INTERACTION

Last October we were talking about the Richard Ridyard character. This year it's Dave Byron/Iron Dave/Dave Boyer etc, etc.

He's an editor and a writer, only it appears that some of the stories accepted by the editor have then been passed off by the writer as his own work. It gets convoluted.

Details all over the web:-

http://www.aphelion-webzine.com/forum/v ... 546af17186

http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewnews.asp?id=28921

http://therustynail.wordpress.com/2010/ ... his-clown/

http://cinriter.livejournal.com/194408.html

http://thewriterandthewhitecat.blogspot ... arist.html

Don't accept work by him or submit stories to him.

Do always run a google check on the people you're dealing with, or if you're suspicious post a query on a message board (but keep it neutral, to avoid repercussions if the person is kosher).

_________________
http://trumpetville.wordpress.com
http://ttapress.com/blackstatic/casenotesblog/

Sad state of affair when that happens, hope someone puts a spanner in his works.

_________________
New series Terminus X out: - (http://www.shaneward.net)

It's becoming standard practice to google authors' names and samples of their submissions because there is always an occasional idiot who will try to get away with plagerism or fraud. They don't seem to realise that editors talk to other editors. And, as Pete says, there are plenty of websites and newsgroups dedicated to exposing this sort of abuse. Readers are also very good at spotting this, unsurprisingly.

It's theft, basically. The thief is stealing from the original author, the publisher(s), the writer who would have been published in their place, and the readers who have a right to expect an honest piece of writing.

It's also career suicide. No one ever recovers from this.

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http://jimsteel.wordpress.com/

F*** f*** f***.

Submitted something to him a couple of weeks ago. Funnily enough I did Google him first, but didn't find anything.

He contacted me under the 'David Boyer' name - all I found was listings on a Christian authors' website - so figured he'd be an honest guy at least.

Right, have to think what to do about this

_________________
http://www.alisonlittlewood.co.uk

You could contact him (email?) and explain that with the current furore over the alleged plagiarism you would prefere to withdraw your submission. You'd then have to watch him very carefully to make sure it never turned up anywhere under one of his names - and scream and shout with a copy of said email should it do so.

On the other hand, if he's not committing the plagiaristic acts he's accused of, you'll have just made sure one particular editor never picks you up again. But how likely is it that he hasn't, given evidence? I'm genuinely asking because I haven't (touch wood) had to deal with this side of things. I'm also wondering how easy this kind of situation would be to fake.

(No, no plans, you can all stop looking at me like I'm an evil genius. I'm too lazy)

_________________
Jo Thomas
http://www.journeymouse.net/

I've noticed that one or two of these characters claim to be Christian. They've probably figured that it makes people more likely to trust them..

I'd withdraw my story now if I were you, Ali. If he's honest, he'll understand but the weight of evidence is against him.

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http://jimsteel.wordpress.com/

As someone who sold a few reprints in his day, apologized publicly, and is slowly paying back to those who want the money, and taking a break in 2010...

The above mentioned individual accepted a story of mine a longgg time ago for his NVH website. It was the edition where he had the interview with Joe Lansdale, so I said what the hey. That edition he also happened to snatch brand new background artwork by H.R. Giger, I believe.

How easy is it to fake. Very. If you're an editor, even easier. There are two software programs: one is called Copyscape, the other is completely for fiction and is archival and I forgot the name.
Teachers and professors often use it in higher profile universities.

I met a guy in a "writer's bar", a sort of bohemian joint down in the Bowery here in NYC. Long time ago. Anyway, I was knocking down bourbon and cokes and he was knocking down gin and tonics, and I told him I was into SF. He told me he made $23,000 a year MINIMUM changing his name every single time he submitted to a fiction or non-fiction publication, and he made it evident he did not care what he wrote. It's that simple, especially given the electronic age. As time goes on, piracy like this will become more and more prevalent.

Just dropping a dime.

