Just a friendly reminder to The Old Hat Nation that Our Good Man LawDog had regained access to his website.

In addition, he does a biweekly what-have-you Livestream on the YouTubes with Our Other Good Man, OldNFO, on Old NFO’s ‘Toob channel. Y’all might pop in at noon, Central Time today and give the man a tip of the hat and a How’D’Ya’Do.

Posting the following as a courtesy for my friend Chris, who is the organizer of the “Primal Voices” dinosaur/human anthology and my friend LawDog, to help out with their respective blog situations. LawDog’s blog is still currently down, courtesy of some foreign jerkoff who has an affinity for sheep, a crotchless velcro bodysuit hidden in a closet somewhere, and waaaaay too much time on their hands. It is expected to be down until November 1st. Chris, on the other hand, currently does not have a blog. So, knocking out two birds with one stone, we’re talking anthologies today!

Primal Voices (Working Title):

SUBMISSIONS CLOSED/STORIES UNDER REVIEW

(Working Cover)

This is the anthology that Chris is putting together and the one I’m editing.

Submissions for this particular anthology are CLOSED. Chris is currently reading through the stories and will be notifying the authors who submitted if they were accepted or rejected. The good news is, out of the eleven or so stories we received, unless a submission was way off the mark of meeting the theme (i.e. the submitted story didn’t have a dinosaur in it), they’re probably going to get accepted. Once that happens, contracts should be getting sent out no later than two to three weeks from today. After that, Chris will forward the stories to me, I’ll edit them, and we’ll get the book together.

Tentative release date will be May 19th, 2023. This is the weekend before MisCon in Missoula, Montana, so folks will have a week or so to order their books before the con. We’ll be selling books and planning a launch party of some kind at MisCon (which takes place at the Holiday Inn in downtown Missoula on Memorial Day weekend); details to be announced as we get closer to the date. We’ve learned from other friends that book releases around a con date tend to do better than being released at other times of the year, so don’t sweat the later release date; this is a good thing.

Folks who submitted and get accepted will need to set up a Pubshare account. This is how you’ll get paid. Thus, it is mandatory to make an account. Failure to set up a Pubshare account by May 1st, 2023 (about the time the book will be going through final editing before publication) will result in your submission being removed from the anthology. On the bright side, it’s free to do, and pretty simple to set up. So there’s that.

Any questions can be directed to Chris at dinoanthology@gmail.com, or myself at brennen.hankins.author@gmail.com.

Raconteur Press Anthology Lineup

This is the rundown of the list of anthology projects on the block for the North Texas Troublemakers, compiled by LawDog’s aide de camp C.V. Walter:

Saints Of Malta: SUBMISSIONS OPEN

REQUIREMENTS: 5,000 to 8,000 words, in Standard Manuscript Format (makes it easier for LawDog and his editors!). Stories must involve the Island of Malta in some way, and be interesting. Saints not a requirement. Stories due November 1st, 2022.

Send stories to anthology.malta@gmail.com.

Space Cowboy Anthology: SUBMISSIONS OPEN

REQUIREMENTS: 5,000 to 8,000 words, in Standard Manuscript Format. Must be a a space western of some kind, and be interesting. Stories due December 1st, 2022.

Send stories to anthology.malta@gmail.com.

Space Marine Anthology: SUBMISSIONS OPEN

REQUIREMENTS: 5,000 to 8,000 words, in Standard Manuscript Format. Theme is military sci-fi. Must match theme, and be interesting. Stories due December 31st, 2022.

Send stories to anthology.malta@gmail.com.

Well Defended (Pin-Up Noir Anthology):

SUBMISSIONS WILL OPEN NOVEMBER 15TH, 2022

For those that don’t recall the original post, the idea for this anthology started when Ian saw the following Greg Hildebrand piece on Facebook, and Sarah Hoyt challenged him to do an anthology based on the image. She even came up with the title!

REQUIREMENTS: 5,000 to 8,000 words, in Standard Manuscript Format. Theme is Pin-Up Noir (think Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, Frank Miller’s Sin City, Razörfist’s The Long Moonlight, or the famous Tracer Bullet strips from Calvin & Hobbes, and you’re generally in the right headspace.). Submissions must match theme and be interesting.

