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Spy novel "Assassin of Secrets" pulled for plagiarism
shadowonthesun
Banned
<b>Mulholland Books pulls 'Assassin of Secrets' over copied passages</b>
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2011/11/mulholland-books-pulls-assassin-of-secrets-over-copied-passages.html
<blockquote>Mulholland Books, an imprint of Little, Brown, has pulled its novel "Assassin of Secrets" after passages were found to be copied from other spy novels. The book was a first novel from Q.R. Markham. The paperback original was published Nov. 3.
In a statement, Michael Pietsch, executive vice president and publisher of Little, Brown and Co., said: "Upon investigation, it was clear the passages in question were lifted, and Little, Brown determined that the only course of action was to immediately recall books from retailers across the country."
<b>The passages in question, which were not shared with the press, were lifted from James Bond books by Ian Fleming</b> and thrillers by Robert Ludlum and Christopher McCrary, the Associated Press reports.
In October, Markham wrote an essay for the Huffington Post titled, "9 Ways That Spy Novels Made Me a Better Bookseller." Markham wrote that he writes under a pen name and that he is co-owner of Spoonbill & Sugartown Booksellers in Brooklyn. In his essay, he wrote, "Once I'd gotten into the mindset of a Cold War-era superspy, it was hard to leave. I began to notice certain similarities between my day job and my night-time work. I found myself not only making decisions the way Chase would, but recognizing where the methodology came from, whether it be Ian Fleming's M., Le Carre's George Smiley, or Nicholas Hel's Go teacher." Markham's tumblr has also been taken down.
In the statement from Little, Brown, Pietch said, "We take great pride in the writers and books we publish and tremendous care in every aspect of our publishing process, so it is with deep regret that we have published a book that we can no longer stand behind. Our goal is to never have this happen, but when it does, it is important to us to communicate with and compensate readers and retailers as quickly as possible."
The company will give full credit to wholesalers who return the book, and it has asked consumers to seek refunds for the book from the retailer where they bought it.</blockquote>
Apparently, Markham also plagiarised from Raymond Benson and John Gardner. And it's not like he borrowed ideas here and there - he repeatedly lifted entire passages from multiple authors. This link (http://www.edrants.com/q-r-markham-plagiarist/) shows no less than ten examples of plagiarism from five different novels in the first seventeen pages.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2011/11/mulholland-books-pulls-assassin-of-secrets-over-copied-passages.html
<blockquote>Mulholland Books, an imprint of Little, Brown, has pulled its novel "Assassin of Secrets" after passages were found to be copied from other spy novels. The book was a first novel from Q.R. Markham. The paperback original was published Nov. 3.
In a statement, Michael Pietsch, executive vice president and publisher of Little, Brown and Co., said: "Upon investigation, it was clear the passages in question were lifted, and Little, Brown determined that the only course of action was to immediately recall books from retailers across the country."
<b>The passages in question, which were not shared with the press, were lifted from James Bond books by Ian Fleming</b> and thrillers by Robert Ludlum and Christopher McCrary, the Associated Press reports.
In October, Markham wrote an essay for the Huffington Post titled, "9 Ways That Spy Novels Made Me a Better Bookseller." Markham wrote that he writes under a pen name and that he is co-owner of Spoonbill & Sugartown Booksellers in Brooklyn. In his essay, he wrote, "Once I'd gotten into the mindset of a Cold War-era superspy, it was hard to leave. I began to notice certain similarities between my day job and my night-time work. I found myself not only making decisions the way Chase would, but recognizing where the methodology came from, whether it be Ian Fleming's M., Le Carre's George Smiley, or Nicholas Hel's Go teacher." Markham's tumblr has also been taken down.
In the statement from Little, Brown, Pietch said, "We take great pride in the writers and books we publish and tremendous care in every aspect of our publishing process, so it is with deep regret that we have published a book that we can no longer stand behind. Our goal is to never have this happen, but when it does, it is important to us to communicate with and compensate readers and retailers as quickly as possible."
