In about one of the craziest acts of censorship I’ve seen this year, the Leading Israeli Voice In Science Fiction, Yakov Merkin, had his Amazon ad pulled for his book because it has a gun on the cover.
Look at the message her received:
Now how many sci-fi or action book covers have characters with guns pointing in random directions? You have to be kidding me, not to mention these are clearly futuristic sci-fi guns and not even modern ones. I’ve seen books with Captain Kirk in the same pose for certain, so it seems odd that they’d single out Yakov…
…until you look into him and you realize that he’s a right-wing author who hangs around other right-wing authors. If you look at the also boughts, Yakov’s books are within the conservative sphere of SF and it’s clear why Amazon decided to target his book so he wouldn’t be allowed to advertise.
The worst part is, there’s nothing he can do. No appeals. No way for him to change the image on the advertisement (they force you to use the book cover) and so he’s left without means to advertise.
Naturally, we can help him out.
He’s got the series up on Kickstarter right now if you’d like for the new books.
And second, his books are on Amazon here.
Support Yakov’s right to bear arms on his covers today! We can’t let Amazon take away pictures of guns. So absurd.
The anti-gun on covers censor is entirely arbitrary, as you noted. The censorship has been going on since the dawn of Amazon ads. About ten years ago, they invited me to advertise on the Kindle, but then yanked my ad for the main character for merely holding a futuristic gun.