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HOMEPAGE: www.lawrencedagstine.com

FRESH BLOOD (print): http://www.genremall.com/anthologiesr.htm#freshblood

FRESH BLOOD (pdf): http://www.wargamevault.com/product_inf ... s_id=78120

Did you sign a contract, Ali?

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http://jimsteel.wordpress.com/

Sure, in this electronic age, theft and fraud may become more prevalent.

However, technology will also make it easier to catch these people out. We are already seeing people get caught.

The electronic age is a double-edged sword like that, and only the naive think they can hide and get away with what they've done.

I've just politely withdrawn - didn't say why. I should think he can imagine. (I hadn't signed a contract.)

The story's a write-off, though. I won't dare sub it elsewhere in case it ends up doing the rounds with someone else's name on it - I'd be worried I might be tarred as a result.

Thankfully I wasn't too attached to this one. I can't imagine what it must feel like for anyone who's had a novel stolen.

I've found a thread about this guy at the BFS forums, too, that was started off in July - wish I'd kept a closer eye on that board!

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http://www.alisonlittlewood.co.uk

I think you're being too cautious there Ali. With the reputation this guy has now got for himself, nobody is going to believe him over you.

But even if you don't want to submit, I'd suggest at least posting to your website or on a message board/blog somewhere, with dating, so that there's proof it's your story. At the moment he could submit it and would be the first into publication, which creates all sorts of complications (not least that editors can't even check if the submission is kosher with google).

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http://trumpetville.wordpress.com
http://ttapress.com/blackstatic/casenotesblog/

Good thought - in that case, forgive the length of this post!

Will bob it on my website too, but wasn't sure if I could timestamp that in a way that could be seen as tamper-proof.


Off and On Again
By Alison J. Littlewood


To: JackMayhew@blister7.net2.com
From: Stu Kiernan

I had the strangest dream last night - that my friends had actual faces and voices and hands. They were all in one room, and we talked – I can’t remember about what, but it was good talk, you know? Then I woke up and found we’d all been sucked back into a computer screen.
All there was left in the whole blister was these people who sort of looked like people, but weren’t. They spent all their time wandering up and down the corridors, and I kept walking up to them and trying to talk, only there was nothing inside. They were just shells. Machines.
Funny, that.
So, computerman – what’s doing? You sorted the gennie yet? Sorry, power plant. I called ours a gennie the other day in front of one of them, and you know exactly the kind of look they gave me.
Tell all. Going nuts here. Thank god for a little human contact.
Stu


To: StuKiernan@blister32.net2.com
From: Jack Mayhew

Haha – Stu, you loser. Your subconscious freaks me out, you know that? Like the idea, though. The toffs as machines...yes, I could buy that. This morning my ‘supervisor’ – I know, I know – said I could perhaps take on looking after the seed store as well as the gennie. I don’t know what planet these folk are living on.
Actually, I do. I just don’t want to think about it.
Does it ever strike you that the seed store is like sacred or something? I went to take a look with the supe and when he got there he started to talk in whispers. And the others – they seem to go there just to look at it. Course, it’s right in the centre of the blister pod, and right by the food store and the water system, but the way they look at it – I don’t know.
Future in a box, I call it. Stu, do you seriously think we can just pop the blister one day (ha!) and everything will start to grow again? I have this picture of all these green tendrils crawling out like tentacles.
I can’t somehow picture it. Plenty of folk say there’ll be nothing but desert left after the fires have passed over. And yet, the leaders here – they say the fires will make everything more fertile. I’m not so sure. Sometimes I wonder if they’re only trying to stop everyone panicking.
You know what I think? By the time we get out of here, we can head for the poles. And the ones who managed to buy their way into the poles – they’re going to have to let us in then, aren’t they?
Anyway – even if there’s good earth left after the fires, by the time we get out of the blisters all we’re going to have is a bunch of seeds and miles of ground and a load of withered humanity who wouldn’t know a trowel if someone smashed them in the face with it.
I think that’s what they’d call irony, and I call a fucking joke.
Speaking of which, I have to get back to the gennie. She’s kind of high maintenance, you know that?
Seeya.
Ha.


