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Readers! A November fund-raising drive!

 

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

 

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

 

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

 

 

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

 

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“SJW zealots proved their commitment to tolerance, openness and variety by vowing not to read a work found on [an opposing] slate under any circumstances.”

The story describes the battle this year in the science fiction field between Social Justice Warriors (SJW) — leftwing ideologues who want to limit the books that win the Hugo Awards to only those that support leftwing identity politics — and a slate of science fiction authors who oppose this intolerant attitude and wanted to get the Hugos opened up to a wider range of ideas.

This quote sums up the attitudes of the left quite nicely:

The facts of this case are the same as in gaming and in every other industry that social justice warriors touch. They do not care about art forms. They do not care about science fiction. They do not even particularly care about talent. They care about enriching and ennobling themselves and their friends, and pushing a twisted, discredited, divisive brand of authoritarian politics.

In politics, in the environment, in science, and in any number of other important fields in today’s society, the left really has no interest in achieving its stated goals. (Just read this one report about the EPA’s mine disaster in Colorado, for example.) Instead, the goal is power, and control, and gaining the ability to dictate how others shall live their lives — even if it destroys everything else in the process.

When Americans finally understand this, they might finally choose to throw these thugs out of power. Until then, however, expect them to continue their scorched Earth policy of destroying innocent people, because they can.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

5 comments

  • pzatchok

    Oh I noticed a change in SF writing between the old and the new.

    The increase of female writers. Writing female centrist novels.

    The massive increase of homosexual characters.

    The HUGE lack of religion in SF stories. After 4 or 5 thousand years of religion do you really think mankind will just give it all up when he steps out to the stars? I don’t, and can see no reason they should.

    The huge increase of the new eco philosophy’s being pushed in books with no real scientific basis to support anything like it.

    The constant industry is bad philosophy all the time forgetting everything industry brings us. Including cheap spaceflight.

    Why are we always leaving the Earth because the environment has been destroyed by mankind or overpopulation?
    Why couldn’t it be because of religious persecution, or just simply to expand man kinds foot print? Or even for the scary reason of corporate profit.

    The lefties are not the ones who will be going to space.
    They are not the risk taking, profit hunting, freedom loving folks who will clamor for a new planet to live on and make their own.

    I quit using the HUGO awards as a reason to buy a book years ago.

  • wodun

    The hysteria over this has been rather depressing. The sadpuppies people said they didn’t like the award going to people based on politics and wanted good writing to be the standard regardless of the author’s skin color or political identity. While keeping this in mind, they were still able to nominate a slate of ethnically and ideologically diverse works.

    In response, the SJW’s said they were all racists and hate women. The SJW never bothered to even attempt to understand what the sadpuppy people were saying. Instead, they just hurled accusations of racism like leftists do about everything else.

    In the end, the SJW just proved the point of the sadpuppies, that Hugo voters were putting ideology in front of art.

    Also, this new captcha system sucks. Its like playing where’s waldo for 10 minutes just to post a comment.

  • “Also, this new captcha system sucks. Its like playing where’s waldo for 10 minutes just to post a comment.”

    Can you tell me what has changed, and what the problem is?

  • hondo

    The Hugo piece is nice – not covered outside that niche community. The SJWs are everywhere! The amazing thing is most are actually science-illiterate, and proud of it.

  • I scored a minor victory getting a textbook author to take out an overly political comment, but a lot of SJ stuff remained.

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