Christopher Hill re-emerges?

I learnt yesterday that it seems that Chirstopher Hill
has been ghostwriting a book, Of Atlantis, for the author Lanaia Lee. When her agent (Cheryl Pillsbury, who is her friend or
sister?) accepted it and submitted it to the publisher, Koval
Publishing. Koval is about to publish Of Atlantis and now it seems it is a
plagiarised lift from David Gemmell’s Dark Prince fantasy novel based
on Alexander the Great.

There is understandable wailing and ire from Gemmel fans although some would say to plagiarize him is a kind of homage too, especially when the deception is revealed! Some folk at the Absolute Write and Writers Beware forum seem very agitated that Lanaia would seek a ghostwriter in the first place and so she cannot be a ‘proper’ writer. I think that is rather unfair. I know Lanaia has health issues, which has taken much of her energy and time. It seems understandable to me that after coming up with the plot, characters and ideas, along with writing some of the novel herself, she seeks help to complete the work.

The other concern expressed is that yesterday’s revelations means Christopher Hill is actively continuing to con writers. I’m not totally convinced this is the case. Apparently, he started his ghostwriting for Lanaia Lee in 2005 around the same time that he began the Hill & Hill Literary Agency. We outed him after he fabricated publishers’ reports although it took us a few months because Christopher met some of us face-to-face and conducted long-distance phone calls, coming across as a knowledgeable and genuinely amiable person. Also, unlike the $400 per month he took for ghost writing, he took virtually no money from his literary agency clients, and indeed, spent more than he took buying me drinks in an Edinburgh hotel, buying copies of my Escaping Reality, etc. Because he refunded the small fees to all the Literary Agency clients who asked for them back, the police and FBI felt there was insufficient crime for them to pursue him, but apparently left the files open. He would know this, and he would be very foolish to continue in any underhand or illegal way.

I’m more concerned, but not losing sleep over it, that in the course of his agency work Christopher had his hands on over 60 completed unpublished manuscripts. If he was also ghostwriting, who knows if our work is now published but under someone else’s name – twice removed? He says he destroyed all the scripts submitted to him when the agency crashed, but did he? I’m actively seeking representation and a publisher for Left Luggage. I’d be gutted if I found it re-badged, published by Publish America, under another author’s name! On the other hand if I found Left Luggage had been plagiarized and turned up substantially as a Michael Crichton novel maybe I should cheer and use the honour to publicise my other work!
More details of the Lanaia Lee ghost writing problem is in Victoria Strauss’s blog at Writer Beware

Meanwhile if anyone would like me to ghostwrite a book for them, well I’m too busy writing my own, editing the new Sci fi magazine, Escape Velocity for Adventure Books of Seattle, and editing other good folk’s novels, but I know a man who would…

Tags: , Christopher Hill, David Gemmel, ghost writing, Lanaia Lee, Of Atlantis