Crypt Keepers and Mask Makers

Kesia Lupo not only presided over three rip offs of my book via her work as an editor at Chicken House Books,

but her most recent novel with Bloomsbury also shows the traces of having been constructed with the aid of my book.

The genre is very different, but the signature of the template is very clearly there and it suggests that she was well aware of the source of the template she used in her work at Chicken House. It fed her 100 writing prompts and it fed hundreds of writing prompts to the authors she was promoting/editing.

Her previous book did not show a large quantity of identifiable marks from a stolen template.

I can only identify a short list of plot overlaps and this why this looks like an example of what happens when an author draws inspiration from the themes in another author’s book — without using a software tool to repeatedly revisit that source book for material.

We Are Blood and Thunder vs. My Adorable Apotheosis

There is a young woman who needs to decide on her career path.
She has to work underground in a dark, labyrinthine space.
She is a lowly servant in an organization that can crush her if she follows the wrong ideology.
She is expelled from the organization and cast out into the wilderness.
She meets an aboveground character who uses a cane and a cat that lurks within the labyrinth.
There are two women who are connected via a type of magic that shapes their world and has the potential to remove a threat to their world.
She is given an invitation to join a man who trains students and he appears untrustworthy.
She is taken to a meeting with a male authority who evaluates her.
She has a fugue state that shows her something about herself.
Told by her mentor that she will never be accepted as an insider. p. 220
She seeks assistance from a mysterious character and the result is bad.
There is a mysterious cat featured throughout the story.
She is fascinated by the mysteries of a machine that has magical power over a city.
The city is consumed by mass casualties and panic.
She is freed from a curse that had been tormenting her soul and this cures the city.

This type of copying is purely human and it looks perfectly ethical. This is a quantity of themes that a human mind can absorb from a book after one read through and this collection can be used to inspire the creation of a new book in a different genre. If the new book had been in the same genre and the arrangement of the themes was the same and used to convey a similar message, there might be some objections if no attribution was given, but this wasn’t the case here.

In contrast, her other book, We Are Bound By Stars is an example of a book that used a software tool to repeatedly mine a source book for material. One book drew inspiration via a human mind and the other drew inspiration via an automated tool that I believe should be illegal to use without crediting the source books that are mined for material.

I read We Are Bound By Stars while I was on holiday and didn’t take notes, so I hope that if I scan through again, the same similarities will jump out at me again. The first thing I noticed was that, just as in my book, all of the male characters have first names that end in the letter ‘O’. Vico, Elisao, Jacobo — Dano, Dodo, Joe, Hano, Romeo

