Where Man Peter, and More

Originally published January 30, 1998, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1263

Although I’m still getting letters sent in to “Where Man Peter,” the special-interest aspect of the column in which I asked for descriptions of oddities that folks in publishing have found in unsolicited manuscripts, something had been brought to my attention that deserves to be attended to immediately.

In the earlier column, I described how an alert reader brought a book I recalled as being titled Star Crash to my attention, back when I was working for Elsevier/Nelson books seventeen-plus years ago.

The book was virtually a word-for-word rip-off of a Gardner Fox book entitled Escape Across the Cosmos. Well, the following letter landed on my desk today from Greg Ketter of DreamHaven Books & Comics in Minneapolis. The alert Greg wrote:

 I very much enjoyed your column in CBG issue #1260 concerning the plagiarized Gardner Fox novel, Escape Across the Cosmos. I was wondering if you knew that your version is not the end of the story.

Star Chase (the actual title you referred to) as by Brian James Royal, is dedicated “For James Harvey, truly a grand uncle.” “James Harvey” was the author of a Manor Books title, Titans of the Universe. Titans was marketed with a very scantily clad female on the cover and was made to look like softcore pørņ. Star Chase was made to look like a young adult title. Do you see where I’m going with this?

Yes, Star Chase and Titans of the Universe are the same book. And yes, they are both Escape Across the Cosmos as well. “Harvey” or “Royal” are likely the same person, and an amazingly dishonest and stupid one at that. I’m sure that whoever it was thought that Gardner Fox’s book was obscure enough that no one would notice if he claimed it as his own. Little did this person know that science fiction readers are an omnivorous lot and someone would likely notice the theft.

It was great to hear this story from another angle. Keep ’em coming.

This story was becoming so Byzantine that I called Greg, who put me in touch with “Uncle Hugo’s Books,” and a fellow there named Scott in turn put me in touch with—as fate would have it—the fellow who alerted Elsevier/Nelson (and, as it so happened, me) to the disservice that had been done to Fox. Here now, as Paul Harvey (appropriately, although presumably no relation) would say, is the rest of the story:

Sometime in 1979/1980, someone (who’ll probably come forward after this column sees print) wrote to Locus in high dudgeon. He had read Titans of the Universe and was irate because he recognized it as being identical to the Fox book, save for the alteration of some character names and a rearranging of sentences in the first two paragraphs. Apparently misunderstanding what it was he had encountered, the letter writer believed that this was a scam on the part of the publishers to recycle an old book.

The complaint, and the name of the “author,” one James Harvey, stuck with a very thorough and knowledgeable fan with a gargantuan collection and an impressive memory. His name was, and is, Stuart Wells. Stuart, a voracious collector, acquired a copy of Star Chase and happened to notice the dedication which Greg Ketter quoted above. Not only that, but Star Chase was copyrighted in James Harvey’s name. The name “James Harvey” struck a chord with him, and he connected it to the complainant in Locus. Hauling out a copy of Escape Across the Cosmos, Stuart discovered that—sure enough—he had happened upon a second swiping of the Fox novel.

Greg and Scott helped me track down Stuart to follow up on what had happened nearly two decades ago. Stuart stopped collecting SF titles in 1990, having run out of room in amassing a assemblage of—so help me God—eight thousand books. And Stuart remembers very clearly what happened when he realized that Gardner Fox had been ripped off, not once, but twice.

It was Stuart Wells who alerted Elsevier/Nelson to the theft. He wound up speaking to the woman who was my boss at the time, and she asked him to send a copy of the original Fox novel for comparison. She also told him that Mr. “Brian James Royal” had submitted several other manuscripts for consideration. Stuart sent along the book, but for some reason it was misrouted into the slush pile and that’s how it eventually happened to land on my desk. I cracked it open, read it, and immediately alerted my boss to the plagiarism.

Star Chase never went back to press, so it never saw print with Fox’s name on it. The advance money was sent to Fox (at least she said it was) but she never informed Stuart of the outcome. Furthermore, she never told me about the additional manuscripts, and that’s a crying shame. I would have loved the opportunity, as would Stuart as well, to have taken the manuscripts and see if they too were lifted either from Fox novels or other science fiction works.

And the biggest mystery of all was: Who the hëll was Brian James Royal? Or James Harvey? Was either of them the real name of the plagiarist?

I wish that it had occurred to me, all those years ago, to try and get my hands on the contract and see if the author’s real name was on there. My suspicion is that my former boss wanted to hush things up as much as she could, so that she wouldn’t look like a fool for having bought a totally plagiarized manuscript. Because of that, the opportunity to track down the perpetrator, and the other potentially ripped-off novels he was trying to pedal, was lost.

