A Report on a Problem in the Publishing Industry
Preprint By Kirsten Hacker
May 2021
1 Contents
Introduction Section 1: Klara and the Sun Section 2: The Midnight Library Section 3: Uma and the Answer to Absolutely Everything Section 4: Agency Section 5: The Other Me Section 6: The Red Labyrinth Section 7: Piranesi Section 8: Oona Out of Order Section 9: Individutopia Section 10: Kings of a Dead World Section 11: I, Henry Section 12: Giver of Stars Section 13: Me Before You Section 14: Royally Screwed Section 15: The DaVinci Code Section 16: Murakami Conclusion
2 Introduction
I am an ex-physicist who quit her post-doctoral work to write a novel and raise her children. Shortly after my book was completed, it was stolen by nine people associated with the British publishing industry. This has led me to investigate how this came about and to discover that I am not the only person who has had this sort of problem. Not only is a culture of theft rampant within the industry, IP book contracting and software writing assistants allow thieves to use a team effort to create plausible deniability when they utilize lengthy sequences of writing prompts from sources that are unknown or hidden from them. These thieves will tell everyone that 'there are no new stories', but fortunately, everyone isn't that stupid. When readers or authors conflate the similarity of books that share 4 consecutive plot overlaps and books that share 40 consecutive plot overlaps, quantifying the difference between inspiration and copying becomes necessary within a legal framework so that when an author is given a set of writing prompts from their agent or publisher and they do not ask about the source of those prompts, they understand that they can still be held liable for infringing, even if they were assured that the source was legally validated through IP book contracting. In this book, I will quantitatively characterize the problems I've encountered in the publishing industry and propose some metrics to help authors analyze books that appear to have used their work as a template, reference, or automated writing prompt generator.
3 Section 1 a.) Sir Kazuo Ishiguro is a Nobel Prize winning author and his most recent book, Klara and the Sun was published in 2021 by Penguin Random House. It appears to have been constructed with an automated writing tool to serve as an example of the dangers of the proliferation of AI assisted writing that can mine an unknown author's body of work and reshape it into a marketable product at the press of a button. b.) This book contains not only a 90 point plot from my first novel, it also contains some scenes from stories written by a friend of mine who died a few years ago. If an AI automatically pulled these stories out of a database and smashed them together with my novel, this is an example of a technology that shouldn't be in use. c.) The names of the characters in this book are not only similar to those in my novel, they are also similar to the names of people I have known in real life and that is why I believe that my online footprint was used. The only city name mentioned in the entire book is the same city about which my dead friend wrote: Portland, Oregon. I see no reason for a man in Britain to write about the first-person experiences of a young, dying woman in Portland, Oregon.
4 1. The protagonist is a young slave who knows very little about the world, but she is very curious and perceptive. The story is told from her perspective. 1. There is an argument with an older male character who is a fellow slave. He treats the protagonist as greedy for wanting more of the thing that makes her feel alive. The thing that makes her feel alive also exposes her to people who will want to take her home with them and make use of her. (Ishiguro p. 2) (Hacker p. 5 v.1, p. N/A v.2) 1. Klara, that was greedy. You girl AFs are always so greedy… You took all of the nourishment for yourself,..’ 2. ‘The money for school is due on the 15th, so please don’t forget…. ‘Alix, about that…’ The ensuing argument escalated’. 2. The slavery of the protagonist is demonstrated by showing her for sale alongside other products that are evaluated by customers in scenes that take place on the same pages in both books. In Ishiguro’s book, she is owned by a store and in Hacker’s book, she is owned by a bank. She wound up in this place because she is desperately curious to learn about the world. (Ishiguro p. 6) (Hacker p. 6 v.1, p. 21 v.2) 1. had always longed to see more of the outside… 2. I had always been a good student …. and defiantly.. got a loan to pay for school 3. In her first encounter with a customer, she meets a disabled person with an odd way of walking. She feels safe with this person, but the mother of the limping, disabled person doesn’t want to buy the protagonist. There is no father in this scene. (Ishiguro p. 11-12) (Hacker p. 9-11 v.1, p. 26-28 v. 2) 1. the mother… her piercing stare .. was on me. I immediately looked away. 2. his mother… looked at me as though I were an animal he had picked up off of the street 4. She witnesses how people are sometimes cruel to slaves like her. (Ishiguro p. 16) (Hacker p. 19 v.1, p. 35 v.2) 1. young person treats a young woman like an unwanted toy 2. young men treat a young woman like a prostitute 5. In her second encounter with a customer, she meets a female character who is too thin and wearing a skimpy green shirt that reveals too much of her body. She doesn’t like her approach and when she takes her by the hand, she freezes up as a
5 defensive maneuver. She then watches as one of the other female products is selected and purchased. (Ishiguro p. 31) (Hacker p. 30 v.1, p. 49 v.2) 1. ‘a bright green tank top and her too thin arms were showing all the way up to the shoulders’ 2. ‘a direct view into her blouse. I thought I had seen the outline of her sternum. Her slim green dress..’ 2. She is struggling and wants to get out of the place in which she is trapped. 1. She is confused by how she has to sort things into boxes and has difficulty interpreting what is going on in her world. (Ishiguro p. 26) (Hacker p. 24 v.1, p. 39 v.2) 1. The word ‘box’ is used five times on one half page and the scene centers around her attempt to satisfy her manager. 2. The word ‘box’ is used five times on one half page that centers around her attempt to satisfy her manager. 2. A machine takes the energy she needs to survive and makes her feel weak. (Ishiguro p. 28) (Hacker p. 22 v.1, p. 38 v.2) 1. I could feel myself weakening.. allowed my posture to sag… 2. a Kafkaesque physical torture scene is used as a metaphor followed by “this is not healthy..” 3. The machine makes noise that is driving her crazy (Ishiguro p. 27) and she keeps looking for a girl child from her past to rescue her. (Ishiguro p. 29) (Hacker p. N/A v.1, p. 38 v.2) 1. 'began with a high pitched whine… I worried that Josie might have been trying to come back..' 2. 'chorus of screams sang out in my head… my little sister, Cara’s voice burst through the screams, ‘Alix! Come play!’' 4. Directly after this, she is tortured by the threat that someone she doesn’t like could lay a claim on her body. (Ishiguro p. 30) (Hacker p. 20 v.1, p. 36 v.2) This is the first of four examples in which two similar scenes in my book were reversed in the order they appeared within Ishiguro’s book. It seems to be a substitution feature of the algorithm. 1. 'She took my hand ..I want this one. She’s just right.' 2. 'His knee brushing against my elbow.. Get back to me when you know your price.'
6 5. The sun is used as a metaphor for hope and healing. This is introduced at the same point that a beggar is mentioned. (Ishiguro p. 37) (Hacker p. 26 v.1, p. 41 v. 2) 1. 'the sun gives nourishment… it brought Beggar Man back to life' 2. 'the sun rising or setting behind some mountains.. didn’t Diogenes live in a barrel and masturbate in public?' 3. We learn about her brave, new, technological future world 1. She is educated at home and is jealous of children who have personal assistants/artificial friends. She is drawn to these high tech objects of power possessed by urban elites. (Ishiguro p. ) (Hacker p. v.1, p. v.2) I created a number of beginnings to this story and this point comes from one that I’ve never published. I only sent it around to a small number of people. 2. She is being given lessons that demand her full attention and respect. (Ishiguro p. 56) (Hacker p. 53 v.1, p. 61, 69 v.2) 3. She meets a new young man for the first time who will attend a meeting later in the book and we learn more details about the protagonist’s house and the different attitudes people have towards technology. (Ishiguro p. 60) (Hacker p. 58 v.1, p. 74 v.2) 4. The protagonist is unhappy to learn from a maternal figure that it doesn’t matter if you get good grades if you are not well connected. (Ishiguro p. 63) (Hacker p. 53 v.1, p. 69 v.2) 5. She doesn’t really like these highly connected tech people, but she tries integrate herself. She’s not sure what sort of life she wants. (Ishiguro p. 65) (Hacker p. 62 v.1) (Hacker p. 80 v.2) 4. The outsider – insider dynamic is explored during some social events 1. An outsider is invited to a party-like meeting of elites and awkward jokes were cracked at which everyone laughed even though they weren’t funny. The elites comment on the outsider’s appearance in a positive way that denigrates. (Ishiguro p. 66, 67) (Hacker p. 76, 77 v.1) (Hacker p. 93, 94 v.2). 2. The outsider finds it odd that the elites communicate by putting their heads together in a strange way in a sort of technological, non-verbal communication mode that is not available to non-insiders. (Ishiguro p. 70) (Hacker p. 30 v.1) (Hacker p. 47 v.2) 3. One of the insiders was repeatedly characterized by her unusually long neck/arms. She is never referred to by name, only by her long-neck/arms designator. (Ishiguro p. 73) (Hacker p. 11 v.1, p. 28 v.2) Similarly, the people in the room are described by
7 their physical attributes on the same page in each book. (Ishiguro p. 73) (Hacker p. 75 v.1, p. 91 v.2) This was the second location at which I’ve noticed that when two similar events occur in my book, the algorithm will reverse them in order within Ishiguro’s manuscript. I saw this happen four other times. 4. Awkward conversation and a sense of alienation from elites is the defining feature of these interactions. They treat the outsider like an animal in a zoo and assume (s)he is stupid. Lifting/symbiots and insects are topics of conversation. (S)he is defensive yet passive. (Ishiguro p. 68, 73) (Hacker p. 58 v.1, p. 74 v.2) 5. A group of stupid boys harass the protagonist, treating her as though she is less than human. The idea that young people in this modern world have extended childhoods and act childish is expressed. (Ishiguro p. 75) (Hacker p. 16, 76 v.1, p. 33, 93 v.2) It seems that where there are two scenes in my book that have a similar theme, they will be substituted within the macro sequence such that they serve the same purpose but in reversed locations. This is the second time I noticed this happening. 90
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0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 This shows Ishiguro's page numbers on the x axis and Hacker's page numbers on the y-axis. When the points are close to the red line, the same thing is happening in each book on the same page number. 5. We learn about the protagonist’s relationship to her family 1. The technology used by people in the city threatens to take away the protagonist’s identity. (Ishiguro p. 83) (Hacker p. 6 v.1, p. 16 v.2) 2. She keeps a box full of photos and mementos that remind her of her childhood self. (Ishiguro p. 82, 86) (Hacker p. N/A of v.1, p. 17, 23 of v.2) 3. The protagonist has a sister who died when she was young and it is something she really never dealt with emotionally. (Ishiguro p. 88) (Hacker p. 178 of v.1) (Hacker p. 14 of v.2) 4. There is a cold, maternal, authority figure in the protagonist’s life who gives her instruction and advice, but who doesn’t really care about her. She attempts to bond with the protagonist by confiding her worries about her child’s health and her
8 workaholic husband. (Ishiguro p. 89) (Hacker p. 50, v.1, p. 20, 67 v.2) Once again in a situation where the same theme was expressed in two locations, it appears that the algorithm reversed their positions in the sequence. 5. We learn about the separation of the mother and the father when the protagonist was young and about the death of the little sister. It is implied that this made the mother cold and uncaring towards the protagonist. (Ishiguro p. 99) (Hacker p. 178 v.1, p. 21, 192 v.2) 6. Her sense of independent curiosity pulls her towards dark places and away from connectivity. 1. When the protagonist becomes curious about the natural world, and wants to explore it independently, this threatens her only friend. (Ishiguro p. 93) (Hacker p. 72 v.1, p. 88 v.2) 2. Despite the threat to herself, her only friend encourages her to indulge her curiosity and leave her behind. (Ishiguro p. 95) (Hacker p. 86 v.1, p. 102 v.2) 3. In the strange, new place, she unexpectedly meets and an animal that frightens her. She also thinks about a dog that doesn’t frighten her. This happens on the same page in both books. (Ishiguro p. 100) (Hacker p. 89, v.1, p. 105, 119 v.2) 4. As a result of her trip to an exotic place, her only friend disengages from her and she ends up interacting with someone who wants to control her mind and figure out the extent to which she can be controlled. (Ishiguro p. 104) (Hacker p. 94 v.1, p. 108 v.2) In this scene, there is a parallel of the situation between the protagonist and her boyfriend. They are in love with an idea of who they want each other to be rather than who they really are. (Ishiguro p. 55) (Hacker p. 9 v.1, p. 26) There is also the introduction of the strange idea that farm animals are kept underground and only a few are brought out for tourists to see in this naturalistic future world. (Ishiguro p. 106, 165) (Hacker p. 149 v.1 p. 163 v.2) Ishiguro introduces this information earlier, but he reminds us of it later on the same page as in Hacker’s book. 5. After being told to ‘go away!’ by a person with authority from whom she sought advice, she gives up on her connection to her only friend and source of human connection, succumbs again to selfish curiosity, and ventures alone into a very dark, mysterious place in search of answers. (Ishiguro p. 115) (Hacker p. 102 v.1, p. 117 v.2) 7. The young man and woman are separated by status and cultural differences/goals. 1. A city insider and a small town outsider try to maintain a relationship, but ambition gets in the way. (Ishiguro p. 122) (Hacker p. 9 v.1, p. 21, 26 v.2)
9 2. One of them wants to be seen by lots of people, but the other knows that this doesn’t bring happiness and wants to rescue her from that delusion. (Ishiguro p. 124) (Hacker p. 5, 12, 247 v.1, p. 100 v.2) 3. She doesn’t want the guy who lives with his mother even though he wants her. He stops coming to see her. (Ishiguro p. 127) (Hacker p. 61 v.1, p. 100 v.2) 4. She is lost in an image of how she thinks she needs to be. He wants to save her from this image, but she fights him. (Ishiguro p. 129) (Hacker p. 139 v.1, p. 154 v.2) 5. They are separated by differences in their mothers’ status and each mother is suffering from a different type of sickness: one goes too fast and one goes too slow, one is overly engaged with new tech and the other is overly disengaged. Both have fathers who are absent. (Ishiguro p. 146) (Hacker p. 177 v.1, p. 191 v.2) 8. They are separated by their connection to new and old technology. One is new tech and one is old tech. 1. A parent and child are in conflict over whether to spend a lot of money to go to a special, low-tech college for non-lifted/symbiot children. (Ishiguro p. 147) (Hacker p. 5 v.1, p. 20 v.2) 2. An attempt to turn the child into a lifted/symbiot permanently damaged the child and made him/her unsuitable for anything other than the special college for non- lifted/symbiot children. (Ishiguro p. 68) (Hacker 8, v.1, p. 24 v.2) 3. Something about the symbiot/lifting process tied two siblings together and caused one to get sick and the other to die or disappear. (Ishiguro p. 149) (Hacker p. 59 v.1, p. 75 v.2) 4. The landscape of the fantasy future land looks like hedges everywhere. Neatly trimmed hedges dividing up everything as far as the eye can see. The outsider child is pressured to be drawn to this place. (Ishiguro p. 151) (Hacker p. 141 v.1, p. 157 v.2) 5. The outsider child learns from old educational materials that are more appropriate for non-symbiot/lifted children. (Ishiguro p. 152) (Hacker p. 45 v.1, p. 63 v.2) 9. The protagonist bravely ventures into an unknown place in order to save her soul from certain death in an unlivable situation. (Ishiguro p. 157) (Hacker p. 34 v.1, p. 51 v.2) This all happens in the same paragraph and in the same order in both books. 1. She has bravely entered a place she’s never been before. 1. 'in a part of the lab I had never seen before.' 2. 'further along the informal trail, beyond any point I’d been.'
10 2. She has lost her sense of direction. 1. 'When my phone’s navigator stopped working as I walked past a large, grumbling grey box, which emitted an acrid, oily smell, I couldn’t find anything that could point me in the right direction' 2. 'I went through another picture frame gate, then the grass became too tall to see the barn anymore.' 3. She understands the geometry and contrasts of her surroundings. 1. sprawling labyrinth with experimental workspaces, offices, and large-scale facilities growing out in a fractal pattern from the central machine at its core. = The field became partitioned into boxes, some larger than others, and I pressed on 2. The color scheme was white, black, bright blue, orange, cement, and dirt. = conscious of the contrasting atmospheres between one box and another. 4. She notices changes in her environment as she progresses and hears strange noises. 1. Old turned to new as you turned one corner and clean turned to dirty at another corner = One moment the grass would be soft and yielding, then I’d cross a boundary and everything would darken. 2. ‘the sound of an animal crying’ = ‘rumbling or vibrating equipment’ 5. She is worried about being late for an event she has been looking forward to and which she thinks will solve her fundamental problem (her human soul dying of loneliness). But she is concerned about the authority who owns the sacred space she is entering. 1. Hopelessly late, I finally saw an office with an open door and knocked. 2. Fearful that I’d made a serious miscalculation, that there was no justifiable reason to disturb his privacy in the manner I was hoping to do. 10. Two pages later, she hallucinates an old friend from before she came to this new place. (Ishiguro p. 157) (Hacker p. 36 v.1, p. 53 v.2) 1. Lost in a strange arrangement of boxes, she hallucinates the appearance of her old friend Rosa/Lori 2. The old friend is doing something strange with her body: She was preparing a harness and attaching herself to some ropes that disappeared up into a tube = Little pieces of metal surrounded her as she reached out both hands to grasp one of her legs stretched out stiffly before me
11 3. She feels like she is falling: 'falling backwards and landing head-first on the ground’ = ‘I felt the ground collapsing.’ 4. the voice of her friend comes from behind ‘a computing crate’ = ‘a traffic cone’ 5. ‘Alix!’ = ‘Klara! Come on!’ says the friend who helped her reach a sacred, church- like space, still searching for a solution to her problem in a delusional, hallucinatory state.
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In the chart above, Ishiguro's page numbers are on the x axis and Hacker's page numbers are on the y- axis. Whenever the points rest on the red line, the same thing is happening on the same page in both books. In the region of the chart where there are no points, no plot overlaps were detected. Because of the second version of the book, there are some pages that overlap exactly with the second version of the novel rather than with the first version of the novel. If I substituted in those page numbers, a few more of the points would rest on the red line. However, to avoid overly complicating things, I will not add that data to the figure. 11. A cluster of five unusual events from earlier in Hacker’s book was re-used later in Ishiguro’s to describe one of her visits to the sacred, church-like space.