Once submissions are open, send them to anthology.malta@gmail.com.

Addendums

Since LawDog’s blog is still down (man, I hope the dude responsible gets sheep herpes), I can’t link to his posts on anthology timetables, submission guidelines, or “What Happens Next?” after one submits. Fortunately, I was able to take screenshots:

Anthology Timetable:

Submission Guidelines:

What Comes Next After You Submit:

I’ll post updates as I have them to give. In the meantime, y’all have a good one!

A little over a week and a half ago, I wrote a post detailing my buddy LawDog’s thoughts on what might have caused the Nordstream pipeline explosions, and how some metric goat diddler keeps nerfing his website on purpose.

Well, on Tuesday, while I was busy celebrating my birthday with homemade fried chicken, Vice Grip Garage reruns, and sleeping in, reporters from the Swedish Newspaper Expressen were on a boat in the middle of the Baltic, deploying an undersea camera that ended up capturing the first photos of the damaged Nordstream pipelines released to the general public.

Now, I don’t shop at IKEA , and the only Volvo I’ve ever driven was a front-end loader, so I had to make use my web browser’s “Translate” function to be able to make heads or tails of the article, and more importantly, the photo captions. You, my dear readers, might have to do the same, if the only thing that comes to mind when you hear “Swedish” is “Fish”. That said, despite continuously seeing As and Js where they shouldn’t be after reading the article untranslated, I thank the staff at Expressen for their efforts, because the photos they managed to obtain are interesting.

The video at the end of the linked article shows what the underwater camera picked up in greater detail. Key details involve “a thin layer of sludge and bottom sediment” in the remnants of the pipes, divots in the seafloor near where the pipes blew apart, and–wait for it–the edges of the rupture expand outward from the center of the pipes.

Couple that with the fact that the ruptures happened at bends in the pipeline (where it doglegs around a small island), and the ruptures appear to have originated from inside the pipes.

GOLLY, I WONDER WHAT COULD HAVE CAUSED THE RUPTURE FROM INSIDE THE PIPELINE. I’M SURE THERE MUST BE SOME POSSIBLE EXPLANATION OUT THERE.

It’s almost as if somebody raised the possibility of this before!

I’ll be archiving a copy of this blog post on the Wayback Machine, just in case some goat fucker decides to nerf my blog, too. Link here.

I’m sure by now that virtually everybody heard about the Nordstream pipeline explosions in the middle of the Baltic Sea. Everybody’s been throwing out their ideas of what happened, and more commonly, whodunnit. “Russia!” “Ukraine!” “The USA!” “Your fat sister!” Etc, etc.

Enter my buddy LawDog.

LawDog is a character, and I mean that as a compliment in the greatest way possible. An American, born in Malta (his parents were American), raised in oilfields ranging from Nevada to Nigeria and the Middle East, former Army soldier, retired Texas lawman, best-selling author, and bon vivant extraordinaire. He’s really good people. Not only has he helped encourage myself and others to publish (and even got me into his latest Malta Anthology–if you haven’t bought it yet, you ought to!), when I needed somebody to round me up from the hospital after a particularly nasty allergic reaction I had to a bug bite in the middle of the night (I was so looped out on anti-histamines that I had to be wheeled out in a wheelchair, and thus could not drive myself), he answered the midnight call and drove all the way into Itchypaw from Bugscuffle Park to help me out.

LawDog is Good People.

LawDog has a blog (linked above) that he has ran for years, mostly to share stories of his law enforcement days, along with his time overseas, and occasionally his thoughts of the day. After the pipeline explosions, he, being the son of an oilfield engineer and having spent his childhood years roaming oilfields around the globe with aforementioned oilfield engineer and father, offered his two bits. Short version of his theory: Likely not sabotage, but an accidental blowout of the pipe due to methane hydrate buildup (he explains it better than I do, so if you have questions, go check out his posts)

And the Internet collectively lost their shit.

