How Silver Shamrock Caught the White Plague

Okay kids, you think Silver Shamrock you think Halloween (3) or perhaps St. Patty’s Day, but this time it’s associated with April Fool’s. Sadly for this publisher and its authors, it was no joke.

Silver Shamrock is (was) an indie publisher that had a nice following, a nice array of authors and quite a few titles under its belt. It seems like they had gotten into trouble last year regarding the editor’s views on content warnings but that book drama escaped me. However, this one did not.

You see, on March 31st, Silver Shamrock put forth a promo on social media for a book entitled “The White Plague Chronicles” by Gene O’Neill. It wasn’t the author or the title that caught flack though, it was the promo copy, which I shall leave for you below in all its um…glory.

That sound you could hear is the sound of racist dog whistles blaring from your computer. Like, who thought THIS was a good idea? Backlash was swift and within a few days there was a loud uproar from the book community. Authors fled the publisher in droves. Mr. O’Neill and his defendants took to social media telling people they need to read the book rather than make assumptions about its content, but offered no explanation how the book was different than the ad copy.

A quick read of the promo is all you need to realize why this book should never have been accepted in the first place but let’s break it down piece by piece.

Time is running out. An unknown terrorist organization has their hands on a previously unidentified virus that is far deadlier than Ebola, and even more sinister, as this horrific disease is genetically targeted to kill only the members of the Caucasian race.

Okay…

• How can a virus kill only Caucasians? That’s not how viruses work. That’s not how science works.
• Even “more sinister than Ebola” because it kills only white people instead of all people? Whoa.
• Who determines what constitutes Caucasian? If you’re biracial do you just get a cough or something? Does the virus look at 23andMe kits to determine who to target?

Two retired Black Ops specialists named Ryan O’Toole and Joey Hotsko are thrust into the unfortunate position of being humanity’s last hope. These aging combat vets have been recruited into a secret international organization known only as “The Association;” their mission, to do whatever it takes to stop the virus from being released.

Um…

• It might be interesting if they were Black ‘Black Ops Specialists’, but I don’t think that’s the case.
• Humanity’s last hope? Without the white people, humans will still exist, honey.
• But what of the Starbucks, man? WHO WILL GO TO THE STARBUCKS?

Together, they must travel from the backwater rivers and jungles of Borneo to the scorching desert outback of Tasmania, to the politically and religiously charged hotbed on the streets and back alleys of Israel. But will they succeed in stopping the madmen responsible for this atrocity before it is too late? Sadly, the answer will be no.

Interesting…

• So we know it’s madmen who are responsible for the virus killing all Caucasians but who and why? You’ve virtually given us no reason to care about any of this.
• Various people online have already pointed out that Tasmania has no scorching deserts, but I’m just putting it in here to use this gif, because I want to.

• Okay, so the global-trotting, aging Black Ops Specialists are unable to stop the virus. At this point we’d probably be halfway through the book and everything we will have read will be futile. Good plan! Top notch promo!

The plague will be released, and the effects of the deadly virus will be even worse than feared, mutating and evolving into a worse case scenario that will change the world as we know it, forever. Economies will fail, governments will fall, countries will crumble, billions of innocent men, women, and children will die, and a new world order will rise in what will ultimately become known as…The Collapse.

Wow…

• So I think you meant “worst case scenario” but I’ll let that slide as someone who doesn’t really care about regardless vs. irregardless and I know I’m going to get a few comments on that one.
• Without the lily-white people, it will be what we all thought Y2K would be. I guess it really was Starbucks that was holding the world together all along.
• As mentioned before who is included in that “billions”? How Caucasian do we have to be?
• New. World. Order. Oh my god, that is the icing on this racist cake made of only the whitest frosting with a side of very vanilla ice cream.

Prepare yourself for a journey into the heart of darkness…and far beyond.

• I have nothing to add except I hated that book.

So what could Silver Shamrock have done? Well they could have removed the promo, admitted their mistake and discussed what they should do to stop this from happening again. That would be reasonable right?

Instead, my friends, they flounced.

In the end, Silver Shamrock took down most of its social media, deleted their website and stopped publishing for good. Did they need to do this? No. Did they do this instead of listening to authors and readers about why this book was all sorts of problematic and perhaps learn the implications of publishing something with such strong, racist undertones. You bet!

Now, lots of authors with books under the publisher need to find their novels new homes and lots of readers who were waiting for those books, need to wait far longer.

They just should have stopped it.