The company will give full credit to wholesalers who return the book, and it has asked consumers to seek refunds for the book from the retailer where they bought it.</blockquote>
Apparently, Markham also plagiarised from Raymond Benson and John Gardner. And it's not like he borrowed ideas here and there - he repeatedly lifted entire passages from multiple authors. This link (http://www.edrants.com/q-r-markham-plagiarist/) shows no less than ten examples of plagiarism from five different novels in the first seventeen pages.
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Comments
This is hilarious, he really wrote that in an essay?
Good thing he got caught nonetheless.
Mailman of Mail
Librarian of Books
Lifeguard of Water
Gunsmith of Guns, etc;
However, I'm exceedingly curious to know exactly which passages were lifted from Fleming.
I hope it's not as obvious as "Nest Vastro Feldblo went under the name of Dr. Handschatter and lived in a castle in Japan...".
And yes, Dimi, unfortauntely the plagiarism really was that obvious. Quentin Rowan (the "Q. R." in "Q. R. Markham") essentially copy-posted large sections of text from over a dozen novels into his own and made minor changes.
I've also found this, a blog post from an author who recommended the novel (said recommendation was due to appear on the cover), how he discovered it was plagiarised, and how he missed it. It's very intelligent and very mature; I like most people would just try and forget about it:
http://jeremyduns.blogspot.com/2011/11/assassin-of-secrets.html
It's difficult to understand how this happened, but I think Quentin Rowan really wanted to be taken seriously as a spy fiction novellist. And it really feels like he is trying way too hard to get that credibility. After all, his penname is "Q. R. Markham" - and as has been well-documented, "Robert Markham" was the pseudonym Gildrose used for Amis' Colonel Sun. Given that he plagiarised from many of the Bond continuity novels, I do not think that this is coincidence.
I think that this desire for acceptance might be what motivated Rowan to plagiarise; he wanted to be like his heroes, and he wanted to be like them straight away, rather than working to earn that reputation. No doubt he had some fantasy where the name "Q. R. Markham" would be used in the same sentence as Ian Fleming and John le Carre and Robert Ludlum as a master of the spy fiction genre, probably as their natrual successor; the Fleming/le Carre/Ludlum of the 2010s. Rowan wouldn't have seen what he did as plagiarism; in fact, he probably wouldn't have seen it as being wrong at all. Rather, I think he would have felt it was some kind of tribute to those writers, as they had all influenced him in some way, and he was immortalising those influences at the same time as reserving a place for himself in the pantheon of literary greats. That's probably how he was able to carry out the deception for so long that Assassin of Secrets was on the verge of hitting shelves before the ruse was discovered - because he never actually thought of what he was doing as wrong. It wasn't deviousness that led him to plagiarise, and nor was it laziness. It was just the misguided impression that he could bend reality to fit his desires.
Y'know, sometimes, Shadow, you sound quite supercilious in your comments.
Just look at his biography - "Q.R. Markham has been a parks department employee, laundry-truck driver, door-to-door knife salesman, telemarketer, rock 'n' roll bassist, literary scout, book-reviewer, small business owner, and consultant. His writing has appeared in the Paris Review, Bomb Magazine, Witness, The New York Post, The Huffington Post, and more. Assassin of Secrets is his first novel."
Apparently his bio is a list of all the jobs he's held since college, and even that is misleading; he doesn't own a business - he's a minor investor in the Brooklyn bookstore he works in. I mean, a laundry-truck driver? Door-to-door knife salesman? Telemarketer? They're not exactly impressive job, are they? Rowan is thirty-five years old, and his employment history suggests he's (and there's no other word for this) a loser. I'm halfway surprised that his bio doesn't include "gas-station attendant", "airport baggage handler" and "spray-tan booth operator" as jobs.
So I'm convinced that he did it because he wanted to be somebody, because he thought he deserved more than he had, and that he wanted to be remembered the same way as his heroes. He probably had some fantasy where "Quentin Rowan" would be the latest in a long line of names including Fleming, le Carre, Ludlum and so on.
He has done very well up to the point he messed with the 007-fan who outed him.
I guess he'll write a book about his actions one day and find that there is no publisher who wants it. >:-)