Free Republic

In Disney’s 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,' the prince does have permission to kiss Snow White. He just doesn’t get it in writing and signed in triplicate.Cancel culture’s latest victim: Snow White. In an article for SFGate, editors Julie Tremaine and Katie Dowd criticized Disneyland’s revamped Snow White ride for including scenes of the movie’s iconic kiss between the prince and a sleeping Snow White.“A kiss,” the authors claim, “he gives to her without her consent, while she’s asleep, which cannot possibly be true love if only one person knows it’s happening.” Horror of horrors! As if being pursued...

With all of the cancel culture and history re-writing that's gone on, a longing has started to develop among some conservatives and conservative websites lately for classic works. Examples may include the Iliad, anything by Aristotle or Plato, Moby Dick, Shakespeare, Cicero, Hobbes' Leviathan, Machiavelli, and many others. The thing that I can't understand, is why aren't the Founders included in the category of the classics?

The 2021 Prometheus Awards slate of Best Novel finalists, just announced, reflects an interesting first in the four-decade-plus history of the award. See if you can identify this first – hint: a reflection of a long-term trend in modern publishing – from scanning this list of the finalist novels, their authors and publishers: * Who Can Own the Stars? by Mackey Chandler (Amazon Kindle) * Storm between the Stars, by Karl K. Gallagher (Kelt Haven Press) * The War Whisperer, Book 5: The Hook, by Barry B. Longyear (Enchanteds) * Braintrust: Requiem, by Marc Stiegler (LMBPN Publishing) * Heaven’s River,...

Over a near-century (N3F is 80 years old) we have published a wealth of fanzines. The ones that appear to exist in electronic form are now all found on the N3F web site under fanzines.

Welcome to Upstream Reviews! Posted on April 1, 2021 | by robkroese For a while now, I’ve been frustrated with what you might call the mainstream institutions of publishing–particularly science fiction and fantasy publishing. The Hugo Awards have been a joke for years, WorldCon and most other science fiction conventions have been taken over by the pronoun people, and now Amazon is starting to ban books that don’t fit within their approved spectrum of political thought. Many of the more conservative-leaning (or simply open-minded) people in this industry have been trying for some time to shine a spotlight on the...

Need a new read? The Baen Free Library had more than 50 ebook titles (many the first in your next favorite series), from science fiction to fantasy to alternate history, from award-winning, bestselling writers!

This interview arose from the digital arguments when George Phillies merely proposed setting up pages to advertise N3F on Mewe and Parler. Mr. Hunt was defending free speech and the platforms themselves, so I contacted him for an interview. This is the result. Jason Hunt is the CEO and publisher of SciFi4Me. Corporate Vision Magazine called them the best horror, science fiction and fantasy entertainment media news platform in 2020. And I had the opportunity to interview him. Tamara Wilhite: How long as SciFi4Me been around? And how has it changed over the years? Jason Hunt: We got started in...

I first came into contact with Jordan Peterson a few years ago, before he became ill. I was stressed and not knowing who to talk to I wrote to him not expecting a reply. Yet, to my surprise I not only received a reply but also support that helped me through my issue. It makes a poignant illustration about the type of person he is. I do remain thankful and as a result, while I am really no one of any note, I feel I must plainly point out the propaganda and slander against him by Decca Aitkenhead of “The...

A young Dutch writer called Marieke Lucas Rijneveld has recently withdrawn from the task of translating into Dutch the poem that Amanda Gorman recited at President Biden’s inauguration because of public criticism by a black Dutch activist, Janice Deul, to the effect that the task should have been entrusted to “a writer who—just like Gorman—is a spoken word artist, young, female and unapologetically black.”

Science fiction and horror author Andrew Fox’s first novel was Fat White Vampire Blues. He’s continued to put out a steady stream of science fiction and fantasy that’s equally edgy and entertaining. For example, he recently released a short story collection titled Hazardous Imaginings: The Mondo Book of Politically Incorrect Science Fiction. And I had the opportunity to interview him. Tamara Wilhite: Hazardous Imaginings seems to be modeled off of Harlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions. Is that intentional? Andrew Fox: Most assuredly. Not long after Harlan died, I watched a documentary on him that had been made pretty late in his...

