“...left a trail leading right back to his door”.
January 13, 2016 12:03 PM Subscribe
Stephen Leather accused of cyberbullying by fellow thriller writers. by Alison Flood [The Guardian]
Related:
- Welcome to Britain, a home fit for shysters. [The Guardian]
Over the past week, the authors Steve Mosby and Jeremy Duns have each alleged that Leather is behind websites set up to attack them. On 4 January, Mosby blogged about the launch of the site fuckstevemosby.com, which featured an exhaustive collection of the times he swore online. Mosby claims that the site was set up by Leather. Duns, the author of the Paul Dark spy novels, then blogged a lengthy analysis of the reasons why he believes Leather is behind a series of sites abusing him – including the claim that the recently established site fuckjeremyduns.com briefly redirected to Leather’s own site about his character Spider Shepherd.
Related:
- Welcome to Britain, a home fit for shysters. [The Guardian]
Few British frauds worry that exposure will damage them because punishment rarely follows the crime. So brazen have they become that Stephen Leather, who churns outs ebook and paperback thrillers, boasted at last month's Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival: "As soon as my book is out I'm on Facebook and Twitter several times a day talking about it. I'll go on to several forums, the well-known forums, and post there under my name and under various other names and various other characters. You build up this whole network of characters who talk about your books and sometimes have conversations with yourself."
From the article: posted by Fizz at 12:08 PM on January 13, 2016
Leather did not respond to a request for comment from the Guardian, but the publisher Hachette said it has “advised him not to say anything to anyone at the moment”. In a statement Hachette said it would “do everything we can to put an end to this very unpleasant matter immediately” and that it “wholeheartedly condemns harassment and intimidation of any kind.”
It seems odd that this sort of advice is coming from a publsher.
posted by layceepee at 12:09 PM on January 13, 2016
It seems odd that this sort of advice is coming from a publsher.
posted by layceepee at 12:09 PM on January 13, 2016
Leather did not respond to a request for comment from the Guardian
Maybe the Guardian should try reaching out to one of his sock puppets.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:11 PM on January 13, 2016 [18 favorites]
Maybe the Guardian should try reaching out to one of his sock puppets.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:11 PM on January 13, 2016 [18 favorites]
Is that "Spider Shepherd" webpage seriously not a parody site?
I spent much of my high school years from '89-'91 working in a used book store with a special Men's Adventure* section, and this makes Mack "The Executioner" Bolan look like Hemingway.
*which gave me access for a time to a nearly complete set of Destroyer paperbacks, praise Shiva and the prophecies of Sinanju.
posted by Shepherd at 12:11 PM on January 13, 2016 [5 favorites]
I spent much of my high school years from '89-'91 working in a used book store with a special Men's Adventure* section, and this makes Mack "The Executioner" Bolan look like Hemingway.
*which gave me access for a time to a nearly complete set of Destroyer paperbacks, praise Shiva and the prophecies of Sinanju.
posted by Shepherd at 12:11 PM on January 13, 2016 [5 favorites]
This sounds like it would be excellent fodder for a Christopher Guest comedy.
posted by Strange Interlude at 12:18 PM on January 13, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by Strange Interlude at 12:18 PM on January 13, 2016 [9 favorites]
This sounds like it would be excellent fodder for a Christopher Guest comedy.
Only with LITERAL sock-puppets.
posted by Fizz at 12:20 PM on January 13, 2016 [9 favorites]
Only with LITERAL sock-puppets.
posted by Fizz at 12:20 PM on January 13, 2016 [9 favorites]
Is that "Spider Shepherd" webpage seriously not a parody site?
I spent much of my high school years from '89-'91 working in a used book store with a special Men's Adventure* section, and this makes Mack "The Executioner" Bolan look like Hemingway.
...
posted by Shepherd
I think you got your sock-puppet accounts mixed up there, Steve Mosby and/or Jeremy Duns.
posted by Etrigan at 12:43 PM on January 13, 2016 [8 favorites]
I spent much of my high school years from '89-'91 working in a used book store with a special Men's Adventure* section, and this makes Mack "The Executioner" Bolan look like Hemingway.
