Richard Paolinelli's Blog

The folks over at Tuscany Bay Books are offering up some financial relief for those looking for a gift for that hard-to-buy-for reader.

From Tuscany Bay Books:

“Starting Dec. 21st and through Jan. 1st you can get the e-book copies of our two best sci-fi/fantasy novels of 2025 for $0.99 each.

Of All The Gin Joints In The Universe: https://www.amazon.com/dp/…

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Back in 2016 I decided to abandon traditional publishing, and fired my agent, to pursue becoming an Independent Publisher. I’ve never regretted the move since.

Especially when the first novel that I ever published, Escaping Infinity, landed on the finalist list for the 2017 Dragon Awards. Of course, every other finalist for Best Science Fiction that year…

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Back in May I was looking at a nice, quiet, peaceful summer up here in the not-yet-then-but-it-sure-is-now frozen tundra of North Dakota.

One little reply to a post on X started an avalanche that will take at least until the end of the summer of 2026 to clear out. And that’s assuming something else doesn’t spring out from a dark corner while my back is t…

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Of All The Gin Joints In The Universe is part of this week’s Based Books/Black Friday sale that runs through Tuesday, Dec. 2nd. You can grab an e-book copy for $0.99, or just dive right on in if you have Kindle Unlimited for free, right here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F98C56KY

Check out this latest 5-star review it just picked up and then go buy your own copy!

“EL Mason

Reviewed in the United States on November 23, 2025

Format: Kindle

I absolutely love 😍this novel! The character’s name is Sam Spade, which of course the name of the 1940s detective character perfectly played by Humphrey Bogart. The plot of the story is Sam Spade, an ex-cop, and now a private investigator on Mars, opens a new case, and falls for a femme fatale named Natasha Carter, may not be who she seems. As all of the layers were pulled apart in this case, I laughed, I was appalled, sad, and then laughed again. It made me feel as if I was watching a 1940s movie play out. The fantastic twists and turns kept me reading just one more chapter. Sam Spade introduces the reader to a unique technology created by a descendant of Elon Musk called a Halo, a device that can help policemen detect the brain waves of suspects to find out whether they actually committed the the crime or not, which becomes an incredible feature of this storyline. This is a fantastic start to a series and I will definitely go on to read the next book.”

It’s Seven Days of the Detectives at Tuscany Bay Books from Sept. 3rd through the 10th!

Two of my mystery-thrillers are on sale as e-books this week.

Of All The Gin Joints In the Universe, my detective noir/sci-fi mash-up which hit best seller status on Amazon in its first week out, and Reservations, my mystery-thriller with a hint of the supernatural, can be yours for $0.99 each.

Just click the links, purchase, and enjoy!

And TBB is also offering up Lori Janeski’s, Phoenix, and Declan Finn’s, Hell Spawn, as part of the sale too. If you haven’t read these great novels, now’s your chance!

Don’t miss out on this sale if you haven’t read any of these books. It would definitely be a crime if you do.

A young author trying to land an agent for her debut novel set off a storm on X when she listed the reasons why she wasn’t landing an agent.

The cancel mob came for her because one of the reasons was that she was a straight, white, female.

You might be surprised to learn that she is actually correct in her assumption that her being a white, straight, female author can be a net negative among a vast majority of agents and publishers today.

I will note that at no point did she say that "marginal" groups should not get representation. She merely noted that agents/trad pub are more likely to pass on her queries these days simply because of her race, gender, and orientation.

In my mind, any discrimination is wrong. Apparently, in the minds of the Cancel Mob that wants her head on a pike, when they discriminate its perfectly fine.

In the last 24 hours I've had several of these creatures telling me that as a straight, white, man I couldn't possibly know what its like to be discriminated against.