To: JackMayhew@blister7.net2.com
From: Stu Kiernan

Ah come on, man - the seeds have to make it. It’s not like they’re the ones screwed it all up. The triumph of nature, and all that – don’t you even watch the movies? It’s not like there’s anything else to do. Change a few light bulbs so the toffs don’t have to live in the dark and they’re happy.
One of them asked me today which application scheme I used to get into the blister. When I said engineering he didn’t even say anything. Didn’t raise an eyebrow, just walked away like I wasn’t even there. Not worth bothering with, the likes of us, Jacky boy. Not even worth spitting on. Just – no response at all. You know?
Send me an email, man, before I go nuts. That reminds me – do you ever wonder what would happen if the email goes down? Hope to god we buried the cables deep enough.
Stu.
PS. How many toffs does it take to change a light bulb?
None, Jacky boy. None at all.


To: StuKiernan@blister32.net2.com
From: Jack Mayhew

Stu - light bulbs?! You’re kidding me. I spent half last night trying to make new cables for the gennie. Not change them, you note. Make them. You ever tried to make a cable? Anyway. Sometimes I think the seeds are the only thing should survive. We screwed it up, screwed everything up, and now we recycle everything including our own piss and think we’re doing a good thing.
They say the fires will be right over our heads soon. I hope we buried ourselves deep enough, let alone the cables.
Anyway. Movies? Can you seriously watch that shit? All those old films with green and life and stuff in them. Cos I can’t. It’s like they don’t make sense to me anymore.
Right, gotta go. Worthless people to keep alive. (Does it occur to you sometimes that half the folk here are already dead, and all we’re doing is tending the corpses?)
No?
Just me then.


To: JackMayhew@blister7.net2.com
From: Stu Kiernan

Haha. Wish they were.
Actually, second thoughts – can you imagine wandering round here on your own? I don’t think it’s the tunnels that would do my head in. It’d be all the doors, all those grey metal doors and wondering what’s behind them. Maybe the toffs have their uses after all.
Why the hell didn’t we put tunnels between the blisters, though? That would have been cool. We could’ve had meets. All the dirty-handed folk in one place and all the ones who bought their way in, in another.
OK, bad idea. We’d just lock ‘em out, and in a couple of hundred years there’d only be one blister remaining – ours, obviously. They’d all be dead of a malfunctioning natural daylight simulator or something. Pfizzle!!
Hmm...
Good job the supes don’t read these emails.
Stu
PS. Don’t worry about the fires, man. That’s what the blisters were made for, remember? If it weren’t for the probes up on the surface, you wouldn’t even know they were there.
PPS. You could tell the toffs they’re gonna burn, though.
PPPS. Keep the corpses fresh, Jack.


To: StuKiernan@blister32.net2.com
From: Jack Mayhew

Ha ha, don’t - and don't tempt me to tell 'em that. If I said the toffs were going to burn they’d feed me to the flames just so they didn’t have to go first. Couldn’t have an ‘engie’ outlasting a toff, could we? That wouldn’t be right.
It just beats me what they’re going to spend their money on once they get out of here. There’s a thought must keep ‘em up at nights.
Bastards.
Still having probs with the gennie, Stu. You ever had trouble with the main hub? Cos ours is a bitch. I tried to get another crew on it today but they said they’ve got problems of their own.
More bastards. :-/
Seeya. Sort of.


To: JackMayhew@blister7.net2.com
From: Stu Kiernan

No, our hub’s pretty stable. You tried turning it off and on again?
Check the manifest, though. There’s supposed to be two of everything in the parts room, isn’t there? Enough to rebuild the entire hub if you have to.
Had this weird dream last night. There was this toff, and he looked all right in parts - face and skin and hair and all that, but all he did is stand in a corner and stare at me. Didn’t say anything, didn’t react to anything. So I started stripping him down to see why he wasn’t working (ha), only there was nothing inside. But there’s this smell, right? Charring meat, like one of my old man’s barbecues. So I tried the computer. I shut it down and took the panel off and there was this meat inside it, no circuits, just wet, stinking meat...
Ha. Barbecues.
You remember those, right?


