Robert Stanek shat directly into my soul.

[Mme Erzulie]

Raving mad authors provide me with a lot of entertainment. The more attention they get, the more madness abounds, the more entertained I am. I see nothing wrong with drawing attention to these people. I don't want the poor guy to go bankrupt, he must be working pretty hard to pull of this very time-consuming, if poorly disguised scam. It would be no fun if Tairy and Stanek disappeared off the face of the earth.

So I see nothing wrong with getting them some attention, even if it means they sell more books.

This Stanek guy is priceless, but I also, like someone up-thread, feel kind of bad for him. But not bad enough to stop laughing.

[Liadin]

I don't think that's too realistic, as is clear from the OP's problem. When there are hundreds of 5 star reviews on Amazon and about three or four other-star reviews, it can be pretty affective in masking the books hilariously shitty diction.

I'm actually going to email Amazon about this and see what they say. With Fantasy Literature affectively boycotting him and Wikipedia as well, I'm curious to see if they are even looking into this.

Good for you.

My point, with his first sentence, was that anyone who is at all curious and does a bit of basic research prior to buying a Stanek book is likely to realize what he's up to. The 1-star reviews on Amazon discuss Stanek's fradulent behavior; there are discussions at the bottom of the Amazon pages to the same effect; the "look inside" feature enables readers to check it out for themselves, and the horrendous first paragraph should turn anyone off; try to google Robert Stanek and the search engine's very first suggestion is "Robert Stanek fraud", which then leads you to a variety of sites (including this one) discussing him in detail; posters on any fantasy message board not set up by Stanek himself will tell you his books suck. So the only people buying Stanek books and expecting them to be good are the people who aren't utilizing any of the resources at their disposal, and I'm not sure how any of us could reach those people. Although complaining to Amazon is certainly a start.

[Relic]

Raving mad authors provide me with a lot of entertainment. The more attention they get, the more madness abounds, the more entertained I am. I see nothing wrong with drawing attention to these people. I don't want the poor guy to go bankrupt, he must be working pretty hard to pull of this very time-consuming, if poorly disguised scam. It would be no fun if Tairy and Stanek disappeared off the face of the earth.

So I see nothing wrong with getting them some attention, even if it means they sell more books.

This Stanek guy is priceless, but I also, like someone up-thread, feel kind of bad for him. But not bad enough to stop laughing.

I agree. I sorta want this dude as my nemesis. That would be fun.

Read his forum for some extra creepy fun.

[Stubby]

Guys,

FTR, one mod already posted this warning upthread:

[mod]Please do not use this site as some kind of organizing nexus for anti-St*nek action. Thank you. [/mod]

If it continues the thread will be closed.

Thanks in advance.

[kadvael]

Until last week I had never heard about Stanek. What made me curious was a comment that his books were worse than the Eye of Argon :stunned: . Unfortunately from what I have read using the Amazon look inside feature it is not true :frown5: . It lacks Theis' quality of spelling and the characters do not seem so interesting (his princess and young magician can not match Grignr). The writing is not as bad as I expected and it is not worse than other writers whose names I will avoid to write :D.

[Acid Rainbow]

Guys,

FTR, one mod already posted this warning upthread:

[mod]Please do not use this site as some kind of organizing nexus for anti-St*nek action. Thank you. [/mod]

If it continues the thread will be closed.

Thanks in advance.

Thanks, Mr. Stanek.

All jokes aside, I'm not trying to organize any kind of anti-Stanek campaign. It's just fun to talk shit about him.

[BigFatCoward]

Aren't there some sort of legal problems Stanek could get raised against him? I mean is he completely in the legal clear?

in the uk there may be a case by 'fraud by false representation' i'm going to look into it when i get back to work (not to persecute or even do anything with it) just for info. I'm still buying it though, those feral clouds sound awesome.

[jamesM]

I'd guess at least 2 of those hours were him being bored into sleep.

*doffs cap*

[prone_to_say_stupid_things]

Until last week I had never heard about Stanek. What made me curious was a comment that his books were worse than the Eye of Argon :stunned: . Unfortunately from what I have read using the Amazon look inside feature it is not true :frown5: . It lacks Theis' quality of spelling and the characters do not seem so interesting (his princess and young magician can not match Grignr). The writing is not as bad as I expected and it is not worse than other writers whose names I will avoid to write :D.

It has been about 4 years since I read Kingdom and the Elves of the Reaches and I don't remember much about it except it was extremely boring, poorly written - and that I was annoyed at how he made the elves both telepathic and sort of like Vulcans. And the map in the front was poorly reproduced and hard to read, as well as being directionally challenged.