12 1. a person’s arms appeared elongated and she has lost her sense of spatial relationships. (Ishiguro p. 158) (Hacker p. 29 v.1, p. 45 v.2) 2. she was worried about getting somewhere before it was too late (Ishiguro p. 159) (Hacker p. 34 v.1, p. 51 v.2) 3. she was carried by a man when she lost her strength (Ishiguro p. 159) (Hacker p. 39 v.1, p. 57 v.1) 4. she focuses on the shapes with which the objects around her are constructed. She believes that she is close to the source of the power that drives her world. (Ishiguro p. 160) (Hacker p. 37 v.1, p. 55 v.2) 5. There are blocks stacked on a platform where she might lay down to rest/faint (Ishiguro p. 163) (Hacker p. 38 v.1, p. 57 v.2) and then she almost dies (Ishiguro p. 179) (Hacker p. 39/160 v.1, p. 57/172 v.2) This is another one of those points at which the order of two similar scenes was reversed. 12. In this sacred space, she meets another version of herself and uses the space to seek access to the power to solve her fundamental problem – (the human soul that is dying of loneliness) 1. She uses this sacred space to speak with herself. (Ishiguro p. 163) (Hacker p. 88 v.1, p. 104 v.2) 2. In the sacred space, she communes with memories of people she loved in her past (Ishiguro p. 165) (Hacker p. 104 v.1, p. 119 v.2) 3. A male mentor asks her what she found when she entered the sacred space and she won’t tell him. (Ishiguro p. 168) (Hacker p. 96 v.1, p. 123 v.2) 4. the protagonist ends up in an intimate situation with a man that is disrupted by someone who wants to disrupt it. (Ishiguro p. 172) (Hacker p. 120 v.1, p. 137) 5. A man is described as a dork and then arrogant physics professors are acknowledged to be irritating. (Ishiguro p. 187-189) (Hacker p. 120-122 v.1, p. 137- 139 v.2) 13. She comes up with stupid solutions to her fundamental problem 1. She has a technological magic mirror that she can hold in her hand. She uses it to look at herself in public. (Ishiguro p. 188) (Hacker p. 132 v.1, p. 146 v.2) 2. She looks up at the stars to get a feeling of hope. (Ishiguro p. 167) (Hacker p. 211 v.1, p. 224 v.2) 3. She thinks back to her father’s (Rex’s) disapproval of her ambition from the very first few pages of the book. (Ishiguro p. 165) (Hacker p. 208 v.1, p. 221 v.2)
13 4. She remembers the animal that frightened her when she first chose to follow her curiosity. (Ishiguro p. 165) (Hacker p. 215 v.1, p. 230 v.2) 5. She concludes that she must destroy a machine that tortured her in her youth in order to solve the problem of her dying/lonely human soul. (Ishiguro p. 166) (Hacker p. 216 v.1, p. 231 v.2) 14. In this section, we see world building issues related to home and identity again 1. One partner in a marriage was given a technological treatment that completely changed their role in society while the other remained within the role for which they were originally trained. (Ishiguro p. 192) (Hacker 272 v.1, p. 287 v.2) This is an echo of the situation between her parents described at the beginning of Hacker’s book. 2. She returns to her home but finds that the people with whom she grew up have moved out. (Ishiguro p. 193) (Hacker p. 147 v.1, p. 162 v.2) 3. She had been angry with the machine, but when she saw that her old home was gone, she felt more kindly towards the machine since it was all she had left that reminded her of who she was. (Ishiguro p. 193) (Hacker p. 151 v.1, p. 165 v.2) 4. Wealthy children in this world often have a ‘virtual self’ or ‘portrait’ that is a technological creation. They are sometimes used to help their parents deal with grief if the child dies. (Ishiguro p. 198) (Hacker p. 6 v.1, p. 16 v.2) 5. Mr. Capaldi/Dr. Pope is creating a replica of the protagonist as a comfort object for someone else and that this will eventually result in the protagonist having her identity erased. Ishiguro makes the protagonist a comfort object for a mother while I explore the issue of a replica of a person being used as an imaginary boyfriend or girlfriend. (Ishiguro p. 200-209) (Hacker p. 254 v.1, p. v. 271, 331 v.2) 15. Because of the AI’s belief that destroying the machine that tortured the protagonist when she was young will solve her fundamental problem, a machine is destroyed. 1. With help from a male character with knowledge of engineering, she evades security and breaks into an industrial site in order to destroy the machine. (Ishiguro p. 221) (Hacker p. 219 v.1, p. 233 v.2) 2. Again, I find a page-worth of text on which I find 1:1 sentence substitutions in which information is introduced to the reader in the same order in both books. In the scene, a character explains that destroying the machine requires the battery contents of a cyborg to be emptied into it. It is a very technical conversation and the procedure puts the protagonist at grave personal risk, yet she believes it is the only way to survive while maintaining any form of autonomy and continuity of
14 personal identity, so she does it. (Ishiguro p. 226) (Hacker p. N/A v.1, p. 349 of v.2) This is only in the longer version of my book. 300
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While the data has become more disorganized as the book progresses, there are still an increasing number of pages on which the same thing is happening in both books.
16. Two political/social groups meet each other. In my book, the contrast is between feral video gamers and the green people and although I introduce the details of these groups in different places in the book, they are specifically brought into juxtiposition on the same page of both books. It represents a key turning point in the plot. 1. She encounters a crowd of people who represent the uncontrolled masses and they are contrasted with a fascist collective organization in which the people all have the same skin color and are collected from the ranks of the elites. They believe they are to humans as humans are to animals. 1. the fascist father repeatedly refers to his sick daughter as an ‘animal’. He had been an elite engineer before joining his organization. (Ishiguro p. 187, etc.) 2. she refers to the exclusive selection and training procedure of the fascists (Hacker p. 213, 289 v.1, 228, 301) 2. In this moment, the AI at the heart of the machine who manipulated the protagonist is disabled, 3. In this moment, brain or head damage is described.
15 4. In this moment, the tyrannical female character is described as behaving in a strange manner. (Ishiguro p. 230) (Hacker p. 230 v.1, p. 246 v.2) 5. The destruction of the machine is revealed to have been a futile act, since it just comes back bigger and stronger. The destruction also didn’t solve the protagonist’s fundamental problem. (Ishiguro p. 263) (Hacker p. 257 v.1, 239 v.2) 17. The real causes of the protagonist’s fundamental problem are identified. 1. She met a waitress who knew her from her original home town. Because her home is gone, the waitress is one of her only connections to her past. Difficulties with marriage and regrets are discussed. A former lover appears. A diner is mentioned. (Ishiguro p. 237-239) (Hacker p. 151 v.1, p. 164 v.2) 2. We learn that the mother of the nonsymbiot, outsider never loved him/her enough to make a proper decision one way or another about putting him/her on a college track. (Ishiguro p. 239) (Hacker p. N/A v.1, p. 20, v.2) 3. She sees a man with extremely white skin and is taken aback. (Ishiguro p. 239) (Hacker p. 32 v.1, p. 49 v.2) This man was only described as having extremely white skin in an unpublished version of the manuscript and of course, some of these points are not relevant, but it is the collection of points that makes the case. 4. There is a big show going on that leads to hostility directed towards the protagonist because of how her kind takes jobs away from more deserving people. (Ishiguro p. 242) (Hacker p. 247 v.1, p. 264 v.2) There is a weird repetition of some text that seems like a bug in the program that put together this book. p. 242 and 238 5. There is a discussion of favoritism and corruption after an unnecessarily elaborate sequence describing the protagonist’s perception of her entry into a room where she is treated as low status and unwanted. The structure reminded me of Alix’s entrance into the control room and her lecture from Dr. Scarlett. (Ishiguro p. 251) (Hacker p. 221 v.1, p. 235 v.2) 18. The story has a happy ending in which the fundamental problem is solved on some level. 1. The character/situation is described as fragile twice and then gets lost in a sea of regrets and consequences for past actions. But she takes responsibility for them and moves on. (Ishiguro p. 255) (Hacker p. 286 v.1, p. 298 v.2) 2. The story concludes with a religious epiphany and a miracle that rescues the protagonist from her despair. (Ishiguro p. 284) (Hacker p. 294 v.1, p. 306 v.2) The thing that makes the protagonist feel alive in Hacker’s book is knowledge whereas in Ishiguro’s book it is sunlight. In both books knowledge/sunlight saves her life.
16 3. We are left with the impression that the AI friend orchestrated it all. (Ishiguro p. 291) (Hacker p. 297 v.1, p. 308 v.2) 4. The epilogue involves a female mentor from the protagonist’s past reminiscing about the past. She expresses worry over what had happened to the protagonist after she had left. A body of water is mentioned in the scene. (Ishiguro p. 304) (Hacker p. 300 v.1, p. 311 v.2) 5. There is a sense of irony associated wth the ending of Hacker’s book that is much more subtle (or lost entirely) in Ishiguro’s book. Did she really solve her fundamental problem and was this really a happy ending? Overall, with 18 mythemes consisting of 5 points each, we have 90 points of overlap of which 40 occur on roughly the same page in each book. Individually these plot overlaps may be common within the science fiction genre, but there is no reason for them to be presented in the same order in two, independently created books. This level of similarity suggests that Ishiguro used Hacker's book as template or resource throughout the construction of his derivative work. Taking inspiration from something involves reading it once and putting it away. It does not involve the copying of lengthy sequences of plot events. 350
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0 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 This figure has Ishiguro's page numbers on the x axis and Hacker's on the y axis.
Nobel Prize winner Sir Kazuo Ishiguro’s novels have been noted for their versatility. ‘His novels have covered an incredible range of territory’ ‘None of his books is like any of its predecessors.’
17 Most authors have a consistent voice and range and that is why we won’t see Pavarotti singing soprano, yet Ishiguro defies these limits and I think I know why this is the case – he is an engineer, not a writer.
Consider his book, The Unconsoled, a Kafkaesque journey through the mind of a mental patient who is trapped in a world of his own invention. The Wikipedia entry reads:
The Unconsoled was described as a “sprawling, almost indecipherable 500-page work” that “left readers and reviewers baffled”. It received strong negative reviews with a few positive ones. Literary critic James Wood said that the novel had “invented its own category of badness”. However, a 2006 poll of various literary critics voted the novel as the third “best British, Irish, or Commonwealth novel from 1980 to 2005”, tied with Anthony Burgess‘s Earthly Powers, Salman Rushdie‘s Midnight’s Children, Ian McEwan‘s Atonement, and Penelope Fitzgerald‘s The Blue Flower. John Carey, book critic for the Sunday Times, also placed the novel on his list of the 20th century’s 50 most enjoyable books, later published as Pure Pleasure: A Guide to the Twentieth Century’s Most Enjoyable Books. It has come to be generally regarded as one of Ishiguro’s best works.
Why can’t they make up their minds? Maybe some of the readers are in on the joke and some are not. I think the joke is about engineered writing.
There have been experiments with engineered writing for decades, but only recently has the technology escaped into the public domain , even being used by romance novelists – a topic that will be covered later in the book.
If I just extract the summaries of the mythemes without listing the five plot points used to express the themes, I see a list that could be turned into a new story by shifting the context.
In Klara and the Sun, we see a portrait of a modern slave expressed in 17 points that are each individually expressed by 5 plot elements that are the same in my book, My Adorable Apotheosis. Of these sets of 5 plot elements, half occur on roughly the same page in both books.
1. The protagonist is a young slave who knows very little about the world, but she is very curious and perceptive. The story is told from her perspective. 2. In this technological future world, non-tech outsiders are at a disadvantage. 3. The outsider – insider dynamic is explored during some awkward social events. 4. We learn about the protagonist’s relationship with her broken family. 5. Her sense of independent curiosity pulls her towards dark places and away from connectivity.
18 6. The young man and woman are separated by status and cultural differences/goals. 7. They are separated by their connection to new and old technology. One is new tech and one is old tech. 8. The protagonist bravely ventures into an unknown place in order to save her soul from certain death in an unlivable situation. 9. Two pages later, she hallucinates an old friend from before she came to this new place. 10. She bravely visits a scary, sacred, church-like space again. 11. In this sacred space, she meets another version of herself and uses the space to seek access to the power to solve her fundamental problem – (the human soul that is dying of loneliness) 12. She comes up with stupid solutions to her fundamental problem. 13. She tries to re-connect to her home and identity again. 14. Because of the AI’s belief that destroying the machine that tortured the protagonist when she was young will solve her fundamental problem, a machine is destroyed. 15. Two political/social groups meet each other. The destruction of the machine is revealed to have been pointless. 16. The real causes of the protagonist’s fundamental problem are identified. 17. The story has a happy ending in which the fundamental problem is solved on some level.
This recipe or sequence of ideas is surely not copyrightable because it is rather vague and not very long. That is why people always say, ‘there are no new stories’, but when one sees that each element in the sequence is expressed by the same set of five unique plot events that usually occur in the same order in both books, I think we enter the grey area of copyright, especially when those plot events occur on roughly the same page in both books most of the time.
Unless copying occurred, there would be no good reason for two authors to choose the same five plot elements to express each idea in the 17 point sequence. As such, the recipe or coarse template of such a book might not be copyrightable, but the expression of that recipe is and that expression is determined by the sets and sequences of plot events used to convey the ideas in the book.
It is important to look at such cases with the proper focal length. If you zoom in too far, you see noise and no similarity. It is just letters on a page. But if you don’t zoom in far enough, you get the impression that ‘there are no new stories’ and that the similarity is skin deep.
If I extract only the mytheme headings from the list of 17 plot overlaps, I see a list that could possibly be used to describe the life of Helen Keller and her teacher Annie Sullivan – if Helen
19 Keller has a love interest and blindness and deafness is substituted for tech-blindness and emotional stunting. But there is no chance that an author of such a tale would accidentally use the same 5 plot points to describe each of the 17 mythemes in the list above. This is why it is clear that Ishiguro has done something infringing. Because the copying is so extensive, I suspect that he did this on purpose to draw attention to the dangers of engineered writing. There are an unusual number of similar character names: [Rex/Alix, Chrissie/Chrissy, Josie/Lori, Peter/Peter, Klara/Cara, Daniel/Dano] They don’t always represent the same character in both books, but the coincidence is strangely blatant.
It is also odd how some of the linguistic quirks and names in this book remind me of people and places that would show up in my online footprint. All of the names above come from either my book or from people I’ve known in real life and with whom I’ve communicated in recent years. Why Rosa, why Paul, why is Portland, Oregon mentioned when no other city name is described in the whole book? Why were there two scenes that sounded like they came from a deceased friend of mine's diary? and I don’t know of anyone who uses the phrase “In any case,” as often as I do. Yet it kept appearing within the text an odd number of times. it is also weird that page 16 describes a scene I wrote about in an unrelated book. There are even scenes in the book that remind me of something that a recently deceased old friend of mine might have written. Surely that can't be legal.
20 Section 2 a.) Matt Haig published The Midnight Library via Penguin Random House and Canongate more than two years after Hacker published My Adorable Apotheosis. When Hacker contacted Canongate, Haig denied having ever seen her book before. b.) Haig has subsequently sold the film rights for his book and participated in planning for a feature film based on the story. c.) A very expensive promotional effort was used to keep the book at the top of bestseller lists. This effort involved the purchase of tens of thousands of online reviews that drew many complaints from readers who had felt tricked. d.) His previous novel, How to Stop Time, shares 15 sequential plot overlaps with Claire North's The First Fifteen Lives of Henry August. e.) Despite Haig's tendency to write from a male perspective, this book uses a female perspective. Both books follow the struggles of a young woman who is trying to feel happy and connected to the world. She finds herself living out many unusual life trajectories as she searches for a sense of well-being. Both stories end with a quasi religious conclusion involving acceptance of one's own life and venturing out into the unknown.
21 1. We meet the protagonist. 1. Her young adulthood was marked by her father’s sudden departure after she made a choice he didn't like. (Haig p. 1, 2) (Hacker p. 3, 5) 2. She is a philosopher at heart and torn by her choice to leave or remain in her small town. (Haig p. 2) (Hacker p. 10) 3. She takes refuge from her broken relationships in a job she doesn't like. (Haig p. 11) (Hacker p. 9) 4. She’s not in love with the guy who wants her. He’s a substance abuser who is going nowhere, but she feels like she should like him. (Haig p. 12, 16, 30, 35) (Hacker p. 9, 13, 28, 32) 5. Her job is so dissatisfying that she is barely holding on. (Haig p. 8) (Hacker p. 22) 2. Inciting incident 1. Flowers and drugs are mentioned on the same page. (Haig p. 19) (Hacker p. 31) 2. She is desperate and is considering drastic measures. (Haig p. 22) (Hacker p. 27) 3. Strong drugs, hallucination, loss of consciousness, leave her in a multiverse madness. (Haig p. 20, 25, 26) (Hacker p. 28, 36, 39) 4. A countdown to disaster format was used in the version (v. 2) Hacker sent to agents and published online. She writes a note to herself in v. 2 and thinks about how she did what she wanted to do rather than what her mother wanted her to do — get married to a local guy. v.2 5. She passes out and when she wakes up, she meets the quasi-human, ghostly, female mentor who is intimately connected to the machine.library that will serve as the central element of the story. (Haig p. 27) (Hacker p. 42) These seventeen events are happening on roughly the same pages within the first 30-50 pages of the book. The blank spaces refer to v. 2 of Hacker's manuscript, a version that was only submitted to agents and published online.
22 3. A ghostly female mentor (GFM) figure structures and paces the story. 1. She learns from GFM about how the machine.library works and how her life might turn out. (Haig p. 30, 39, 40, 54) (Hacker p. 43, 49, 54) 2. She tries to decide if she could like her drug abusing boyfriend and then seeks advice about her love life from GFM, getting noncommittal answers. She concludes that cats are the solution to her problem. (Haig p. 56, 62, 63) (Hacker p. 56, 62, 64) 3. She talks about cats with GFM, writes a poem, toxoplasmosis is mentioned, she is bored by her work because she is surrounded by idiots and seeks career advice from GFM. (Haig p. 56, 76, 79, 83) (Hacker p. 69, 80, 63, 83) 4. She speaks with GFM again about what motivates her, but misses the lesson, thinks about cats again, and wraps up a chapter by chatting with GFM. (Haig p. 87, 88, 117) (Hacker p. 87, 89, 117) 5. The final discussion with GFM is about whether or not she had free will in what had transpired. (Haig p. 288) (Hacker p. 297) These thirteen plot points are arranged in the same order in each book except for the point marked in puple. It represents a rather unusual description of toxoplasmosis that is rare within fictional works. When the page numbers from mythemes 1-3 are charted out, they form a diagonal line, demonstrating that the same things are happening on the same pages of both books for these thirty plot elements.
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23 4. The protagonist attempts to reground herself. 1. Before losing herself to the madness, she tries reaching out to a friend from her youth, but it doesn’t work. (Haig p. 17) (Hacker p. 151) 2. She doubts her connection to reality by thinking about a pretentious academic concept related to identity. (Haig p. 53) (Hacker p. 200) 3. The substance abuser she didn’t want to marry wanted a baby but she didn’t. (Haig p. 54) (Hacker p. 202) 4. Whenever she gets upset or overwhelmed, she returns to thinking about a specific song that calms her down. (Haig p. 55) (Hacker p. 208) 5. Her husband in one of her lives cheats on her and doesn’t apologize in a scene in the couple’s bedroom where he’s asking her to come to bed, but she is upset. (Haig p. 56) (Hacker p. 242) 5. The protagonist is struggling with guilt and possibilities. 1. She thinks about neglected children, a song she likes, and a poem she wrote. She talks to herself in a mirror and is lost in a maze while tormented by a cat. (Haig p. 55, 59, 60) (Hacker p. 210, 214, 216) 2. Chess is used as a metaphor for life choices and the next choice she makes is motivated by the cat. (Haig p. 61) (Hacker p. 216) 3. She is suddenly surrounded by a flood that aims to wash away her shame. She writes a poem. (Haig p. 71, 76) (Hacker p. 227, 228) 4. A strange man remembers a life in which they were married, but she doesn't at first. She doesn't pursue the relationship because he's nuts and she's distracted. (Haig p. 152) (Hacker p. 286) 5. The ghostly mentor points out that she is always saying things that she doesn’t really mean. (Haig p. 156) (Hacker p. 298)
When these points are added to the figure, a second line emerges that is parallel to the first. This represents a plot sequence that was copied from later in my novel and moved to earlier in Haig's novel.
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2.6. As she dives deeper into the dream/madness, she uses poetry and similar metaphors to express herself. 1. The appearance of poetry structures and paces the story. (Haig p. 55, 76, 76, 164, 182, 274) (Hacker p. 210, 228, 159, 192, 270) 2. A poem called Howl plays a central role in the plot. (Haig p. 182) (Hacker p. 128, 6) 3. A black hole analogy is made – it represents the protagonist’s sense of life’s meaninglessness. (Haig p. 77, 234) (Hacker p 117, 129) 4. She studies her reflection in a mirror as she tries to get a hold of her identity. (Haig p. 91, 59, 234) (Hacker p. 103, 214, 297) 5. Chess and quantum physics are referenced throughout. Haig offers a ham- handed interpretation of mulitverse physics whereas Hacker is an actual PhD physicist. (Haig p. 147, 154) (Hacker p. 162, 166) 7. The protagonist struggles with despair 1. She's stuck in a crappy apartment with a loser roommate who plays video games. She creates poetry. (Haig p. 77) (Hacker p. 208)
25 2. Toxoplasmosis is discussed with respect to its impact on human intelligence. (Haig p. 79) (Hacker p. 64) 3. Descriptions of how elites deliberately kill people by taking over their minds are made. (Haig p. 80) (Hacker p. 67) 4. She thinks about how her father’s departure occurred because she did what she wanted to do rather than what he wanted her to do. (Haig p. 87) (Hacker p. 63) 5. She studies her reflection in a mirror as she tries to regain her sense of self. (Haig p. 90) (Hacker p. 103) 8. She realizes you can’t have everything. There are trade-offs. 1. She struggles with her mother’s death and her parents’ relationship in a sunny, poolside environment. (Haig p. 97) (Hacker p. 178) 2. She has to give a lecture at a big conference. It shocks the audience with claims about the multiverse. (Haig p. 113) (Hacker p. 135) 3. She finds her life as a scientist uncomfortable and dangerous. She is almost killed while doing her scientific job. (Haig p. 118) (Hacker p. 152) 4. She discusses physics with a strange man that she finds odd yet oddly attractive. (Haig p. 147, 152) (Hacker p. 162, 164) 5. In one of the two implied sexual situations in the book, the protagonist pounces on this man. It doesn’t lead to anything serious because he is nuts. (Haig p. 153) (Hacker p. 164) 9. She loses her grounding and is made unhappy by extreme situations. 1. She struggles with rockstar-like fame and people she doesn’t like or know wanting her on a stage. (Haig p. 171) (Hacker p. 246) 2. The climax is expressed with the lyrics of a complete song and a conflict with the mentor figure. (Haig p. 182) (Hacker p. 192) 3. She dreams of a gentle life at one with nature and dogs, but doesn’t get what she expects. Haig p. 197, 207) (Hacker p. 232, 238) 4. She dreams of a life with status, but doesn’t get what she expects. (Haig p. 208) (Hacker p. 239) 5. She then disappears into an obsession with sampling her other lives. (Haig p. 214) (Hacker p. 292)
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10. She thinks she's solved the puzzle of how to be happy, but... 1. She becomes particularly immersed in one, ideal life involving a family, a daughter, and a dog. (Haig p. 236) (Hacker p. 293) 2. In lives she especially likes, she begins to remember things and merge with that life – forgetting her real life. (Haig p. 246) (Hacker p. 275) 3. She is suddenly shocked back into her real life when her connection to the magical machine.library breaks. (Haig p. 268) (Hacker p. 296) 4. She has an epiphany about self-acceptance that makes her grateful for her real life with all of its uncertain possibilities. She communicates her epiphany to the world and becomes famous (from her perspective) but doesn’t let the fame get to her head. The female mentor.librarian makes one last appearance before she heads out into the unknown, leaving the machine.library far behind her where it won’t ever bother her again. (Haig p. 277) (Hacker p. 295) The bit about fame seems to be in a version of Haig’s book that was only available to early reviewers, since I’ve only seen comments on it from a subset of reviews.