Oh, you poor sweet summer children... you have no idea what lies in my past. Any more than you have the first clue about my ancestry, especially on my mother's side. You have merely judged by my last name and skin color. Congrats, you've figured out my dad's ancestry. On mom's side, I'm as much a POC as most of you and more so in many cases, In fact, a minimum of two of my maternal ancestors were standing on the shore when the Mayflower first dropped anchor here in the New World. Another arrived here aboard an ship full of African slaves. As cargo.

So miss me with that racist bullshit.

But that's not the point here, boys and girls. The topic is the publishing world. And it has indeed been biased against people like Jordan for some time now.

How do I know, you ask?

I've been on the receiving end of it myself. And its a little worse when you replace female with male in the example above.

Years ago, long before 2014 when I landed an agent and was traditionally published in 2015, I had a novel I was shopping around. An agent loved it. Had a publisher that loved it.

Only thing was, they wouldn't publish it unless I wrote under a pen name. One that implied the author was a female, POC, and possibly BIPOC at that. A fake photo would be used and no public appearances would be made to hide the fact that this great novel had been written by an unclean white, straight male.

I said no. Eventually, with another novel, I landed an agent and was published by a small house. A few years later, I went Indie and now own my own small press. I never regretted my decision.

And that isn't even the earliest example I can give you.

Rewind the tape back to the mid-1990s when I was early in my newspaper career. There was an opening at one of the papers I worked for that I applied for. That I was qualified for. The job I did every day while the hiring process played out.

I was passed over, despite top marks on my reviews. No big. I kept doing my job. 4 months later, the job opens again when the person they hired couldn't cut it.

I apply. I don't get it. The person they hire flames out six months later. This happens twice more. Finally, I ask HR, what do I need to do to land the position that I am not already doing?

The answer?

You are a white male and not in a "protected" employment classification. We will never be able to move you up to that position per company hiring policy.

For over 30 years, I've personally witnessed this. Not only directly to me, but done to many others as well.

ALL discrimination is bad. There is no "it's okay when we do it because we need payback" because all you are doing is building up the backlash when the pendulum swings back and comes for you.

And it always does.

Maybe we need to stop looking at the color of someone's skin, who they love, and what sex they are.

Maybe, as Dr. King said: We need to judge them by the content of their character.

We certainly need to start judging their books by the content inside, and not the outward appearance of the book’s author.

The original release date for Of All The Gin Joints in the Universe was October 30th. Primarily this was to allow for a magazine back east to consider reviewing it and timing their review around the release date. For whatever reason, they require a 3-4 month lead.

Today we were informed that they were passing on a review. So, why make my readers wait another 2.5 months to read this novel, right?

Which is why Tuscany Bay Books has moved the release date up to Aug. 26th. Here’s the pre-order link, and the book will also be available for paperback and hardcover edition orders on that day too.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F98C56KY

So go ahead and get your pre-orders in on the Space Detective Noir mystery-thriller today.

First, if you go to my website: www.richardpaolinelli.com you’re in for a surprise. It’s been given a facelift. And its looking good too.

I’ll still be using Substack for my newletters though. So you don’t have to worry about signing up for anything new.

As for the other, I was playing around with the newest toy from Elon Musk. Look what Grok Imagine did with my book cover.

Its a scene right from the book. I might have to run a few other scenes through the program and see what Grok can do. Shoot, I might actually get my blue check mark back at this rate.

On October 30th my next novel, Of All The Gin Joints In The Universe will be released. It will be available in e-book and both soft paperback and hardcover formats.

Here’s the link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F98C56KY

Here’s the blurb:

Murder is cold-blooded in space…

Samuel Archer Spade is a private detective on Space Station 1964, known as Norma to the locals, on the other side of the Milky Way galaxy. He's a former investigator for Galactic Justice, but now he works for himself.

Sam is at his "office" inside The Galaxy's Edge, a bar on the station. when a knockout blonde in a red dress named Natasha Carter strolls in looking for him. She has a case for him. He develops a case for her.