To: JackMayhew@blister7.net2.com
From: Stu Kiernan

Jack? You still there, man?


To: StuKiernan@blister32.net2.com
From: Jack Mayhew

Sorry, Stu. It’s been a freaking long day. Know what I found out? The other team’s working on the dome. The dome. They wouldn’t tell me what’s wrong with it, but the supe had a freaking freaked out look in his eyes.
Anyway, I’ve checked the manifest and checked the store, and if the two things ever bore any kind of relation, I’d love to know when.
Still, I am a master of improvisation.
The power plant’s struggling. I’ve had to start cutting off the electricity in different sections of the blister – I’m doing it in rotation, apart from the essential areas – and you can imagine how that’s going down with the toffs. Still, it seems to be keeping it going. Means the temperature fluctuates from tunnel to tunnel, though, and every time it changes in here I think – hell, you know what I think.
Course, I keep telling them it’ll all be fine. Magic words.
They seem to believe me. :-/


To: JackMayhew@blister7.net2.com
From: Stu Kiernan

Jack,
Hey, man, hope it’s all going OK. I know it will – you know what you’re doing. You wouldn’t be there if you didn’t.
We had some good news here. One of the toffs is pregnant (I know, a baby toff – it ain’t that great, but it’s something). I was beginning to think they were all too busy trying to work out who was most important, or richer, or something, than to get on with being the human seed bank they’re supposed to be. I’d assist, of course. but that might entail one of them actually looking at me, and you know none of them like to do that. Might be infected with, I dunno, an ounce of actual usefulness or something.
Anyway - it’s a nice thought, isn’t it? Babies running around the place, and their babies – hell, we should be outside again by then, shouldn’t we? It’s kind of a weird thought, though - kids knowing nothing else but the blister their whole lives.
Don’t forget – turn it off and on again. It’ll all be fine.
Keep in touch.
Stu
PS. You ever want kids, Jack?


To: JackMayhew@blister7.net2.com
From: Stu Kiernan

Jack?


To: StuKiernan@blister32.net2.com
From: Jack Mayhew

Auto responder - recipient unavailable - try again later


To: JackMayhew@blister7.net2.com
From: Stu Kiernan

Jack, are you there?


To: StuKiernan@blister32.net2.com
From: Jack Mayhew

Sorry, man, just had to go AWOL for a while. Things are – interesting, but OK. Worry ye not. They say the fires are here. A little behind schedule, but no one’s complaining. Did you ever believe in global warming before this, Stu? I mean, really believe in it? They should’ve called it global freaking incineration, but they always did like to dress things up in cotton wool. The flammable kind, probably.
Things are holding so far.
Took me a while to connect to email today - got on OK now though. We seem to have buried the cables deep enough. It bodes well
Laterz,
Jack
PS. You kidding? They wouldn’t let the engies breed anyway. Might screw up the gene pool.


To: JackMayhew@blister7.net2.com
From: Stu Kiernan

Haha. Yeah, you’re probably right there.
I had a great dream last night. I was outside, and everything was quiet, not like that endless humming you get from the gennie and the lights and the monitors and everything else. It was quiet, and the air was cold, and it was like this brown land, you know? Everything gone, everything dead, everything we did to fuck it up and it’s brown and grey and dead, only on the dome of this hill, something was growing.
It’s hard to say how amazing it was. There was this green fuzz, like two-day stubble. Like my old man’s beard.
On that note - all will be fine, man. Just turn it off and on again.


To: StuKiernan@blister32.net2.com
From: Jack Mayhew

Gotta be quick. Problems - dome got hairline cracks- everyone on repairs, even toffs - tell all l8r.
cya
wish still had drms like that



To: JackMayhew@blister7.net2.com
From: Stu Kiernan

Jack, it’s saying the line’s down. Did you sort the dome? Are you there? It’s probably the cables. I’ll run a diagnostic.


