(Guest post by Greg Forster)
April 15: Kosoko Jackson awarded The Higgy for joining a bogus outrage mob demanding the publisher cancel blockbuster novel Blood Heir by Amélie Zhao, and then having his own book canceled the same way.
April 30: Zhao announces that Blood Heir will be published after all. No word on publication of Jackson’s novel.
Sometimes the good guys win one.
Fear The Higgy! It does not bear the sword of mockery in vain.
Jay P. Greene's Blog 
This is great. Now perhaps we can rescue another book that was dropped by its publisher because of PC objections on social media called The Siege of Tel Aviv (https://www.heshkestin.com/). The premise of the book is that Iran allied with 5 Arab armies defeats Israel and drives the Jews into Tel Aviv where they await slaughter. After about a dozen people on Twitter claimed that the book promoted Islamophobia, the publisher dropped it (see https://www.dzancbooks.org/blog/2019/4/18/statement-from-dzanc-books-founder-regarding-the-siege-of-tel-aviv-1 ).
The accusations against the book seem ridiculous. The premise simply imagines something that Iran and other Middle-East powers regularly threaten. Taking them at their word can hardly be an insult to them. I’ve also read the first half of the book, which is available for free on the author’s web site, and I can’t find what the social media folks are complaining about.
Once again, it doesn’t take very much, just a dozen folks on Twitter with what appear to be baseless charges and the book gets dropped before it is even released. Perhaps Hesh Kestin will find another publisher as Zhao did.
At bare minimum, if the publisher initially judged the book publishable, it should come out so we can all evaluate it based on what’s actually in it. Publishers aren’t obligated to publish anything and everything, but they do need to show some spine once they’ve made a judgement – especially given that they’ve actually read the book and the critics who are Angry Online almost never have.
PS Zhao did not find a new publisher – same publisher is publishing it (Random House). It looks like there were no changes to the content, just a change in spinal stiffness. Good news for the publisher; the hard copies that are already printed can presumably still be used, and they’re just out six months of warehousing fees.