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from the bad-things-happening-to-bad-characters dept.
https://www.yog-sothoth.com/index.html/news/chinese-government-burns-call-of-cthulhu-supplement/
For many years, various publishers in the Americas and Europe have had their books printed in China as a cost-saving measure (including many in the RPG field). Often the primary downside of this has simply been the time taken for the books to arrive, but it appears there can also be another problem, as the publishers of The Sassoon Files (a Cthulhu-based RPG supplement) have announced that all print copies of their book have been destroyed by the Chinese Government – for unspecified reasons.
https://boingboing.net/2019/03/25/the-sassoon-files.html
Julio writes, "Sons of the Singularity is a small RPG publisher. Last year, they kickstarted The Sassoon Files, a sourcebook for the popular Call of Cthulhu RPG and Trail of Cthulhu RPG. As a lot of publishers, theydid[sic] the printing in China. The same day that the print was finished, a Chinese Government decided that it was "problematic", so they burned the entire print run. Targeting foreign publications is a first, specially when it seems there wasn't anything problematic (the supplement was based on Shanghai but was respetful and documented carefully).
https://sonsofthesingularity.com/setback-in-the-sassoon-files-banned-by-the-ccp/
We have suffered an unfortunate and unexpected setback with the off-set print run. On March 20th, the Chinese government ordered the destruction of our books. Although the printer returned our deposit, we need to find another printer and this will result in a delay in fulfillment. We are committed to completing the print run and fulfillment.
(Score: 5, Informative) by insanumingenium on Tuesday March 26 2019, @06:11PM (3 children)
Yeah, I don't the idea that it was documented carefully from their website.
http://sonsofthesingularity.com/sassoon-files/ [sonsofthesingularity.com]
Description of conflicts between communists, nationalists, a jewish tycoon, gangsters, and even the Japanese. Depictions of men bearing a red banner fighting tentacled monsters. Mention of opium, prostitutes, and gambling.
What part of this did they think a government that censors historical fact let alone fiction would find (sic) respetful. Seriously, you can't even reference June 4th, how do you expect them to feel about them having to fight nationalists and Triads for control of China would go over?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @06:33PM (2 children)
Chinese corruption > Chinese ideology: It's far more likely the Chinese print failed to pay their monthly bribe to the officials to let them do business or that a rival print wanted them out of business so they bribed an official to get the job done.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday March 26 2019, @07:10PM (1 child)
In that case wouldn't the Chinese government be indiscriminate in what materials it decided to burn?
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by insanumingenium on Tuesday March 26 2019, @08:07PM
Concurred. Not to claim that there is no corruption in PRC, but it is well known how far they will go to censor dissent from their ideology. Hence the fact that there were state censors reviewing the books being printed in the first place.
That said, the video of the guy also made it clear he was very happy to have a full refund AND his books burned so that he could claim it was suppressed by the PRC. Kinda sad the kickstarter model is so viable for these kinds of products, because he wasn't even risking his own funds on trying to print in China, which I think was an obvious risk. Had he lost the deposit, or the full cost of the print run, I wonder what would have happened to the "backers".