figure didn't represent a bet on the commercial prospects of the book – which tanked – but rather, a legal way to launder massive cash transfers from the far-right billionaire to a generation of politicians who now owe him some rather expensive favors.)

All of which brings me to the New York Times bestselling book Read Write Own by the billionaire VC New York Times Bestselling Author Chris Dixon. Dixon is a partner at A16Z, the venture capitalists who pumped billions into failed, scammy, cryptocurrency companies that tricked normies into converting their perfectly cromulent "fiat" money into shitcoins, allowing the investors to turn a massive profit and exit before the companies collapsed or imploded.

Read Write Own (subtitle: "Building the Next Era of the Internet") is a monumentally unconvincing hymn to the blockchain. As Molly White writes in her scathing review, the book is full of undisclosed conflicts of interest, with Dixon touting companies he has a direct personal stake in:

https://www.citationneeded.news/review-read-write-own-by-chris-dixon/

But this book's defects go beyond this kind of sleazy pump-and-dump behavior. It's also just bad. The arguments it makes for the blockchain as a way of escaping the problems of an enshittified, monopolized internet are bad arguments. White dissects each of these arguments very skillfully, and I urge you to read her review for a full list, but I'll reproduce one here to give you a taste:

After three chapters in which Dixon provides a (rather revisionistd) history of the web to date, explains the mechanics of blockchains, and goes over the types of things one might theoretically be able to do with a blockchain, we are left with "Part Four: Here and Now", then the final "Part Five: What's Next". The name of Part Four suggests that he will perhaps lay out a list of blockchain projects that are currently successfully solving real problems.

This may be why Part Four is precisely four and a half pages long. And rather than name any successful projects, Dixon instead spends his few pages excoriating the "casino" projects that he says have given crypto a bad rap,e prompting regulatory scrutiny that is making "ethical entrepreneurs … afraid to build products" in the United States.f

As White says, this is just not a good book. It doesn't contain anything to excite people who are already blockchain-poisoned crypto cultists – and it also lacks anything that will convince normies who never let Matt Damon or Spike Lee convince them to trade dollars for magic beans. It's one of those books that manages to be both paper and a paperweight.

And yet…it's a New York Times Bestseller. How did this come to pass? Here's a hint: remember how the Scientologists got L Ron Hubbard 20 consecutive #1 Bestsellers?

As Jordan Pearson writes for Motherboard, Read Write Own earned its place on the Times list because of a series of massive bulk orders from firms linked to A16Z and Dixon, which ordered between dozens and thousands of copies and gave them away to employees or just randos on Twitter:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7emkx/chris-dixon-a16z-read-write-own-nyt-bestseller

The Times recognizes this in a backhanded way, by marking Read Write Own on the list with a "dagger" (†) that indicates the shenanigans (the same dagger appeared alongside the listing for Donald Trump Jr's Triggered after the RNC spent a metric scientologyload of money – $100k – buying up cases of it):

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/21/books/donald-trump-jr-triggered-sales.html

There's a case for the Times not automatically ignoring bulk orders. Since 2020, I've run Kickstarters where I've pre-sold my books on behalf of my publisher, working with bookstores like Book Soup and wholesalers like Porchlight Books to backers when they go on sale. I signed and personalized 500+ books at Vroman's yesterday for backers who pre-ordered my next novel, The Bezzle:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/53531243480/

But there's a world of difference between pre-orders that hundreds or thousands of readers place that are aggregated into a single bulk order, and books that are bought by CEOs to give away to people who may not have any interest in them. For the book trade – librarians, reviewers, booksellers – the former indicates broad interest that justifies their attention. The latter just tells you that a handful of deep-pocketed manipulators want you to think there's broad interest.

I'm certain that Dixon – like me – feels a bit of pride at having "earned" a new first name. But Dixon – like me – gets something far more tangible than a bit of egoboo out of making the Times list. For me, a place on the Times list is a way to get booksellers and librarians excited about sharing my book with readers.

