Readers Who Only Kinda Read

You know, it would be sorta fair to let the entire Cassie Edwards thing die except that she still has fans who, for whatever reason, don't read much other than Cassie Edwards.

If they DID read anything else they surely would have bumped into... oh, I don't know... one of the thousands of threads on the internet about her plagiarism scandal. Or, perhaps, seen it on the news. Or read it in a newspaper.

Now, I admit to being one of the meanest bitches out there when it came to Cassie, and that's because I've always found her books racist and insulting. And because of this I was gleefully amused by her outing. And I will admit, I have never understood what kind of thinking person could want to read her racist, hateful, badly slopped together crap.

Now I know... and I've suspected it all along... they are only marginally literate.

Ok... yeah, that was mean. But how sharp can you be if you are still logging on to forums for readers to post "Any Other Cassie Edwards Fans?" And then, when the kerfuffle begins, to cite Janet Dailey as if she were some sort of "get out of busted free" clause.

I'm beginning to wonder if all these posts, along with the accusations of causing strokes and any manner of other moronic moronosity with a side order of twitwad sauce, are being posted by her sons.

That is all...

Savage Exaggeration

In case your head was in a hole for an entire year, there's this thing involving Cassie Edwards being a big, fat, stealing scumbucket that happened in 2008. Since then Ms. Edwards continued to make money off other people's work, didn't apologize, blamed everyone else, and apparently had a massive stroke.

Not being her physician I can't possibly say how massive it was. I do know being a lying dirtbag is not a cause of strokes, nor is getting caught and denying it. I asked Ahmed, though, and he agrees that a mountain-sized guilt complex probably won't help with the stress during recovery. Given Ms. Edwards' habit of exaggerating and lying, I'm sceptical.

Anyway, in case you missed it, some wackjob fan blamed the Smart Bitches who broke the story. Click, enjoy, participate.

Hey, today is my mom and dad's anniversary, too! 49 years. And they didn't steal a second of them.

Cassie Edwards' Last Hope Fades

The Cassie Edwards situtation has finally reached a pinnacle to which my tired brain can no longer aspire in its flights of outrage. At last, she has won my pity. The Smart Bitches have finally found both a fiction and protected source. If that weren't enough, it's a Pulitzer prize winning novel, Laughing Boy by Oliver La Farge, still in print with Houghton Mifflin. Eeegods, folks.

I can't help but wonder if perhaps Edwards never thought it would go this far without somebody catching it. Or if, perhaps, she figured she'd pull the cutie once, then got a little relaxed when it passed, and maybe succumbed to deadline fever. But at this point she can no longer hide behind doing research and being unaware she had to cite it. I can think of no circumstances under which anyone, particularly a writer by trade, copies large numbers of passages nearly verbatim from a Pulitzer winning novel and has no knowledge of this being wrong.

It's too sad to be funny or even pleasant in a justice-is-served way anymore. Yes, even I can't feel much beyond a numb sense of sorrow.

The Cassie Edwards Conundrum

The Cassie Edwards fan base is in a tizzy, most recently name-calling at Smart Bitches Trashy Books. I, personally, think it quite telling that one of them started throwing the word "witch" around as a slur. Racism... really? Who would ever believe that a person who loves novels with SAVAGE titles, featuring red men and white women, would be a bigot? Shocking. Say it ain't so.

Bizarrely, one little Cassiephile in a particular snit was directing her spit and vitriol at Nora Roberts. Why? Well, La Nora was apparently jealous of Edwards, which explained her eloquent and carefully serious comment to the media (first noted, I believe, in the AP release). I believe I am not mistaken in recalling that Ms. Roberts was contacted, not the other way around.

But nobody is surprised. Because a writer of books so blatantly racist can't have a shiny, educated, thoughtful readership. And frankly, one of the reasons MANY people have always despised Cassie Edwards is her absolute odor of inferiority. Her books are bad. They suck. They glorify American Indians, just for instance, as savages who are titillating because they are savages.

She isn't the only bad writer I hate. I dislike any writer who harms any genre by shooting for the lowest bar. I hate writers who write rape fantasies. I hate women who write Alpha males as if they must be abusive stalkers in order to be strong, compelling men. I hate insipid, dimwitted morons who write historical novels with contemporary dialogue and social mores.

I hate stupid people who bring everyone else down. That's who I hate. It's kind of an equal opportunity hatred.

But I particularly hate this nonsense with Edwards, her Cassiephiles, and the dumb people who trashed her "outers" for telling the truth. Why? How often has any writer of romance had to defend her/his profession? Bodice rippers... poorly written drivel... dirty sex strung together with awkward or barely-existing plot... the same story with new names... unhealthy for women... exploitive of minorities and the poor...

Just when we were crawling, bloody by still breathing, out of the cesspit of our admittedly wobbly legacy, Cassie gets caught. Five steps forward, four steps back. Back to the red-faced stubbornness at cocktail parties. "We are not," we will be saying for the next ten years, "ALL like Cassie Edwards."

No, we are not. But now we have to convince everyone who doesn't know much about romance. If Edwards' fans, and the wimpy little Pollyannas of the world, want to respond with outrage to our outrage, and make ignorant statements about witch-hunts, they can start with me. My broom and pointy hat are waiting. So is my answering rage.

Bring it on.

Plagiarism Rears Its Ugly Head... AGAIN

Plagiarism has become a plague upon fiction. I very often write about current instances, scandals, exposures, and whatnot. Other outrage-minded folk may be fascinated by the current discussion at Smart Bitches Trashy Books, a favorite site of mine. While the discussion is decidedly snarky and unforgiving, it is an important one. And SBTB were, to be fair, the first to report on a very serious matter.

Cassie Edwards, author of 100 romances and counting, has some answers to provide readers. Quick Google searching showed massive numbers of large passages virtually copied and pasted, nearly verbatim, into her novels. I have never been a reader of Ms. Edwards. As someone of Irish and Cherokee heritage I avoid any novels that roll around in bad stereotypes like a pig wallows in slop. It's my personal opinion that all publishers of Indian themed books with SAVAGE in the title, and all publishers of Irish themed books including the phrase "top o' the mornin'" should be punished. Painfully. Frequently, until they STOP.

So no, I have not read a Cassie Edwards book. I have now, however, read lots and lots of passages of her books that were somebody else's passages first. While Edwards is to blame, and should be forced to find a new career (after sending a check to anyone dumb enough to buy one of her bad books to begin with), her publishers are far from blameless. Let's face it, if a bunch of snarky bitches can Google stuff that absolutely SCREAMS "I don't belong here," somebody reading through the first draft can, too.