So, this exists...

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

So I cam across this book on amazon today entitled "The Way of Kings: A New Dawn", and as far as I can tell, it is a legitimate book for sale in paperback and on kindle. It feels like it has to be a prank or something considering the blerb on there explaining what the book is about...

"At the heart of this tale are characters who wrestle with their own limitations, doubts, and fears. Kalad, Dalin, Shella, and Jasnah each embark on their own journeys of growth, sacrifice, and discovery, ultimately coming to understand their places in a much larger story."

I'm not sure if I should even link it or not, but if it's not some sort of funny thing...then I don't even know what to think about this.

[Ascended Grubberfly He/Him]

12 minutes ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

So I cam across this book on amazon today entitled "The Way of Kings: A New Dawn", and as far as I can tell, it is a legitimate book for sale in paperback and on kindle. It feels like it has to be a prank or something considering the blerb on there explaining what the book is about...

"At the heart of this tale are characters who wrestle with their own limitations, doubts, and fears. Kalad, Dalin, Shella, and Jasnah each embark on their own journeys of growth, sacrifice, and discovery, ultimately coming to understand their places in a much larger story."

I'm not sure if I should even link it or not, but if it's not some sort of funny thing...then I don't even know what to think about this.

Is this Way of Kings Prime? I haven't looked at it before but this sounds like the original idea for the SA, like how there is a copy of Dragonsteel that Sanderson is rewriting

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

1 minute ago, Xiahida said:

Is this Way of Kings Prime? I haven't looked at it before but this sounds like the original idea for the SA, like how there is a copy of Dragonsteel that Sanderson is rewriting

The book says it's written by someone named Glenda Hidleston, so I doubt it.

[Ascended Grubberfly He/Him]

1 minute ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

The book says it's written by someone named Glenda Hidleston, so I doubt it.

If it weren't for the names, I would say it just so happens to sound like it, but not only is Jasnah copy paste, but  Kalad is the Herald and Kaladin's namesake

[Returned he/him]

The book version of those knock-off movies like Transmorphers, Hansel and Gretel: Warriors of Witchcraft, and The Day the Earth Stopped.  I would guess it's a shameless, low-effort attempt to prey on people who have heard of WoK in passing. I'm surprised at how blatant the character names are, given how easy it would be to just make up new ones.

I predict mediocre sales, at best, strongly correlated with holiday gifts to disappointed recipients. The misspelling of "journeys" is not promising. Though I suppose you never know... 50 Shades had a similar origin and did well.

[Etedbert he/him]

That whole book description reads like some bad Generative AI slough

[anna she/her]

Just now, Etedbert said:

That whole book description reads like some bad Generative AI slough

It would not surprise me if that's how the entire book was written. Maybe this should be reported to Amazon and/or Dragonsteel?

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

So I cam across this book on amazon today entitled "The Way of Kings: A New Dawn", and as far as I can tell, it is a legitimate book for sale in paperback and on kindle. It feels like it has to be a prank or something considering the blerb on there explaining what the book is about...

"At the heart of this tale are characters who wrestle with their own limitations, doubts, and fears. Kalad, Dalin, Shella, and Jasnah each embark on their own journeys of growth, sacrifice, and discovery, ultimately coming to understand their places in a much larger story."

I'm not sure if I should even link it or not, but if it's not some sort of funny thing...then I don't even know what to think about this.

Could be a remnant or revivial of the Pre-WoK Fiasco. WoB:

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

The fandom found out about The Way of Kings pretty early on. I don't know how this happened, but Amazon put up a listing for it in like, 2006. The book was eventually published four years later. I hadn't written it in 2006. I'd written a version of it that I sent to my editor at Tor when he wanted to buy Elantris. I said, "Here's the other thing I'm working on."

And he read Way of Kings and he called me back, terrified. Because it's 400,000 words long. Well, the print version is 300,000 words. And they say, you should shoot for maybe 120,000 for your first novel. So it's big, and I had all these notes for this art I wanted to put into it. So it was going to be really expensive to print, really expensive to edit. And he called and he was like, "Uhhh can we cut this? This is enormous!"

And I'm like, "No we can't cut it but it's not right yet." So we did a contract for Elantris and Mistborn. We never had a contract for Way of Kings. I don't know how anyone found out about it, but Amazon put up a listing for it anyway...

So the fandom started putting up fake reviews for this book. And they also devised fake pictures of it. Amazon has this Show Your Version. So they printed off fake covers and put them around books and took pictures and sent them in. So eventually, Amazon just put one of their covers up as the cover. And it had a picture of Elvis on the front. It was called The Way of Kings. And it had a quote from Terry Goodkind that said "A hunka hunka burning good book!"

This is what happens when you give fans a blank space on the internet and say "Fill this!" I didn't ask them to do this by the way. They just did this. I just started looking and people were like, "This book cured my dog's cancer!" Stuff like that! You know how they are.

Footnote: The picture and fake reviews can be found here.
MisCon 2018 (May 26, 2018)

 

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

4 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Could be a remnant or revivial of the Pre-WoK Fiasco. WoB:

  Hide contents

Brandon Sanderson

The fandom found out about The Way of Kings pretty early on. I don't know how this happened, but Amazon put up a listing for it in like, 2006. The book was eventually published four years later. I hadn't written it in 2006. I'd written a version of it that I sent to my editor at Tor when he wanted to buy Elantris. I said, "Here's the other thing I'm working on."

And he read Way of Kings and he called me back, terrified. Because it's 400,000 words long. Well, the print version is 300,000 words. And they say, you should shoot for maybe 120,000 for your first novel. So it's big, and I had all these notes for this art I wanted to put into it. So it was going to be really expensive to print, really expensive to edit. And he called and he was like, "Uhhh can we cut this? This is enormous!"

And I'm like, "No we can't cut it but it's not right yet." So we did a contract for Elantris and Mistborn. We never had a contract for Way of Kings. I don't know how anyone found out about it, but Amazon put up a listing for it anyway...

So the fandom started putting up fake reviews for this book. And they also devised fake pictures of it. Amazon has this Show Your Version. So they printed off fake covers and put them around books and took pictures and sent them in. So eventually, Amazon just put one of their covers up as the cover. And it had a picture of Elvis on the front. It was called The Way of Kings. And it had a quote from Terry Goodkind that said "A hunka hunka burning good book!"

This is what happens when you give fans a blank space on the internet and say "Fill this!" I didn't ask them to do this by the way. They just did this. I just started looking and people were like, "This book cured my dog's cancer!" Stuff like that! You know how they are.

Footnote: The picture and fake reviews can be found here.
MisCon 2018 (May 26, 2018)

 

I am so glad you shared this WoB  That's a positive for me!

[Treamayne]

2 minutes ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

I am so glad you shared this WoB 

 That's a positive for me!

You never know what you'll find trolling the Arcanum for a WoB or three. . .

. . . Remembering how to find it again is the tricky part. 

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

42 minutes ago, anna said:

It would not surprise me if that's how the entire book was written. Maybe this should be reported to Amazon and/or Dragonsteel?

It probably wouldn't hurt, but it's a simple fact of life that excellent work inspires emulation. Any artist who inspires emulation bordering on fraud or defamation is merely too ahead of their time for their own good. Dragonsteel has good people, they won't be preyed upon. 

Hopefully this other person can support themselves and anyone they manage to inspire.

Edited October 22, 2024 by hwiles

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

7 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

. . . Remembering how to find it again is the tricky part. 

Don't I know it. I basically have a rule now that if I can't find it in 10-15 minutes, I try again later. Stuff just disappears in there