For Dixon, the stakes are much higher. Remember that cryptocurrency is a faith-based initiative whose mechanism is: "convince normies that shitcoins will be worth more tomorrow than they are today, and then trade them the shitcoins that cost you nothing to create for dollars that they worked hard to earn."

In other words, crypto is a bezzle, defined by John Kenneth Galbraith as "The magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it."

So long as shitcoins haven't fallen to zero, the bag-holders who've traded their "fiat" for funny money can live in the bezzle, convinced that their "investments" will recover and turn a profit. More importantly, keeping the bezzle alive preserves the possibility of luring in more normies who can infuse the system with fresh dollars to use as convincers that keep the bag-holders to keep holding that bag, rather than bailing and precipitating the zeroing out of the whole scam.

The relatively small sums that Dixon and his affiliated plutocrats spent to flood your podcasts with ads for this pointless 300-page Ponzi ad are a bargain, as are the sums they spent buying up cases of the book to give away or just stash in a storeroom. If only a few hundred retirees are convinced to convert their savings to crypto, the resulting flush of cash will make the line go up, allowing whales like Dixon and A16Z to cash out, or make more leveraged bets, or both. Crypto is a system with very few good trades, but spending chump change to earn a spot on the Times list (dagger or no) is a no-brainer.

After all, the kinds of people who buy crypto are, famously, the kinds of people who think books are stupid ("I would never read a book" -S Bankman-Fried):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/29/sam-bankman-fried-reading-effective-altruism/

There's precious little likelihood that anyone will be convinced to go long on crypto thanks to the words in this book. But the Times list has enough prestige to lure more suckers into the casino: "I'm not going to read this thing, but if it's on the list, that means other people must have read it and think it's convincing."

We are living through a golden age of scams, and crypto, which has elevated caveat emptor to a moral virtue ("not your wallet, not your coins"), is a scammer's paradise. Stein's Law tells us that "anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop," but the purpose of a bezzle isn't to keep the scam going forever – just until the scammer can cash out and blow town. The longer the bezzle goes on for, the richer the scammer gets.

Not for nothing, my next novel – which comes out on Feb 20 – is called The Bezzle. It stars Marty Hench, my hard-driving, two-fisted, high-tech forensic accountant, who finds himself unwinding a whole menagerie of scams, from a hamburger-based Ponzi scheme to rampant music royalty theft to a vast prison-tech scam that uses prisoners as the ultimate captive audience:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

Patrick Nielsen Hayden – the same editor who gave me my new first name – once told me that "publishing is the act of connecting a text with an audience." Everything a publisher does – editing, printing, warehousing, distributing – can be separated from publishing. The thing a publisher does that makes them a publisher – not a printer or a warehouser or an editing shop – is connecting books and audiences.

Seen in this light, publishing is a subset of the hard problem of advertising, religion, politics and every other endeavor that consists in part of convincing people to try out a new idea:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/04/self-publishing/

This may be the golden age of scams, but it's the dark age of publishing. Consolidation in distribution has gutted the power of the sales force to convince booksellers to stock books that the publisher believes in. Consolidation in publishing – especially Amazon, which is both a publisher and the largest retailer in the country – has stacked the deck against books looking for readers and vice-versa (Goodreads, a service founded for that purpose, is now just another tentacle on the Amazon shoggoth). The rapid enshittification of social media has clobbered the one semi-reliable channel publicists and authors had to reach readers directly.

I wrote nine books during lockdown (I write as displacement activity for anxiety) which has given me a chance to see publishing in the way that few authors can: through a sequence of rapid engagements with the system as a whole, as I publish between one and three books per year for multiple, consecutive years. From that vantagepoint, I can tell you that it's grim and getting grimmer. The slots that books that connected with readers once occupied are now increasingly occupied by the equivalent of the botshit that fills the first eight screens of your Google search results: book-shaped objects that have gamed their way to the top of the list.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/03/botshit-generative-ai-imminent-threat-democracy

I don't know what to do about this, but I have one piece of advice: if you read a book you love, tell other people about it. Tell them face-to-face. In your groupchat. On social media. Even on Goodreads. Every book is a lottery ticket, but the bezzlers are buying their tickets by the case: every time you tell someone about a book you loved (and even better, why you loved it), you buy a writer another ticket.