We Are Bound By Stars vs. My Adorable Apotheosis

There is an opening image of a young person making their way in the world.
1. The story opens with a young protagonist who doesn’t like the choices that others have made about his/her future. (Lupo p. 2) (Hacker p. 4)
2. This protagonist is an outsider in this realm, has no parents, and is in a public fight with an older, more experienced opponent who is male. There is an audience. The protagonist loses and goes home. (Lupo p. 7) (Hacker p. 7)
3. Such arguments once used to mean something, but in this age, they’ve become pointless battles for glory and influence. (Lupo p. 3) (Hacker p. 21)
4. In this environment, a young woman is (almost) killed by a mysterious, supernatural, powerful thing that we later learn more about. It is the cat/sandwolf character that follows that protagonist and helps draw him/her under the control of a mysterious, female character (the mother/Gemini). (Lupo p. 11, 12) (Hacker p. 38)
5. In this environment, the protagonist is injured and requires medical treatment in an infirmary. (Lupo p. 14) (Hacker p. 39)
We are introduced to the politics of the world.
1. In this environment, the protagonist is given a message about a secret revolutionary group that he/she doesn’t want to join. (Lupo p. 15) (Hacker p. 26)
2. In this part of the story we are also introduced to the notion that the protagonist is primarily supported by a male love interest who is of a different class. This separates them. (Lupo p. 11) (Hacker p. 9)
3. The environment abruptly changes as we enter the control center or governing body of the city where the protagonist lives. (Lupo p. 17) (Hacker p. 42)
4. We meet a young woman who has just been given a promotion into an elite realm that is ruled over by a pair of women: a powerful, female ruler with whom she does not speak, and a less powerful woman who serves as her advisor. They serve a powerful organization and the last person to hold this job had died. She isn’t sure how she feels about the job or organization. (Lupo p. 18) (Hacker p. 52) There are two protagonists, a young man and a young woman. The story alternates back and forth between their viewpoints. They share many traits – like the ones above.
5. The young woman has other selves who look just like her. They make different choices than she would make. (Lupo p. 21) (Hacker p. 88)
The particulars of how her job promotion occurred are strangely similar.
1. A form of death occurs and this leads to the young woman inheriting arcane powers. (Lupo p. 22) (Hacker p. 41)
2. She panics. Her heart pounds. (Lupo p. 26) (Hacker p. 38)
3. She has never met her male boss and in this moment, she meets him. (Lupo p. 27) (Hacker p. 35)
4. When the transfer of power occurs, she loses consciousness and thinks she’s dying. (Lupo p. 29) (Hacker p. 38)
5. The next scene involves a character getting medical treatment. (Lupo p. 34) (Hacker p. 39)
Romance and family are recurring issues for the protagonist.
1. We flash back to the Dodo/Alix – Elisao/Vico romantic relationship that is doomed by class differences. One is lower class and academically oriented. The other is upper class and family oriented.
2. The lower class character is taken to the upper class character’s home and knows he/she is not accepted. Alix/Vico is committed to his/her career more than he/she is to the relationship. (Lupo p. 30) (Hacker p. 55)
3. In general, there is a conflict between what the protagonist wants and what the protagonist’s family wants for his/her future. (Lupo p. 35) (Hacker p. 62)
4. At the same point in both stories, the protagonist is given career advice by a wise, older female mentor in a lengthy conversation. (Lupo p. 38) (Hacker p. 49)
5. The chapter closes out with the protagonist feeling torn between becoming one of two people. (Lupo p. 40) (Hacker p. 54)
The protagonist’s career and autonomy are of central importance.
1. A chapter opens with the protagonist waking from a bad dream and getting ready to face a day of work. (Lupo p. 42) (Hacker p. 34)
2. In her new job, she has two co-workers and a female mentor who has no responsibility to put her best interests first. She has no parents and no family. The woman who had her job before her is dead. (Lupo p. 44) (Hacker p. 62)
3. An oily curl/lock of hair is described as belonging to her sister/coworker. (Lupo p. 45) (Hacker p. v.2)
4. In her new job, she discusses with women what she could have been and what she wants to be. (Lupo p. 48) (Hacker p. 62) A professor is mentioned on page 48 of both books.
5. Maintaining autonomy is a central concern of the protagonist since so many people in the environment have lost theirs, being treated like puppets. Puppetry is a metaphor used frequently. (Lupo p. 50) (Hacker p. 59)
The story alternates between the protagonist’s personal and public concerns.