...
posted by Shepherd
I think you got your sock-puppet accounts mixed up there, Steve Mosby and/or Jeremy Duns.
posted by Etrigan at 12:43 PM on January 13, 2016 [8 favorites]
If someone bothered to find all the instances of me swearing and put it in one place I would assume they were my biggest fan.
I read a Stephen Leather novel, it was shite.
posted by biffa at 12:53 PM on January 13, 2016 [7 favorites]
I read a Stephen Leather novel, it was shite.
posted by biffa at 12:53 PM on January 13, 2016 [7 favorites]
Yeah, if anyone wanted to see every off-color remark I've ever made on the internet they could just click on my MeFi comment history...
...hold on, does this mean that mathowie and cortex are both Stephen Leather sockpuppets? DUM-DUM-DUMMMM.
posted by Strange Interlude at 1:00 PM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
...hold on, does this mean that mathowie and cortex are both Stephen Leather sockpuppets? DUM-DUM-DUMMMM.
posted by Strange Interlude at 1:00 PM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
Unsurprising. Half of the top 20 accounts on MetaFilter are sockpuppets of jscalzi or cstross, right?
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:16 PM on January 13, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:16 PM on January 13, 2016 [3 favorites]
"I'll go on to several forums, the well-known forums, and post there under my name and under various other names and various other characters. You build up this whole network of characters who talk about your books and sometimes have conversations with yourself."I'm pretty sure I'd rather work for a living.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:17 PM on January 13, 2016 [14 favorites]
Half of the top 20 accounts on MetaFilter are sockpuppets of jscalzi or cstross, right?
Heh. I think you're surprisingly close to the mark on that, though it's not nearly as sinister as that. Definitely a lot of folks running around here who'd prefer we not know their public names. But as far as I've ever been able to see, most of them pretty much follow the community standards.
posted by lodurr at 1:25 PM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
Heh. I think you're surprisingly close to the mark on that, though it's not nearly as sinister as that. Definitely a lot of folks running around here who'd prefer we not know their public names. But as far as I've ever been able to see, most of them pretty much follow the community standards.
posted by lodurr at 1:25 PM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
Hmm, wonder if Steven Leather knows Scott Adams.
posted by Bella Donna at 1:28 PM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Bella Donna at 1:28 PM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]
"Unsurprising. Half of the top 20 accounts on MetaFilter are sockpuppets of jscalzi or cstross, right?"
The other half are Scott Adams'.
posted by Evilspork at 1:28 PM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
The other half are Scott Adams'.
posted by Evilspork at 1:28 PM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
I think you got your sock-puppet accounts mixed up there, Steve Mosby and/or Jeremy Duns.
Aha! I am actually Scott Ad--oh, it's been done. I'll get me coat.
posted by Shepherd at 1:38 PM on January 13, 2016 [4 favorites]
Aha! I am actually Scott Ad--oh, it's been done. I'll get me coat.
posted by Shepherd at 1:38 PM on January 13, 2016 [4 favorites]
Half of the top 20 accounts on MetaFilter are sockpuppets of jscalzi or cstross, right?
(burns sockpuppets)
THIS IS AN INTOLERABLE LIE OF THE MOST HEINOUS SORT AND I SHALL SEE IN COURT ANY WHO SAY OTHERWISE GOOD DAY I SAID GOOD DAY
(sweats)
posted by jscalzi at 1:44 PM on January 13, 2016 [46 favorites]
(burns sockpuppets)
THIS IS AN INTOLERABLE LIE OF THE MOST HEINOUS SORT AND I SHALL SEE IN COURT ANY WHO SAY OTHERWISE GOOD DAY I SAID GOOD DAY
(sweats)
posted by jscalzi at 1:44 PM on January 13, 2016 [46 favorites]
I was involved (very peripherally) in a similar harassment campaign, run by a guy living here in my town, against a group of female British horror writers. He was utterly relentless -- set up one sockpuppet account after another, coming at them via email, Facebook, Twitter, and freebie websites.