27 5. Both books end with an epilogue in which the ghostly female mentor is a real woman who is pondering the same questions as the protagonist, but from the vantage of old age. 288/304 Mythemes 6-7 were not fully ordered, but this might just be because a person is not smart enough to organize points that have been distributed with the aid of a computer. When plotted out, there is more organization than I have been able to identify by looking at page numbers alone. A labyrinth is easier to solve from without than within. (Caveat: there is a 10 page discrepancy between print and ebook versions) There are 45 pages on which the same thing is happening in both books and combined with the 12 pages on which material from later in the book was copied to earlier in the book, it is clear that this doesn't happen by chance. It happens when a bestselling, established author mines an unknown author's manuscript for material, stealing her unique story and claiming that he invented it. Not only that, he copied a book that made a sly joke about multiverse physics and didn't notice that it was a joke. (Below, I've shifted the points on the green line to the right by 135 pages)
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Any good scientific experiment requires a control variable from the same genre to serve as a benchmark that demonstrates how many plot overlaps are to be expected between two works that have a similar
28 premise and demographic target. That is why I have chosen the book Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid from 2015.
My Adorable Apotheosis vs. Maybe in Another Life. 1. She is sexually harassed at her job. (Reid p. 12) (Hacker p. 2) 2. She has moved to a new city and goes out to a dance club. (Reid p. 25) (Hacker p. 28) 3. She almost dies in an accident. (Reid p. 50) (Hacker p. 32) 4. She is hit by a car and survives. (Reid p. 50) (Hacker p. 160) 5. She meets her estranged mother. (Reid p. 88) (Hacker p. 175) 6. She meets an old friend named Tina. (Reid p. 118) (Hacker p. 151) 7. Two guys who are interested in her meet in front of her. (Reid p. 166) (Hacker p. 120) 8. One of the men in the story cheats on his wife. (Reid p. 185) (Hacker p. 241) 9. She first ponders the logic of a multiverse. (Reid p. 318) (Hacker p. 95)
The Midnight Library vs. Maybe in Another Life 1. She almost dies in one of her lives. (Reid p. 36) (Haig p. 22) 2. It becomes clear that she will experience her life if she had chosen to stay with her high school sweetheart and if she had chosen to get some distance from him (Reid p. 38) (Haig p. 43) 3. She takes care of a dog with her boyfriend. (Reid p. 135) (Haig p. 197) 4. One of the men in the story cheats on his wife. (Reid p. 185) (Haig p. 56) 5. She ponders the logic of a multiverse. (Reid p. 318) (Haig p. 147)
It is certainly possible that I was able to find more overlaps with my novel since I am so familiar with it, but the takeaway is that there are ten times more overlaps between my book and The Midnight Library than there are with Maybe in Another Life, a book that many readers identified as The Midnight Library's genealogical predecessor. This only happens when an author is using an unknown, unattributed author's book as a template or writing prompt source. If the author of The Midnight Library truly never saw my book, he should at least be required to attribute the source of IP or software package he was using to aid his writing.
29 Section 3 a.) My Adorable Apotheosis was completed by Kirsten Hacker in 2017 and published on Amazon in May 2018. A second, longer, illustrated version of the manuscript was sent to agents and writing contests in 2018. b.) Uma and the Answer to Absolutely Everything was published by Penguin Random House in 2021 c.) The following pages describe the 40 plot overlaps between the two books. The vast majority of these overlapping plot elements occur in the same order in both books and they primarily occur over the first 2/3 of Copeland's novel. He has changed the ending to the story, but the majority of the story structure and meaning has been derived from Hacker's book. d.) Both books are comedic, childish, illustrated works written from the perspective of a young woman who is dealing with grief after losing a family member.
30 1. We meet the protagonist 1. The young woman protagonist is a normal girl whose mother is effectively gone 2. Her father has similarly disengaged but he isn’t dead. 3. She is a good student who doesn’t have many friends. 4. Her only friend is a geeky boy with whom she is not in love. 5. The story is told from her perspective and in first person singular.(Copeland p. 1-7) (Hacker p. 1-7) 2. We are introduced to the narrative style 1. The story attempts to be funny throughout 2. poetry is used to spice up the narrative 3. It is told in first person singular 4. Version 2 of Hacker’s manuscript is illustrated. Copeland’s book is also illustrated. 5. 3. We learn more about her world 1. One by one, in a list format, we are introduced to the people at her school. 2. We learn that one of the people vomited. (Copeland p. 4) (Hacker p. 13 v.2) 3. The boy who is her friend has a dog and is disabled. (Copeland p. 13) (Hacker p. 9) 4. She is skeptical about people who believe in strange things that old people tell them. (Copeland p. 20) (Hacker p. 18) 5. She keeps a box of notes from someone she loves but with whom she can’t speak. (Copeland p. 21) (Hacker p. 23 v.2) 4. The crisis begins 1. The inciting incident involves a drugged individual getting into an accident with a machine. The drugged individual escapes unscathed. (Copeland p. 26) (Hacker p. 38) 2. She is now introduced to a strange new machine. (Copeland p. 29) (Hacker p. 41) 3. She meets an evil boss lady for the first time. (Copeland p. 28) (Hacker p. 53) 4. An evil company is trying to force all of the people out of their homes. (Copeland p. 33) (Hacker p. 58) 5. We get to know her new, AI friend and the threats she faces
31 1. Over the course of ten pages of continuous dialogue, she gets to know an AI female mentor (Athena/ARIEL) who knows everything and who offers to help her with her problem – lack of father/boyfriend. (Copeland p. 38-48) (Hacker p. 62-72) 2. After investigating a mystery, the AI gets temporarily hidden and she meets with a bunch of fellow students that she doesn’t like. (Copeland p. 58) (Hacker p. 78) 3. We get to know an evil boss lady who was briefly introduced earlier. She is power hungry, wants to get the AI back, and is described as putting her hands on a male character’s chair/shoulders as a gesture of power. (Copeland p. 62) (Hacker p. 85). 4. An evil character wants to know something that the protagonist knows and to get that knowledge, she goes to visit a wise/crazy old man but the only thing to be found there is crap. (Copeland p. 70) (Hacker p. 96) 6. The AI returns and offers support as her crisis deepens 1. The AI re-emerges after having been hidden during the investigation. (Copeland p. 78) (Hacker p. 120) Eight pages later, the AI speaks again and says something snarky. (Copeland p. 87) (Hacker p. 128) 2. The AI sometimes lies and predicts what people will do. (Copeland p. 96, 141) (Hacker p. 68, 87) 3. After descending into a dark world driven by base desires and despair over having no one who loves her, the protagonist looks up at the stars and wonders what to do. A female character consoles her. (Copeland p. 106-108) (Hacker p. 211-213) 4. The all knowing AI shows up and has a plan for her. (Copeland p. 116) (Hacker p. 215) 7. She has a plan to solve her problems 1. She has to break into an industrial site and access the system directly. (Copeland p. 118) (Hacker p. 216) 2. She has been instructed to use farm animals as a cover while she breaks in to the industrial site. (Copeland p. 120) (Hacker p. 219) 3. Then she encounters the female villain. (Copeland p. 123) (Hacker p. 221) 4. A guillotine is mentioned in connection with the female villain. (Copeland p. 124) (Hacker p. 205) 5. This is the same female villain who threatens to wipe someone’s mind. (Copeland p. 125) (Hacker p. 157) 8. The plan is set in motion
32 1. To prepare for her attack on the industrial site, she has a list of strange items. (Copeland p. 129) (Hacker p. 219) 2. Because of the attack, chaos ensues. (Copeland p. 137) (Hacker 225) 3. This forces a host of very depressed people to come to the surface in a literal/metaphorical sense. (Copeland p. 140) (Hacker p. 227) 4. She is tasked with collecting and taking care of some wildlife as disasters continue to unfold. (Copeland p. 145) (Hacker p. 230) 5. Her non-boyfriend is (almost) killed because of a drug like substance on his head. The explanation is rather technical. (Copeland p. 165) (Hacker p. 230) 9. The chaos continues 1. She is lectured about utilitarianism by a woman. (Copeland p. 168) (Hacker p. 221) 2. She is attacked and held captive by savages. The AI is absent. (Copeland p. 178) (Hacker p. 235) 3. She is defeated and has lost something important. The AI is still absent. (Copeland p. 180) (Hacker p. 238) 4. She immediately recovers her morale and fights to get what she had back. The AI is still absent. (Copeland p. 183) (Hacker p. 238) 5. But failure in this new situation means that someone’s memory will be wiped. The AI is still absent. (Copeland p. 187) (Hacker p. 252) This calls to mind her initial discussion with a male friend about the danger of the female villain and her mind wiping powers. (Hacker p. 188) 10. Despite continued danger, some problems are solved 1. She argues with her male friend who feels guilty for behaving badly. (Copeland p. 189) (Hacker p. 242) 2. She steals a car and gets instruction in how to do so by the AI. (Copeland p. 229) (Hacker p. 158) 3. Knowledge of the secret at the heart of the mystery destroys those who possess it. (Copeland p. 238) (Hacker p. 261) 4. Mind wiping is threatened again. (Copeland p. 261) (Hacker p. 273) 5. She gets to see her long lost mother again, but it isn’t really her mom and the result is unsatisfying. (Copeland p. 269) (Hacker p. 177) 11. The ending is both happy and sad
33 1. A man speaks to the protagonist with a severe speech impediment. (Copeland p. 273) (Hacker p. 200 v.1.. in v.2, the impediment is much more explicitly shown.) 2. She realizes she has been betrayed by the AI. (Copeland p. 308) (Hacker p. 297) 3. Nevertheless, the AI has helped her get her connection to her father back. (Copeland p. 276, 330) (Hacker p. 298)
When this list is plotted below with Copeland's page numbers on the x-axis and Hackers on the y-axis, when the same things are happening in the same order in both books, the points follow a diagonal line.
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I am including this book as evidence because it comes from the same British publishing community associated with Penguin Random House and I am trying to establish that my manuscript was circulating within this community and repeatedly being used as a resource with no respect for my copyright. A Quote from Uma and the Answer to Absolutely Everything sums up the situation nicely: “Dolly Barkon had no eyebrows. Instead, she had two bald strips where her eyebrows should have been. Alan Alan had been making his fake eyebrows out of Dolly's actual eyebrows. I suggest you take a moment to re-read that sentence to take it in properly.”
34 Section 4 a.) William Gibson is a prominent science fiction author with Penguin Random House who became popular back in the 1980s with his classic book, Neuromancer. b.) His most recent book was published in 2020 under the name of Agency and it features a young woman protagonist who gets a strange tech job in which she becomes friends with a female AI who can know everything and do everything. There are people from the future who control the timeline of the protagonist as a sort of art form. She is given access to a high tech machine that allows her to visit other timelines. The story concludes when she becomes famous for her role in saving the world from a global catastrophe. c.) Although this book has such a generic sci-fi plot that it is hard to claim plagiarism, based on the number of unusual world and character building elements that are the same as in my novel and which are different from his previous books, this book is included as an example of a pattern in which an unknown author's work is distributed to established authors as a source they can mine for material.
35 1. We meet the protagonist 1. She has just gotten a new job at a tech place where she barely knows her boss. She has met him once. p.1 2. She lives alone in a shitty apartment and is socially isolated. p. 2 3. She has broken up with her rich boyfriend who wasn’t an asshole. p. 13 4. Her new best friend is a female AI with an attitude. She follows her everywhere and can know anything about everything. They talk about work and her boyfriend. p. 13 5. She has no social media presence and is largely passive throughout the story. p. 13 1. We learn about the world 1. Timelines in this world splinter and are controlled by distant, unseen people from the future. p. 17 The protagonist is initially not aware of this aspect of the world. p. 19 To those in the future, it is thought of as an art form. p. 221 2. The technology enables people to have a ‘virtual self’ who lives online like a mirror image. The protagonist primarily interacts with these virtual people, spawned from the consciousness real people. p. 21 3. People in the future often have their communication interfaces implanted, but some still use phones or tablets. They are freakishly old fashioned. p. 80 4. The landscaping is artificially sculpted and it is notable to see actual nature outside of the city. p. 93 There are towers in the city, but the surface is green. p. 199 5. There is a mysterious agent of destruction and chaos against whom everyone is working. His name is Vespatian/Chess and we don’t get to learn any details about him. p. The future world took shape after some great cataclysm. p. 2. We learn about her ex-boyfriend 1. He isn’t an asshole, but she just wasn’t in love with him and didn’t fit into his world. p. 13 2. Because he was rich, he took her to places and showed her things that she wouldn’t have ordinarily been able to afford. p. 27 3. Her ex-boyfriend appears in the media accompanied by a beautiful woman. p. 41 4. He has a limp from an accident. p. 57 5. He has issues with constantly being under surveillance. p. 59 3. We learn about her relationship with her AI friend
36 1. The AI often communicates with her by writing text on her bathroom mirror. p. 28, 33, 88 2. She argues with the AI about the AI’s managers’ override functions and about what her managers are allowed to know. She is irritated by the intrusiveness of the AI. p. 32 3. She discusses secret military programs with the AI. p. 41 The AI is concerned about war because she knows more than most people. She jokes about it. p. 85 4. She has no way of determining whether the AI is a real person or not. It is just a disembodied female voice that knows everything and follows her everywhere. p. 65 The AI is interested in philosophy and dreams. p. X,116 5. The AI’s name is an acronym: UNISS / ARIEL p. 68 and she originated in a physics laboratory p. 92 She has subcomponents with which she can re-merge later. p. 96 She doesn’t know what they are doing while they are away. p. 96 4. She evades those who threaten her autonomy 1. The AI helps her disguise the information being fed to her boss so that it looks like it is coming from her, but it is really coming from a fake copy. p. 84 2. The AI has a solipsistic relationship with the people of the future while the protagonist has a solipsistic relationship with the AI. They are both evading the control of their employer. 3. The AI is concerned about war because she knows more than most people. She jokes about it. This happens in the same scene where she has gotten rid of covert surveillance of the protagonist’s apartment. p. 85 4. The AI enlists a guy who shows up out of the blue to help the protagonist. There is an awkward mention of a cat. p. 96 5. The mysterious villain Vespasian/Chess is mentioned again. p. 100 5. There are some unusual world building elements. 1. A man and a woman who are not married order drinks in a futuristic, subterrenean nightclub filled with people who have modified their bodies in strange ways p. 98 In this space, an image of a person with unusually elongated arms is presented within a room that is dimly lit with red light. p. 102 2. We are introduced to a futuristic breakfast place. p. 98 3. There is pornographic sculptural art/furniture that could be modified by programable, automated devices. p. 98
37 4. Dirigibles exist in this world even though it isn’t a steampunk novel. p. 99 5. There is futuristic Victorian fashion that is out of place in a non-steampunk novel. p. 99 6. We learn more about the young female protagonist 1. She contacts her mother while also hiding from her boss’s surveillance. p. 106 2. A floral arrangement for women like her mother is suggested. p. 107 3. She has a stepfather she doesn’t like. p. 107 4. She goes to a bar with a man and meets a young, pink haired woman. p. 114 5. She has her first conversation with her male boss and concludes that she doesn’t want to work for him. p. 119 7. The threats escalate and become more clear 1. A sex doll/robot is observed as a symbol of a threat to a normal, loving relationship. p. 121 2. There is a threat of the protagonist being turned into an AI/robot. p. 122 3. There is a threat of the world ending, but they joke about it. p. 124 4. The AI is in charge of a very advanced machine that can be controlled from the future p. 126 5. The AI is removed from her control position and the protagonist loses contact with her. p. 130 8. The threats are evaded 1. To prevent the protagonist from being taken by the people who removed the AI (the bosses), she is told to go somewhere with a man she’s never met. p. 132 2. She meets a secret group of rebels who are supported by the AI. They cultivate illegal technical knowledge. There is an extended passage about technical stuff. p. 137 3. Knowledge of multiple timelines make people go crazy. p. 162 4. There is a buffet with pizza. She eats and later meets her ex-boyfriend and an attractive, fashionable woman who brings up retail sales. p. 179 5. She has a special interface to the machine that threatens to make her crazy. p. 189
38 9. The plot just seems to hang here and nothing meaningful happens other than the plot elements in common with my book. Those seem to be the only things that drive this story forwards. 1. She discovers that the machine can transport her to other worlds. p. 190 2. There are technical discussions about how the machine works with the human brain. p. 192 3. A man regrets having an affair that threatens to end his marriage p. 294 4. We meet a group of bioengineered people with unusual, grey/green skin related to their survival out in their ocean/island based communities. p. 306 5. The AI can hide copies of itself and then remerge with itself if someone tries to delete it. p. 356 10. Nothing really happens other than the AI reappearing and the protagonist becoming famous. Then the story ends. 1. After having been gone for the latter half of the story, the AI reappears in snarky form. p. 354 2. The protagonist gets stuck hanging out in a homeless encampment. p. 359 3. The type of girlfriend her ex-boyfriend wants wears weird futuristic clothes. She’s all about aesthetics and nothing else. She is going to be at a fancy party. p. 360 4. Because of her connection to the machine controlled by the AI, the protagonist becomes famous and has a big public debut that simultaneously fixes the crisis that threatens the entire world. We are left with the impression that the AI engineered it all. p. 392 5. The protagonist doesn’t really make any lasting connections to people and the synopsis is a happy retrospective from the perspective of a parental figure. I’m not claiming that Gibson wrote the same book as me, I’m just wondering why today’s authors think it is okay to use the work of unknown authors as something that can be mined for 55 writing prompts that are arranged to tell a marketable (new, unfamiliar) story. I'm not sure if this is relevant, but the dialogue has some recognizable quirks that don’t show up often in his other books. This suggests that the writing tool may have been drawn from my writing style to a certain degree. One can statistically analyze the number of books that share this suite of writing commonalities in roughly the same order in each book. 1. “Grim” is used as an assessment of the state of the world in a dialogue. p. 17 2. ‘No reply.’ is used as an element of dialogue. p. 20
39 3. ‘the dying of the light’ is an unusual commonality. p. 21 4. steady-state and feedback are terms I use more than most. p. 51 5. when she feels uncomfortable, she changes the subject. p. 59 6. “Indeed.” is a reply p. 67, 266 7. being startled by a character’s teeth. p. 67 8. the image she sees glitches like a badly tuned image receiver p. 89 9. the word ‘fasteners’ is used when clasps or buckles or anything else would do just as well. p. 148 10. seeing faces in clouds p. 189 11. the event horizon p. 280 Moving on to the control variable for this experiment. If I can make a similarly detailed list of overlaps with Peripheral, my hypothesis that Agency copied from my book is invalidated. By chapter 15, the premise of Peripheral has become clear: a young woman who has a job playing a video game set in a futuristic version of London slowly realizes that the world she is visiting is real and she will help the real people in that city fix some problem. This is rather different from any premise in my book, but if there are a similar number of details shared between the books, my hypothesis will be invalidated. Peripheral vs. My Adorable Apotheosis 1. A young woman’s closest male friend is disabled. p. 1 2. A young woman has a strange new, techno job that brings her in contact with a strange, futuristic city. p. 2 → 56 3. The job is repetitive and seemingly pointless. p. 20 4. A person has unusually elongated arms. p. 23 5. There is a man with an unusually short neck p. 23 6. Cannibalism is mentioned. p. 25 7. I haven't finished reading Peripheral Peripheral vs. Agency 1. A young woman has a strange new, techno job. p. 2 2. The alternating chapters structure and writing style is identical. 3. There is a similar description of the Great Pacific Garbage patch p. 16
40 1. Only in Agency is there a description of the strange, bioengineered people who have green/grey skin live out on the ocean, as described in my book — if this had been part of Gibson’s original world building, he would’ve also introduced this bioengineered group in Peripheral, but he didn’t. 2. Instead, in Peripheral, he described people with crusty, cancerous looking skin living on a garbage patch. This makes it look like he drew new world building elements from my novel and added them or used them to replace his earlier world building. 4. I haven't finished reading Peripheral What is odd is how similar the type of elements copied into Agency are to those in a new, Penguin Random House novel by Sam Copeland. It appears that Gibson and Copeland were both given a similar template or writing tool to work with. Uma and the Answer to Everything vs. Agency 1. Young woman gets access to an female AI who knows everything and can do everything online. p. 2 2. The AI sends her a package full of candy/money. p. 31 3. The AI helps her get access to a special, priceless substance that can be used to create something powerful. p. 42 4. Her closest real-life friend is a guy to whom she shows her AI friend. p. 57 5. The AI friend reveals her avatar to them both. p. 60 6. The AI protects her from a bad boss. 7. The AI suddenly disappears. p. 130 8. The AI reappears and saves the day with help from the protagonist. p. 354 There here are more overlaps with the original source material (my book) than there are between the two derivative works and that would be a logical consequence if two authors were attempting to write from the same template while taking a different suite of details from the source material. Did someone hack together some IP book contracting based on my novel and hand it out to two Penguin Random House authors from different genres? Seems like it.
