The dumbest literary “feud” of the century just got dumber.
Sentient hemorrhoid/racist fantasy author and publisher Theodore “Vox Day” Beale has struck what he seems to think is a crushing blow in his ongoing weird feud with science fiction good guy John Scalzi.
Beale’s lil publishing house has just put out a novel with a similar title to, and pretty much the identical cover design as, Scalzi’s just-released The Collapsing Empire. How similar are the covers? This similar.
The one on the right is the original. As you can see, not only the title and cover are similar, but Beale has also given the author of his knockoff novel a pseudonym that rhymes with Scalzi.
THAT’LL SHOW THAT BASTARD SCALZI WHO’S BOSS APPARENTLY SOMEHOW I DON’T REALLY UNDERSTAND HOW BUT WHATEVER.
I will admit that the (presumably deliberately) redundant subtitle of the fake book is kind of funny: “An interstellar science fiction epic in space.”
As io9 notes, the ersatz book isn’t even a parody of Scalzi’s. It’s a novel inspired by Issac Asimov’s Foundation series — and which was apparently originally titled “Corrosion” — that Beale has decided to gussy up to look like Scalzi’s.
Beale’s master plan here, evidently, is to convince enough of his supporters to buy Kindle copies of the ersatz book out of spite so that it outranks Scalzi’s book in Kindle sales, a somewhat meaningless metric given that Beale’s books is priced at $4.99, compared to Scalzi’s $12.99, and that Scalzi is also selling actual paper copies of his book, while Beale’s is only available as an ebook. (Beale’s book has been taken down from Amazon several times already in the brief time it’s been out, apparently because, you know, it looks almost identical to Scalzi’s book, but at the moment it’s up on the site.)
Unsurprisingly, Scalzi’s book is outselling Beale’s baby by a considerable margin. This doesn’t seem to faze Beale much. On his blog today, he happily announced that
The Collapsing Empire on Kindle is falling while Corrosion: The Corroding Empire is climbing. 194 to
918 830 748 683666. Make it happen. You know you want to see it happen.
Beale, for all of his many defects, does seem to understand the art of the publicity stunt.
H/T — Sarah Barrios, for bringing this weird story to my attention
Time to go buy Scalzi’s book.
It’s pretty excellent. My only concern is that Kindle is telling me I’m at 85% in and I have a hard time thinking this plot can resolve in the remaining 15%, which means it seems I might have gotten involved in a… *shudder*… new book series.
I thought this would be a one-of like Redshirts or Locked in.
But I’m not really the one complaining, it’s my immediate gratification subroutine.
Whatever the outcome, Beale will say it’s exactly what he planned all along.
Also, how many chapter fives does this one have?
Wil Wheaton just finished doing the audiobook narration for this, which is tempting.
I prefer reading though. The only two audiobooks I own are Max Brooks’ World War Z and Carrie Fisher’s Wishful Drinking (as she narrates it herself).
The World War Z audiobook was very good, and is a way of avoiding Brooks’ spelling errors. Seriously, that book needed better editing.
I was at a library yesterday and ran into some of Scalzi’s fiction. It had me thinking how I’ve yet to read any of his work and I really should give it a try. I also had a chance to see him in person a few years back but turned it down to see Patton Oswalt instead. Considering some of the shit Oswalt started saying soon after I saw him, that was a mistake.
I literally spent more time patching a virtual roof today than Fux spent writing that book in total. Though I’m not sure whether that says more about him or about me…
Vox Day’s declarations of victory over John Scalzi always sound like “I MADE HIM NOTICE ME! I WIN! HE’S A NINNY-NINNY DODOHEAD!” to me.
Scalzi, in the meantime, gives Vox one brief look, smiles, shakes his head, and gets on with his life.
Somebody fire up the Tingle signal, Chuck we need you to write a novel tentatively called, “The Prolapsing Voxman”. The plot will be about an unsuccessful science fiction writer who is caught in a wormhole and thrown a hundred years into the future.
Voxman is thrust into a world of tolerance and man love that brings him to his knees and leaves him open mouthed. Can Voxman hold on to his outdated beliefs, or will he learn to love being the bottom of a free loving society. Who knows? Only Chuck can find out.
Take a look at this review at Amazon, and what the reviewer claims happened next. (Seen at file770)
Anyone heard of the ACLJ, Pat Robertson’s attempt to challenge the ACLU? Vox is on the same level of petulant childishness.
@ GIJoel: Proposed title for the Tingle book: Pounded in the Butt by the Sentient Manifestation of My Own Dumbass Bigotry.
Day declares victory over every single tiny thing, no matter how badly something went for him. “I meant to do that!” is the motto of him and the entire Alt-Right. His reaction to the failure of both Rabid Puppies campaigns was that he can make people vote any way he wants by strategically picking the Rabid Puppies nominations; clearly Chuck Tingle’s nomination was a masterful ploy to get SJWs to no vote one of their own! It was all according to Day’s plan!
Of course, deep down he’s sobbing over how he’s not a renowned best seller, but he doesn’t want anyone to know the truth.
“Notice me, sempai!”
Moggie: Wholly Shit. That’s horrific, a horrifyingly typical.
Hey, that reminds me that it’s been a while since I read any Scalzi. I gotta go read me some Scalzi, stat. Thanks, Vox!!
{blows kiss}
(Or, what Joe said.)
Holy shit, Castalia House gets more disgusting every time I hear from them.
We Mammotheers are obviously too unsophisticated to understand that Vox Day has pulled off a stunning victory.
Review of the book here. It doesn’t exactly sound like Hugo material.
@Moggie
Harassment of a negative reviewer? Castalia House is appalling.
@ Moggie
I love that the replies by the repugnant fans of Day are almost all minimised with the message that readers have not voted them as helpful, while the reviewer gets more and more support
As to the other review, the quoted ““It was worrisome that the Human League had declared him “a traitor to Galactic Man””
Well, I don’t remember that song…
Castalia House is pretty much Gamergate/the Rabid Puppies adopted as a business model.
Also, Beale speaks about the incident on his awful site, referring to the individual who called as a ‘self-designated customer service representative’. As usual, he comes off as a poor man’s Mafia don on the subject.
@SFHC
I dunno what it says about you, but it says the same thing about me.
Whatever it says about Pox Bay, I bet “thorough” isn’t part of it.
I think what it really says is that FO4 needs a feature to let us ask settlers to restore some structures (or just do it ourselves). Also clean up bodies. Dead feral ghouls all over your mansion on the hill, anyone ?
I love Scalzi. A great excuse to buy his new book today.
Points for the Ben Reilly reference ?
@Rabukurafuto
Ain’t that the truth. I’ve always been partial to the classic variation “this is good for Bitcoin”, so much so that the pretentious supervillain reassurance speech after defeat, the one that goes “everything’s going according to plan”, instantly translates to that in my head.