Recently I was browsing the Amazon website when I saw a new Stephen King book was available for Kindle Unlimited. It was called Infested and the Amazon summary made it sound intriguing. The summary was less important than the fact that this was a book by Stephen freaking King, one of the greats. In my teens and twenties I read almost everything King wrote. Lately I haven’t followed him as closely, but I was nonetheless surprised that I hadn’t heard of this new title.

Since I’m a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, the book is essentially free. KU, like Netflix, uses an all-you-can-consume business model: one monthly subscription price provides for unlimited reads. Such a model incentivizes impulsive book downloads sans research, and of course that’s what I did. I hit the “Download” button then launched my Kindle app to see if I vibed with this new King story.

It was obvious on page 1 that something was amiss with this story. It didn’t read like a Stephen King book. By page 2 it was obvious this was NOT written by #1 horror writer Stephen King, the author who has spent over 1,000 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

Here, take a look for yourself. These are the first three paragraphs of the book Infested :

The intro to the book is… well, if I’m honest, it’s pretty terrible. The sentences make sense and tell a story that’s understandable, so I guess it’s serviceable. And yet, as an opening scene it’s both boring and poorly described. There’s no indication of why the narrator is avoiding cleaning her attic. The attic is described as “stuffy,” “dusty,” and “filled with spider webs” but that doesn’t sound too foreboding. Maybe the narrator is just lazy? From the text there’s no clear reason for her reticence. The house itself is described as “a mansion of a house” but what does that even mean? Is it larger than the other houses in the neighborhood, or nicer, or older? Or is it a larger house than the narrator is used to?

Then there’s the second line, “Oh right, I’m cleaning my attic.” That line sounds realistic, as in it is something someone would say — I am sure I have before, in fact. But it implies she forgot she was cleaning the attic, which of course is stupid. In essence, the line is something stupid someone would say that doesn’t make sense. I can’t imagine the real Stephen King including such a line in one of his books, even if he intends for it to show that the character speaking it an idiot.

Finally, there are two grammatical errors in the final sentence of the third paragraph. The sentence begins, “You think after moving” which should have been “You’d think after moving.” Further, the third paragraph end and it ends with “but that’s not the cause” when the writer clearly intended it to be “but that’s not the case.” Three mistakes in the first three paragraphs? You wouldn’t find three mistakes in the entire book if it had been released by Simon & Schuster (the real Stephen King’s publisher) or a half-decent self-published author.

The only thing I can say in the writer’s favor is that this book clearly wasn’t written by AI. You can quote me on that Stephen R. King. Put it over the title where “New York Times Bestseller” will never in a million years be.

So, yeah I was duped by Stephen R. King (if that is even his real name). But check out his book cover vs. an actual Stephen King book cover: same font style, size, and placement. Very similar imagery — an attic with a slanted roof and one visible window. Stephen R. King is basically impersonating Stephen King to make a quick buck.

So yeah, this appears to be an open-and-shut case of trademark infringement, fraud, and/or unfair competition. The real King’s lawyers should be all over this. Amazon of course must have a method by which a shopper can report such an infraction, right? Nope, wrong! Amazon only allows the intellectual property rights holder (i.e. the original author) or his attorney to make such a claim. All a customer can do who has been misled and scammed by a copycat or counterfeit book cover is… write a blog post like this one. How lame.

Amazon, get your act together.