To: StuKiernan@blister32.net2.com
From: Jack Mayhew

- Message undeliverable -


To: JackMayhew@blister7.net2.com
From: Stu Kiernan

Just had a fucking undeliverable. I hope you’re OK, man. Be in touch soon.


To: JackMayhew@blister7.net2.com
From: Stu Kiernan

Jack, in the name of arse, would you answer me?


To: JackMayhew@blister7.net2.com
From: Stu Kiernan

Jack, you gotta talk to me, man. You’ve got a job to do here – ie. keeping me sane. Number one priority, so get to it.
I hope the dome held. Of course, the dome held. That’s what we built them to do. No way the dome has failed. It’s gotta be the cables. Shit, man, I spent all this time hoping we buried them deep enough, and now I’m hoping we didn’t.
It’s the cables. Of course, it’s the cables. So, whatever. We’ll be out of touch for a while. No matter. I’m going to keep writing this, and when the fires have passed over we’ll get the cables fixed – heard you’re good at that, ha – or they’ll just start working again, we’ll turn them off and on again, and you’ll get all these emails and tell me I’m a dumb fucker for sending them. I’ll laugh about it.
Ever think that’s what the Earth is doing now, Jack? Like, rebooting. Turning itself off and on again. So that everything will be OK.
It’ll all be fine, Jack, I promise you that. It will all be fine. All we need to do is fix the cables.


To: JackMayhew@blister7.net2.com
From: Stu Kiernan

I had this dream last night, Jack. You were there, and so were the other engies. We were drinking wine, good, rich wine, only there was something wrong with the light. Then I realised it was because we were outside, it was a fine, sunny day, and everyone was together and laughing.
Funnily enough my old man was there too, and he had the barbecue smoking. Always did get the barbecue too smoky, my old man.
Shit.
There were trees, Jack. Did you know some plants actually need fire to continue? It’s true. I looked it up. They have their seeds packed really tight, inside this resin – a resin blister, and it’s not until a fire cracks it open that the tree will grow.
I’ve been thinking about that a lot.
One day the fires will have passed and the blister will crack and we’ll all go outside. And I find myself wondering, now, if there won’t be a fine green line somewhere on a hillside, just a fuzz of something growing. Everything rebooted. Switched off and on again, like clockwork.
I think it will happen, Jack. And I’ll see you there when it does.
It’ll be weird, I know. Actual faces and voices and hands. Try not to get mine dirty, would you? Who knows, I might be one of the toffs by then. One of them actually spoke to me the other day. And you know what? She wasn’t so bad.
No, I’m not going soft on you.
But I want kids, Jack. Did I ever tell you that? I want kids. Lots of kids, laughing and running about and being cheeky little beggars, all of us standing on a soft green hillside. I want to cook for them, spark up a barbecue and get it smoky as hell, so that everyone coughs and says my food tastes like crap. Is that too much, Jack?
It’ll happen. Gotta believe it’s gonna happen.
And when it does you’re gonna be there, if only so I can say I told you so.
I’m signing off now, but I’ll tell you this: sometimes I think you’re the only real person left. Keep the lights on, man.
It’ll be all right.
I’ll see you soon, Jack.
Ha.

_________________
http://www.alisonlittlewood.co.uk

Oh - how funny. It's hyperlinked all the 'email' addresses and turned the smileys into - well, actual smileys...!

No one try emailing Jack or Stu, willya...

_________________
http://www.alisonlittlewood.co.uk

The only thing I'd worry about now is that it's already appeared elsewhere (namely here), so does that mean it won't count with potential markets as an original publication?

I panicked about that with a story which was accepted for an anthology but already posted in this forum. I edited it away just in case...

I'm sure you already know a lot more about this than I do, so pardon me if I'm talking nonsense.

PS I did copy and paste your story but only to read it away from my work computer - I'll shred it imediately after, promise!