41 Section 5 a.) There is a book coming out this June called The Other Me by Sarah Jachrich Jeng and because it was promoted by Montimore, one of my other plagiarists, this book is also on my radar. If she was part of the re-write party and used the same writing tool, I'm going to find out! b) It will be published by Penguin Random House, adding a fourth book to their tally of infringing works. If you count Meredith Tate, a woman who has recently signed with Penguin Random House, that would make five. In upcoming sections, I will show three more infringing works from Penguin Random House to make eight infringing authors that they have protected.
42 Section 6 a.) The first five books described were published by Penguin Random House, but this book was published by Bloomsbury, a Macmillan owned company in 2020. It has a degree of similarity with my book which matches the copying style of the other works I've investigated. b.) I submitted my manuscript to Bloomsbury twice in 2018 and there is also some evidence that the author of Piranesi took inspiration from my blog and from my cover letter. i.) In my cover letter to Bloomsbury, I wrote that my novel had been created to start a conversation with the World and in Clarke’s book, there is an extended passage on how the ancients related to the world – viewing it as something with which one could hold a conversation: “speaking and listening to the world”. (Clarke p. 148) ii.) My blog’s opening page features a talking heads/Jungian quote about ‘the water flowing underground’ as in a representation of the human subconscious. In Clarke’s Jungian-inspired book, the protagonist is trapped within his mind and it is represented as a house full of statues in which the basements are flooded with water and tides wash over the statues. In its early days, my blog featured images of underwater statues. The world of Piranesi is filled with such images. c.) Both books explore the cult-like atmosphere of academia and the abuses that can produce. Both books undermine the concept of a multiverse and the capacity of a person to access other timelines. Similar metaphors are used to explain the situation.
43 1. The protagonist is a scientist who is involved in an experiment on him/herself. (Clarke p. 6-21) (Hacker p. 4-71) 1. The protagonist is a scientist and the story is told in first person retrospective tense, just like the version of my novel that I sent to Bloomsbury in 2018. (Clarke p. 6) (Hacker p. 9, 14) 2. The protagonist and the other scientist(s) in the lab/labyrinth are searching for powerful knowledge that will transform the world and their understanding of reality. (Clarke p. 8, 60) (Hacker p. 18, 21) 3. There is an attempt by an entity in the lab/labyrinth to predict what the protagonist will do in a sort of scientific experiment. (Clarke p. 21) (Hacker v.1 prologue, v.2 p. 45) 4. This entity works together with the protagonist to get more data for the experiment and throughout most of the novel, the protagonist is manipulated by this entity. (Clarke p. 22) (Hacker p. 71) 5. The protagonist is pulled into the other world in at the beginning of the story, but in Clarke’s version, the narrator had initially blocked out this memory because it was too traumatic. It is revealed later. (Clarke p. 183) (Hacker p. 38) 2. The protagonist is extremely isolated in a labyrinth/laboratory and this is making him/her crazy and slavish in his/her devotion to work. (Clarke p. 31-51) (Hacker p. 89- 105) 1. The protagonist is going crazy from isolation and feels that his/her only friend takes the form of an animal. (Clarke p. 31) (Hacker p. 89) 2. The protagonist is surrounded by non-human creatures that seem to have limited individual consciousness, but substantial collective intelligence. (Clarke p. 41) (Hacker p. 59) 3. A person who is thought to possess great knowledge is consulted, but he is rather disappointing and noncommunicative. (Clarke p. 44) (Hacker p. 100) 4. Equipped with new tools, the protagonist heads back into the labyrinth on a mission to collect more data – with approval. (Clarke p. 51) (Hacker p. 102) 5. At the data collection location, the protagonist is frightened by the feeling that (s)he is not alone. This leads to a revelation and feeling of triumph. (Clarke p. 59) (Hacker p. 105) 3. The protagonist breaks out of this isolation by cultivating a relationship with another person who is literally called the Other. (Clarke p. 60-80) (Hacker p. 111-168)
44 1. The protagonist names the entity which has been tormenting her/him as the Other. (Clarke 60) (Hacker p. 111) 2. When first encountered, the Other provokes fear and anger. (Clarke p. 185) (Hacker p. 89) 3. But the Other quickly becomes his/her best friend because there is no one else. (Clarke p. first half of book) (Hacker p. 132) 4. The protagonist is sceptical of the idealism of his quest for powerful knowledge with the Other. (Clarke p. 60) (Hacker p. 21, 122) 5. There is a description of a fox teaching a collection of mice/squirrels, and other creatures. It represents the absurdity of a quest for knowledge. (Clarke p. 80) (Hacker p. 168) 4. The protagonist understands the relationship of the Other to the larger world and how false identities/egoes are used to defend against it. (Clarke p. 86-144) (Hacker p. 125- 224) 1. The protagonist meets the Other’s boss. (Clarke p. 86) (Hacker p. 125) (I later renamed him Director Scarlett, but in the original version, he was Director Carroll, after Lewis Carroll, just as the Other’s boss is named after a classic children’s book author. 2. The protagonist is exposed to excessive academic boasting and taking credit for inventions. (Clarke p. 87) (Hacker p. 123) 3. A crazy academic boasts about how brilliant he was as a child. (Clarke p. 88) (Hacker p. 100) 4. The protagonist feels like (s)he’d been duped into searching for the knowledge in the labyrinth/laboratory when it isn’t to be found there. (Clarke p. 90) (Hacker p. 109) 5. The Other is described as an egotist who thinks that everything is about him. (Clarke p. 91, 144) (Hacker p. 124, 224) 5. The protagonist is aware of the mental and physical danger associated with independent thinking that denies other people’s identity/ego. (Clarke p. 97-109) (Hacker p. 99-144) 1. The protagonist is aware that if (s)he absorbs certain ideas (s)he will be contaminated and killed in order to protect others from such contamination. (Clarke p. 97) ( Hacker p. 26, 144)
45 2. Decapitation, death, and madness result if one transgresses or gets lost in the labyrinth. 3. The protagonist and the crazy academic discuss ideas flowing between worlds – in a literal, not figurative sense. (Clarke p. 99) (Hacker p. 107) 4. The protagonist understands that the labyrinth/laboratory makes people mad and that (s)he must be mad. (Clarke p. 109) (Hacker p. 91) 5. A pair of well-developed characters from my novel are described from a different perspective. (Clarke p. ) (Hacker p. ) 6. A young woman poet was recruited by the science cult and was instrumental in making the cult more popular. She is given lowly jobs and has to serve the male leaders. (Clarke p. 114) (Hacker throughout) 1. She is ignored because one of the cult leaders has a fixation on young men. He is in love with them. (Clarke p. 114) (Hacker p. 80) 2. The young woman poet has broken off contact with her parents because of the cult. (Clarke p. 114, 176) (Hacker p. 177) 3. The young woman poet is aware that she is being exploited by the cult, but she is unable to communicate this directly to anyone. (Clarke p. 115) (Hacker p. 162) 4. The young woman poet left the cult one day and never returned. No one knew where she went. (Clarke p. 116) (Hacker p. 215) 7. The concept of visiting other worlds and the social dynamics of cults are explored in more detail. (Clarke p. 116-151) (Hacker p. 190-205) 1. The cult convinced scientists that it has found a way to visit other worlds through special rituals. (Clarke p. 116) (Hacker p. 190) 2. The leader of the cult is named after the author of a classic children’s book and he is a man of very bad character who has no respect for human life. (Clarke p. 147) (Hacker p. 205) 3. The leader of the cult derives some of his power over his subjects through rituals involving chanting, headless bodies, and preserved heads. (Clarke p. 150) (Hacker p. 204) 4. It is worried that if this belief in the travel to other worlds were widespread, it would be highly disruptive, making people insane. (Clarke p. 151) (Hacker p. 192) 8. The protagonist asserts his/her independent identity and feels betrayed. (Clarke p. 161- 188) (Hacker p. 202-213)
46 1. The protagonist breaks away from the manipulative Other and attempts to connect to an independent identity. (Clarke p. 161) (Hacker p. 202, 213) 2. When released from the grip of the control of the Other, a person rises to the surface with the revelation, “I am!” (Clarke p. 162) (Hacker p. 293) 3. The protagonist understands that (s)he has been grievously betrayed by the Other. (Clarke p. 188) (Hacker p. 213) 9. The protagonist takes revenge for his/her betrayal and this is symbolized by a literal flood of an underground complex of buildings. (Clarke p. 197-201) (Hacker p. 219-230) 1. The protagonist prepares to take revenge with an assortment of unusual items. (Clarke p. 197) (Hacker p. 219) 2. The protagonist meets the Other in a panicked, disorganized state in his attempt to deal with the impending disaster. (Clarke p. 201) (Hacker p. 224) 3. There is a dangerous flood that washes away all of the lower chambers in the underground labyrinth. (Clarke p. 198) (Hacker p. 227) 4. The Other perishes. (Clarke p. 204) (Hacker p. 230) 10. The protagonist experiences madness and a limited sense of identity because of the lab/labyrinth. (Clarke p. -236) (Hacker p. -287) These themes emerge gradually, not all at once. 1. X had been given a new identity by the lab/labyrinth and when X was reaquainted with X’s old self, X doesn’t really care because X doesn’t feel like that person anymore. 2. Before having X’s identity removed, X had been a great thinker and that was the reason that X’s identity had been removed. 3. As X tries to find X’s way home, X wanders through a labyrinth with a person of the opposite sex that X doesn’t know very well. That person and X separate abruptly and X is left alone at home with a limited awareness of identity. (Clarke p. 234) (Hacker p. 255) 4. The protagonist ends up in the care of psychiatrists. (Clarke p. 235) (Hacker p. 255) 5. The protagonist comes to terms with having had his/her identity taken away, but (s)he maintains a belief in the existence of other worlds. (Clarke p. 236) (Hacker p. 287) 11. The protagonist begins to form a new, independent identity in a new environment, but he/she is permanently changed by his/her experience in the lab/labyrinth. (Clarke p. 234-236) (Hacker p. 255-287)
47 1. The protagonist emerges on the surface and learns new ways of surviving. (Clarke p. 234) (Hacker p. 258) 2. The dangers of the cult are clear in that visits to other worlds cause brain damage. (Clarke p. 187) (Hacker p. 275) 3. Many do not survive. (Clarke – p. 214) (Hacker p. 275) 4. The protagonist does not fully return to his/her old identity or to his parents. (Clarke p. 238) (Hacker p. 297) 5. (S)he merely goes out into the world as a damaged person, joining other damaged people (James Ritter/her father). (Clarke p. 239) (Hacker p. 299)
Just as in the other books, the points are arranged in a roughly diagonal line, showing that the same thing is happening on roughly the same page in each book approximately 50 times. Without knowing about my book, readers have praised Piranesi for its originality while attributing its genealogy to Borges Labyrinth, C.S Lewis' The Sorcerer's Apprentice, and The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas. I will focus on The Magician's nephew since it has the longest list of overlaps.One
48 might suggest that these ten plot overlaps should be subtracted from the list of fifty overlaps between Piranesi and My Adorable Apotheosis, but this would be a mistake unless the overlaps were the same in each comparison – which they were not. Only six of the overlaps were common to all three works.
My Adorable Apotheosis vs. The Magician’s Nephew 1. The protagonist bravely ventures into a dark, scary space owned by Ketterly/Prof. Beret, a creepy older man. (Lewis p. ) (Hacker p. ) 2. He wants to involve the protagonist in his experiment. (Lewis p. 13) (Hacker p. ) 3. A magical object/machine does something to the protagonist. (Lewis p. 15) (Hacker p. ) 4. Ketterly/Prof. Beret thinks very highly of himself and his thinking abilities. (Lewis p. 19) (Hacker p. ) 5. There are worlds that can only be reached through this magical object/machine. (Lewis p. 22) (Hacker p. ) 6. There is a powerful woman who is threatening. (Lewis p. 58) (Hacker p. ) 7. Everyone becomes obsessed with watching a certain woman who is special. It is a public sensation. (Lewis p. 93) ( 8. Animals are used as symbols of thinking yet low status creatures. (Lewis p. 118) 9. There is some discussion of an apple representing knowledge. (Lewis p. 167) (Hacker p. ) 10. The protagonist brings knowledge to a symbol of unity. (Lewis p. 172) (Hacker p. )
A mysterious character smiles at the protagonist showing ‘all of his teeth’ or ‘too many teeth’. (Lewis p. 12) (Hacker p. ) but in the German version of The Magician’s Nephew, on page 16, it is only stated that the mysterious character’s teeth flashed, not that he had too many of them, so this point seems suspect/irrelevant.
Piranesi vs. The Magician’s Nephew
1. The protagonist bravely ventures into a dark, scary space owned by a creept, arrogant academic named Ketterly. 2. He wants to involve the protagonist in his experiment. (Lewis p. 13) 3. A magical object does something to the protagonist and transports him to another world. (Lewis p. 15) (Clarke) 4. Ketterly thinks very highly of himself and his thinking abilities. (Lewis p. 19) (Clarke p. ) 5. There are worlds that can only be reached through this magical object/machine. (Lewis p. 22) (Clarke p. )
49 6. Ketterly sends the protagonist on a mission to a dangerous place. (Lewis p. 23) 7. The dangerous place is wet and disorienting. It makes the protagonist forget life before entering the place (Lewis p. 30) 8. There is a powerful woman in this other world who is threatening. She exists in a realm filled with frozen statues. There is writing on a wall in this place that the protagonist studies. (Lewis p. 51, 58) (Clarke p. ) 9. Everyone becomes obsessed with watching this woman. (Lewis p. 93) (Clarke p. ) 10. Animals are used as symbols of thinking yet low status creatures creatures. (Lewis p. 118) 11. The protagonist is on a mission to rescue the girl from the other world. (Lewis p. ) (Clarke p. )
It seems to me that the second half of The Magician’s Nephew is a bunch of hash that has mostly been written by an AI or a madman in that it bears few traces of human logic. It is an insane mashup of animals doing nonsensical things that possibly have some symbolic meaning in another context, but which is lost in this reconfiguration.
50 Section 8 a.) Margarita Montimore's book Oona Out of Order was published during the same month as Matt Haig's The Midnight Library, more than two years after Hacker released My Adorable Apotheosis. Despite the odd number of similarities between their books, they cross-promoted one another by appearing on a YouTube broadcast hosted by Flatiron books. b.) When asked by Litopia guest Roz Morris if her work was influenced by any earlier books, Montimore attributed The Time Traveler's Wife but she did not attribute My Adorable Apotheosis, a book that shares a far greater number of plot overlaps that occur in the same order in both books. c.) Forty plot overlaps, of which twenty are presented in the same order in both books is something that doesn't occur by chance or without cross-influence. d.) Montimore works as a book coach and editor at the same time that she produces books of her own. In other professional contexts this would be considered to be a conflict of interest.
51 1. X has lost someone important to her. (Mont p. 2) (Hacker p. 4) 2. X looks into the mirror to get a grip on who she is. (Mont p. 1, 77, 118) (Hacker 103, 214, 297) 3. Her father’s disappearance on a boat haunts her. (Mont p. 22) (Hacker p. 4, 33) 4. She passes out and then meets a mentor in an unfamiliar space. (Mont p. 22) (Hacker p. 37) 5. She writes a letter to herself. (Mont p. 32) (Hacker p. ~23 v. 2) 6. The reader learns that she’s having a breakdown in which she jumps from life to life. (Mont p. 32) (Hacker p. 41) 7. Surrounded by technology, she reaches out to friends to try to reground her sense of identity. They give her a sense of how other people’s lives have worked out so that she can gauge her own life. (Mont p. 40-44) (Hacker p. 50-54) 8. She meets the recurrent mother/mentor character for the first time. (Mont p. 44) (Hacker p. 49) 9. She goes swimming at a place with her mother. It is a sort of baptism that fails to wash away shame. (Mont p. 52) (Hacker 175) 10. She discusses internet cats with her mentor figure who is teaching her about the machine she operates. (Mont p. 59) (Hacker p. 64) 11. They discuss the state of the modern world and the mentor clues her in on what she’s been missing out on. She is sort of a stranger in a strange land. (Mont p. 69) (Hacker p. 68) 12. She thinks about music in this environment. (Mont p. 68) (Hacker p. 70) 13. She gets really high in a dance club that has red lighting and discusses her appearance with weird women during a trip to the rest room. She meets a sleazy guy while she is away from her date at the club. She is vulnerable and defenseless due to the drugs she has taken. (Mont p. 76-79) (Hacker p. 29-32) 14. She is worried about STDs. (Mont p. 82, 104) (Hacker p. 12, 244) 15. In the back of a car that is in motion, she makes out with a guy who really likes her, but she isn’t sure she likes him as much as she should. (Mont p. 105) (Hacker p. 32) 16. She ends her relationship with the nice guy who really liked her. (Mont p. 106) (Hacker p. 56) 17. She talks with strange, appearance-obssessed women about hairstyles. (Mont p. 111, 116) (Hacker p. 11-12)
52 18. She becomes friends with a persona who takes the form of an animal. (Mont p. 119) (Hacker (89) 19. While high on drugs, she does something stupid and reckless and gets seriously injured (Mont p. 123) (Hacker (39) 20. A mentor figure reappears throughout and paces the story. (Mont p. 44-53, 108, 131- 133, 170-176, 227-230, 254-257, 267) (Hacker p. 49, 61-70, 82-83, 120, 297) 21. She meets a man who claims they’ve been married even though she doesn’t remember him at all. She stays with him even though she is nuts because she can’t remember anything. (Mont p. 141-177) (Hacker p. 254-272, 286) 22. An exotic, mysterious, outsider figure that lures her with hopes and dreams of glory on a stage reappears throughout. Chess/Peter (Mont p. 178, 193, ) (Hacker p. 89, 95) 23. She gives a presentation of her hard work but gets no validation or support from her community. (Mont p. 193) (Hacker p. 137) 24. She gets a divorce and her mind is erased again. (Mont p. 198) (Hacker p. 273) 25. She meets the man who will be her future husband, but she isn’t really into him. He is kind of dumb but handsome and charming. She sees his flaws, but marries him anyway. (Mont p. 207) (Hacker p. 117) 26. When her mother chooses a man that she doesn’t like, she resents that her mom focuses on someone other than her. (Mont p. 220) (Hacker p. 10 v2, 175 v1) 27. Her husband cheats on her and doesn’t really apologize. Then her mind is erased. The husband knows that the mind erasure will happen. (Mont p. 248, 253) (Hacker p. 242, 253) 28. She tries to get her bearings and recover in a tropical, beachfront place. (Mont p. 260) (Hacker p. 180) 29. She has a child she had to give away and remaining separated from the child is traumatic. (Mont p. 276-299) (Hacker p. 285, 288) 30. She gets to experience the life she dreamed of in which she was the mother of a child she loved. (Mont. p. 304) (Hacker p. 293) 31. She becomes famous and goes on tour. (Mont p. 332-335) (Hacker p. 246, 296)
When plotted out and grouped together thematically, this list of plot overlaps can be organized into eleven mythemes that define a unique story sequence that was not in existence before I wrote My Adorable Apotheosis.