Daily Kos, Instapundit. Numerous blogs across the Web. And foreign media, all linked to it. It’s a very well-reasoned argument. Several agree that the explanation is a credible possibility. Others don’t. And some metric tube steak swallower, presumably of Russian variety, has taken to intentionally nerfing the ‘Dog’s website (see explanations at the 7:45 mark and again at the 9:55 mark.).

How are they doing this, you might ask? By setting up a bot to continuously keep downloading stuff from the site and cause him to go over his bandwidth limit:

As a result, absent LawDog winning the lottery and being able to buy all the bandwidth in the world, or his own servers, his site is more or less down until the 1st of November.

On the bright side, through a little trial and error, turns out it is possible to still get into LawDog’s blog, up to the latest blog post, via the Wayback Machine. It ain’t perfect, but it works (mostly).

I dunno about y’all, but I hate bullies. Particularly bullies that go after friends. And the ‘Dog is definitely a friend. So, just to piss off the fuckers responsible for nerfing his site, I highly encourage the spreading Internet Archive link of his Nordstream articles on the matter. Links are helpfully archived below, for convenience.

Because -fuck- those guys.

-Nordstream: https://web.archive.org/web/20221008160611/https://thelawdogfiles.com/2022/09/nordstream.html

-Nordstream II: Electric Instapundit: https://web.archive.org/web/20221008223616/https://thelawdogfiles.com/2022/10/nordstream-ii-electric-instapundit.html

Can’t stop the signal, baby!

Holy Hannah, I apologize, folks. Been a tad busy.

First and Foremost: New Anthologies Out!

I have two short stories available for purchase; one was released earlier this month, the other is due to launch around October/November.

I’ve been told that my story in Knights of Malta, LawDog’s latest release and second in his Malta anthology series (behind Ghosts Of Malta), is some of my best work to date. Apparently good enough to qualify for top billing on the cover, which is the first time this has happened.

My smile upon hearing that stretched from Dutch Harbor to Ketchikan, I tell you what.

Alongside appearing with both of my friends Lawdog and Jonathan LaForce, both veteran authors in their own right (and Veterans, come to think of it), I’m proud to say that this anthology also features my good buddy E.C. Ratliff, in his first ever published story. He also received top billing on the cover (his story is the first, mine is the last), and that thought honestly makes me feel happier than being on the cover myself. That’s freaking awesome.

There’s a bunch of other really talented authors in this book as well. I picked up a copy for myself, and their stories all make for a damned fine read.

It is currently available for purchase, in print and ebook, on Amazon.

The other anthology, The Deer Shot Back, is a sequel anthology to Cedar Sanderson’s How Not To Shoot Fish….And Other Deer That Got Away. These are collections of real hunting and fishing stories that Cedar has painstakingly made illustrations for (something she did a hell of a job on). She’s just finished the final illustrations for The Deer Shot Back, and will be releasing it soon. I’ll announce it on here when the book goes live. In the meantime, give the first in the series a read!

In Progress: Novels, Anthologies, & The Toob

Tomorrow ***October 15th*** (Date got bumped) is the last day to submit for Chris Roche’s “Primal Voices”, a “Dinos Among Us” short story anthology. This idea was born months ago, from a throwaway comment my buddy E.C. (see above) made criticizing the new Jurassic World movie in a group chat some author friends of mine and I participate in. That prompted a hilarious discussion that culminated in the anthology call my friend Chris Roche put out, asking for stories:

Chris is the anthology organizer; I tossed in my hat to help edit submissions. Stories must involve dinosaurs and humans in some form, and be between 5,000 to 8,000 words. Submit stories in .doc, .docx, or .rtf format to dinoanthology@gmail.com.

Still plugging away at the novel. The hard drive crash really hosed me, but I’m making up for lost time. And honestly, I think the newer version works a little better. More to come.

The YouTube Channel is at a bit of a standstill, mostly because funds have been tight and I haven’t been able to spare the coin for automotive projects. I have content for two episodes (filmed back in April) that’ I’ve been working on; it’s just taking me awhile.

