Sunday 18 May 2008

The Ballad of the Dark Prince, the talentless plagiarist and the ghostly ghostwriter

This sordid tale actually came to light several months ago, but for those of you who didn't catch it first time around, here's a brief overview of what happened: 

A 'writer' by the name of Lanaia Lee stole the first chapter of the late, great David Gemmell's novel Dark Prince and passed it off as her own work. Her 'book' was called Of Atlantis. 

Naturally, she was found out. When confronted, Lee denied all knowledge. When she realised no one believed her claims that it was pure coincidence, she then changed tact and invented a bullshit story about how she had hired a ghostwriter to work on her novel, and it was he who had committed the plagiarism. She then went on to accuse her detractors of orchestrating a smear campaign against her and promised - and this is in her own words - "divine pagan retribution" against those trying to 'frame' her.  

But if all this is old news, why am I bringing it up again? Well, apart from the fact it's fun to take the piss out of idiotic, deluded, talentless liars, I thought I ought to mention this because Lanaia Lee is once again doing the rounds, hawking this shitty book of hers, published by some vanity press. She posted a shameless plug on sffworld, which was thankfully locked shortly after.  Apparently the Gemmell material has been removed from the book, but that still doesn't excuse her pathetic previous actions. 

If any of you - and I'm thinking of my fellow bloggers here - find yourselves with a copy of Of Atlantis, then I urge you to burn it/piss on it/eat it/feed it to your dog/rip it up/ jettison it into outer space. Apart from the fact that Lee is a deluded moron with serious issues, her book is probably so bad it'll cause your eyes to burst into flame. I've only read the excerpt she provided, which given that it's written by David Gemmell is not much of an example of her work. I did however find a short story she had written, and it was terrible. It's logical to assume that Of Atlantis is just as bad. Furthermore, anyone that steals the legendary David Gemmell's work and pretends its their own - and then denies all knowledge of the plagiarism, AND gets Gemmell's name wrong (Gemmel, she calls him) deserves nothing, which no doubt is what she'll get. 

Oh dear, I've probably said too much. No doubt I'll get an email from Lee, like other people have done, threatening the wrath of her 'famous publicist' that she 'can't reveal the identity of until the time is right.' 

Whatever. Check out this amusing article for further information, a comparison of Lee's chapter and Gemmell's chapter, and a photo of Lee with a rather funny caption.

2 comments:

Todd Newton said...

Downright hilarious. It's absurd the lengths that people will go to when they are caught in an outright lie.

Grow up and write your own stuff... and if that's not good enough then I guess you're not cut out to be a writer, eh?

I really can't believe people like this even exist.

Anonymous said...

Great entry.

Lanaia is a bit of an idiot. Especially when people tried to help her and she wound up biting the hands that would save her.

She has a video on Youtube and the comments are a joke. She'll only post those comments that are favorable and/or kiss her ass. The ratings are locked out. That should give an idea of how much people think she sucks.

She's as bad a Ginger Simpson.