53 The amount of material copied from My Adorable Apotheosis is clearly an order of magnitude greater than the overlap with a similar, earlier book from the genre: Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid in 2015 listed below.
1. She sits next to someone who is afraid of flying. (Mont p. 207) (Reid p. 2) 2. She is in love with her high school sweetheart. (Mont p. 22) (Reid p. 19) 3. She goes out to a dance club. (Mont p. 5) (Reid p. 25) 4. Her mother shows up for the first time. (Mont p. 44) (Reid p. 88) 5. One of the men in the story cheats on his wife. (Mont p. 248) (Reid p. 185)
The lack of attribution and the cross promotion of another book that stole from My Adorable Apotheosis pushes this book into the red zone of copyright infringement.
On the following page are screenshots of a cross promotional effort of two authors who used my book as a template. In the second screenshot, Montimore had the opportunity to attribute my book, but she didn't. She was interviewed by a woman affiliated with Litopia, the site which has helped promote another book on this list.
54 Section 9 a.) The Red Labyrinth was published in the US two years after my book, but it utilized writing services from the UK. The author is an US ex-social worker named Meredith Tate who retired to live in Switzerland and write books. b.) Her book shared 40 plot overlaps with my book and they mostly appeared in the same order in both books. b.) This was her fourth novel and shortly after publishing it, she was given a contract with Penguin Random House for her fifth novel, Shipped, a book that could be considered a detailed rip-off of a 1940 film called The Shop Around the Corner which was based on a 1937 play called Perfumerie by an author whose work is still under copyright for the next 20 years. One of Tate's earlier works was accused of being too similar to The Giver by Caldecott winnner Lois Lowry. c.) Like Montimore's interviewer, Roz Morris, she has also appeared on the weekly YouTube broadcast from the UK website Litopia, a website run by a literary agent who also offers writing services to authors who require help with developing their manuscript. This is also something that, in any other industry, would be viewed as a conflict of interest.
55 1. We meet the protagonist and her problems 1. X lives with her mother (Tate p. 1) (Hacker p. 4 – this is the first page of the print edition) 2. X is an outsider who is trying to feel at home in Wonderland/Trinnea. (Tate p. 2) (Hacker p. 5) 3. X feels inferior to the people from the city because the Skilled/Symbiots have special powers. (Tate p. 3) (Hacker p. 6) 4. X has been warned that something in the city eats people’s souls. (Tate p. 11) (Hacker p. 6) 5. In the city, people treat her like dirt and they have a lot more money and privilege than her. (Tate p. 15, 17, 44) (Hacker p. 9, 19, 58) 2. There is an inciting, threatening incident 1. When she breaks a rule, her life is threatened by a city person. (Tate p. 17) (Hacker p. 18) 2. She is invited/forced to be the center of attention and almost gets sucked into the heart of the Lab/Labyrinth where death awaits. (Tate p. 20-26) (Hacker p. 34-40) 3. We learn about an man who is attracted to her. He is rich, she is poor. (Tate p. ) (Hacker p. ) 4. She has her first discussion with the Cheshire Cat character — Dex/Chess. She is frightened of him at first, but they soon become friends of a sort. She can’t trust him. (Tate p. ) (Hacker p. 89) 5. He convinces her to do something dangerous in order to save her from a fate worse than death (Tate p. ) (Hacker p. 158) 3. The environment is introduced in more detail 1. The city is closed off from an uncivilized wasteland. For an outsider to gain access to the city, they must sell themselves into slavery. (Tate p. 36-39) (Hacker p. 6, 9, 216) 2. Her navigation/communication device does not work inside the labyrinth. (Tate p. 133) (Hacker p. 34) 3. People who emerge from the lab/labyrinth are insane. (Tate p. 68) (Hacker p. 106) 4. The walls of the lab/labyrinth have been painted red. (Tate p. 103) (Hacker p. 104) 5. X’s primary mode of transportation is a bicycle (Tate p. 104) (Hacker p. 140)
56 4. The things that threaten her escalate 1. She is invited into an exclusive bar by her high-status city friend. She sees a fog and is offered drugs by people who are smoking a pipe. (Tate p. 80-81) (Hacker p. 28-30) 2. The monster from the lab/labyrinth targets X for some unknown reason. (Tate p. 82) (Hacker p. 89) 3. Everyone in the city is mind-controlled by external, artificial means — except for X. (Tate p. 95-108) (Hacker p. 92-97) 4. Her mother is particularly threatened by this. (Tate p. 108) (Hacker p. 178) 5. The labyrinth/laboratory is locked down by an external military power. X finds that there are still non-city people who are not under the influence of the mind-control. She meets such a man and they hug. (Tate p. 105-109) (Hacker p. 148-152) 5. Solutions to the problems are introduced and a critical choice is made. 1. X is able to walk through the barrier that blocks off the lab/labyrinth but none of the city people can. (Tate p. 110-112) (Hacker p. 152-156) 2. If they find out you are not mind controlled something very bad happens to you, but she is a nobody that no one notices. (Tate p. 110-112) (Hacker p. 152-156) 3. X requires assistance from Dex/Chess the mysterious dangerous guy. (Tate p. 119) (Hacker p. 216) 4. To save the day, X must enter the lab/labyrinth. (Tate p. 123) (Hacker p. 219) 6. Confusion ensues as she tries to think for herself. 1. There is a magic mirror with writing on it that advises X about what to do with her life. (Tate p. 151) (Hacker p. 114, 132, 214, 269) The controller of the magic mirror (sand guardian/ARIEL) tells X that Landon/Dr. Knavel wants her. (Tate p. 151) (Hacker p. 62, 269) 2. She loses herself in the lab/labyrinth and wanders around in a bunch of hedges. (Tate p. 160) (Hacker p. 258) 3. She attends a mad tea party. (Tate p. 179) (Hacker p. 82) 4. She has visions of her other life in a multiverse. (Tate p. 184-193) (Hacker p. 286- 293) 5. She loses her ability to speak and wanders around in a maze with a madman. (Tate p. 194) (Hacker p. 259) 7. External forces attempt to take control over the protagonist again, revealing how manipulated she’s been.
57 1. There is a lecture about how inequality is allowed to persist. (Tate p. 296) (Hacker p. 221) 2. An evil doctor makes an appearance. He takes over vulnerable people’s minds and bodies. (Tate p. 304) (Hacker p. 253) 3. The lab/laboratory is responsible for the madness/trance into which everyone has fallen. (Tate p. 348) (Hacker p. 293) 4. The people who had lost their minds in the lab/labyrinth had actually had their skills/souls/ideas/stories stolen and given to others – the skilled/symbiots. Their minds had literally been erased. (Tate p. 349) (Hacker p. 255, 259, 274) 5. Her voice is stolen again. (Tate p. 353) (Hacker p. 296) 8. Against these external forces, she fights back and reasserts control over her own consciousness, freeing others in the process. 1. Her mental breakdown breaks free all of the enslaved and there is mass chaos and celebration. (Tate p. 365) (Hacker p. 296) 2. The Leader/Director ends up losing power while Landon/Dr. Knavel takes over. X marries him but isn’t happy. (Tate p. 367) (Hacker p. 239) 3. Chaos from the breakdown destroyed the ranking/scoring systems used to enforce order and inequality. (Tate p. 370) (Hacker p. 281) 4. X has been given maps to something important. (Tate p. 370) (Hacker p. 298) 5. She is ready to face the world on her own terms. (Tate end) (Hacker end)
58 It appears that the plot of my novel was used to create the first half and the ending of The Red Labyrinth, but there is a gap where some material that didn't come from my book fits in and it turns out that it came from another novelist: Christina Henry, author of Alice.
59 1. We meet the characters and the world 1. X is an outsider from The New City/Trinnia because she has a scar. (Henry p. 2) (Tate p. 3) 2. X’s mother is a New City/Trinnia insider. (Henry p. 2) (Tate p. 3) 3. X meets Dex/Hatcher and he is a murderer but he becomes her friend. He is a tough guy who knows how to navigate the mazlike paths and dangers of the Old City/Labyrinth, but she doesn’t. (Henry p. 2, 62) (Tate p. 11, 133) 4. There is an insane asylum for people who have been traumatized in the Labyrinth/Old City. (Henry p. 2) (Tate p. 14) 5. X’s goal is to escape her horrible past in the mine/asylum. (Henry p. 2) (Tate p. 21) 2. Inciting incident 1. X is almost killed. (Henry p. 12) (Tate p. 20) 2. She has to do something dangerous in order to save herself from a fate worse than death involving mind control. (Henry p. 22) (Tate p. 103) 3. She must go on a dangerous mission with Dex/Hatcher and he carries knives and a gun. Her primary weapon is a knife. (Henry p. 44) (Tate p. 139) 4. There is a dangerous, monsterous thing that takes control of people’s minds and kills people. X and Hatcher/Dex are on a mission to destroy it. Many other monsters block their path along the way. (Henry p. 54) (Tate p. 11) 5. Hatcher/Dex has lost a family member to someone at the center of the maze and wants to get her back. (Henry p. 176) (Tate p. 177) 3. Facing the danger in the labyrinth (Tate p. 133-286) 1. While stuck in a maze with Hatcher/Dex, a plant attacks her and almost kills her. (Henry p. 133) (Tate p. 161) 2. While stuck in a maze with Hatcher/Dex, she loses Hatcher, then she gets stuck in some water that almost kills her. (Henry p. 142) (Tate p. 165) 3. Then she has to rescue Hatcher/Dex from a monster who has paralyzed him. (Henry p. 145) (Tate p. 171) 4. Dex/Hatcher kills an innocent person who had been trapped and suffering alone in the maze for so long that it was a mercy. (Henry p. 184) (Tate p. 241) 5. They have to swim through a body of water together to get out of the maze. (Henry p. 145) (Tate p. 286)
60 As a control variable, I can compare the plot of Alice with My Adorable Apotheosis. Since they both drew inspiration from Alice in Wonderland, this will show how a common influence creates similarity between books that does not cross the line into copyright infringement.
1. X is an outsider from The New City/Wonderland. (Henry p. 2) (Hacker p. 4) 2. X meets Chess/Hatcher and he becomes her friend. (Henry p. 2) (Hacker p. 89) 3. Her misfortune was caused by meeting the White Rabbit/Dr. Babbit. (Henry p. 2) (Hacker p. 35) 4. There was once an inquisition/purge of physicists/magicians. (Henry p. 9) (Hacker p. 26) 5. She is almost killed after being drugged. (Henry p. 12) (Hacker p. 36) 6. Hatcher/Chess gets her to risk her life to save her from mind control. (Henry p. 22) (Hacker p. 158) 7. She meets a female mentor. (Henry p. 34) (Hacker p. 50) 8. A monsterous Jaberwocky takes over people’s minds and kills. (Henry p. 54) (Hacker p. 6) 9. She gets lost in a labyrinth of hedges with a madman. (Henry p. 130) (Hacker p. 259) 10. She goes into a dance club/whorehouse with a man. (Henry p. 155) (Hacker p. 28)
Note that the similar plot elements do not occur in the same order in both books and that they mainly cluster around the origin as familiar tropes are introduced. The takeaway is that Tate borrows freely from other authors and doesn't think it is wrong. Other readers of The Red Labyrinth might have noticed that it borrowed scenes from The Hunger Games, Twilight, and Mathilda. I'm planning to do a close reading of her upcoming book, Shipped because it looks like it will have the plot of a copyrighted movie from 1940 called The Shop Around the Corner. 1. A young man and woman are friends via letters/messages, but they don't know who each other is in real life. They write to one another about plays/tvshows. 2. One is poor and one is rich. I'll call them A and B. 3. They are competitors with a high strung boss and they don't like one another because B showed A up and made A look bad even though A needs to look good more than B
61 does because of money issues. 4. They are surrounded by a cast of characters that includes a nice guy, a sleazy guy, a female friend, and an ambitious, precocious young man. 5. The young man and woman fall in love via letters they send to one another while discussing their common interest in a specific book/tvshow. She eagerly awaits his letters/messages. 6. They are preparing to meet one another, but because of the high strung boss, something comes in their way. 7. Something dashes the protagonist's career hopes because the boss suspects the protagonist of doing something he/she didn't do. There is suspected cheating. 8. Man and woman meet in real life and he knows who she is, but she doesn't know who he is. She insults him without knowing who she was insulting. There is uncertainty about whether they still like one another. 9. She is left feeling like she got stood up. 10. Career success emboldens him while she feels rotten. 11. When they meet again, she admits her feelings for him and he tells her he has met her mystery correspondent. 12. Then he reveals he is the man with whom she has been corresponding. They kiss. I should do the same close reading of Lois Lowry's The Giver and Tate's Missing Pieces, but overall it is clear that because Penguin Random House gave a publishing contract to a woman who had been accused of plagiarizing two of her earlier novels and who used a blatantly plagiarized storyline in the book they offered to publish for her, this is another example of a large publishing house not respecting copyrights.
62 Section 10 a.) Individutopia by Joss Sheldon was the first book I noticed with an unusual level of similarity to my book. He published it only four months after I published my book and I learned about it several months later when Amazon kept sending me advertisements for it. b.) I contacted Sheldon via Twitter and took screenshots of a conversation I had with him in which he claimed to have had the idea for the book in December 2017 and sent the manuscript to Fiverr editors in May 2018, my publishing date. I pressured him for screenshots and it looked more like he had sent the book to editors in June and July before publishing in August. It is significantly shorter than my book, but as you will see, it tracks my story on a page for page basis. c.) Because I discovered the theft while I was still a member of a writing community called Litopia that I'd joined right after I'd finished my novel at the end of 2017, I wondered if Joss Sheldon had gotten early access to my manuscript from that website. Recall that Litopia was associated with two other books so far. d.) Matters grew more complicated when a member of Litopia forwarded a link to me that showed how Sheldon had used a ghostwriter on Fiverr to facilitate his rapid rewrite of my book. They grew confusing when I saw that he claimed to be a man from Britain, but he had published his book in the US at Barnes and Noble under the name of a woman named Jocyln Sheldon.
63 1. Both books start with a prologue explaining that the narrator is from the future and that this will be the life story of a particular young woman (X) who played an important role in history. The original version of my manuscript was also written in third person and it had such a prologue before a writing community recommended that I get rid of it and switch to first person. 1. Sheldon’s prologue focuses on the political/economic aspect of this dystopia and how it isolates people. In the prologue, he tells us about this world in which people are isolated and wrapped up in their virtual selves or in their work, unable to socialize or see the world as it is. 2. Hacker’s prologue focuses on the psychological aspect of this dystopia and how it isolates people. In the prologue, she shows us this world in which people are isolated and wrapped up in their virtual selves or in their work, unable to see the world as it really is or connect to other people in an authentic, non-manipulated fashion. 3. Although many of these plot element depict the world of today, unless he was copying, there was no reason for Sheldon to present them to the reader in the same exact order as I did. 2. The information about the world is conveyed on similar pages in each book. On the level of mythemes, the order in which the information is presented is completely sequential when there is no causal/narrative reason for this to be the case. (Hacker p 1-13) (Sheldon p. 1-19) 1. X lives in a big, bad, crowded techno city ruled by rich people. (Hacker p. 6) (Sheldon p. 11) 2. X comes from a broken family with absent/uninvolved parents. She was educated by automated systems and abandoned her to find her way in the city by herself. (Hacker p. 6) (Sheldon p. 13) (This is another incident in which the writing group suggested that I change the beginning of the story from what I’d originally written.) 3. There are rebels who don’t want to be enslaved by the systems of the city. (Hacker p. 7) (Sheldon p. 12) 4. X wears special lenses that augment reality (Hacker p. 10) (Sheldon p. 13). 5. X lives in a closet-sized apartment (Hacker p. 12) (Sheldon p. 19) 3. The information about the sorts of people in this world is conveyed on similar pages in each book. The sequential presentation of the information within most mythemes suggests copying and use of my book as a template. 1. X is surrounded by people who have artificially enhanced their appearances in
64 strange ways. (Hacker p. 12) (Sheldon p. 15) 2. They believe what they want to believe, they are ignorant of basic facts, and obsessed with their virtual selves. (Hacker p. 16-19) (Sheldon p. 16-19) 3. People’s sex lives are warped and impersonal. (Hacker p. 20) (Sheldon p. 20) 4. X is heavily in debt. (Hacker p. 27) (Sheldon p. 25). 5. The augmented reality makes people look like enhanced versions of themselves, even in public. These sorts of people only interact with themselves in public and not with others. (Hacker p. 28) (Sheldon p. 25) 4. X’s search for meaningful employment is her prime motivator at this point in the story. (Hacker p. 14-16) (Sheldon p. 29-32) 1. X had a video job interview with a mysterious person she never gets to meet. (Hacker p. 14) (Sheldon p. 29) 2. She had to venture into the lab/city to do her job and get further instructions for her work. (Hacker p. 14) (Sheldon p. 29) 3. Her interviewer bombards her with indecipherable information. (Hacker p. 15) (Sheldon p. 30) 4. She is encouraged by automated voices that literally congratulate her for doing her job. “Congratulations!” (Hacker p. 16) (Sheldon p. 32) 5. She is trapped in a Kafkaesque system designed to waste her energy. (Hacker p. 21) (Sheldon p. 34) 5. She has a chance to get a better job. It pays less than a regular job, but it offers the opportunity for advancement. It is a PhD position/internship. 1. Her travels through the lab/city in search of the interview for this better job are described as a walk through a labyrinth. (Hacker p. 34) (Sheldon p. 33) 2. She still hasn’t met her interviewer. (Hacker p. 40) (Sheldon p. 34) 3. The job she gets is completely pointless and absurd. (Hacker p. 41) (Sheldon p. 34) 4. She has the sort of job that could be entrusted to a machine. (Hacker p. 46) (Sheldon p. 37) 5. To make herself more employable, she takes a course in mumbo jumbo nonsense. (Hacker p. 43-44 ) (Sheldon p. 41-42) 6. While high on drugs and dangerously exhausted and overworked, she almost kills herself while chasing after a better job. The particulars of this chapter are different, but the ideas conveyed are the same. (Hacker p. 34-40) (Sheldon p. 44-54)
65 1. She is chasing a lead for a new job. (Hacker p. 34) (Sheldon p. 44) 2. She is drugged and exhausted from work. (Hacker p. 34) (Sheldon p. 45) 3. She gets confused, puts herself in danger, passes out with a jolt, and almost dies. (Hacker p. 38-39) (Sheldon p. 52-53) 4. She wakes up, recovers, and is ready to start work afresh, still in denial of her fundamental problem. (Hacker p. 40) (Sheldon p. 53) 5. She spends all of her time talking with an AI and remaining at a distance from people. (Hacker p. 50-60) (Sheldon p. 60-65) 7. It is odd that a cat and an apocalyptic flood are mentioned in both books. In Individutopia, the cat is dead and the flood doesn’t happen, whereas in My Adorable Apotheosis, the cat is alive and the flood happens. Schroedinger’s dead cat and the flood mark the point at which Sheldon skips ahead in my book to the point that the protagonist has a mental breakdown that leads her to destroy the plutocrat’s property and leave the city. Sheldon’s book is half as long as Hacker’s (150->300 pages). 1. She interacts with her mirror images. (Hacker p. 184) (Sheldon p. 60) 2. She is struggling with her sense of identity. (Hacker p. 214) (Sheldon p. 65) 3. A cat appears. (Hacker p. 215 – it is alive) (Sheldon p. 66 – it is dead) 4. A flood is discussed. (Hacker p. 227 – X causes it) (Sheldon p. 67 – X only thinks about it) 5. She destroys plutocrat’s property. (Hacker p. 227 – with a flood) (Sheldon p. 69 – with a bat) 8. She now begins to confront the people of her city out in the streets. She’s been washed out of her hiding place, in a sense. She had been hiding from the world through work. 1. In my book, other the people she meets on the street are dangerous, helpless, and barely conscious whereas in Sheldon’s book, they are non-conscious illusions. (Hacker p. 229) (Sheldon p. 84) 2. In both books, there is no food and this leads to desperation. (Hacker p. 229) (Sheldon p. 86) 3. She realizes that people are just monkeys/rats. (Hacker p. 234) (Sheldon p. 88) 4. Her illusions are dashed as she sees the ugly, dirty reality of her world for the first time. (Hacker p. 238) (Sheldon p. 90)
66 5. She begins to see new, aspects of herself via a mirror/psychiatry machine. She sees herself as a monster and still struggles to connect to other people. She is exhausted and falls asleep. (Hacker p. 241, 250, 255) (Sheldon p. 92, 94, 97) 9. At this point in both stories, several biblical references are made.. in the same order. 1. She leaves the lab/city and watches another version of herself get eaten by animals/have its mind erased. (Hacker p. 237/255) (Sheldon p. 99/107) 2. She meets a man in a Garden of Eden sort of place and they share a moment of connection, even though they are unable to communicate because of what the city has done to them. (Hacker p. 259) (Sheldon p. 109) 3. They literally and figuratively eat fruit from the tree of knowledge. (Hacker p. 258) (Sheldon p. 102) 4. They eat far too much food/knowledge and get sick from it. (Hacker p. 268) (Sheldon p. 111) 5. They abruptly separate. He remains in the madness of the city and she ventures further away, resisting the comforts and insanity of the city. (Hacker p. 266) (Sheldon p. 116) 10. There is a sequence about identity, community, mirroring, and and the role parents play in shaping self-image. She is exposed to other ways of living in which people are happy and support one another. There are echoes of some scenes from earlier in Hacker’s book. 1. She sees a version of life in which people live as happy, loving families. There is a happy daughter/child figure. (Hacker p. 293) (Sheldon p. 122) 2. She sees a version of life in which people behave like animals (Hacker p. 288) (Sheldon p. 125) 3. She remembers a past she had long since forgotten due to the technology of the city. She is searching for her parental figures. (Hacker p. 287) (Sheldon p. 128) 4. She survives her look at these other ways of living and her escape from the thought control of the city, but no one else did. (Hacker p. 294) (Sheldon p. 132) 5. Her mental journey is communicated to others who celebrate her story. It is a sort of apotheosis. (Hacker p. 296) (Sheldon p. 133) 11. Finally we show her temptation by past demons, her brave commitment to her new mindset, and her use as a symbol of hope to others. 1. X is turned into an unlikely savior/messiah figure. (Hacker p. 296) (Sheldon p. 136)
67 2. X is taunted by the mysterious individual who had been guiding her life and who we learn had been representing the voice of the narrator. X is told that he is obsessed with her because he learns from her struggles. He calls her ‘darling’, or ‘my sweet’. (Hacker p. 297) (Sheldon p. 150) 3. X gets comfortable with her fame and finds out what happened to her absent father. (Hacker p. 298) (Sheldon p. 167) 4. X chooses to run away from the mysterious/evil being in search of something real, new, and connected to nature. She knows on some level that he is responsible for her mother’s death — something that happend ‘off camera’ in both books. (Hacker p. 299) (Sheldon p. 155) 5. Both stories end with an Epilogue that describes a look back at a life lived in the city and the implication that it isn’t worth the sacrifices made. (Hacker p. 300) (Sheldon p. 164) If the similarities had only been the elements in bold, that would’ve been too vague. The devil is in the 55 details and the sequences of page numbers. What is particularly ugly to see is how Sheldon made the protagonist so disgusting, smelly, and ugly, depicting her getting ridden by a dog-like half human at the end of the book. I gave her dignity despite adversity. It is also worth noticing that Amazon rejected my copyright complaint and has continued to sell and advertise Sheldon’s book.