1. The next chapter opens with a brief flash back to the Dodo/Alix – Elisao/Vico storyline. Both books alternate between this personal-life storyline and the professional-life storyline. (Lupo p. 51) (Hacker p. 61)
2. Then we transition to the protagonist’s curiosity about revolutionary ideas and the strange creature he/she had encountered: the sandwolf/cat. He/she consults an old, wise, yet somewhat crazy man who is an outsider and who tells the protagonist that he knows about revolutionary ideas and organizations. (Lupo p. 53, 56) (Hacker p. 89, 98)
3. An old, wise man encourages the protagonist to get away from the city and look for some new place to live. The protagonist rejects this idea. (Lupo p. 57) (Hacker p. 102)
4. There is a mysterious revolutionary group that everyone is afraid of and that seems to have an interest in the protagonist. The group is in opposition to Dr. Scarlett/ the Contessa. The protagonist is aware that curiosity is dangerous. (Lupo p. 58) (Hacker p. 109)
5. The Elisao/Dodo character kisses the protagonist after they meet for a date. (Lupo p. 64) (Hacker p. 32)
The mystery emerges and the stakes are raised.
1. There is a scene in a dark room in which the protagonist is confronted by the existence of a mysterious character who shouldn’t be there. It feels dangerous. (Lupo p. 65) (Hacker p. 89)
2. The encounter causes her to discover something that no one else knows or understands. (Lupo p. 67) (Hacker p. 96)
3. She goes to sleep and wakes consumed by the mystery. (Lupo p. 68) (Hacker p. 73)
4. Relative to Livio, Elisao is the Dodo character, but relative to Beatrice, Livio is the Dodo character. He is the untalented, drunken young man who is her only friend in her prison and she has no romantic attachment to him. (Lupo p. 73) (Hacker p. 84) I think the book copying algorithms reduce a story to an arrangement of archetypes, ideas, and scenery and then leave it up to the new author to fill in the blanks. This sometimes causes characters to become conflated, split, or re-purposed.
5. Her job requires her to work at night and it makes it difficult for her to make connections to people on the outside. She feels estranged from everyone soldiers/the symbiots and they look away from her, treating her like a pariah. (Lupo p. 74) (Hacker p. 23)
The protagonist feels powerless.
1. Because of whatever is going on with the rebels/sandwolf/cat, soldiers have taken over her workplace. (Lupo p. 75) (Hacker p. 152)
2. Potted flowers are used as a symbol of how the protagonist feels she is treated. Like an invisible object and not a person. (Lupo p. 77) (Hacker p. 32, 42, 61)
3. The protagonist is visited again by the wolf/cat who disappears as quickly as he came. (Lupo p. 80) (Hacker p. 109)
4. She’s afraid of losing her job. (Lupo p. 86) (Hacker p. 63)
5. Her coworkers lack feeling and give her empty platitudes. (Lupo p. 88) (Hacker p. 72)
The methods the protagonist can use to gain power are explored.
1. We see the protagonist in a classroom/educational environment and learn how he/she feels about what he/she is learning. (Lupo p. 91) (Hacker p. 75)
2. The protagonist is invited to a special meeting with a stern professor of the opposite gender who insults him/her. (Lupo p. 94) (Hacker p. 76)
3. The protagonist feels insulted by students of the opposite gender. He/she is cowed. (Lupo p. 96) (Hacker p. 82)
4. The protagonist finds a special book that tells the secrets of his/her workplace. It belonged to the last person who had his/her job. (Lupo p. 100) (Hacker p. 22)
5. The protagonist is given a lecture by an older mentor at his/her workplace. He/she knows things that others have forgotten. (Lupo p. 103) (Hacker p. 100)
The protagonist explores these methods to gain power but makes little progress.
1. This causes the protagonist to go to a dark, hidden, sacred space in search of the mysterious knowledge. (Lupo p. 108) (Hacker p. 102)
2. In this sacred space, the protagonist makes a powerful discovery. He/she doubts him/herself yet presses onward in search of more mysterious information. (Lupo p. 111) (Hacker p. 104)
3. He/she returns to the old wise mentor with the discovery and asks for advice. (Lupo p. 112) (Hacker p. 107)
4. The protagonist finds solace and a sense of connection by gazing up at the stars. (Lupo p. 113) (Hacker p. 31)
5. The protagonist has demonstrated what he/she found in the sacred space to the authorities, but is still given no respect or authority in return. (Lupo p. 116) (Hacker p. 115)
The protagonist feels torn between two identities and choses work over romance.
1. The scene directly after this involves a date between the protagonist and his/her love interest. (Lupo p. 119) (Hacker p. 116)