Other Happenings

The main thing I’ve been battling is the VA and DOD on retirement pay and disability claims. Sucks, but it is what it is. Left Hot Emma and I in a bit of a financial bind, but family, friends, and our church have been helping us through it. Hopefully, that gets resolved soon, but, being government, you never really know.

Similarly, been working on getting my journeyman electrician’s license, so I can go back to work on a regular basis (the other obstacle being VA appointments). The State of Montana finally accepted my military hours towards a civilian journeyman’s license, so there’s that. I’m just waiting to take the knowledge test, and then I’m golden.

In happier news, I’ve been doing odd jobs to get by. One of those odds jobs happened to be doing work as an extra on the set of a little TV series they’re filming around here, called Yellowstone. You may have heard of it.

I’ve done a total of five scenes for them, to date. I had to sign an Non-Disclosure Agreement, so I can’t tell you which scenes they were until after they air. I got $10 for anybody who can find me in all five of those scenes, though. They’ll be in Season Five, which comes out in November. No guarantee all of the shots I was in made it to the final cut, but we’ll see.

I’ve also been doing work for a prequel series for the main Yellowstone show called 1923. Filming for that one is still ongoing, and the series will start airing sometime next year. I’ll keep you all posted.

Recently, Hot Emma and I attended FenCon in Irving, Texas, right by Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Met a lot of great people, saw old friends, made new ones, and had a great time. Emma gave a panel on sewing, I got some books sold, and I was introduced to Oilfire for the first time (that stuff is dangerously good!).

In other news, I’m doing okay, healthwise. Other than weathering wildfire smoke and a minor hospitalization en route back from Texas due to an allergic reaction of unknown cause, nothing new to report.

Thanks for all your support. I encourage you all to check the new books out, and if you liked what you read, let me know! Always eager to hear what you guys like, what you don’t like, and things you’d like to see in the future.

In the meantime, y’all have a good one.

Holy Hannah, there’s a lot to catch up on! I’ll try to keep this brief.

So, I try really hard to not link up my day job with anything involving stuff I do outside of work–largely for legal reasons (it just works out better that way_. Now that I’m about to not be working that job anymore…..I don’t have to worry about it any longer.

See, for the past ten years, I’ve been an enlisted airman, working as an electrician for the United States Air Force. While deployed overseas during the tail end of 2020, I started developing some really funky health issues that resulted in me getting sent home early from that deployment, so they could send me to a specialist to figure out what was going on. The good news is, they figured it out, and I’m getting treatment for both of the medical issues they discovered. The bad news? Both of those issues are incurable, and while I can treat the symptoms, they both disqualify me from future military service.

So……effective May 27th, I’ll be permanently retired. 10 years, 1 month, and 4 days in.

“But Brennen, what does this mean for your writing?”

Well, I’ll tell you what it means. Once we get my retirement pay and benefits sorted out, I’ll be able to give y’all a better answer….but without getting into the weeds too much, if I end up pulling enough….I might be able to write (and other things–more on that in a minute) full-time. Which would be pretty badass. At the minimum, I’ll at least be writing more.

Speaking of writing more, my buddy Lawdog has a new anthology series coming out–a collection of fun, fictional stories involving the island of Malta, which is probably the only place on the planet that is as fortified as the root beer he drinks.

(Given that he was born there, this shouldn’t be that surprising.)

The first book, “Ghosts of Malta”, has already been released–it has a bunch of other talented authors I have the privilege of knowing and/or being friends with: J.L Curtis, Cedar Sanderson, John Van Stry, Brena Bock, and many others whom I recommend following. The second book, “Knights Of Malta”, which will feature stories from my buddies Manni Ratliff, Jonathan LaForce, and yours truly, will be released in September of this year. Also in September of that year, around the 16th through the 18th, I’ll be attending FenCon in Dallas, Texas, partly to support my friend Larry Correia (who is attending as a Guest of Honor there!), and partly to help hawk copies of Knights of Malta, alongside the rest of the North Texas Troublemakers. If you’re in the Dallas/Fort Worth area around that time and wanna meet up for lunch or beers, look for the feller wearing the hat on the logo!