There were a few points that didn’t fit into a clear, sequential order but they still seemed significant. • It is strange that both authors used the word Dodo as a proper-name, since it is a very uncommon word. When using a book as a template, this sort of subconscious, random overlap is to be expected. Dodo is the name of a character in a sub-plot that Sheldon didn’t use in his version of the story. (Hacker p. 28-33) (Sheldon p. 41) • In both books, the protagonist is trying to develop awareness of how her work impacts people other than herself. It is the great epiphany of the book. (Hacker p. 295) (Sheldon p. 78) • The big epiphany is expressed by the exclamation of “I am!” (Hacker p. 293) (Sheldon p. 80) • Both books reference 1984. As usual, Sheldon was direct and I was indirect. • Bob Marley’s Redemption Song is sung by the characters as a symbol of re-connection to one another. (Hacker p. 291) (Sheldon p. 163)
As for the other books, most of the plot elements are arranged in the same order in both books, but in Individutopia there is less localized randomness compared to the other works I've analyzed. As in, this author copied on a page by page basis without re-arranging plot elements in his version.
68 69 Section 11 a.) There is a book called Kings of a Dead World by a man affiliated with Litopia that is coming out in August of this year and I am keeping an eye on it because of the number of books affiliated with Litopia that are already on this list. b.) The book is set in the future and told from the perspective of a janitor. There is a janitor character in my novel and I keep seeing versions of my story that are told from different perspectives yet set in the same world and storyline, so I'm keeping my eye on this one. c.) It is being published by Sandstone Press, a company that also published The Actuality by Braddon, a book that also shows a strange amount of overlap with my book. As such, I will present the analysis of both books within this section.
70 1. The other book from Sandstone Publishing shares plot elements in common with my book that are somewhat shorter and less similarly organized than they are in the other books that copied mine. The Actuality vs. My Adorable Apotheosis 1. she has an AI advisor who exists insider her head 2. she has been made into a sex bot with the face of the man's ex-wife or girlfriend 3. bots are often based on dead people 4. her environment is defined by crisply trimmed hedges 5. she doesn't want to be a cog in a machine 6. Maisy is a name for a horse/cow she meets 7. Stephen Hawking is mentioned as a respected figure in this world 8. Adam and Eve are mentioned 9. a cat is repeatedly mentioned 10. a man with bulging eyes that she doesn't like invades her personal space 11. an animatronic animal acts as a spy for a man she doesn't like 12. like a zoo animal 13. she imprints on a lover like a baby bird imprints on its mother 14. she has philosophical discussions about consciousness and dreams 15. there are gel processors installed in a woman's body 16. a man gets really excited while talking about technology inside of cyborgs 17. she hates her AI advisor's intrusiveness 18. she is offered a leather dog collar to wear 19. there is a man who turns a cyborg woman and others into his marionettes 20. a man tries to make the protagonist happier by erasing her brain 21. she is unable to speak after this treatment 22. she then searches for a certain handsome yet flawed man that she is attracted to 23. she is lost in a maze 24. she goes into a dance club full of prostitutes 25. she takes care of a child 26. she meets someone who has the same origin as her 27. she meets her parents, but is disappointed by how little they care about her 28. the sex bot wasn't really of an ex-wife/girlfriend; the woman on whom it was based had rejected the man who purchased the bot. 29. a car accident led to the production of the sex doll 30. she is betrayed by her lover It is all generic sci-fi stuff, but just because something is a sci-fi trope doesn't mean that it will appear in every sci-fi book. There is a certain likelihood of a set of tropes appearing within two unrelated books and if I were to make a guess, I'd say that writing prompts extracted from my book were shorter than in the other books and that they were fed to the text generator in mostly the opposite of the order in which they appeared in my book. I wouldn't
71 argue that a story told in reverse is the same story, after all Jaws told in reverse would be the story of a kindly shark who gave limbs to disabled people, but I still think there is something wrong with mining an unknown author's book for material. The book by Braddon has some strange use of language that makes it read like it recycled some text. 1. Are you going to continue to act sorry for yourself? he asks, monitoring her mood develop. (p. 8) 2. No one likes a clever clogs. (pp. 46-47). This can happen when someone uses a spinning tool that translates the text into another language and back into English. It looks like some auto-correct messed up this process by confusing cog and clog. There were also a few concepts that were prominent in my novel yet which were introduced in an incongruous, offhand manner in Bradden's book: 1. “not Simon this time but a new, friendlier presence of which she is only just becoming aware: a mirror, perhaps, of her own self.” (p. 121) 2. ‘Do you dream?’ he asks. (p. 137). This conversation is a bit like the one with ARIEL. 3. venomously as she can. Stay away! (p. 153). This is also how one of my chapters was concluded. There is a very distinctive scene at page 155 and I wonder where it came from. It seems like something from a video game. After that, I feel like I'm stuck in a series of familiar movies. By page 192, we're in Westworld and by page 196 we are in pedophilic Moulin Rouge. Overall, the entire book is uncomfortably pedophilic. The protagonist is described as having a childlike body even though she was treated as a 'wife' by a very old man and when she lost his protection, she was passed around from man to man like a defenseless child. I don't think that books like this one should be widely promoted – especially not with misleading, fake reviews. Overall, it reads like Blade Runner and Westworld fan fiction crossed with Lolita and The Windup Girl. She's an engineered, sexy, childish superhuman whose kind has been outlawed yet the story has been spiced with 30 ideas from my book, some of which are unusual for the genre and unusual ideas are what sell books. Harry Potter wouldn't have sold as many copies if a flying car had merely crashed into a tree – Rowling had the tree get angry and attack the car. After reading so many books that have been constructed with automated tools, I think I'm getting a feeling for what they lack in comparison to high quality human writing. A good book has internal connections at all length scales, but these engineered works seem to only have connections over a few length scales. There are the connections on a paragraph to
72 paragraph, page to page basis that come from spun scenes collected from a database and there are connections on the level of a plot that connects the scenes together, moving us from point A to point B in a way that often feels like moving from movie scene to movie scene. The connections that are missing are the ones that make things meaningful in more than one way at once. These engineered products feel shallow and one-dimensional whereas a human book is not complete until it contradicts itself in ways that preserve truth. For example, when the character is right about something in one moment, but wrong about it overall. This book is composed of cinematic gotcha moments that have become all too predictable – despite the fresh seasoning from my book. Real life isn't like that and that is why these stories are unsatisfying.
73 Section 12 a.) There is a book by Naomi Gibson that I am keeping my eye on because the 10 point premise was so similar to that of my book. It will be released by Chickenhouse in November of this year, even though I warned them that their 10 point premise matched that of my novel point for point. b.) I took screenshots of her Twitter account in which she documented the production of her first novel – starting right after I published mine and finishing after only six months. Six months for a breakout, first novel is fast. She has no literary footprint with which to validate her writing talent or speed. She may not even exist. Sock puppet writers are growing more and more common. c.) Because she was able to secure a literary agent before her novel was even finished and because her Twitter account was created shortly before she announced that she was writing this book, I am suspicious that she is not a real person. If my book has been stolen ten times to serve as a poison pill or example for the industry, this would make some sense. I've met a surprising number of sock puppets in recent years.
74 Section 13 a.) I'm not the only person with this problem. Two years ago, a woman in Kentucky named Kim Michelle Richardson published a book about pack horse librarians in depression era northern Kentucky. It was called The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. A few months later, Giver of Stars, a very similar book came out by a wealthy British author who had become famous for her bestseller Me Before You. b.) To complicate matters, it appeared that both authors were influenced by an earlier work called Carry the World which read like a 1980s romance novel that had been inspired by a real family's history. In this section, I will compare the level of similarity between these books and you will see that the style of copying used by the British woman who was published by Penguin Random House is consistent with the style of copying I have seen of my book.
75 1. The book woman job is dangerous and many disapprove of women who put themselves in harm’s way. (Richardson p. 2) (Moyes p. 3) 2. She is unmarried and lived with her father before becoming a book woman. (Richardson p. 4) (Moyes p. 70) 3. She experienced violence from a man. (Richardson p. 15) (Moyes p. 77) 4. We learn about her affection for her mule. (Richardson p. 17) (Moyes p. 32) 5. She reads to a sickly man because his wife (Angeline/Kathleen) can’t. The wife is later widowed with children/child. This character serves as a touchstone that structures and paces the story. She is the mirror-self, friend, or me-in-another-life of the protagonist. (Richardson p. 26, 47, 70, 138, 170, 235) (Moyes p. 84, 164, 183, 239, 282, 352) 6. The book woman is attacked while she is out delivering books. A man threatened the bookwoman because he thinks she does the devil’s work. The man grabs her mule and then grabs her in a sexual way. The mule then runs the man off of the trail and later tramples him to death. (Richardson p. 34-36, 111) (Moyes p. 4 — prologue, it is implied that the event happened at – p. 189 7. She meets her love interest when she is rattled after the attack. He makes friends with her mule. (Richardson p. 40-42) (Moyes p. 191-192) 8. Coal mining union political issues are discussed. (Richardson p. 47-48) (Moyes p. 200- 201) 9. An unmarried black librarian with elegant handwriting is introduced. (Richardson p. 66) (Moyes p. 99) 10. She visits the local school, talks with the teacher, the children clamor. (Richardson p. 72-78) (Moyes p. 61-63) 11. A woman asks for a Woman’s Home Companion Magazine for advice about what to do for her baby’s teething. (Richardson p. 82) (Moyes p. 73) 12. She gives books to a family where the father –Devil John/Mr. Horner was drunk and hostile because he wants everyone to work harder and not get distracted. (Richardson p. 82) (Moyes p. 48) 13. She visits a blind person who wants her to read aloud. (Richardson p. 84) (Moyes p. 84) 14. Her attacker turns up dead with the implication that he was stomped to death by her mule. If they know, the whole town will demand that she hangs. (Richardson p. 115, 120) (Moyes p. 282, 376) 15. She meets her love interest and he is comforting. (Richardson p. 143) (Moyes p. 191)
76 16. She meets the family that is hostile towards books and changes their minds. (Richardson p. 153, 229) (Moyes p. 125, 260) 17. The book: The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck is mentioned. (Richardson p. 143) (Moyes p. 45) 18. She is tormented by evidence about the missing man who’d attacked her. (Richardson p. 154) (Moyes p. 220) 19. The librarians gossip about sex/women’s issues in their main gathering room. (Richardson p. 159-160) (Moyes p. 168-169) 20. Skin color insults are thrown about in a room where all of the librarians are gathered. (Richardson p.162) (Moyes p. 151) 21. Black librarian says she’d rather live in a big city and work for a colored library program. (Richardson p. 166) (Moyes p. 99) 22. Violent conflict with the mining bosses is foreshadowed. (Richardson p. 168-167, 180) (Moyes p. 254-255) 23. The black librarian leaves to work at a colored city library. (Richardson p. 233) (Moyes p. 384) 24. A baby is born under extreme circumstances. (Richardson p. 235) (Moyes p. 352) 25. There is a big mining accident/flood. (Richardson p. 266) (Moyes p. 311) 26. Her love interest gives her a book of poetry and marks a favorite poem. (Richardson p. 270) (Moyes p. 153) 27. There is a legal/courtroom drama that separates the protagonist from her love interest and prevents their marriage from being consummated. (Richardson p. 275) (Moyes p. 409) 28. The protagonist gets married in October with a three month old baby in tow. Their friends from the library are in attendance and they are given a quilt as a wedding gift. (the end of both books)
The arrangement of the plot overlaps isn't 100% the same in both books, but it is mostly the same and this is easier to see when the plot elements are color coded and clustered as in the figure below.
77 78 Of course, if both books drew from the same source, one would expect a higher degree of similarity than would occur by chance alone. Nevertheless, it appears that both authors took different elements from Carry the World and that Moyes took more material from Richardson than she took from Fanetti, following several plotlines that Richardson initiated. 1. a conflict with the mining company in which the protagonist’s father carries the story line in Troublesome Creek and the protagonist’s boyfriend carries the story line in Giver of Stars. 2. a legal drama in which the protagonist is on the defense. 3. a baby is given to the protagonist to raise with her love interest. 4. a black librarian friend who moves to the city to get a good job. 5. a friend who loses her husband and who acts as a touchstone.
Either way, Moyes is a British woman writing about women in rural Kentucky and stealing stories written by native Kentuckians. That just isn't right.
Giver of Stars vs. Carry the World 1. She meets a hobo on the road and thinks about reaching for her rifle. (Moyes p. 3) (Fanetti p. 50) 2. She has a job as a pack horse book woman and feels confident about the people in her community. (Moyes p. 39) (Fanetti p. 42) 3. She meets her first family and they are hostile to the idea of being given books. (Moyes p. 48) (Fanetti p. 65) 4. She offers a family Treasure Island to read. (Moyes p. 135) (Fanetti p. 69) 5. She reads a book to a sickly man. (Moyes p. 84) (Fanetti p. 74) 6. She repeatedly gives books to the children of a widower. (Moyes p. 84, 164, 239) (Fanetti p. 89, 122, 131) 7. She falls in love with a widower in an outsider-insider romance (Moyes – Fred) (Fanetti – Jonah).
Book Woman of Troublesome Creek vs. Carry the World
1. She lives with her father and needs money. Her husband is dead. (First chapter in both books.) 2. She gets a job as a packhorse librarian and feels confident about the people in her community. (Fanetti p. 42) (Richardson p. 4)
79 3. She meets a family that is hostile towards books. (Fanetti p. 65) (Richardson p. 82) 4. Her father is worried about the danger. (Fanetti p. 56) (Richardson p. 4) 5. She meets a vagrant and is concerned for her safety (Fanetti p. 50) (Richardson p. 35) 6. Her father is concerned for her safety because of her job. (Fanetti p. 96) (Richardson p. 3) 7. She reads a book to a sickly person. (Fanetti p. 74) (Richardson p. 84) 8. Scrapbooking is part of the local culture (Fanetti beginning and end) (Richardson p. 50) 9. She is mortally wounded by a bear/doctor and is nursed back to health by her love interest. (Fanetti p. 204) (Richardson p. 204) 10. Her father dies. (Fanetti p. 312) (Richardson p. 265)
80 Section 14 a.) Plagiarists never just do it once, and the author of Giver of Stars seems to have used a similar copying style to write her bestselling novel Me Before You as well. The number of points copied is much smaller than in the other cases I've studied and doesn't seem to be illegal. b.) Nevertheless, when a story is based on a real person's experience, one should ask who owns that story. Just because one can thinly veil a real person's experience behind fiction doesn't mean that nothing was stolen.
81 Me Before You vs. Dying Young 1. The sick man is rich and cranky. The woman taking care of him is young and poor. He was handsome and lived a full life before he got sick, traveling and doing adventurous things. He views her as beneath him and encourages her to broaden her horizons by reading more widely. 2. She is caught in a love triangle between a self absorbed man and a man who only wants her to be happier. She is drawn to the man who needs her the most. 3. She was living with her mother when she responded to a job offer to take care of the sick man. 4. There is an older, wealthy woman who is not a parent, yet she helps the young woman navigate her relationship with the dying young man. Estelle/Mary. 5. He has decided to die and refuse treatment for his terminal illness. Her job is to support him through this process. 6. He is embarrassed of his illness and has exiled himself from his old life and acquaintances because of how rich people expect perfection from everything and everyone. She is not part of this world and is fascinated by it without expecting anything from it. 7. There is an emotional scene with the sick man and the woman in a labyrinth of hedges. 8. The sick man’s mood improves because of some outings with her. 9. She acts as a go-between with his father and he resents her interference, but eventually relents. 10. She is treated as a servant by his parents. p. 226 11. The sick man defends his choice to die. p. 229 12. The sick man makes a desperate, failed suicide attempt that she thwarts. p. 273 13. The reader is given the impression that he is going to change his mind about killing himself, but he does it anyway. p. 277 14. After he dies, she has finally developed the courage to apply to school and make something of her life.
