Simon & Schuster Drops Successful Author Nick Cole Because His Next Book Might be Pro-Life

It is a sad fact that in a culture as liberal as America’s is today, a pro-life message is enough to prevent a major publisher from publishing a book. Author Nick Cole realized that even this is a great understatement.

His new book “CTRL ALT Revolt!” is not even about abortion, as Cole explains on his blog. In fact, it is not even set in this world or one remotely like it. The new book is a prequel for his dystopian future novel “Soda Pop Soldier,” and it is about a planet that “had almost been destroyed by a robot revolution sourced by Artificial Intelligence.”

Problems arose with Cole’s publisher when he thought of a reason for the “self-aware Thinking Machines to revolt form their human progenitors,”according to Red State. A book ceases to work if its characters lack a motive for their actions, and he wanted to do something new with the concept. So the machines, which watch every show streaming on the internet, see a show where a woman has an abortion, according to the report. In the novel, the woman has an abortion because the baby comes at an inconvenient time for her.

In a complex sequence of events typical of science-fiction, the Thinking Machines conclude “they must abort humanity before likewise is done to them after being deemed ‘inconvenient.”’

While one can take an important pro-life message from his book, Cole admits that the chapter in question, let alone the book all together, was not intended to have an agenda.

CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE!

But, instead of being given notes on his draft as writers typically are during the editing process, he was told by his agent that his editor was “deeply offended” that the abortion scene was even entertained. Cole was immediately removed from the publication schedule in what he describes as “odd and unprecedented.”

After taking him off the schedule, the editor demanded that Cole change the material to something more socially acceptable, according to the report. This bizarre sequence of events confused Cole, who thought he would at least get to respond.

What Cole was not confused by was the term the editor used: “socially acceptable.” Cole said he read this to mean “progressive,” and he doubted the publisher’s concerns about losing readers.

It should be noted that Cole wasn’t a brand new writer taking a small but brave authorial risk. He had reached critical success with his last novel and commercial success on Amazon, too. Yet that did not stop him from losing his publisher for a single chapter of a science-fiction novel with pro-life themes.

With reduced reach, Cole was able to get his book self-published through Amazon. But he laments the effects of censorship and questions those that believe science-fiction editors lack a liberal bias.

“Here’s your proof,” he says. “They do.”