In other news, at the encouragement of mad genius Barry Lambert (of “Station Road Rat Rods” fame), I’ve decided to shamelessly cash in on a few of my hobbies (construction work, fiddling with cars, road trips, etc.) and create videos depicting that kinda stuff. If those sorts of shenanigans interests you, you can find that channel, “Old Hat Nation”, on YouTube (we also have a group on the Facecult, if you’re so inclined). I’ll probably be updating that group in tandem with the YouTube page and this blog–which hopefully will mean more frequent updates across the board (no promises, but I’ll give it a shot!).

There’s one other piece of news to announce…..but I’m not allowed to announce it yet. I’ll tell y’all as soon as I can.

Thanks for all the love and support, guys. Hope you guys enjoy the books and the videos that are going to be rolling out. Talk to you all again, soon!

A new anthology I participated in, “Unmasked: Tales of Risk and Revelation” is now for sale on Amazon!

The anthology, which actually came out a month ago (apologies; it’s been a busy month), was put out by none other than Kevin J. Anderson (yes, that Kevin J. Anderson) and the grad students of the Master’s-level publishing class Kevin teaches at Western Colorado University (these students actually put this out as their final project for this class!).

There’s some very good people in this anthology (my good friend J.L. Curtis, chief among them), 21 stories in all. I, for one, am particularly excited about this anthology because I got to include a character I’ve had stuck in my head for the past five years (If you guys do buy this anthology and like the character, let me know, and you’ll see more of her in the future!).

Finally, all of the proceeds from this particular anthology go towards Kevin’s Wordfire Press, which, aside from producing his own works, also helps make the projects in his publishing class possible, so you’re funding a good cause with every purchase!

Special thanks to Deborah Kevin, Amanda (Montadon) Spriggs, and Kevin himself for having me aboard. This was fun to participate in, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Thanks, guys!

…..No, this isn’t a post on explosive literature.

At least, not literally explosive.

I’m taking a page out of Larry Correia’s playbook, and helping promote budding authors by pimping their books with what he calls a “book bomb”. Basically the way this traditionally works is, I promote a book, and for the next twenty-four hours, we monitor the sales for 24 hours, and try to push up its ranking on Amazon as high as possible.

Of course, this is easier when you have over 9,000 active followers, like Larry. I sadly do not. But hey, we’ll give glory a good go anyway.

“Time Slip” is the breakout book of a high school friend of mine, writing under the pen name of Terra Vagus. 96 pages long, with photography by Aaron Olvera (another high school friend), it’s a collection of poems that, together, tell a story, based on Terra’s actual life experiences. Some of the subjects covered gets into pretty heavy territory: Family trauma, relationships, death, drug abuse, and so on, but the book has an underlying theme of hope and redemption, rising above those things and working towards a better future. I don’t know about y’all, but optimism and hope are two things I believe the world needs a lot more of, so this collection is coming out at a good time.

The book is not available on Amazon, but it is available via Barnes & Noble’s website (linked above). Currently, at the time of this posting, the sales ranking is at 562,685. Spread it around, buy the book if you can, and let’s see how high we can move thing thing up the charts!

Some of you have been following the coverage of the Baen’s Bar situation (If you haven’t, click that link for a summary).

In the two days since my last update, more details have emerged. A while back, Toni Weisskopf, Baen’s head editor, had been invited as Guest of Honor to DisCon III in Washington, D.C., the venue of this year’s WorldCon (for those unfamiliar, WorldCon is where the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) vote on the Hugo Awards every year). This is pretty significant, given that Toni had been previously snubbed as a Guest of Honor in 2015, despite having the largest number of nominations to be named so in WorldCon History, because the SFWA was feuding with Larry Correia and friends over the “Sad Puppies” campaign, and it was the Sad Puppies that had nominated her. Given the history, it seemed the SFWA was trying to make amends.