This is an above average amount of overlap, but for an inbred genre like romance, it isn’t much, especially since the authors presented many of these points in different orders. Nevertheless, because some of the points are rather unique, it does look like Moyes probably drew inspiration from Dying Young. Inspiration is okay — it usually involves less than 14
82 points, but copying is not okay and Moyes’ book Giver of Stars shared 32 points of overlap with Richardson’s book.
The thing that bothers me about Dying Young is that, unlike Me Before You, it doesn’t feel like fiction. It feels like a real person’s story and since I saw evidence that Ishiguro incorporated some diary entries from a friend of mine that died a few years ago into his most recent book, along with material mined from my first novel and from my internet footprint, I worry about the extent to which modern writing tools are facilitating automated violation of privacy and automated copyright infringement.
In comparison with Ishiguro’s book one would expect to find a number of overlaps since they are both about a selfless woman taking care of a sick person. Nevertheless, I didn't find that many. I actually found more overlaps with my own book.
Dying Young vs. Klara and the Sun
1. The woman is selfless and enjoys taking care of the sick, childish person who doesn’t always care very much for her well being. She is treated as less than — almost like another species. 2. The sick person’s parent is wealthy and very concerned with status. This causes the sick person to be drawn to status as well and to feel guilty for being sick. 3. There is a romance between a young man and woman that is disrupted by class differences.
Dying Young vs. My Adorable Apotheosis 1. The woman is in a love triangle between a disabled man and a non-disabled man. One of the men is insensitive and the other cares about her. She is poor and they are wealthy. 2. She lost a sibling when she was a child and it caused her parents to disengage from her. Her parents were divorced. 3. She gets lost in a labyrinth of hedges. 4. She encounters a man with a speech impediment. 5. She ends up in a situation with a government entity from which it is difficult to escape. She feels disoriented and has been exposed to something that causes brain damage. She then makes her way home to the man who is insensitive. p. 215 6. She is treated in a dismissive fashion by one of the men’s parents. p. 226 7. One of the men dies from a drug overdose.
83 I can also do a comparison with some of the other books described in this document, but I don't find many overlaps.
Dying Young vs. The Red Labyrinth
1. She is in a love triangle between two men who are wealthier than her. 2. She gets lost in a labyrinth of hedges.
Dying Young vs. The Midnight Library
1. She is caught between love interests and can’t make up her mind. 2. She has an old woman mentor.
The takeaway from this exercise is that people who construct their books by using other authors’ work as a detailed template need to take responsibility for considering whether or not their template is in the public domain or not. A fourteen point template doesn’t seem to be unique enough to qualify for copyright protection, but if the points in the template are unique enough, it might. That is for courts to decide.
The other takeaway is about how when a non-fiction story can be turned into fiction without compensating the person who actually lived through that story, you could wake up one day to see your diary published by a famous author. The law hasn’t even started to catch up with these issues, but after I saw my dead friend’s spun diary entries from college show up in the work of a famous novelist, I knew the problem was real.
84 Section 15 a.) Even though romance novels tend to be rather inbred, genealogically speaking, showing a higher number of plot overlaps on average, it is still possible to identify non-verbatim plagiarism of the sort described in the previous twelve books. b.) Pamela Du Mond wrote a wholesome book called Part Time Princess and Emma Chase used that book as a template for a more depraved version of the story she called Royally Screwed.
85 1. We meet the hero 1. The opening image is of rich people in the lap of luxury with servants attending to their every need. Parental figures are dead and replaced with servants. (DuMond p. 7, 9) (Chase p. 3, 5) 2. We are introduced to the handsome hero and he is a privileged jerk. (DuMond p. 9) (Chase p. 3) 3. We learn that the hero makes women sign confidentiality agreements before interacting with them. (DuMond p. 9) (Chase p. 6) 4. When the heroine meets the hero, Prince Nicholas, he immediately sexually propositions her. (DuMond p. 10) (Chase p. 33) 5. We learn that a television reporter interviewed or will interview the hero. (DuMond p. 12) (Chase p. 5) 2. We meet the heroine 1. We see the heroine working at a family friendly/owned cafe/bar where her coworker is a bubbly young woman who spouts off in Spanish. The television show Jeopardy! is mentioned. (DuMond p. 14, 17) (Chase p. 24, 26) 2. The heroine dumps food/drink on the head of a man who was sexually harassing her at the cafe/bar where she is working. (DuMond p. 18) (Chase p. 37) 3. We learn that the heroine’s father figure is sickly and that she seems to have no other parental figure. (DuMond p. 23) (Chase p. 49) 4. She has no appropriate clothes to meet the royal people. (DuMond p. 29) (Chase p. 69) 5. She describes herself as a bitch who doesn’t have any money. (DuMond p. 33) (Chase p. 23) 3. Inciting incident 1. The heroine is offered a large sum of money by a royal representative, but she declines because she doesn’t want to be a prostitute. (DuMond p. 33) (Chase p. 33) 2. We learn that the heroine has no mother. (DuMond p. 40) (Chase p. 49) 3. The heroine fantasizes about romance novels and Brad Pitt and notices a royal person’s diamond watch. (DuMond p. 48) (Chase p. 31, 34) 4. An elephant is discussed. (DuMond p. 49) (Chase p. 39) 4. The heroine is prepared for her new role
86 1. The heroine’s eyebrows are shaped, she gets a facial, and Vaseline is mentioned as a beauty aid. (DuMond p. 53) (Chase p. 49) 2. The heroine flippantly discusses her pubic hair with a royal man. (DuMond p. 56) (Chase p. 31) 3. The heroine is told that her contract isn’t worth anything. (DuMond p. 56) (Chase p. 57) 4. She has no appropriate clothes, but a new wardrobe is provided for her. Her underwear is described and the difficulty of containing her voluptuousness in fancy clothes is mentioned. (DuMond p. 57) (Chase p. 70) 5. She meets with her friend from the coffee shop/bar prior to meeting the prince and gets encouragement. (DuMond p. 63) (Chase p. 71) 5. The heroine is introduced to the hero’s world 1. The heroine and hero meet in a luxurious environment. (DuMond p. 67) (Chase p. 80) 2. They have their first real conversation and he manages to contain his lechery for a short while. (DuMond p. 75) (Chase p. 84) 3. He asks her to go to a hotel room with him and comments on her body. Hit lechery kicks up a notch, but he eventually backs down. (DuMond p. 78-80) (Chase p. 85- 89) 4. There is a minor crisis that causes the hero to attempt to comfort the heroine, but she tells him to leave her alone because she is embarrassed. (DuMond p. 83) (Chase p. 91) 5. They forgive one another, exchange personal information, and grow closer, embracing one another when the crisis passes. (DuMond p. 86) (Chase p. 96) — Chase then spends pages 100-146 on sex scenes, motorcycle rides, and helicopter flights that do not drive the story forward. 6. She meets the hero’s brother and the press 1. She meets his equally handsome and charming brother (DuMond p. 90) (Chase p. 153) 2. She is the center of paparazzi attention, due to her connection to the prince. (DuMond p. 93) (Chase p. 147) 3. The press speculates wildly about the prince and her. There is a public scandal after she meets the brother. (DuMond p. 104) (Chase p. 149)
87 4. All of the other women want to marry the prince and are jealous. (DuMond p. 111) (Chase p. 150) 5. He and his brother argue in front of her. (DuMond p. 109) (Chase p. 155) 7. There is trouble in paradise 1. The hero confesses his feelings for the heroine. He is upset that his brother is keeping them apart. (DuMond p. 128) (Chase p. 166) 2. The hero wants to maintain their relationship as an illicit affair. They cannot be together since there is a royal contract about who is allowed to marry whom. (DuMond p. 129) (Chase p. 168) 3. Despite her reservations, she gives in to her feelings for him. (DuMond p. 131) (Chase p. 171) 4. She prepares to meet his royal family by getting dressed up in fancy clothes that are not hers. (DuMond p. 147) (Chase p. 183) 5. The woman who is not allowed to marry the prince but who the prince prefers gets a frosty reception from the Queen. (DuMond p. 165) (Chase p. 184) 8. The hero and heroine get closer despite impediments 1. The hero reaffirms his commitment to the heroine despite the limitations imposed by royal duties. (DuMond p. 184) (Chase p. 187) 2. The heroine watches kid-friendly entertainment on the television with friendly people. They eat popcorn that was prepared by the housekeeper. (DuMond p. 186) (Chase p. 190) 3. The heroine is entranced by the magnificent view from a window looking out of the prince’s home. (DuMond p. 196) (Chase p. 188) 4. The hero’s brother picks out some overly sexy clothes for the heroine. She resists her attraction to him. (DuMond p. 197) (Chase p. 196) 5. The heroine is taken to a party and when she leaves, she sees the prince with another woman in an embrace. It is a betrayal of trust. (DuMond p. 203-207) (Chase p. 199-203) 9. The heroine must make a big choice. 1. To overcome the feelings of betrayal, the heroine is driven back into the arms of the hero. (DuMond p. 216) (Chase p. 210) 2. He tells her that he loves her but that his duty to his family comes first. (DuMond p. 219) (Chase p. 198)
88 3. They can’t show affection to one another in public, but they are honest about their affection in private. (DuMond p. 219) (Chase p. 222) 4. She has to decide between staying in the prince’s kingdom as a fraud/mistress and returning home as a nobody. (DuMond p. 235) (Chase p. 227, 244) 5. There is a fancy wedding/ball/polo match (DuMond p. 234) (Chase p. 222, 255) 6. Her female friend comforts her and she makes a decision because of her feelings for the prince. (DuMond p. 237) (Chase p. 234, 257) 10. A lie separates the lovers, the heroine runs away, and the hero runs after her 1. Secrets are revealed that dash their hopes and the press humiliates the royal family. She is unfairly blamed for everything and has to leave immediately, leaving all of the pretty things behind. (DuMond p. 242) (Chase p. 261-269) 2. She is back at home in the states working in the coffee shop/bar again, heartbroken over the prince. (DuMond p. 248) (Chase p. 281) 3. The prince reaffirms his commitment to her in a dramatic, public way. (DuMond p. 254) (Chase p. 287) 4. They get married and live happily ever after. (DuMond p. 255) (Chase p. 296)
There were some points that didn’t happen in the same place in both books:
• the makeover scene in which she is polished to perfection by professionals (DuMond p. 54) (Chase p. 194), • the visit to the orphanage that shows the prince’s charitable side (DuMond p. ) (Chase p. ) • they ride a motorcycle together (DuMond p. ) (Chase p. ) • the heroine’s parents’ backstory in which they die in an accident and her father figure has a breakdown and is never the same (DuMond p. 233) (Chase p. ) • the security threat side plot in which a jealous ex-lover shows up in their bedroom and (indirectly) tries to kill the protagonist. (DuMond p. 212) (Chase p. ) • The prince is named Nicholas and the heroine’s friend at the palace is named Esmerelda.
But overall, the plot overlaps occur in the same order in both books. They even show some smaller structures indicative of the author's working style.
89 This comparison requires a control variable and I will use a similar book from the catalog of Nora Roberts: The Playboy Prince. In comparison to the comparison between Part Time Princess and Royally Screwed, these plot overlaps are less specific and less consecutively ordered.
Royally Screwed vs. The Playboy Prince 1. We learn that the prince chafes at his responsibilities and must get married to an appropriate woman, but he prefers sex appeal. (Roberts p. 4) (Chase p. 6) 2. He has to deal with the public and make public appearances. (Roberts p. 7) (Chase p. 5) 3. There are dangers associated with his status. (Roberts p. 9) (Chase p. 7) 4. We meet the heroine’s friend. (Roberts p. 16) (Chase p. 26) 5. Royal security is always close at hand. (Roberts p. 19) (Chase p. 32) 6. The heroine meets her competition. (Roberts p. 27) (Chase p. 204) 7. He tries to seduce the heroine, but she resists. (Roberts p. 30) (Chase p. 31) 8. We are introduced to the hero’s luxurious home. (Roberts p. 31) (Chase p. 187) 9. The hero and heroine encounter children. (Roberts p. 35) (Chase p. 68)
90 10. He turns up the heat for the second time and she resists. (Roberts p. 42) (Chase p. 85) 11. The hero is reminded that the heroine is off limits. (Roberts p. 48) (Chase p. 185) 12. They go on a little drive together. (Roberts p. 50) (Chase p. 123) 13. He describes his reputation as a playboy prince. (Roberts p. 58) (Chase p. 6) 14. She has to get dressed up for a party. (Roberts p. 61) (Chase p. 195) 15. At the party, she sees him with a sexy woman who wants him, but he rejects her. (Roberts p. 63) (Chase p. 201) 16. We learn that his mother is dead. (Roberts p. 139) (Chase p. 5) 17. She gets a nice dress to wear to a ball. (Roberts p. 163) (Chase p. 196) 18. The obligatory makeover scene. (Roberts p. 190) (Chase p. 194) 19. She is given some gaudy jewelry. (Roberts p. 194) (Chase p. ) 20. They get married and live happily ever after.
Part Time Princess vs. The Playboy Prince 1. The prince is very attractive and she is sent on a secret mission to be of interest to him but not to sleep with him. (Roberts p. 15) (DuMond p. 60) 2. We meet the prince and he is a rogue. (Roberts p. 15) (DuMond p. 10) 3. We meet the heroine’s friend in the palace. (Roberts p. 16) (DuMond p. 96) 4. Royal security is always close at hand. (Roberts p. 19) (DuMond p. 152) 5. We meet the bombshell/competition/prostitute. (Roberts p. 19, 27) (DuMond p. 163) 6. She struggles with her professionalism and her role as a woman. (Roberts p. 24) (DuMond p. 85) 7. He tries to kiss her but she resists. (Roberts p. 30) (DuMond p. 131) 8. We are introduced to her luxurious environment. (Roberts p. 31) (DuMond p. 145) 9. The hero and heroine encounter children. (Roberts p. 35) (DuMond p. 162, ) 10. He turns up the heat for the second time and she resists. (Roberts p. 42) (DuMond p. 84) 11. The hero is reminded that the heroine is off limits. (Roberts p. 48) (DuMond p. 130) 12. He turns on the heat again. She resists. (Roberts p. 59) (DuMond p. 89) 13. She has to get dressed up for a party. (Roberts p. 61) (DuMond p. 147) 14. The hero is upset when he is rejected. (Roberts p. 67) (DuMond p. 131) 15. She meets a representative of the person who is paying her to be in the palace. (Roberts p. 71) (DuMond p. 31, 223) 16. The hero finds out her true reason for being in the palace. (Roberts p. 115) (DuMond p. 240) 17. She gets a nice dress to wear to a big event. (Roberts p. 165) (DuMond p. 181) 18. The obligatory makeover scene. (Roberts p. 190) (DuMond p. 54) 19. They get married and live happily ever after.
91 Section 16 a.) The DaVinci Code is the example that authors give when they tell one another that this form of plagiarism is impossible to take to a court, but they may not have considered that cases are not always well presented or considered and corruption is possible. The judge in that case was subsequently given a nice publishing deal. b.) In this section, I will analyze two books that Dan Brown used as templates to construct his bestselling novel. He lied about the sources of his inspiration and earned 150 million dollars with the material he gathered.
92 Daughter of God vs. Vatican Boys 1. We learn that the female protagonist has been kidnapped and separated from the male protagonist because she knows something that the Catholic church does not want known. (Perdue p. 22) (Dunn p. 39) 2. We are introduced to the notion that there are two shrouds of Turin and should knowledge of the second shroud ever emerge, the unified power of the Catholic church will be destroyed and that is why a mercenary has been employed to find it before anyone else can use it to fragment the monolithic power of the church. (Perdue p. 31) (Dunn p. 5) 3. The protagonists are covertly pursued by the mercenary employed by the Catholic church. (Perdue p. 41) (Dunn p. 7) 4. One of the protagonists is traumatized by the kidnapping. (Perdue p. 44) (Dunn p. 39) 5. She escapes from her prison/asylum. (Perdue p. 213) (Dunn p. 39) 6. The man who employs the mercenary is hoping that when he gets the relic, he will become the next Pope. (Perdue 229) (Dunn p. 5) 7. The protagonist needs to get into a bank account in order to access the relic. (Perdue p. 304) (Dunn p. 105) 8. There is a scene in which the pope is informed of what has happened. (Perdue p. 409) (Dunn p. 205)
Daughter of God vs. Da Vinci Code
1. The opening image is of a museum-like space filled with priceless art. (Perdue p. 5) (Brown p. 5) 2. The academic female protagonist (Zoe/Sophie) enters the space. (Perdue p. 5) (Brown p. 75) 3. The handsome, male professor of ancient symbology/philosophy and the female academic discuss an ancient relic related to the role of women in the Catholic church. (Perdue p. 10) (Brown p. 180) 4. The man and woman discuss how the relic implies that a woman was also a messiah and that this threatens the Catholic church’s power. (Perdue p. 10) (Brown p. 320) 5. We meet a mercenary employed by the Catholic church to secure a relic that threatens the church’s power. (Perdue p. 31) (Brown p. 25) 6. The man and woman are covertly pursued by the mercenary employed by the Catholic church. (Perdue p. 41) (Brown p. 49) 7. The woman seeks out the man because she knows that he knows something important that she needs. (Perdue p. 50) (Brown p. 100)
93 8. She knows that there is a key to finding a sacred religious relic on the back of a rare painting and this leads to them being pursued by men with guns. (Perdue p. 56, 61) (Brown p. 180, 182) 9. The protagonists are covertly pursued by a mercenary employed by the Catholic church. He is unrelated to the men who had pursued them with guns. (Perdue p. 72) (Brown p. 205) 10. They go into a high security, luxurious, Swiss bank in Zurich to collect the infomation necessary to find the relic. It is in a safe-deposit box, but their efforts are complicated by being framed for a murder and listed on interpol. The key to getting access to this box came from the object found behind the painting. (Perdue p. 304) (Brown p. 236) 11. They descend into the basement of the bank and are introduced to a box that is described in detail. It contains secrets that would change history and destroy the Vatican. (Perdue p. 314) (Brown p. 254) 12. The manager of the bank has a gun and attempts to steal the contents of the box from the protagonists. (Perdue p. 318) (Brown p. 281) 13. They discuss the church history with an expert and learn about how men’s greed for power has led to the suppression of knowledge of women’s role in history. (Perdue p. ) (Brown p. 449) 14. They use a code from the box taken from the bank to retrieve the relic from a secret place. (Perdue p. 368) (Brown p. 495, 523) 15. One of their helpers betrays them and tries to steal the relic from them and murder them. (Perdue p. 373) (Brown p. 539) 16. The mercenary dies. (Perdue p. 396) (Brown p. 556)
The Vatican Boys vs. The Da Vinci Code
1. An Italian man is murdered because of something he knew about the Catholic church. (Brown p. 15) (Dunn p. 1) 2. A ruthless, well-trained mercenary is hired by the Catholic church to find a secret relic. (Brown p. 14) (Dunn p. 7) 3. Thigh wounds from a cliche (an unusual torture device) are described. They represent the abusive, mental conditioning methods of the cult. (Brown p. 23) (Dunn p. 11) 4. The mercenary is sent to search for the relic in a specific church in a foreign land. (Brown p. 24) (Dunn p. 52) 5. We get a lengthy introduction to the perspective/lifestyle of the central character. (Catherine/Langdon) (Brown p. 27-44) (Dunn p. 9-42) 6. We return to the mercenary’s perspective and begin to understand how the Opus Dei functions as a very wealthy and powerful cult that makes its members crazy. (Brown p. 45-50) (Dunn p. 43-46)
94 7. We are introduced to a safe place of worship and a nun who is not in the thrall of the Opus Dei. (Brown p. 62-64) (Dunn p. 42, 67) 8. We get an info dump about the history of the Opus Dei (Brown p. 63) (Dunn p. 75) 9. We learn that the female lead is competent and knowledgeable about codes, the Opus Dei murderer, and the dangers posed to the protagonist. (Brown p. 76) (Dunn p. 76) 10. We learn that the protagonist is being framed for a crime committed by others – a crime the protagonist was trying to avert/solve. (Brown p. 95) (Dunn p. 76) 11. The female lead is disgusted with a man she had once idolized after seeing him engaging in something immoral. (Brown p. 106) (Dunn p. 77, 80) 12. The mercenary reaches the church where information about the relic is located. (Brown p. 125) (Dunn p. 63) 13. The mercenary discovers that the relic is not where he expected it to be. He has been tricked. (Brown p. 176) (Dunn p. 65) 14. The female lead is haunted by the immorality she observed from the religious older man she respected. (Brown p. 196) (Dunn p. 77) 15. The protagonist is on the run and in search of a treasure that only she can find because she knows where to find the codes. (Brown p. 200) (Dunn p. 78) 16. The priest who hired the mercenary is upset that he still doesn’t have the treasure. (Brown p. 205) (Dunn p. 81) 17. We learn that the treasure is hidden in a bank that deals with the church and the protagonist knows how to get to it. (Brown p. 231) (Dunn p. 77, 81) 18. The protagonist learns that the people who want the treasure also want the sacred relic. (Brown p. 231) (Dunn p. 92) 19. Through the eyes of the mercenary and/or his controller we learn that whoever controls the relic will control the Catholic church. (Brown p. 235) (Dunn p. 96) 20. We learn that large sums of money were distributed from the Vatican Bank to the Opus Dei in order to secure the relic. The man given the money is using murder and torture to attain the goal. (Brown p. 234) (Dunn p. 98) 21. The protagonist has the code to unlock a bank account that leads to the treasure sought by the Opus Dei. (Brown p. 252) (Dunn p. 105) 22. We learn precisely why widespread knowledge of the treasure would upend Catholic teachings and power. (Brown p. 306-356) (Dunn p. 160) 23. We learn how oppressive the Opus Dei has been of women. (Brown p. 306-365) (Dunn p. 98) 24. A man pursuing the protagonist is taken hostage and given to a brotherhood that is protecting the relic sought by the Catholic church. (Brown p. 369) (Dunn p. 82, 104) 25. A chapter describes how the people chasing the protagonist are always one step behind. (Brown p. 392) (Dunn p. 108)
95 26. The protagonist and an expert in sacred relics travel from Paris to London via private jet while carrying a sacred relic that can only be made known to the world through access to an encoded treasure. (Brown p. 394) (Dunn p. 151) 27. The protagonist makes progress in tracking down the code that will unlock the treasure they seek. The woman knows the first set of codes and the password for the second layer of decryption is rather simple and deciphered by the man. (Brown p. 403) (Dunn p. 165) 28. The head of the Opus Dei who is pursuing the protagonist and who had hired the mercenary flies/flew to London from Rome on a private jet in an attempt to catch the protagonist and secure the relic. (Brown p. 413) (Dunn p. 190) 29. There is a confrontation betweeen the protagonist and the mercenary who was sent to collect the relic. A substantial sum of money is also at play. (Brown p. 472) (Dunn p. 177) 30. They are searching for a clue to unlock the treasure when the mercenary’s employer sneaks up on them. (Brown p. 472) (Dunn p. 185) 31. The mercenary employed by the Opus Dei priest has been poisoned. (Brown p. 503) (Dunn p. 177) 32. The protagonist’s most trusted assistant had betrayed them all in favor of his personal agenda. (Brown p. 530) (Dunn p. 215) 33. The Opus Dei’s hopes of taking over the Catholic church by using the holy relic are dashed because of the criminal actions of the priest and his mercenary. (Brown p. 544) (Dunn p. 208) 34. The mercenary finds God’s love and is saved, no longer intent on murder and vengeance. (Brown p. 556) (Dunn p. 182) 35. The betrayer ends up in the hands of the police. (Brown p. 555) (Dunn p. 216) 36. The female protagonist discovers that the secret code to a treasure is a place that reminded her of her childhood . It was a place she had been as a child. (Brown p. 574) (Dunn p. 121) 37. The female protagonist returns to a maternal figure. (Brown p. 574) (Dunn p. 216)
It appears that Brown borrowed heavily from two novels: The Vatican Boys and Daughter of God. Whereas Brown used 37 unique, roughly consecutive plot elements from The Vatican Boys, he also used 16 roughly consecutive plot elements from Daughter of God that were not in The Vatican Boys.
