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Banned!

 


I now have had the experience of being in a banned book. Once upon a time I would have considered it a badge of honor to be in a banned book. If some cretins doesn’t like my book, it just proves that I am not a cretin. But it did not work out quite the way I anticipated.

This year both my wife and I had stories selected for a speculative fiction anthology from Purple Toga Publications. The theme of this anthology is color and how color effects stories. To quote our editor:

 ”Why does Red Riding Hood's cloak need to be crimson? How could emperors command respect without their royal purple? And what would Terry Pratchett's Discworld be without the mysterious glow of octarine?”

 I was delighted to find that I my story had been selected for this anthology. I read the previous anthology by the same publisher, It Takes a Village, because my wife also had two stories in that one. The quality of the stories in It Takes a Village were impressive. I was gratified to find my story in this new anthology sharing the space with some amazing authors.

The new book is called Rainbows aren’t just for Leprechauns. Lest the title be misleading, our editor made it known that this anthology is for adults. The book came out in the middle of February, and everything was going great . . . until a few weeks after launch Amazon decided to ban the book. It was suddenly unavailable. If our book had been banned by Florida or some random cities, we could survive that. But being banned by Amazon was a crippling blow. Our editor worked very hard to try to find out why we were banned, but did not get much of an answer. We knew that some of the stories had adult themes. It is not intended for children, but still, why? What was the offence that tipped it over the edge?

Surely Amazon sells other books that are far more problematic. As I read the correspondence out editor had with the company, it became clear to me that the initial decision to pull our book was made by AI. AI brings both potential positives and negatives to our society. But really, AI should stay out of the realm of artistic endeavors.

Our editor appealed and went through all the steps to plead our case. Eventually, he prevailed and the book was reinstated. I was relieved. The work that my wife, and I, and all of the other writers labored for, could have been all for nought. A badge of honor doesn’t do you any good if you disappear from existence. Maybe next time, let’s just get banned in in some small town in Texas.

Rainbows Anthology


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