NYT's Bestselling Sci-Fi Author of the "BattleTech" Series Was Just Cancelled
Author of the new book, A Most Uncivil War (Blue Dawn Book 2)
By Blaine L. Pardoe
My Publisher Cancelled Me in Favor of A Person Who Threatened My Life
For those that don’t know me, I am an award winning, bestselling author, in numerous genres. I have been a speaker at US Naval Academy, the National Archives, and the Smithsonian about the subjects I write about.
I started my writing career in science fiction for a series called BattleTech. BattleTech has been a cartoon series, video games, board games, and fiction about giant robotic war machines called BattleMechs. Catalyst Game Labs is the current license holder for BattleTech which is licensed by Topps and Fanatics.
After 37 years of writing for that series, I found myself cancelled for voicing my conservative beliefs.
In January of 2021 two people complained to my publisher, asking that books I wrote be pulled from publication because they had ‘hidden Confederate messages’ in them. Catalyst Game Labs commented to me and them that whatever my political beliefs were they didn’t matter, as long as they were not in their novels, and after a lengthy review of the books and my social media, they agreed they were not.
They offered one of these protesters an opportunity to publish a short story in hopes of appeasement. I warned them that this person was an online stalker. Later, law enforcement would discover that this person was using a false online persona; that of a self-proclaimed lesbian nurse who was adopting two children. This individual who had been harassing me for close to two years. They ignored my warnings.
In March of 2021, my new conservative political thriller, Blue Dawn was announced with a different publisher, Defiance Press. Outraged, my stalker contacted a fellow writer with the following directed at me: “I want to fucking shoot him in the fucking crotch for this shit.” And: “…I want him to die in a fire.”
Law enforcement got involved and after an investigation a protective order was put in place because of multiple threats. In reality, my harasser was 39 year old man, living with his family. He had been fired by his last employer for issuing Terroristic Threats, a charge that he plead guilty to. This was a convicted criminal.
I moved on. To coincide with the release of Blue Dawn, my first conservative political thriller, I wrote articles for conservative websites such as American Thinker, PJ Media, and Townhall.com, American Greatness, and others. I made it clear to Catalyst that I would reference my stalker in some of these articles as an example of woke extremism. Catalyst’s President said, “I would do the same thing if I were you.”
When my last BattleTech novel, No Substitute for Victory, was released by Catalyst in February of 2022, my stalker and a small handful of people complained to Catalyst, Topps, and Fanatics. They took numerous statements, out of context, from my social media to attempt to paint me as an ‘insurrectionist, a seditionist,” and other outright lies. This smear campaign was led by the person who had threatened my life. I was told that Fanatics asked my publisher to ‘make this go away.’
My publisher’s solution was to inform me that they would no longer be publishing my work.
I asked him if he had verified that this was not a handful of people using sock accounts to make their cause appear larger. He told me he had not checked and it didn’t matter. It also didn’t matter that the quotes in question had been taken out of context or fabricated.
Other authors and artists that were contract employees of Catalyst voiced often radical Progressive opinions which were far more offensive than anything I had ever posted. He indicated he would talk to some of them. Conservatives tend not to complain, where the left sees offenses everywhere.
He informed me that my beliefs were alienating half of his customers. I pointed out that sales and ratings for my latest novel were on par with previous works. I was told that sales didn’t matter.
I offered to write under a pseudonym like several of their authors. He refused that offer. I pointed out the most egregious aspect, “You are literally siding with a person that threatened the life of one of your most productive and popular authors.” Ignoring that, he had assured me that he would communicate his decision to release me to the fans, but never did.
To be clear, my views are not alt-right, or by any means radical. They are the same opinions held by tens of millions of other Americans.
While I was getting the Gina Carano treatment from Catalyst, I was proud that I didn’t cave-in to these woke-warriors. Such corporate knee-jerking to a minority of left-wing woke whiners do alienate fans, namely conservatives. This is censorship. It can happen to any conservative that dares voice their opinions. As a result, my many fans will no longer see my work in BattleTech, simply because the publisher fears online backlash. Meanwhile his extreme left wing authors can spew their venom without fear of retribution because conservatives don’t whine or threaten protests.
Conservatives need to speak with their money, supporting conservative publishers or those that opt to ignore the politics of their creative staff all together.
Companies like these appear willing to throw conservatives under the bus out of fear. They seem to have forgotten their core business. Publishers should focus on producing good content – not letting a woke mob determine who they have work for them. Caving in puts the mob in charge of what content you produce.
It’s a lesson that both Disney and Fanatics/Catalyst could both learn from.
Blaine Pardoe is a New York Times Bestselling and award winning author. His most recent works include the conservative political thriller Blue Dawn tells the story of the violent overthrow of the government by Progressives. The sequel, A Most Uncivil War, is now available along with, The Democratic Party Playbook 2022 Edition.