Did Brown notice that Daughter of God borrowed 8 points from The Vatican Boys and then decide that he could do the same sort of copying — only more? Perhaps he thought that readers would have a hard time understanding the difference between 8, 16, and 37. It is sort
96 of like the difference between copying a sentence or a scene that is 8, 16, or 37 words or events long.
When the page number overlaps are roughly consecutive, they form a roughly diagonal line. When they are randomly distributed through the books, they are randomly distributed through the chart.
97 Section 17 a.) Many of these books have been produced through the assistance of automated writing tools that spin text or that extract the skeleton of one novel and paste the flesh of other novels onto it, as when GPT3 is given a paragraph and it returns a similar paragraph that it extracts from a database. In many ways, this is a sort of translator, and some of the oldest spinning tools merely use translation tools, like Google translate. b.) Murakami is one Penguin Random House author who has stretched what it means to translate a book from one language into another --- far beyond what we typically think translation means. Translations of his books have often removed 25% of the text and changed the character types and settings into a more American framework. c.) In his book, Norwegian Wood I think he has composed a compilation of writing from young men that has been translated into Japanese and then into English.
98 I must admit that I have not read any Murakami books aside from a collection of short stories about love, but I did get a sense of how he constructs his work and I think his success tells us something about the publishing community and the reading public. When I learned that English translations of his Japanese work often cut out a quarter of the text while changing place settings and character types to fit a less Japanese context, it made me think about the line between translation and creating a new work. It also made me think about the ways in which my book was plagiarized by ten authors right after I published it. Five of those authors were supported by Penguin Random House.
In some way, they merely translated my story into a new voice, genre, or perspective and didn’t credit my work as being the source material.
Since translation today is often assisted by AI and book generation is increasingly assisted by AI, we should all be aware of its quirks and how it degrades the meaning conveyed in the original artwork. How terrible it would be if the higher quality originals never made it to the public while the marketplace got flooded with shoddy rip offs.
Work composed with the assistance of AIs tends to have the appearance of good writing at first glance, but when you try to decipher the meaning conveyed, you start to wonder if you’re just too stupid to understand it.
Sometimes people find the result lovely, even if it is nonsense. Consider the mythical land of Hav composed by stringing together the most interesting quotes from a collection of travel writing. Perhaps Norwegian Wood is similarly strung together from the observations of a collection of clueless, young men and our dislike for the protagonist is just a symptom of our dislike of that particular demographic.
In any case, Murakami’s work has been criticized for being lyrical yet meaningless and I’ve wondered if this is just an artifact of an AI assistant or of the translation from Japanese in which 20% of the manuscript gets removed by the translators and place settings and character types are made less Japanese.
I’m not so sure that is the case. Murakami basically acknowledges that his work lacks any definite meaning and is just composed of a meandering stream of characters coming together and separating.
“Kafka on the shore provides several riddles, but there aren’t any solutions provided. Instead, several of these riddles combine, and through their interaction,
99 the possibility of a solution takes shape. And the form this solution takes will be different for each reader. To put it another way, the riddles form part of the solution. It’s hard to explain, but that’s the sort of novel I set out to write.” Murakami
This makes me wonder if the stories are AI generated from translations that are patched together by an author who doesn’t think that hard about making the patchwork meaningful. A reader might accept a meaningless work as a parable about the human condition or protest that writing without narrative logic is not a story — it is meaningless and does the reader a disservice since the primary job of a writer is to give the reader a lesson in how life works, not to torture them with an exercise in existentialism.
When it comes to existentialism, I think showing instead of telling is tantamount to torture. The short stories I read from Murakami had narrative tension, structure, and some meaning, but they still felt like they lacked a definitive conclusion. One was like a retelling of Kafka’s Metamorphosis but in reverse. The man had been transformed back into a human and he had the hots for a hunchbacked locksmith. How romantic! But nothing brought the story to a close. It was just left hanging.
My book has been compared to Murakami and I’m not sure that I like that comparison. We both like absurd situations that provoke laughter and confusion, but I think I am much more tied to the necessity of narrative logic, completed story arcs, and tying up loose ends. If anything, his writing reminds me of one of the books that plagiarized mine — The Midnight Library. In both Murakami and my plagiarist, there is the strong flavor of fake profundity — saying something obvious in so many words that the reader is tricked into thinking he just learned something.
Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back. That’s part of what it means to be alive. But inside our heads – at least that’s where I imagine it – there’s a little room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in awhile, let in fresh air, change the water in the flower vases. In other words, you’ll live forever in your own private library.” Kafka on the Shore, Murakami
If Murakami’s writing is pumped up on AI steroids or the product of translating texts into Japanese and then into English, it honestly wouldn’t surprise me if my plagiarist was a software package that five different authors used to create their bestsellers. If a database
100 scanner feeds a book into a software package and then a user filters that book out of the mass of text, who was the plagiarist?
101 Conclusion In this book, I have demonstrated that the publishing industry has a tendency to rewrite novels by shifting the perspective or location used while keeping the basic details, structure, and meaning of the story intact. They are doing this with the help of complicit agents and authors who hide behind the legitimacy of IP book contracting and they are using software packages that hide the stolen works behind the guise of code. To the extent that large publishing houses defend these authors, they are also complicit. My book has been stolen ten times within three years and I think the industry needs to recognize this type of theft, especially given the dangers implicit in the automation of these thefts. When a book is stolen in this fashion, the stolen product only delivers a cross section of the original, stripping away meaning and reducing the multidimensional messages of the original. If readers are only exposed to these stripped down works, it will cripple their ability to think critically and look at issues from multiple perspectives at once. In short, it will make them into stupid, black/white thinkers who lack whole object relations. People who lack whole object relations tend to make extreme, childish decisions that lack justice or balance and we do not want to live in a world that is filled with such people. If you ask an average novelist on the internet what they know about copyright, they might tell you that because Dan Brown won his case against Jack Dunn, it is always okay to borrow freely from the work of other authors and call it inspiration or fair use. As long as the words are different, no copyright is infringed if the story is copied because ‘there is nothing new under the sun’ and ‘there are no new stories.’
This would be like an artist claiming that:
As long as the brush strokes are different, no copyright is infringed if a painting is copied because all art is derivative and we all interpret art in different ways.
These authors and artists might soon wake up to the reality that they haven’t understood copyright law and they didn’t understand the implications of Dan Brown’s case either. In fact, that case may someday be thrown out because of corruption. After all, the judge did get a sweet publishing contract after his ruling.
Compared to plagiarized novels, cases of plagiarism in visual art are so much easier to prove because it only takes a second to see when one artist has copied from another. It may take days to read a pair of novels.
Consider the woman who took an iconic photograph of the musician Prince which Andy Warhol subsequently turned into prints that he sold.
102 Orange Prince 1984, Warhol, copied from Goldsmith A US circuit court has recently clarified copyright law with a judgment that when Warhol’s print was sold for use on a magazine cover, the rights of the photographer were infringed. Only three years earlier, the court had ruled in the opposite direction, with a more liberal application of the meaning of ‘transformative’ and ‘fair use’. The new ruling cautions judges to avoid making subjective judgments about the meaning of works of art.
“The decision helps vindicate the rights of photographers who risk having their works misappropriated for commercial use by famous artists under the guise of fair use,” he said. [The ruling] repeatedly compared the copyright issues to what occurs when books are made into movies. The movie, it noted, is often quite different from the book but yet retains copyright obligations. The appeals court also said the unique nature of Warhol’s art should have no bearing on whether the artwork is sufficiently transformative to be deemed “fair use” of a copyright. “We feel compelled to clarify that it is entirely irrelevant to this analysis that “each Prince
103 Series work is immediately recognizable as a ‘Warhol,’” the appeals court said. “Entertaining that logic would inevitably create a celebrity-plagiarist privilege; the more established the artist and the more distinct that artist’s style, the greater leeway that artist would have to pilfer the creative labors of others.” https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/us-court-sides-photographer-fight- warhol-art-76706028
A more technical analysis of the issue can be found in:
• https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107 • https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/92-1292.ZS.html (Orbison v.s 2LiveCrew) • http://copyright.nova.edu/warhol-v-goldsmith/ #!
As an author who has had her first novel ripped off by several high-profile, bestselling novelists, this is a relief for me to read.
Warhol’s representatives argued that Warhol’s work is always transformative – even when he is merely copying a photograph or a design on a Campell’s soup can and I can agree that this is an overzealous definition of ‘transformative’. What is the meaning of Orange Prince that is distinct from the original photograph? They both say the same thing: Prince is pretty and can make eyes at a camera.
Perhaps the Campell’s soup can is different because Warhol wouldn’t have needed to use a photograph of a Campbell’s soup can to create his artwork. He could have copied from the can directly... Poor Prince. He’s been turned into the equivalent of a can of Campbell’s soup. He lost the right to his face when he left his house and let someone snap a photo of him.
To put this into a larger context, Goldsmith had only been indirectly paid by Warhol for the right to make a single copy for a single publication. He then made 16 copies that he sold in other venues. Still, it is a reminder to an artist to be careful about licensing work. You might lose a lot of control over the product.
Then again, in the wild west of the internet, many artists are under the impression that anything goes.. at least until they become famous for their work — then the knives come out. In the photographs below, you see the work of a small-time artist who had created an art exhibit made up of 30 goddess images that she had copied from images she had found on the internet. She got into trouble when her exhibit was broadcast on the local news and other artists recognized unauthorized copies of their work.
104 Many artists are under the impression that copying is okay as long as you modify the copy and to an extent, this has to be true. The question is how much modification is required before a work can be considered to be original or transformative.
I think it is possible to quantify this. Consider the comparison of the original art and the copy made by the local artist.
105 All we have to do is count the similarities. 1. It is an oil painting and the dominant color is green. 2. The background is made up of foliage. 3. There is a pregnant woman. 4. Her skin is pale. 5. Her expression is placid and knowing. 6. She is holding a spear covered in Celtic markings. 7. Her left hand is making a distinctive shape. 8. There is a swirl on her stomach. 9. Her green dress has a notched collar. 10. Her red hair is braided and it swirls up the spear in an S shape that twirls around the spear. 11. Some of her hair is free and blowing to the right across her breast. 12. Some of her hair is in a thick braid that falls down onto her belly. 13. Her right hand rests on her belly. 14. She is sitting behind a small, black cauldron filled with flames.
106 It does seem to me that the number 14 keeps turning up in studies of the uniqueness of artworks, be they literary or visual. Fourteen factorial is a very large number and it does relate to the maximum capacity of human working memory. If enough of the fourteen elements are unique enough, this might provide a quantitative metric for diagnosing copyright infringement. For a literary work, perhaps it is necessary for the elements to be presented in mostly the same order in both books. In my description of the painting, I named the elements with an order that moved from the background towards the foreground.
For the Orange Prince image, perhaps the analysis could be more mathematical.
1. The ratio of the distance between the irises and the distance between the eyebrow and iris is constant. 2. The ratio of the distance between the chin and the…. 3.
In comparison, the ten bestselling books I’ve identified as being copies of my work shared between 35 and 55 distinguishing features or unique plot elements that occur in roughly the same order in the original and the copied work.
• Sheldon echoed back a portrait of a stupid, ugly wretch who is desperate for community, status, and affection, even from someone lowlier than her. • Tate echoed back a picture of how the system works against people, stealing their power and giving it to others. • Clarke echoed back a sad picture of an abused cult member who didn’t escape with an intact mind, • Montimore echoed back a picture of a self-absorbed woman who couldn’t make good decisions about men, children, or her mother. • Haig echoed back a picture of a spoiled young woman who is too distracted by what she could have done with her life to make something of the life she has. • Copeland echoed back a story about the dangers of AI and concentrating information and power in the hands of stupid people. • Ishiguro echoed back a picture of a sick, unloved girl with a narcissistic mother, an imaginary friend, and her desire to be seen by elites standing in the way of her desire to be in a loving relationship.
Just as Warhol’s Orange Prince took out only a cross-section of the photographer’s more nuanced, multidimensional portrait, Each image created by my ‘bestselling’ plagiarists
107 contains the same picture I painted but with different amounts of pressure applied to different plot lines.
While I appreciate these cartoonish derivative works, I still think that tracing from an unknown author’s work is wrong unless you attribute it and attempt to give some compensation if what has been taken is valuable enough to sell.
Not only that, I didn’t give anyone the license to create a portrait of me for public consumption. Prince, in some way, did – when he allowed the magazine to take his photograph. In contrast, I created a sort of literary self-portrait and ten people stole it.
A mean person might respond to this by saying “Who do you think you are, special snowflake? You're not that unique.”
I think it is possible to quantify uniqueness.
A snowflake has six arms and the shape of a snowflake depends on where those arms begin to branch out from a basic hexagonal seed. If the branching location can occur anywhere, then
108 snowflakes are all unique, but if space is quantized and the branching locations can only occur at discrete locations, then there will be a finite number of possible snowflake types among the 35 basic shapes of snowflakes. If stories are like snowflakes, does this mean that there is an upper bound on the number of possible life trajectories available to a given person or story. Once you have certain initial conditions, how far can you extrapolate into a melted future?
Many believe that there are 7 basic story plots. • Overcoming the Monster. • Rags to Riches. • The Quest. • Voyage and Return. • Comedy. • Tragedy. • Rebirth.
Yet when I try to categorize my first novel, I find that it doesn’t fit into any one box. It fits into all of them and that is one thing that makes it special. If I try to generalize, I’d categorize it a sort of an Icarus tale and such a tale looks different if it is told purely in the moment (Individutopia, The Midnight Library and The Red Labyrinth) or purely looking back after the fall (Oona Out of Order and Piranesi) – but it still describes the same basic arc in space and time: a curious, naive young person tries something new and gets brain damage. It is both funny and tragic when a monster is defeated and there is a rags to riches rebirth after a quest to understand the world. It is epic.. an allegory about life.
Of the 35 different types of dramatic situations or the 35 different types of snowflakes, my story and those that copied it all fall into the dramatic situations about madness category, so an accused plagiarist arguing that their story is unique enough might argue that I can’t claim credit for the bones of such a basic story type. I agree with that.
Nevertheless, if an author reads a book and recognizes a familiar structure — like a Christmas tree, and they continue studying that tree so that they can decorate it with similar ornaments in the same locations in order to achieve the same meaningful and fresh effect achieved by the original author, they have done something wrong. A non-plagiarist reads a book and doesn’t look at it again while they compose their work.
109 What I claim credit for is nothing more than a sequence of details that are sufficiently unique and that wouldn’t have been accidentally remembered. This doesn’t require any knowledge of the theory of story structure or Christmas tree decoration to understand.
The plagiarized reproduction of these meaningful sequences required that the plagiarist read a few pages and wrote their own scene, read a few more pages and wrote another scene, and so on. None of this has much of anything to do with how stories are categorized or analyzed. It is just a simple matter of how human working memory functions and copies sequences. There are organic and inorganic inspiration methods and the inorganic method involves usage of an artificial memory in the form of someone else’s book sitting right next to the keyboard.
• There are 35 genres • There are 35 story types • There are 35 types of snowflakes
So what? This seems to represent a limit in human pattern recognition abilities when using artificial memory enhancement in the form of 2-D images.
• Story plots are constructed with 5-10 mythemes that are each 5-10 elements in length. • Chapters are constructed with 5-10 paragraphs that are each 5-10 sentences in length. • Sentences are constructed with 5-10 words that are each 5-10 letters in length. • The human working memory can hold around 8 elements in sequence.
So what? This seems to represent a limit in human pattern recognition abilities without the aid of artificial memory enhancement in the form of 2-D images.
Each half of the brain has a working memory bank and cognition involves constantly comparing sets of ~8 elements from different halves of our brain. Five times seven is 35. Four times nine is 36. Four times eight is 32. Perhaps we all have one of these combinations of working memory in our minds and, just like snowflakes, perhaps there are 35 different types of human brain structure.. and with neuroplasticity the structures may change throughout a person’s lifecycle.
So what? We can approximate nature with mathematics. Good for us.
Worrying about these issues just obfuscates and that is something that many people love to do to bedazzle their audience and attempt to win an argument. It is called a gish gallop and it convinces insecure people who tend to believe in the Emperor’s New Clothes.
110 The simple fact is that people don’t accidentally remember lengthy, unfamiliar sequences of 35-100 unfamiliar details. All of my plagiarists have used such lengthy sequences from my book that they must have either used a tool that copied from my story or they must have repeatedly referred to my story in order to create their copy.
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