Since the Sanford piece came out, however, there have been calls in the comments on Mike Glyer’s “File 770” blog coverage of the Sanford piece to have her removed as Guest of Honor (I have no intention of forwarding what little traffic I have to his website, as it truly is a wretched hive of scum and villainy; but if you really want to see what his followers have been saying, you can head there yourself. Just beware; there be monsters). Welp, they called over to the WorldCon/DisCon organizers, and demanded she be disinvited.

And they caved. For the first time in WorldCon history, a Guest of Honor has been officially disinvited.

I’ll spare you all an in-depth breakdown of why this is bullshit–Larry Correia already beat me to the punch, and I’m sure the other Baen authors, who hold a lot more clout than me, are going to come out with their own statements (when they do, I’ll update this post)–but I will say that I strongly disagree with the decision. Toni is a great editor, and an incredibly nice person. When I proposed to my now-wife at LTUE last year, Toni was one of the people who came to congratulate us. She’s done more for her writers than any other editor I’ve encountered or heard of to date (at the time of this writing, she has never published anything from me, so I say this objectively), and as far as I’m concerned, she sets the bar for the professional editing standard, and has for over 30 years. It’s rather abhorrent she’s being treated this way.

And it’s all because she allowed a forum on the company’s website, that had existed long before she was in charge, where users could express views that these people didn’t like. This treatment, from the same organization that not only defended a pair of rapists and child abusers in their midst, but helped cover for them for the better part of 30 years.

Interestingly, those that demanded her removal are still not satisfied, instead complaining that the WorldCon folks did not do it fast enough, and that it shouldn’t have taken a mob petitioning effort to remove her–they say WorldCon should have removed her as soon as the Sanford piece came out. (Again, not giving Mike Glyer the traffic; if you want to see it, head over yourself). Never mind that everybody from David Weber to Eric Flint has more or less agreed that the article was nothing more than a hit piece to get Baen deplatformed. They say she should have been removed immediately, even before she had a chance to clear her name.

Well, I can say stuff too. Not just with my voice, but with my dollar. And my dollars are no longer going to go towards supporting these people.

I won’t go to DisCon. Not that I was planning on it–the only time I really go to the East Coast is on business–but I do have friends over there, and I’ll advise my friends not to go. They’re free to do what they want, of course, but I will say that by giving them your money, you are supporting this nonsense. And if WorldCon comes to a another con that I frequent, I just won’t go that year.

I won’t buy books put out by the SFWA. If it won a Hugo Award after 2005, that’s going to be my indication to stay away. If an author announces themselves as a proud member of SFWA, I will avoid buying their books.

I will not accept nominations or awards from the SFWA. If I get one, sorry, I don’t want it. I don’t want to be affiliated with those people. Toni grew up with the SFWA crowd, and has worked in the same circles for years. If they treat her like this, what are they going to do to me if I join?

If you, my dear readers, still want to support the SFWA after this, I can’t, and won’t stop you. That’s your choice, and if you want to support them, that’s your prerogative. Just know what you’re supporting, and that your support lets these people know their behavior is okay.

Want to help Toni, or show support? Let the DisCon and the SFWA staff know you disagree with the decision. Tell your friends.

And, of course, buy Baen books.

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” -Evelyn Beatrice Hall, Friends of Voltaire

Update: It has been brought to my attention that at the time of this writing, the venue that was supposed to host DisCon III/WorldCon has gone bankrupt, and the con organizers are struggling to find a new venue. On top of that, apparently DisCon had put up a deposit to rent the venue, and when it folded, the venue’s owner was unable to refund it. The con organizers are apparently retaining legal counsel.

And that just couldn’t happen to nicer people.

Update #2: Eric Flint has issued a statement, as has David Weber.

Update #3: Toni Weisskopf has issued her own statement:

“The committee of Discon III approached me this week to discuss the allegations about Baen’s Bar that were posted at Patreon. Baen is conducting a thorough investigation, which we feel we cannot rush, and has taken down the Bar while we conduct the investigation.

I do understand the immediate appeal of Discon III wishing to act quickly to respond to their community. Today they informed me of their official decision to remove me as their Editor Guest of Honor.
While I strongly disagree with the committee’s decision, I will regretfully accede to their wishes.“

The Baen’s Bar situation is an interesting one.