2. There is a breakup scene between the protagonist and Elisao/Dodo. The rich guy is obsessed with getting physical affection from the poor person while the poor person doesn’t make any indications that this is what motivates him/her. The poor person remains unemotional while the rich guy cries and loses it. The breakup is caused by the protagonist’s vision of his/her future. (Lupo p. 122) (Hacker p. 61)
3. This breakup is echoed and shows up on roughly the same page in both books. (Lupo p. 122) (Hacker p 120)
4. The female protagonist is back at work and she talks with her other self about her work. She is surrounded by a bunch of fake people or masks. She is very critical of her discipline. (Lupo p. 127) (Hacker p. 131)
5. She has gotten an invitation to a special presentation that will feature the sort of work they do. She will have a place of honor. (Lupo p. 130) (Hacker p. 130)
Yet her work life is also flawed and dissatisfying, leading her to think rebellious thoughts.
1. She is very frustrated with the restrictions of her job and wants to quit — escape! But she is held back by her awareness of real-world constraints. Her inner conflict is made physical via the existence of her other selves. (Lupo p. 134) (Hacker p. 127, 149)
2. In the next chapter we are shown the young protagonist worrying about performing before a group of hostile peers. (Lupo p. 137) (Hacker p. 135)
3. The protagonist is subject to a series of lectures that do not interest him/her. He/she is more concerned with what everyone thinks of him/her. (Lupo p. 140) (Hacker p. 134)
4. In his/her performance before the group, he/she utterly fails and is humiliated. The professor twists the knife. (Lupo p. 141) (Hacker p. 136)
5. A form of the nebulous rebel appears as the scene and chapter concludes. (Lupo p. 142) (Hacker p. 138)
The protagonist escapes to the comforts of home but is exposed to the control of a rebel infiltrator.
1. The protagonist runs away from the scene of defeat and gets into a carriage that will take him/her back home. His/her stomach lurches during the journey as he/she considers all that has happened. He/she thinks about a romantic relationship that was ruined and then distracts him/herself by looking for/at a book. (Lupo p. 145) (Hacker p. 140)
2. At this point, the protagonist meets a guy who is secretly a rebel and who offers to educate him/her. (Lupo p. 147) (Hacker p. 144)
3. The rebel guy offers advice in how to protect one’s self when surrounded by hostile attackers. (Lupo p. 149) (Hacker p. 147)
4. The threat of execution is raised (due to the punishment for heresy). (Lupo p. 150) (Hacker p. 144)
5. When the protagonist gets back to his/her workplace, he/she discovers that his/her elder female mentor has invited soldiers onto the grounds to protect everyone from the rebels. The protagonist is getting to know one of them. (Lupo p. 155) (Hacker p. 152)
The threat of the rebels is explored.
1. The protagonist is pulled aside by the elder female mentor and interrogated. He/she learns that the lab is threatened by the rebels and that he/she is a target. (Lupo p. 158) (Hacker p. 157)
2. The protagonist is held captive by this mentor and wants to escape. A cat is mentioned. (Lupo p. 160) (Hacker p. 157, 162)
3. The protagonist is exposed to the mysterious rites of an order or group of professionals with whom she is forbidden from communicating. Their ‘robes’ are described and they have have strange rituals. (Lupo p. 163) (Hacker p. 165)
4. The strangers deliver a weighty speech containing information that is unfamiliar to the protagonist. (Lupo p. 164) (Hacker p. 168)
5. There is more material about the rites of a mysterious order of professionals to which the protagonist does not belong. Being in their presence makes her feel rather curious yet ill. (Lupo p. 167) (Hacker p. 176)
Entertainment and the public are considered by the protagonist.
1. A young woman who is being offered a job by an older woman encounters three other young women who are already employed. (Lupo p. 168) (Hacker p. 180)
2. People are waiting to attend a grisly, shocking event, but one of the protagonist’s selves was not interested in experiencing it. She is prim and proud and thought that made her a better person than the others. (Lupo p. 171) (Hacker p. 181)
3. The protagonist gets some new dresses. (Lupo p. 176) (Hacker p. 41) In the second, illustrated version of my book, there was a picture indicating that precisely three dresses were purchased. In Lupo’s book the protagonist acquires three new dresses.
4. She goes out in public and is surrounded by a crowd of hectic people that she doesn’t know. She has to fight her way through crowds. Usually things are calm and quiet in her world. (Lupo p. 180) (Hacker p. 196)
5. She is looking forward to attending a big, public event during which she will be part of the audience. (Lupo p. 180) (Hacker p. 199)
There is a story within a story