One has to wonder at the type of mind that would not only engage in such bold-faced theft, but would then do everything he could to put himself in a position of being caught. Was he trying to be caught, or was he just so arrogant that he figured he could do anything and no one would notice? Was he simply a con artist, or a frustrated writer who was willing to do anything just to get a book in print? Does he have any conscience at all? Did he do it out of desperation to feed his family? Did he do it out of cynical opportunism.

Was he Gardner Fox’s biggest fan, rationalizing to himself that Fox’s story deserved to stay in print and he was going to make sure that they did—and if he pocketed some money while doing so, then what’s the harm? I’d dearly love to know.

***

I took the kids to Disneyland for the holidays. The previous New Year’s I was about as low as I’d ever been in my life, so this year I was determined to end the year on a completely high note. An equal and opposite reaction, as it were. And indeed, we were in the Magic Kingdom at the stroke of midnight (Pacific time), with fire works over the Magic Castle. It was serious great.

However, a couple of days before New Years, I was wandering around Fantasyland (appropriately) and noticed a couple of guards heading my way. Disney security guys in jackets and ties, side by side, which naturally meant that there was someone behind them of interest. Sure enough there were two more guards bringing up the rear, and in between this protective core of four guys was—

Well, I wasn’t sure.

Walking between them was a single individual, close to six feet tall, I thought, but it was hard to tell.

He/she/it/whatever was enveloped, head-to-toe, in robes. Head completely covered.

My first impression was that it was a Vorlon, only without the big helmet and wing-type shoulder things. Then I thought it was the wife of some high-and-mighty Arab muck-a-muck, the head of a harem or something. But I’ve seen women dressed in that style, and even then you can at least see the eyes. In this instance, not even the eyes were visible, obscured behind dark lenses. Then I thought it was the Elephant Man.

Then I saw a hand, or part of a hand, protruding from the sleeve, as I stepped to one side so the group could pass. The hand looked relatively masculine, but delicate, and the skin was ever-so-slightly dark, but very light.

And the combination of the skin color and the Elephant Man resemblance tipped it to me.

Just as they were passing, I said, just loudly enough to be heard by the group, “Nice disguise there, Michael.”

For the briefest of moments, although it might have been my imagination, the figure in the middle seemed to pause ever so slightly, and then it quickly went on its way.

The next day I happened to pass a Disney cop. This was a guy in full uniform with a park badge.

And I said to him, “Excuse me. This may sound like a very strange question but, the other day in the park, walking around here, I thought I saw—”

“Michael Jackson?” said the guard, nodding. “Yup. Every so often he comes here, and that’s always how he insists on doing it.”

That sounds pretty sad to me. I mean, if the guy wore a baseball cap, shades, ratty jacket and jeans, my guess is that no one would give him a second look. (At most they’d probably go, “Is that… nah. Couldn’t be.”) Can you imagine feeling either such a need to be isolated or such a need for attention—a desperate desire to be alone in a crowd—that one has to go to such lengths? Amazing that someone can be that talented, that rich, and that pathetic.

***

When I went with my sister, Beth, to see Titanic, we got there twenty minutes late thanks to a screw up in the movie times in the newspaper. We arrived just at the beginning of “Old Rose’s” narrative about the ship launching. We watched the film, yadda yadda, brilliant, you’ve heard it all. And then we stayed for the next show to watch the first twenty minutes.

After getting to the point in the film where we’d come in, having seen all the cool underwater footage and finding out the events that set the story into motion, we got up to leave. People nearby us looked at us in puzzlement. Clearly they were wondering why in the world we were bailing out (sorry) just when the story was really getting started.

Understand, I’m not in the habit of disrupting films. But I couldn’t pass this up. In an angry whisper, I said to them with as much indignation as I could, “The ship sinks! Can you believe that? I’m supposed to sit for three hours to watch a ship sink? And it’s not even a surprise, because they show it at the beginning!” And I turned to Beth and hissed, “I can’t believe you dragged me to this! It sinks, for God’s sake! What’s the point?!”

All around us, jaws were dropping. How in God’s name, they must have wondered, could someone not know the fate of the Titanic? Beth, straight-faced, immediately said, “You saw the trailer! Didn’t you realize?”

“I figured Cameron would pull something!” I retorted. “He’s supposed to be clever! He just lets them all sink? You call that clever?”

And we walked out of the theater. Outside we happened to run into some ushers and cleaning people, and we went into the exact same routine.

I highly recommend it if you want to amuse yourself. And hey, don’t laugh. Last film I saw Leonardo DiCaprio in was Romeo and Juliet, and at least half the teenaged audience was stunned at the demise of the lead characters. Just wait—they’ll make a film with DiCaprio called Hindenberg and I guarantee at least a portion of the audience will be stunned when it goes up in flames. (And why am I flashing on Beavis and Bûŧŧhëád sitting in the front row saying, “Heh heh… cool…”)

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)