Only thing is, she’s on the run from her partner in crime as well as GalJus. When she kills her partner and claims self-defense, Spade is left with two choices: Help her get away with it, or turn her in and have her personality erased for her crimes. Either way, he’ll lose his soul. With some women, he muses, it’s worth the price.

As with most of his cases, there's more to the story than just a gorgeous dame with a sad story to tell. But this case will lead him far away from Norma and will put both of their lives in jeopardy as Sam uncovers a long-hidden truth that will upend every corner of the galaxy.

Here’s the cover:

And here’s a little sample of what’s inside:

“How many other lives have been erased for no other reason than profit? How many of those were innocent of the crimes they were charged with, but were coerced to confess?”

“You think he did that to Carter?” Wycoff asked, shocked.

“You heard what they did to the innocent woman they replaced Carter with. How much more difficult would it be to program someone with the Halo to steal, or kill, and falsely confess to it?”

I removed the data crystal and put it in my pocket. I put a blank crystal into the slot and gathered up the Halo, heading for the door.

“Wait a minute,” Barrington called out. “Did you say the man whose confession you took, was named Van Hollen?”

“Yes.”

“I just saw a report of a lunatic running naked in the streets,” Barrington said. “He was identified as Jorge Van Hollen. They can’t get a sane word out of him.”

“Imagine that,” I replied evenly. “The guilt must have driven him right over the edge.”

It got deadly quiet in that room for a very long time. I caught Wycoff looking at me oddly.

“Sometimes, Inspector,” I said, looking right at her. “The mirror doesn’t like what it sees when it looks at you.”

She looked down at the floor and swallowed hard. In a way, she had unknowingly helped put Ms. Price in the hands of a monster, as much as I had, as much as anyone connected to the Huntsmen murder had. When she looked back up, there was understanding there.

************

Of All The Gin Joints In The Universe - available on Oct. 30, 2025

As I write this, I’m starting to identify with Michael Corleone in The Godfather III.

“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in,” he says at one point in the film. While I’m not the patriarch of a criminal empire, I’m really feeling that line this week.

For those of you who have known me for several years, you know the story. I’m going to briefly recap it now for those who discovered me more recently. So let’s set the wayback machine to early 2017.

I had just released Escaping Infinity as my first sci-fi, and indie published, novel. A fellow author e-mailed me to let me know that he and a group of other authors were sending a package of e-books to a ComicCon in Wisconsin that had lost its entire literary track and Guest of Honor just three days before the Con opened.

Since no one could scramble up there in time to replace them, and not wanting those attendees looking to meet sci-fi/fantasy authors to go home empty-handed, this give away was put together. As it was the right thing to do, and it was also a smart way to get my book and my name out there, I added Escaping Infinity to the mix and then got on with other things.

It was a small thing to do and of so little importance in the grand scheme of things, that I’ve forgotten the name of Con, or the actual reason why the literary track cancelled. I think the authors were mad at the Con because they didn’t agree to draw and quarter someone over an allegation that was never proven over something that allegedly happened at another Con. I think.

At any rate, I shipped off the copy and I thought that was that. Until a group of people that I had never heard of before in my life launched a full-scale assault on me. Over having given away a free copy of my book.

And that’s is how a nearly three-year war began. To be honest, if I could actually go back to that time, I’d still give the book away, because it was the right thing to do. I’d just tell my younger self to ignore these cosmically insignificant idiots and get on with writing.

In late 2019, I finally realized this truth, and in a post (which was deleted along with my original website - which was never fully explained to me by the host server) I basically said as much. I vowed I would not give that crowd another moment of my time. For the most part, that vow has held up on my end.

And trust me, life has been so much nicer since I erased those people from my circle. In more ways than one at that.

My focus has been on building up Tuscany Bay Books, as well as writing my own stories. And with the outbreak of COVID, the losses of both my father in 2021, and my friend and business partner, Jim Christina, in 2022, my attention has been needed elsewhere.