1. In a puppetry focused story within a story, two women are both focused on a certain man. They fight. In the end, the man and one of the women die. (Lupo p. 184) (Hacker p. 143)
2. There is a story within a story and it is about a pair of ruling women who have control over a technology/magic that controls the future. (Lupo p. 184) (Hacker p. 201)
3. In a story within the story, there is a romance in which the traditional gender roles are clearly reversed. The woman must rescue the man from another woman. (Lupo p. 187) (Hacker v.2) This is only in the second version of my novel.
4. In a parallel with the story within a story, the protagonist accidentally causes a great fire/disaster that destroys the city in which she lives. (Lupo p. 189) (Hacker p. 227)
5. In a story within a story woman is burned by a fire in front of an audience. The chapter concludes with a child watching the flames. (Lupo p. 190) (Hacker p. 238)
The city where the protagonist lives is destroyed because of something she accidentally did.
1. The scene in which the city is destroyed features the protagonist and the wise, female mentor searching for assistance and having difficulty with finding it because of the disaster. (Lupo p. 191) (Hacker p. 230)
2. At first everyone is delusional and in denial about the scale of the disaster. (Lupo p. 193) (Hacker p. 226)
3. The scene ends with the protagonist standing on the top of the tallest building and surveying the damage. (Lupo p. 194) (Hacker p. 227)
4. The rebel/Chess/Hal character makes an appearance and offers to help the protagonist. (Lupo p. 195) (Hacker p. 216)
5. This scene is somehow conflated with the scene in which my protagonist goes on a date with a rogue (Dr. Knavel) who she kisses but then backs away from. Dodo/Elisao is partially the reason. (Lupo p. 195) (Hacker p. 120)
Chaos takes over and several storylines are ended or diverge.
1. At the end, chaos takes over and they are left defenseless on top of their castle walls, threatened from all sides. (Lupo p. 202) (Hacker p. 227)
2. The protagonist is tempted by the idea of escaping from the city via a boat to a far-off, unknown land. (Lupo p. 202) (Hacker p. 298)
3. In the story within a story, the protagonist must rescue a love interest who had been injured by the lover’s master and doesn’t know who he/she is any more. They fall deeply in love, but the relationship is complicated because the lover’s loyalties are torn due to earlier training/programming. There are issues with the lover’s memory being removed and restored. This story within a story parallels one of the main sequences of the overall novel. (Lupo p. 203) (Hacker p. 143)
4. In the echo of this story within a story, the love interest is killed by a woman who had loved the person she sentenced to death. (Lupo p. 203) (Hacker p. 237, 240)
5. The protagonist’s many identities are in acute conflict at this point in the story and they all insist on going in different directions instead of sticking together. this is a recurring theme. (Lupo p. 210) (Hacker p. 213)
The identity of the protagonist is uncertain as certain possibilities are closed off.
1. This leads to the death of certain identities from the perspective of the protagonist. She lives on, even though parts of her died. (Lupo p. 217) (Hacker p. 237) Lupo makes these deaths happen literally while in my book they happen both literally and figuratively — it isn’t entirely clear which since I blurred those lines.
2. At this point in the story, regret over Elisao/Dodo/Jacobo makes a reappearance and is is connected with the death of an identity or a path in life. (Lupo p. 221) (Hacker p. 230)
3. There are identities associated with family that the protagonist longs to resurrect but can’t. (Lupo p. 226) (Hacker p. 178)
4. The protagonist has a vision in a sort of fugue state. It leads to a recollection of another vision which culminated in an image of the self burning in a fire. (Lupo p. 228) (Hacker p. 232, 237)
5. Because of the destruction of the city, there is an overthrow of an old power structure. (Lupo p. 230) (Hacker p. 239)
The protagonist has to deal with higher ranking people.
1. The older female mentor has lost her grip on power and spends her time shouting ineffectual orders at people. (Lupo p. 231) (Hacker p. 230)
2. We see an abusive relationship in which a high ranking man (a high priest in the organization) controls a young woman employee. (Lupo p. 232) (Hacker p. 143, 241)
3. We see the protagonist under the orders of the Dr. Knavel/Hal character who had tried to seduce him/her earlier — it is a loveless, political marriage of sorts. (Lupo p. 233) (Hacker p. 242)
4. The older female mentor lectures the young protagonist about the political situation and how it is necessary to play the game as it is dealt. She laments the defects in their organization. (Lupo p. 235) (Hacker p. 248)