He had two modes of attack: the personal, where he barraged them with emails and comment-spam and filed harassment complaints with services (he got one of these women kicked off Facebook good & hard, which is a big deal with you're a downlist or even midlist writer). But they could never get any action against him because he was here in the US the whole time.
The other way he'd go at it was by creating these elaborate fictional universes where he elevated certain people to status of ringleaders and persecutors. These were folks who lived in the same town as him. They're find writers, both of them; neither prospers very much, but they each do alright in their way. But he always talked trash about them through a proxy and as though he were based in the UK. So, keeping himself distant in multiple ways -- just to be super-sure he never actually had to deal with one of them face to face. (These are both folks who have fierce friends around here, and he would have known that.) Funniest thing is, until some of these British horror writers got in touch with me to ask for help, these two friends of mine had no idea they were being attacked.
So, in summary: he was getting all personal and nasty with people who lived far away and were women; and he was getting all proxy and distant and leaving graffitti in places he knew they wouldn't see it when his targets were close to home. So, unlike Mr. Leathers in that regard, but similar in the spitefulness of his approach.
What was his motivation? I guess, jealousy? Of some sort? A need to feel big somehow, because no one you know will acknowledge your greatness? Same motivation as your basic MRA or #darkenlightenment weenie, I guess. I knew him, a (very) little, first from the local club scene; then later, he used to come to meetings of this SF group I helped charter. This was a couple years before before all this went down. He was that guy who talked about 1/3 of a great game, always hinting about this great stuff that he was doing but that he wasn't showing anyone because everyone wanted to steal it or couldn't appreciate it. People I knew on the club scene made it clear that in their opinion it was unwise to get to know this guy well; I never saw him with anybody else, so I think it was a widely shared notion. I know he smoked weed when he could mooch it off other folks, and when he would talk in meetings he had that sort of pot-burnout paranoia about him.
So, yeah: what the hell is it? My wife likes to say some people always have to be better than someone else, somehow. If they can't get it from their work or their life, they get it by remaking someone else as smaller than them.
posted by lodurr at 1:52 PM on January 13, 2016 [7 favorites]
He had two modes of attack: the personal, where he barraged them with emails and comment-spam and filed harassment complaints with services (he got one of these women kicked off Facebook good & hard, which is a big deal with you're a downlist or even midlist writer). But they could never get any action against him because he was here in the US the whole time.
The other way he'd go at it was by creating these elaborate fictional universes where he elevated certain people to status of ringleaders and persecutors. These were folks who lived in the same town as him. They're find writers, both of them; neither prospers very much, but they each do alright in their way. But he always talked trash about them through a proxy and as though he were based in the UK. So, keeping himself distant in multiple ways -- just to be super-sure he never actually had to deal with one of them face to face. (These are both folks who have fierce friends around here, and he would have known that.) Funniest thing is, until some of these British horror writers got in touch with me to ask for help, these two friends of mine had no idea they were being attacked.
So, in summary: he was getting all personal and nasty with people who lived far away and were women; and he was getting all proxy and distant and leaving graffitti in places he knew they wouldn't see it when his targets were close to home. So, unlike Mr. Leathers in that regard, but similar in the spitefulness of his approach.
What was his motivation? I guess, jealousy? Of some sort? A need to feel big somehow, because no one you know will acknowledge your greatness? Same motivation as your basic MRA or #darkenlightenment weenie, I guess. I knew him, a (very) little, first from the local club scene; then later, he used to come to meetings of this SF group I helped charter. This was a couple years before before all this went down. He was that guy who talked about 1/3 of a great game, always hinting about this great stuff that he was doing but that he wasn't showing anyone because everyone wanted to steal it or couldn't appreciate it. People I knew on the club scene made it clear that in their opinion it was unwise to get to know this guy well; I never saw him with anybody else, so I think it was a widely shared notion. I know he smoked weed when he could mooch it off other folks, and when he would talk in meetings he had that sort of pot-burnout paranoia about him.
