Sunday, May 09, 2010

Fake LMLK Book!

I've been building up a huge backlog of material to add to the LMLK Research site, as well as material to blog about, not the least of which involves 2 books published this year with my photos of LMLK handles, one is even on the book's cover. A third book by a European scholar with my seal drawings is expected to be published later this year.

While vol. 2 of my LMLK series remains years away, last night I happened to browse Amazon.com for "LMLK", just because it's a thrill to see my own book pop up in the listing, yet lo & behold, another LMLK book popped up!



"LMLK seal: Jerusalem, In situ, Sennacherib, Stamp seal, List of artifacts significant to the Bible, Phoenician alphabet"

Publisher: Alphascript Publishing (January 12, 2010)

Frederic P. Miller (Editor), Agnes F. Vandome (Editor), John McBrewster (Editor)


WTF? (Who's That Frederic?)

I've never heard of these people! "In Situ"? What kind of sub-title is that? And why did they use a modern stamp seal with a wooden handle for the cover image?

As the initial shock lessened, 3 quick clicks on the names of the editors reveals that they've been quite busy, apparently writing 39,792 such books!

It became clear when I zoomed in on a little bubble on the cover that nobody actually "wrote" or "edited" this book, but rather a software robot harvested text from Wikipedia articles:



"High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles!"

Wow! You mean for only $49 + shipping I can receive an 80-page paperback printout of a web page that can be downloaded for free in less than 8 seconds? What a bargain!

G.M. Grena