5. The young protagonist is essentially fired from his/her job and told to go live in the city where he/she will be a nobody with nothing. (Lupo p. 236) (Hacker p. 208)
The protagonist must learn to be independent.
1. The young protagonist is told to follow this action by returning to his/her old workplace and destroying it. (Lupo p. 237) (Hacker p. 215)
2. No explanation is given for this command, but the protagonist will do it anyway because he/she depends on others to support him/her. (Lupo p. 237) (Hacker p. 218)
3. In the following chapter, we see the young woman protagonist leaving her workplace forever all by herself and venturing out into the city to figure out how to live independently. She has nothing and no one to support her. (Lupo p. 238) (Hacker p. 208)
4. She goes out and finds an old friend and is confronted with the idea that she’s never known who she is. (Lupo p. 242) (Hacker p. 213)
5. She struggles with being no one. (Lupo p. 244) (Hacker p. 214)
The romance arc concludes with death.
1. The scene opens with the protagonist walking through a howling storm. (Lupo p. 246) (Hacker p. 219)
2. “Holy twins” is a strange exclamation for Lupo to choose since I used the concept of a founding pair of quasi deities known as The Gemini as part of my world building. I didn’t see anything before this in Lupo’s book related to twins. (Lupo p. 247) (Hacker p. 202)
3. This reference is presented adjacent to a confrontation between the protagonist and the previously rejected love interest Elisao/Dodo. The rich lover knocks on the poor lover’s door in a state of emergency and asks to renew their union. (Lupo p. 249) (Hacker p. 201) I noticed that Elisao’s eyes changed color between pages 248 and 249 brown->green. This tends to happen when a text generator is drawing from a number of sources.
4. The rich lover unloads a long story about the history of the power structures of their city and his role in them. (Lupo p. 250) (Hacker p. 201)
5. The Elisao/Dodo character is killed after following the protagonist and wandering around the protagonist’s old workplace after it was destroyed. (Lupo p. 264) (Hacker p. 230)
The protagonist has a weak sense of self and follows destructive orders.
1. The protagonist has been ordered to destroy his/her old workplace. (Lupo p. 251) (Hacker p. 216)
2. Confronted with her loss of identity, the protagonist is determined to return to her old workplace in search of answers from her old employer, the female mentor. (Lupo p. 256) (Hacker p. 221)
3. A literal storm is referenced as she approaches the entrance to her old workplace. Soldiers are mentioned. No one is inside because of the rebel threat. She goes directly to the mask/control room. (Lupo p. 259) (Hacker p. 219)
4. Inside the control/mask room she encounters one of the high ranking authorities of her workplace. Being in this place is dangerous. (Lupo p. 262) (Hacker p. 221)
5. Danger and the threat of death emerges in this environment. After the destruction of the city, the underworld takes control. (Lupo p. 266) (Hacker p. 229) At this point in the story, I’m noticing more similarities with a book that I wrote later which contained a different perspective on the events that concluded My Adorable Apotheosis. For these last chapters, I’m noticing more similarity with how I ended a book called My Caustic Conjecture — the same story told from a different perspective. Beatrice/Cara wants to find out her true identity while Livio/Alix wants to follow the orders of his/her boss. I’ll need to analyze it separately.
The protagonist is captured by someone bad and forced to convert.
1. The (dual) protagonist is taken to a place where he/she has no power or allies. He/she was lured there by a handsome rogue who doesn’t care about the protagonist’s wellbeing. (Lupo p. 272) (Hacker p. 237, MCC)
2. Beatrice/Cara/Alix was stolen away from a life she never knew, given a new identity by a powerful older woman, and then she was not protected by this woman. She finds herself trapped by Hal/Dr. Knavel. (Lupo p. 273) (Hacker p. 252, MCC)
3. The protagonist hates the rogue who has entrapped them and the evil director/Shadow of the operation. (Lupo p. 275) (Hacker p. 242, MCC)
4. We learn that the Chess/Sandwolf character is under the control of the evil director/Shadow – even though it seems to have an affection for the protagonist. (Lupo p. 280) (Hacker p. 297, MCC)
5. With no other options available to her, the protagonist strips away her old identity and becomes a completely new person with a new name. (Lupo p. 285) (Hacker p. 253, 273, MCC)
  1. The description of where she is does have some similarity to my description of the protagonist’s closet-sized apartment located far underground. In this location, in both books, she consults a mirror to figure out who she is. (Lupo p. 283) (Hacker p. 12, MCC)
  2. We are reminded of how little agency the protagonist has in this story. This refers back to the puppetry metaphor. (Lupo p. 284) (Hacker p. 270, MCC)