For those not in the know, Baen is a sci-fi/fantasy publisher, one of the few, if not only, major publishing houses that are still independent and not locked up under a corporate conglomerate. Currently ranking eighth among fiction publishers, total, Baen publishes authors across the political spectrum, from Eric Flint to Tom Kratman. Their current head editor, a real nice woman named Toni Weisskopf, is a firm proponent of free speech, and the only thing she requires from her authors is that they’re able to write a good story. On their website, they have a forum known as “Baen’s Bar”, a place the company’s founder, Jim Baen, could have conversations “of cabbages and kings” with authors, editors, and fans alike. Built in the days before social media became a big thing, Baen’s Bar still exists, mostly attended to by a small group of the old guard who never made the jump to mainstream social media and a small contingent of newer folks that got tired of mainstream social media.

Somewhat recently, a writer known as Jason Sanford, a guy best known for short sci-fi stories, political leanings, and defending Brad Vice’s plagiarism of Carl Carmer, took it upon himself to do some hard-hitting investigative journalism into the posting habits of the Baen’s Barflies (what the forum regulars are known as). He published his findings on his Patreon site the other day, accusing Baen’s Bar of being a hotbed of “racism, sexism, homophobia and general fascism”. It is worth noting that most of the linked evidence in his investigation leads not to actual posts on Baen’s Bar, but to posts on other blogs, doing their own hot takes. On top of that, several of the posters his article cites suddenly joined the forum, which had been mostly quiet for the better part of a decade, after January 6th. It is also worth noting Mr. Sanford made no attempt to contact Baen directly and air his concerns; in fact, unconfirmed reports are saying that complaints have instead been lodged directly to the server host of Baen’s website, allegedly in a bid to get Baen’s entire website shut down. Given Mr. Sanford’s history, the credibility of his cited evidence, and the fact that this sudden wash of inflammatory posts did not appear until after events at the Capitol, I personally do not believe his article was written in good faith, but hey, you be the judge. His article can be found here.

Several Baen authors came out with statements defending the publisher, including a statement from David Weber on his personal Facebook page, and another from Larry Correia (which also quotes David Weber’s statement in full, and can be found here). Also, yesterday, Toni Weisskopf came out with an official statement from Baen, which can be found here. In it, she states that Baen’s Bar will be temporarily shut down while the company conducts an in-depth investigation of its own regarding Mr. Sanford’s allegations. This is largely being regarded as the smart move: Baen can find out for itself and prove or disprove the allegations, and let their website host service know they’re handling it. It’s a common sense move that’ll hopefully keep the host service from shutting their site down out of hand.

Cue Jon Del Arroz, comic artist, author, and general pot stirrer. Never one to let a perfectly good controversy go to waste, he has been decrying Baen’s move as “caving to the SJW mob” on virtually every social media platform he is on (YouTube link here), and doing his level best to make conservative writers look like the crackpots the left thinks we are. And, when rightfully called out for stirring the pot, Mr. Del Arroz and his followers are now trying to claim that “Larry Correia and his mob” are blaming him for getting Baen’s Bar shut down.

The mental gymnastics required to follow that logic warrant a gold medal and a corporate sponsorship.

Baen is one of the last publishers left that does not require their writers and editors to adhere to a certain political ideology in order to work for the company. A lot of other people in the publishing industry openly do not like Baen for this reason, Mr. Sanford included. This reads less like a good-faith exposé and more like an attempt to screw Baen and its authors and editors over by deplatforming them. Given what just happened with Parler, whether you agree with it or not, the evidence points in that direction. This means that if you are at all a believer in the First Amendment, you need to be paying attention to what’s going on here.

As for Mr. Del Arroz and his antics: He needs to sit down and let Baen work. Just because I happen to share a writing credit with the guy (we both were published in the same anthology last fall), does not mean I’m endeared to the guy at all, or afraid to tell him when he is out of line. Which, in this case, he is.

In the meantime, what can you do to support Baen? Buy their books, and tell your friends to do the same.

UPDATE: Eric Flint has weighed in. You can see his statement here.