So, yeah: what the hell is it? My wife likes to say some people always have to be better than someone else, somehow. If they can't get it from their work or their life, they get it by remaking someone else as smaller than them.
posted by lodurr at 1:52 PM on January 13, 2016 [7 favorites]
I would really, really, think twice before crossing Jeremy Duns, especially if (as seems to be the case here) I wasn't nearly as smart as him.
posted by Prince Lazy I at 2:07 PM on January 13, 2016
posted by Prince Lazy I at 2:07 PM on January 13, 2016
how much pain/angst/strife is created in this world by our pettiness and inability to appreciate our strengths.
posted by drewbage1847 at 2:14 PM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by drewbage1847 at 2:14 PM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
Gosh what a horrible, and totally un-selfaware person. I hope this gains traction - Hachette should be ashamed of propping him up.
posted by smoke at 4:53 PM on January 13, 2016
posted by smoke at 4:53 PM on January 13, 2016
That Spider Shepard site reads like a parody of how the English think Americans think.
posted by boo_radley at 6:15 PM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by boo_radley at 6:15 PM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
it's super funny how you guys were so busy chasing after jscalzi's sockpuppets that you didn't even notice that cstross is just one of my sockpuppets.
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers..."
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 11:07 PM on January 13, 2016 [3 favorites]
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers..."
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 11:07 PM on January 13, 2016 [3 favorites]
THIS IS AN INTOLERABLE LIE OF THE MOST HEINOUS SORT AND I SHALL SEE IN COURT ANY WHO SAY OTHERWISE GOOD DAY I SAID GOOD DAY
Nice try, Poffin Boffin.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 11:33 PM on January 13, 2016 [5 favorites]
Nice try, Poffin Boffin.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 11:33 PM on January 13, 2016 [5 favorites]
oneswellfoop: "Unsurprising. Half of the top 20 accounts on MetaFilter are sockpuppets of jscalzi or cstross, right?"
20? We're more OCD than that.
posted by Samizdata at 11:42 PM on January 13, 2016
20? We're more OCD than that.
posted by Samizdata at 11:42 PM on January 13, 2016
Inspector Morse would not be fucking happy.
The only times Morse was ever happy was he was chasing that pathologist (played by Amanda Hillwood, now married to Max Headroom himself, Matt Frewer), or when, in the 'Cherubim & Seraphim' episode he got extremely excited when he recognised a particular arrangement of the Hallelujah Chorus hidden away in some rave track:
The only times Morse was ever happy was he was chasing that pathologist (played by Amanda Hillwood, now married to Max Headroom himself, Matt Frewer), or when, in the 'Cherubim & Seraphim' episode he got extremely excited when he recognised a particular arrangement of the Hallelujah Chorus hidden away in some rave track:
What's that..?! Play that bit again, Lewis! That's the Hallelujah Chorus!! ... conducted by Sir Adrian Boult!posted by urbanwhaleshark at 1:13 AM on January 14, 2016 [2 favorites]
I read a Stephen Leather book once when I was about 16 I think. It was not a particularly good book.
- Stephen Leather.
posted by longbaugh at 4:45 AM on January 14, 2016
- Stephen Leather.
posted by longbaugh at 4:45 AM on January 14, 2016
Is not Lewis married to the Pathologist in real life or was his wife his real wife?
Oh, "Twlight of the Gods" had no good Morse like desires oozing even Lewis knew, he knew.
posted by clavdivs at 9:49 AM on January 14, 2016
Oh, "Twlight of the Gods" had no good Morse like desires oozing even Lewis knew, he knew.
posted by clavdivs at 9:49 AM on January 14, 2016
Clare Holman (Pathologist - Lewis' partner) is married to theatre director Howard Davies and also happens to be related to friends of my folks who have a swimming pool and my folks met her and she was ever so lovely apparently. I think Desmond Tutu was there too. Kevin Whately's wife (actor Madelaine Newton) starred with Kev in Inspector Morse but didn't play his wife - she played Beryl Newsome, the love interest of Morse.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 2:13 PM on January 15, 2016
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 2:13 PM on January 15, 2016
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