Last night

[james_davis_nicoll]

I dreamed someone had flooded local used bookstores with plausible but fake vintage books. Not replicas but new books written in the style of olden time authors.

The only one I remember specifically was a Rissa Kerguelen novel.

Comments

[theresawright]

F.M. Busby? If I were going to fake a pile of books, I'd go with Asimov. It's entirely plausible for someone to discover an old steamer chest full of unpublished "lesser" Asimov.

Of course, it's a bit much to expect a dream to feature economically sound criminal decisions.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm a reasonably-well-read SF fan, but if I was presented with a stack of 50 Asimov novels and I recognized none of the titles, I'd just think "Yeah, he really did churn them out."

--
Nathan H.

[kedamono]

If it was a scam, then it would have to be a reason. Perhaps the perpetrators want to flog a rare, unpublished manuscript of a famous author will be sold at Sothebys, only, its a forgery. But to bolster it's provenance, they have produced a series of short novels by said author that tie into the manuscript. The publishing company they are using was moderate in size in the 1920s, but ran a foul of the Great Depression and didn't spawn any progeny. The Manuscript was to be their crowning achievement... all for naught. Great story, and the forgers might make a few bob off of there fake.

[(Anonymous)]

You've read Haldeman's The Hemingway Hoax, right?

[movingfinger]

This is an interesting idea...but (ignoring the dream aspect) why it would be done is hard to come up with.

You've heard about the recent thefts of unpublished manuscripts, right? I can't work out the why on that one either, unless someone's starting up a massive copyright-violating publishing scheme. Which is all too plausible lately.

[james_davis_nicoll]

And someone hacked Netgalley.

[zeborah]

Sell them on the black market to rich and unscrupulous investors who just want to own them.

[movingfinger]

Is there such a thing as a collectible e-book file?

With physical books, it can be very difficult to know what's going to take off in value or is truly scarce and of interest. With an unpublished, pre-final-edit electronic manuscript, the interest is, as far as I can imagine, scholarly only. Unless, as I said, you want to start a graymarket in ebooks, which are already cheap.

[zeborah]

Ah - hm, that I don't know. I was thinking physical manuscripts. Still if it's from a well-known author I can imagine there'd be a certain degree of fan interest. If it's from an unknown/less-known author... idk, storage is cheap and maybe they'll be well-known in the future??

[violsva]

The thing is, if you're going to try to make a profit in ebooks without paying authors, it'd be much easier to just use public domain works.

[ba_munronoe]

Were they any good?

[james_davis_nicoll]

They were _convincing_. Cover art on Rissa Triumphant looked like the Berkley edition of Rissa Kergulean.

[agoodwinsmith]

Given that writing in the appropriate style and word usage, and the publishing in appropriate paper and binding and printing methods, and the aging the items to a gently-used-but-loved state would all be costly, someone wants to accomplish something.

If they are readable enough, the contents might be the point - providing "evidence" that some fact or method or thing was already present in the past so somebody somewhere cannot copyright it now because it must already be in the public domain - or somebody's fortunate grandchild just happens to have inherited the copyright from some side relative who won it is a poker game, or somthing.

Or it's similar to the assorted metal pylon thingies which were popping up all over, for a still unknown reason (I haven't heard of any new sightings since Christmas eve, yes/no?).

I don't know whether or not any of these would be worth it in real life, but they would be interesting novels to read. ;)

[rdm]

There is a whole series of books where one of the underlying premises is the existence of a police division whose role is to investigate such things, and where Literary Crimes are a major illicit enterprise.

[ba_munronoe]

The Thursday Next series?

[rdm]

Indeed.

[violsva]

I am absolutely certain I read a short story in which this was evidence of alternate universes, but can I remember any identifying information about it? No.

[(Anonymous)]

"Books" by Peni R. Griffin (Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, November 1991)?

Description from Tvtropes:

"In downtown San Antonio there is an interdimensional bookstore, Brock's, where the protagonist's female friend gets him books to read while he is in the hospital—books written by Harriet Vane, Ariadne Oliver, and S. Morgenstern. ."

[agharta75]

Rissa Kerguelen? Oh, great Cthulhu, why?

[(Anonymous)]

The latest number of magazine Private Eye was chuckling over elderly African adventure novelist Wilbur Smith announcing several new titles and not mentioning that, as you probably are surmising already, other people are writing them, probably continuing quite a while after his death.

I was shocked.

I thought that all that had happened several years ago.

I mean, it did, but with other authors.

But no, I was right! He did it eight years ago. It says here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilbur_Smith#Later_career:_Move_to_HarperCollins_and_using_co-writers

Except that he survived. Corporeally.

Robert Carnegie

[carbonel]

I would be happy to read a new (but pre-brain eater) Rissa Kerguelen novel!

[lampwick]

There's a Martin Amis (I think?) book where an author develops an all-consuming envy of another, better-selling author, and counterfeits an earlier book of the better-selling author, full of awfulness and missteps. And then, as I remember, nothing is done with this, even though I thought it was more interesting than most of the rest of the novel.