  3. Yet again in both books, she looks into a mirror and asks it who she is. (Lupo p. 286) (Hacker p. 269, MCC)
The protagonist learns the secrets of how the world works.
1. The protagonist is taken to the office of the evil director and introduced to how the Chess/sandwolf is controlled. (Lupo p. 289) (Hacker p. MCC)
2. Meanwhile, there is chaos and rebellion in the city. (Lupo p. 290) (Hacker p. 282, MCC)
3. The ruler wants to suppress the chaos and rebellion by starting a new religion in which the protagonist is its leader. (Lupo p. 292) (Hacker p. 296, MCC)
4. The old rulers are imprisoned and the protagonist meets the person who had once rejected/left him/her and grievously wounded his/her soul. (Lupo p. 293) (Hacker p. 281, MCC)
5. It is made clear that the Chess/sandwolf character is treated cruelly by its master and is an unwilling slave. (Lupo p. 301) (Hacker p. 297, MCC)
The protagonist becomes confident and breaks out of her prison.
1. The protagonist is confronted with the true identity of his/her parents. (Lupo p. 294) (Hacker p. MCC)
2. The young woman is trapped in a dungeon and the Dr/Knavel/Hal character is coming to get her. She’s broken free of her restraints and is ready to break out. After having been meek for most of the story, she has suddenly become a paragon of confidence. (Lupo p. 297) (Hacker p. MCC)
3. Dr. Knavel/Hal is subdued and she escapes. He is alive but subdued. (Lupo p. 298) (Hacker p. MCC)
4. The technology of the control/mask room is very powerful and allows the protagonist to change her identity at will. It is a dangerous power that must be contained and that not everyone is capable of wielding. (Lupo p. 299, 304) (Hacker p. 288, MCC)
5. Once again, the protagonist is torn about who he/she wants to be. It is a question of core identity and loyalty to an old self or a new self. (Lupo p. 300) (Hacker p. 288, MCC)
The protagonist is handed the reigns of power yet is still under the control of another.
1. An evil woman had planned a public execution that will cement her hold on power. (Lupo p. 302) (Hacker p. 204, MCC)
2. There are territorial battles between religious sects and the protagonist is a bystander. (Lupo p. 308) (Hacker p. 283, MCC)
3. The protagonist is consumed and almost killed by the strange technology/magic which has been unleashed. (Lupo p. 311) (Hacker p. 289)
4. The protagonist has a religious epiphany and experience which revealed to him/her something fundamental about the choices and possibilities a person has and how we are connected. (Lupo p. 313) (Hacker p. 296)
5. The protagonist turns away from the control of the lab/temple and the control of the rebellious underworld and turns towards the world as a whole with all of its uncertainty. He/she is no longer afraid of the uncertainty and embraces it. This breaks the chains which had bound him/her. (Lupo p. 314) (Hacker p. 297, MCC)
The protagonist takes control of and responsibility for him/herself.
1. The protagonist and the sandwolf/Chess character reach an understanding about their mutual enslavement. (Lupo p. 315) (Hacker p. 298, MCC)
2. She overcomes her childhood issues and removes the mask that had held her back and protected her for so many years. (Lupo p. 317) (Hacker p. 297, MCC)
3. She meets her female mentor again and finally finds out who she really is. No one. This sets her free. (Lupo p. 319) (Hacker p. 297, MCC)
4. A woman’s arm is severely broken because of the rebels. (Lupo p. 323) (Hacker p. 160) This is out of sequence and probably not specific enough to be worth writing down, but I’ll record it anyways.
5. The theme of a woman losing her false identity is repeated, as is the theme of choosing to be free from the control of the city. (Lupo p. 323, 329) (Hacker p. 287, MCC)
The epilogue is set by the seaside.
1. We see a young woman protagonist determined to set out on a boat and explore the world. (Lupo p. 335) (Hacker p. 298)
2. We see a seaside discussion between an unlikely pair of male and female coworkers who are not romantically attached yet have a permanent connection. (Lupo p. 334) (Hacker p. 300)
3. The man is more integrated in the system than she is. (Lupo p. 335) (Hacker p. 301)
4. They talk about reading. (Lupo p. 336) (Hacker p. 302)
5. The last note is a sense that life is full of possibilities. (Lupo p. 337) (Hacker p. 303)
The are some more general similarities that are worth listing.
1. The book is told in first person singular.
2. It features the perspective of a young person trying to find their way in the world.
3. It features a nefarious animal controlled by a villain.
4. The protagonist is lonely and doesn’t know who to be or who to listen to.
5. The problem is solved by developing confidence in ones’ self in order to make good, independent decisions