Liberals said they wanted diversity. But they just canceled several Dr. Seuss books because they depicted native people in their native clothing. Make up your mind, liberals. Is diversity good, or is diversity racist?This article from Associated Press says that one of Dr. Seuss’s books was canceled because “an Asian person is portrayed wearing a conical hat, holding chopsticks, and eating from a bowl.”That’s not racist.It says another one of his books was canceled because it had “a drawing of two bare-footed African men wearing what appear to be grass skirts.”That’s not racist.I thought liberals were in favor of diversity.Why...

I ran across Harry Turtledove's Twitter feed and it turns out he is an Trump hating super liberal loon. He just accused Sen Josh Hawley of being a Nazi and that was the final straw for me. I am pretty sure most (probably 90%) of his reading audience aka customers tend to be men who fall on the right of the political spectrum. Stop making this liberal and other liberal scum any money. So if I may humbly ask for a boycott against Harry Turtledove. I won't post links to his Twitter and I am pretty sure it is his...

Kevin Trainor is an Army Security Agency veteran. This is what led to his memoir What Did You Do in the Cold War, Dad? He’s also an avid anime fan as well as a published sci-fi author. Tamara Wilhite: You have such an interest in Anime that you’re the nominal head of the Anime & Recruiting bureau of the National Fantasy Fan Federation. What does that entail? Kevin Trainor: Mostly I’m looking to get other anime fans interested in the N3F as a place to publish and read reviews of anime and manga, maybe publish some art. We’re reaching out...

In this "Dark Winter," I suggest a fun little exercise. Let's collectively write a novel, ONLY using dialogue from movies. Only rule: You must quote the dialogue correctly and source it (i.e., "Wizard of Oz," 1939). Now, I'm NOT going to start this. I will leave it to a brave Freeper to begin. However, Brave Freeper #1, remember that whatever foundation you lay, almost everyone is going to be constrained by that. . . at least at first. That said, fire away.

Yesterday some nobody, wannabe writer, social justice twit released a hit piece “expose” about how posters on Baen’s Bar ... However, this was clearly part of a coordinated attack in order to materially harm our business, because immediately after the hit piece was released complaints were filed with the various internet companies Baen uses for services to pressure them into kicking us off the internet. This hit piece was presented as “evidence”. Without going into details the companies then contacted Baen about these “serious allegations” so last night Baen temporarily took down the Bar forum to protect the rest of...

The turn language is taking in politics calls to mind that controlling language to control thought was a prime goal of the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s ‘1984.’Back in the 1990s, an adjunct English professor at Bakersfield College used to start first-day freshman composition by writing the F-word on the whiteboard in big capital letters. She’d then turn around and explain the word’s etymology, point out that its moral connotation was entirely a construct, and tell the students in no uncertain terms that any scandal they felt was due to their parochial ignorance. She would disabuse them of this...

When Mary Chater’s husband, the Rumpole of the Bailey actor Julian Curry, died last June, a friend recommended that she should read the speech in King John in which the widowed Constance laments the loss of her young son. “ ‘Grief fills the room up of my absent child/Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me’,” quotes Chater who, like her husband, is a former RSC actor. “ ‘My life, my joy, my food, my all the world’. I’ve never read or said out loud words that so chimed with my emotions, especially immediately after Julian died. I...

I’ve sold mostly books on Amazon for about 12 years, excellent customer service and compliance to the extent a person can remain compliant with the constantly moving targets. You don’t keep bucking the AZ bronco for 12 years without being thrown minus doing things right. In total I’ve carried about 15,000 titles, currently over 5,000 in inventory. Lots of interesting and often rare stuff, all genres, many academic titles. The account despite excellent metrics is now showing as At Risk with 3 Restricted Policy Violations because Amazon has without warning banned 3 titles for content. The first was a college...

“The ideal set up by the Party was something huge, terrible, and glittering... all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting - three hundred million people all with the same face.” That was a quote from George Orwell’s seminal work 1984 - a masterpiece that describes life in a totalitarian state that demands blind obedience. The ‘Party’ controlled everything - the economy, daily life, and even the truth. In Orwell’s 1984, “the heresy of heresies was common sense.” “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been...

Alan Jacobs’ new book, Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader’s Guide to a More Tranquil Mind, is a coaxing argument to read “old books that come from strange times.” Readers of his previous works The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction and How to Think will not be surprised that Jacobs, distinguished professor of humanities at Baylor University, brings intellectual heft to the self-help genre. Jacobs focuses on why we ought to pay attention to old books. There is no surprise in learning that such reading makes us deeper, fuller persons, and more humble. Ex post facto...