Meanwhile, I've got to go get ready for my book tour. I'm coming to LA, San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, Calgary, Phoenix, Portland, Providence, Boston, New York City, Toronto, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Tucson, Chicago, Buffalo, as well as Torino and Tartu (details soon!).

If you want to get a taste of The Bezzle, here's an excerpt:

https://www.torforgeblog.com/2023/11/20/excerpt-reveal-the-bezzle-by-cory-doctorow/

And here's the audiobook, read by New York Times Bestselling Author Wil Wheaton:

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_459/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_459_-_The_Bezzle_Read_By_Wil_Wheaton.mp3

[jscalzi]

The Kaiju Preservation Society Wins the 2023 Locus Award For Best Science Fiction Novel

I am genuinely surprised and thrilled and, as I was not able to attend the awards ceremony myself, very happy I remembered in send in a video acceptance speech for if I won. It is above. It is very serious. Thank you to: Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Molly McGee, Rachel Bass, Peter Lutjen, Heather Saunders, Jeff LaSala, Sara and Chris from ScriptAcuity Studio, Alexis Saarela and all the folks at Tor’s…

[whateveradjunct]

The Kaiju Preservation Society Wins the 2023 Locus Award For Best Science Fiction Novel

I am genuinely surprised and thrilled and, as I was not able to attend the awards ceremony myself, very happy I remembered in send in a video acceptance speech for if I won. It is above. It is very serious. Thank you to: Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Molly McGee, Rachel Bass, Peter Lutjen, Heather Saunders, Jeff LaSala, Sara and Chris from ScriptAcuity Studio, Alexis Saarela and all the folks at Tor’s…

[etirabys]

Following a link from @nextworldover’s Discord while bored, I skimmed this Slate article about a great sci-fi author fell out of popularity (I still don’t understand why, but his family is sitting on a bunch of stuff and his novels in paperback are like $35~250 on Amazon) and then looked the guy up on wikipedia

Ford's widely varying contributions may have led to his underestimation by readers, but he was much respected by his fellow writers, editors, critics and fans.[11]Robert Jordan, Ford's lifelong close friend, called Ford "the best writer in America – bar none." Neil Gaiman called Ford "my best critic … the best writer I knew." Patrick Nielsen Hayden said "Most normal people had the slight sense that something large and super-intelligent and trans-human had sort of flown over ... There would be a point where basically the plot would become so knotted and complex he would lose all of us."

It was announced in November 2019 that Tor Books had reached an agreement with Ford's family to reissue all his published works, starting in 2020 with The Dragon Waiting.

Okay, “the plot became so complex he lost all of us” isn’t a compliment, but I’m intrigued. The Dragon Waiting is $237 on Amazon, so I’ll wait, but the Slate article starts off with a glowing description of it and I definitely want to read it at some point. I’m scheduling an email to myself for December 2020 to check back on whether this guy’s oeuvre is affordably available then.

From Amazon reviews of The Dragon Waiting:

The novel is set in a slightly altered historical Middle Ages, with the addition of magic, vampires, and an expansionist Byzantine Empire, and with Christianity reduced to the status of a minor cult in a world that recognizes all religions. There are several major battles and a great deal of well-crafted political intrigue, mostly pertaining to England's Wars of the Roses. The plot is interesting and paced well. The point-of-view characters are interesting and have enough depth to feel like real people - though I personally grew a little tired of everyone falling in love with the female doctor.. A very enjoyable read overall. One caveat: the author assumes reader familiarity with all major (and many minor) political figures of the era. This doesn't harm the plot, but some of the characters will be far less interesting to readers unfamiliar with the history.

@ Lymond fans