I’ve always thought I was incredibly lucky to have such incredibly stupid enemies, but John @Scalzi has topped me. Scalzi has just come out with a new book, The Collapsing Empire. The guy who thinks he is Scalzi’s nemesis, Vox Day, has a small publishing house, and so he rushed into print a book, The Corroding Empire, to compete. Wait, you say, they just have similar titles, that’s not enough evidence to be plagiarism or an attempt to siphon off Scalzi’s sales, could it?
But then you see the covers.
Pathetically obvious, don’t you think?
Even more obvious, Vox Day openly announced his intentions.
When Beale announced pre-orders for The Corroding Empire, he made his mission very clear: He wanted his publishing house to do better than Tor Books and thought outperforming Scalzi with a near-identical book cover would twist the knife, adding
What would be more amusing than for The Corroding Empire to outsell and outrank The Collapsing Empire?Then again, Beale’s never shied away from promoting himself or his publishing house through controversial means, including getting his followers to nominate himself and several Castalia House books for Hugo Awards during the Rabid Puppies heyday.Beale has since announced a reprint that shortens the title to Corrosion, and changes the author’s name to Harry Seldon, parodying a character from Foundation. Some of his followers have also responded by giving Scalzi’s book negative reviews on Amazon.
That’s just sad and pitiful and weak. He’s basically admitted a desire to cling to Scalzi’s coat-tails.
He got the fonts all wrong (look at the M and the R in ‘Empire’; the subtitle is way off). That’s a sure sign of an incompetent hack.
Vox Day being strapped into a Vogon Poetry Appreciation Chair for eternity, an interval of time vastly shorter than that in which he appreciates Vogon poetry.
Someone needs to warn Scalzi: praying Voltaire’s Prayer is awkward because it means you’ve got enemies that feel they need to be ridiculous.
Be funny if that book got better reviews and awards than anything else that asshole has published. I just hope Chuck Tingle enters the fray, hip-deep if you know what I mean.
He’s basically admitted a desire to cling to Scalzi’s coat-tails.
That’s such “alpha” behavior. Not at all passive-aggressive. No, no, very dominant.
You know what else would be cool? If the latest Asylum mockbuster outgrossed Marvel. Yeah, that’d be awesome.
I see the Vox Trolls are out in force on Scalzi’s book. I’m gonna publish the Kindle edition so I can read it and give an honest review… I won’t be giving Vox Day the benefit of a click to his stuff on Amazon.
One would think that SFWA might have something to say, not that it would have much effect on Beale, since they kicked him out. But it might influence other people.
Johan Kalsi as first author is so, so subtle.
I would have thought this runs very close to fraud. Anyone with legal expertise on this thread?
one person in the reviews already said Amazon had actually pulled Beale’s first attempt at plagiarism for profit.
If accurate, I’d say that is already sufficient evidence Scalzi could use to sue Beale with.
…of course, given who Beale is the son of, likely he has deeper pockets than Scalzi, and that is often what decides whether one files a civil case or not.
Don’t worry, I’m sure someone will publish “The Hippy Atheist” by V.C. Byers and Ken Ham any time soon…
Thread about VD without TheFlamingSword.
Sad.
“An interstellar science fiction epic in space”
He even got a blurb from the department of redundancy department!
Does the fact that he announced his intent in public make this actionable in court?
Oh and surprise surprise, none of the one star ratings have an acompannying written review by a verified purchaser.
cough, cough, *cuck*, cough, cough. (pox bay of course).
I mean seriously, it’s like Chuck Tingle is controlling Bay’s life.
@11 That is why Publishers have big Legal departments, it wouldn’t just be John who is injured by VD’s action but his agent,and publishers as well. It is also worth considering the facts that I believe VD is/has resided n the UK. John has a publisher in the UK and is obviously published in the UK and I understand that we have a Tort called “Passing off”.
^^interesting.
why not do it then? he and the publisher would be doing the world a favour, no?
Surely Beale could, if sued for plagiarism, successfully fall back on a “satire” defense?
I don’t think there’s any requirement that a satire be actually, you know, witty or well-executed.
There’s also no requirement that your defense be successful.
I’m pretty sure this is copyright infringement.
Yeah, let me know how that works out for you, Ted.
When Beale announced pre-orders for The Corroding Empire, he made his mission very clear: He wanted his publishing house to do better than Tor Books and thought outperforming Scalzi with a near-identical book cover would twist the knife
That’s almost Trumpian-level “offer your own words as Exhibit A to the court” – looky here I planned to infringe on Tor’s trademark, herp, derp!
I assume Tor will ignore him, but I look forward to seeing what witty put-down Scalzi comes up with. My money is on reviews of Beale’s book by really good writers, like Chuck Tingle, Neil Gaiman or Pat Rothfuss. Usually Scalzi’s play is a good laugh; I’ve got my popcorn ready for this one. I’ll probably buy a copy of Scalzi and see if I can pick up a used copy of the Beale masterpiece to review here.
Addendum: I don’t see dead tree versions of the Beale book. So, at least some pulp was spared the indignity. But that means there’s no aftermarket in which we can avoid giving Beale money. So: no review.
Yeah, nothing says “I’m a talented quality author” like literally having to trick customers into buying your book by pretending you’re someone you actually claim is much worse than you…
How good can a ripoff of another work made to spite the original author really be? Is Beale planning to actually put effort into writing this? What does he plan on doing to make it “better” than the original?
I’ll buy Scalzi’s book.
Funny thing is, if it wasn’t for this petty attempt by Vox Day, I wouldn’t have known about it and probably I wouldn’t have bought Scalzi’s book.
It must be some sort of reverse Streisand effect.
BLF @2 : Given the total absense of quality or originality in Beale’s screeds, are we sure that he is not in fact a Vogon ?