Overall, I feel a lot better about where I am than I did when I was wasting my time fighting these trolls. My advice to all creatives is this: Ignore the nattering nabobs of negativity and be the best person you possibly can be. You will be much happier keeping them out of your circle.

Of course, there’s always an exception to that rule. Some times you have to take a stand.

After my post in December 2019, COVID broke out. We also had a few years of uncertainty and strife, mostly in the political realm. I had hoped that in the aftermath of these things, people in general, and these bad actors (who I will not name because they are even that unworthy) might try to be better.

Alas, that wasn’t the case.

In 2021, Toni Weisskopf, was invited to DisCon III as a Guest of Honor for the 79th WorldCon in Washington D.C.. At the time it seemed a welcomed goodwill gesture to atone for an earlier slight years before.

Only, for some people, many in that group I had battled with from 2017-19, they still hadn’t yet evolved from being sub-human goons. In an act of blatant yellow journalism, a hit piece was generated and promoted by this sub-species. The writer of it was awarded award nominations and his dubious works of fiction promoted after Weiskopf’s invite was quickly rescinded.

She was tarred and feathered for not taking the time from her duties as Publisher at Baen Books, one of the biggest SF/F imprints in the business, to personally monitor every area of an online forum for fans of Baen Books. One post, just one, was taken out of context and used to smear her and sink her honor at that year’s WorldCon.

It was one of the most blatant examples of “Show me the person, and I will find the crime” ever seen since the Soviet Union fell.

After a quiet four years, I was beginning to hope we’d heard the last of this nonsense. But no, these cretins recently said: “Hold My Beer!”.

Earlier this week, the organizers of this year’s WorldCon in Seattle, banned literary agent Leslie Varney without explanation. They’ve refused many attempts by many outlets to explain their actions.

In full disclosure, Leslie is my agent when it comes to representing my screenplays. She, and Toni Weisskopf, are very good people and did not deserve the treatment they received from WorldCon.

Leslie thinks it stems from her skirmishes with Patrick Tomlinson. An author who likes to attack women online, he once went after one of my authors and immediately found out what my very bad side looks like. He also likes to end his online posts to any critic, no matter the subject, with this “zinger”: “Enjoy prison, stalker.”

Frankly, in my opinion, I think the man needs a mental health check-up, but I’m neither a doctor, nor a judge so I can’t make that happen. But the fact is, Pat has gone after Leslie and she, rightly, hasn’t tolerated it.

It appears Pat will be a panelist at WorldCon this year, though that has not been confirmed. But given his history, it is stunning as to why the Con would boot Leslie, who lives and works in Seattle, for an author from Milwaukee who comes with a lot of bad baggage. Just Google his name and bring plenty of disinfectant along as you go down that particular rabbit hole.

I had originally thought to let Leslie and her lawyers handle this. I have, over on X, let WorldCon know my feelings on the issue, and my full support for Leslie.

But I had a troubling thought. What if it isn’t her issue with Tomlinson that drove the ban? If not that, then what?

And that’s when I recalled that Toni is a successful professional Jewish woman. And so is Leslie.

If anti-Semitism has any role in the banning of both Toni and Leslie then it behooves all of us — left, right, liberal, conservative, black, white, or whatever, to stand up and denounce this conduct.

I have long said that the SF/F tent is big enough for everyone to fit inside. For a WorldCon that is openly preaching “inclusivity”, banning an industry professional from her hometown Con is the complete opposite of their stated goal.

Whether its related to Tomlinson, or a darker, despicable, and more sinister, reason, this ban must be reversed and both Leslie and Toni are owed sincere apologies from the organization that oversees it.

If you are reading this, if you share the same love for science fiction and fantasy that I, and many others, do then it is time to make a stand and decide that now is the time to end this nonsense.

It’s time to make SF/F open to any and all. It’s time to run the would-be gatekeepers back to the foul muck from which they sprang, once and for all.