It is true that there is nothing originally bad about it -- it is full of fantasy clichés and bits stolen from better novels. However, the whole book seemed wrong when I first got it from Amazon - the back cover didn't have any description of the plot, just unattributed quotes raving how great the series was and that Robert Stanek was "America's Tolkien". I wasn't planning on reading it (it was intended as a gift for my nephew)- however I was curious on how a (what I now realized was self-published) book could get so many good reviews and be included on so many guides/lists on Amazon. I gave it some slack at first - since I don't read much children's literature - however as I read and got more and more bored and annoyed, I knew that no one could possibly like this book - child or adult.

The funny thing is that Stanek has an adult version of this series - but really it just the 8 books from the children's series grouped into 4 books with different tittles, covers and a different series name. Other than that, the story is word for word the same. I figured that Stanek wanted to have both a children and adult series in terms of getting more sales or to appear more prolific - but didn't want to take the time to write both.

In England - the Harry Potter books were released with different, more mature covers so adults wouldn't feel goofy about reading them - but it was never called "the adult series" -- just the "adult cover versions".

I'm still buying it though, those feral clouds sound awesome.

Maybe you should wait for the graphic novels.

[Xalinor]

To be fair to the man (and I know I'm the one who brought it up in the first place) he may actually have been awarded the DFC. I believe I read somewhere that the Flying Cross Society only lists your name if you pay annual dues to them.

ETA: But this just goes to show that if you become known as a liar and a fraud even your true claims will be doubted until you can show hard proof.

This is the only thing Stanek has claimed that seems even partially legitimate.

[Jaxom 1974]

Maybe you should wait for the graphic novels.

Oh thank the gods! I would have never know how to create a comic book/graphic novel without such a complete basic primer such as that one! And that he's apparently doing all of the work himself? Priceless.

[williamjm]

And the map in the front was poorly reproduced and hard to read, as well as being directionally challenged.

:stunned:

Obviously such obscure concepts as "East" and "West" are things unworthy of consideration by a literary genius such as Stanek. Other authors may obsess over such world-building technicalities but Stanek transcends such petty details.

Oh thank the gods! I would have never know how to create a comic book/graphic novel without such a complete basic primer such as that one! And that he's apparently doing all of the work himself? Priceless.

I'm currently wondering if the dialogue in this page from the comic could be any more unintentionally creepy. I'm doubtful it could.

[Morcant]

I'm currently wondering if the dialogue in this page from the comic could be any more unintentionally creepy. I'm doubtful it could.

Yikes! I definitely agree.

[pat5150]

I wrote one of the negative reviews (being one of the unfortunates who bought Kingdom and the Elves of the Reaches and managed to read it all). The comments from “Simon”/Stanek were along the lines that I needed therapy and perhaps should be institutionalized. Hey, at least that is better than being shanked in prison. Oh – and that he and everybody he knows loves Stanek.

Then this morning he sends me a personal message to my Goodreads mailbox which says:

from: Simon

to: Cathy Dark

subject: What's your problem?

message: What is your major malfunction? Are you one of those crazies? Or what?

According to Stanek, this is the work of one of the 400,000 loyal readers who have read the Ruin Mist books. At least that's what he told me on FB...

Patrick

[Larry.]

You have Facebook, Pat? And Stanek is one of your friends? :o

Ha! :P

[pat5150]

Since guys like me get shanked in jail, I doubt he would want to be my friend! :P

However, I did ask him, with about 400,000 readers, how come his Facebook fan page only has two fans (one of them him). Not sure if he'll reply. . .

Patrick

[BookWyrm]

Since guys like me get shanked in jail, I doubt he would want to be my friend! :P

However, I did ask him, with about 400,000 readers, how come his Facebook fan page only has two fans (one of them him). Not sure if he'll reply. . .

Patrick

:lol: Ace in the hole!

[Larry.]

I want links! I demand proof of Pat-on-Stanek action! :P

[Liadin]

Since guys like me get shanked in jail, I doubt he would want to be my friend! :P

However, I did ask him, with about 400,000 readers, how come his Facebook fan page only has two fans (one of them him). Not sure if he'll reply. . .

Patrick

No doubt the other 399,998 others have been banned from facebook when they tried to expose the truth behind the haters out to destroy Stanek's livelihood.

[Acid Rainbow]

Since guys like me get shanked in jail, I doubt he would want to be my friend! :P

However, I did ask him, with about 400,000 readers, how come his Facebook fan page only has two fans (one of them him). Not sure if he'll reply. . .

Patrick

We went over this before, and we're pretty sure that the fans who are not Robert Stanek or "William Stanek" are sockpuppet accounts. :)