From what I can see, Lupo has been directly involved with four books that copied lengthy sequences of plot elements from my book, using it as an unattributed template.

After collecting this data, two questions arise:

Did this level of similarity happen by chance? Given the similarity levels of the other three books, clearly not.
Is this type of copying ethical or legal? I’m not sure, but I think not. Especially not without attribution.

A sequel to My Adorable Apotheosis was called My Caustic Conjecture and it gave an alternate timeline for the same story. Since it fleshed out the details of some of the characters’ relationships, that is why the last hundred pages of My Caustic Conjecture also overlap with Lupo’s book — often with more detail than My Adorable Apotheosis. This is why I believe that Lupo was strongly influenced by both books or that she copied from both of them. In My Caustic Conjecture, I copied from myself, shifting the perspective of the story and digging into certain aspects that I’d given short shrift in My Adorable Apotheosis, so I know how much easier it is to write a story that has already been written. It took me less than a week to write it, while it took me a whole year to write My Adorable Apotheosis.

In contrast to the ambiguously happy ending in My Adorable Apotheosis, My Caustic Conjecture had a very happy ending in which disaster was averted because the protagonist was re-united with her inner child, the AI got to throw a mega-awesome party, Dodo lived, and everyone fell in love. It gave an alternate ending to My Adorable Apotheosis which had a mega-disaster and a rather ambiguous ending in which the protagonist got on a boat and left the city. The purpose of the stories was to show how bad decisions cascade from bad decisions made by selfish, power hungry people doing nonsensical things. Unlike vengeance and madness stories like Fight Club, there was no silver lining to the destruction of the city in My Adorable Apotheosis. The protagonist doesn’t stand with a lover and romantically watch the world fall down as in Fight Club. The protagonist just falls deeper and deeper into identity loss, wandering among islands of insanity in one of the other sequels: My Daring Devilry. Yet another sequel, My Beautiful Boat, explores the complex lives of those who were too distracted by their own petty problems to intervene and prevent the disaster.

If Lupo’s book was produced via an automated procedure that mined My Adorable Apotheosis‘ skeleton and combined it with a collection of fantasy novels’ flesh, is this how we want all of our novels to be written? It isn’t very authentic, even if the person assembling such a book can inject or superimpose their own story onto the mélange.

Aside from this very long list of mostly consecutive similarities, I also find it strange that the story within a story that forms a turning point in Lupo’s story was called “The Hand of Fate” since around the time that I had finished the second version of my novel, I wrote a poem called “The Hand of Fate” and put it on my blog. It was a pretty nice poem, if I do say so myself.

The Hand of Fate

There are some interesting subtexts about the real world in Lupo’s book. For example sand wolves seem to be analogous to AIs that go out in search of magical, sparkly material to mine and bring back to their master. There was a scene in which a young girl was attacked by a sand wolf that stole all of her magic and left her for dead. In the end, the sand wolves attack their masters and steal back all of the magic they had stolen. Meanwhile, the mask makers are under contract to Mythris as a supplier for a regulated body of assassins but they are attacked by a criminal organization that steals from them and begins using their powers. The part about a mask that could automatically learn a new face seemed to be a message about the dangers of the proliferation of certain technology.

Despite the differences, the moral of both stories is the same:

The world is good when it is made up of confident people who make good, confident decisions and it is bad when it is made up of cowardly, childish people who only follow fearful group norms and the commands of power hungry jerks. Becoming such a confident person doesn’t happen overnight.

These are just silly stories, so why should we care where a story comes from or if 30 authors use the same software crutch or book template to get the job done? I think the reason is that we want there to be something true beneath the story and when a crutch is used, it adds a layer of encryption or noise that makes the books produced lose meaning and grounding, thereby wasting people’s time and turning their brains to mush. With the internet age mushifying people’s brains in other ways, good brains become a precious commodity, so we shouldn’t force them to burn up unnecessarily. I would also argue that consumers deserve a degree of authenticity from the intellectual products they buy.

I, Alix ? Saint Alix ? People like short titles and mine is too long.

Did this fake book saga actually happen? YouTube is really bad about being a reliable resource for authenticity and, despite the high production values, that makes me doubt this story.

I like my stories to look more like this one:

or this one

They’re clearly fantasies and don’t even try to masquerade as reality.

The River of No Return starring Marylin Monroe featured a showgirl who wanted to leave the sparkles behind to be with her family and Lucille Ball inverted this concept, making it funny by becoming the quintessential housewife desperate to become a showgirl. It is still funny.

Not many people know that Lucille Ball was responsible for bringing Star Trek and The Twilight Zone to the screen. She had good taste and a sense of what the Zeitgeist was hungry for.

When I wrote it, I thought the Zeitgeist might be hungry for my book, but it seems I was wrong. The only people who were hungry for my book were other authors who wanted to eat its template.

My book should not be taken seriously and it only makes sense if you understand dark humor. After all, it is something of a mix between The Twilight Zone, I Love Lucy, and Star Trek. Maybe I was visited by Lucy’s ghost when I wrote it!

….

The gif in the header is, of course, from the 1980s show Tales From the Crypt. It featured horror stories and Twilight Zone-esque dramas, perhaps serving as one of the earliest versions of a re-hash/update factory within the entertainment biz. The Crypt Keeper seems to have a sense of humor about his job.

Crypt Keepers and Mask Makers

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