May 10, 2011

Evil Wylie is an evil genius

by

On the one hand you have Amanda Hocking, an earnest person who saw an opening offered by Amazon‘s self-publishing platform and figured out how to game it in order to sell books for herself when no one else would.

Now, on the other hand, a dark and sinister presence has emerged who has also figured out how to game the new self-publishing system…for eeeevil.

Yes, Evil Wylie has discovered the new platform’s inherent power to offer an opening to evil would-be editors, giving them the ability to raid the public domain, make some tweaks, and release “new editions” to make a bunch of money.

So what gem of American literature has fallen victim to this sinister plan? Why the ever-popular-to-tinker-with Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, of course.

Calling his edition of Huck Finn “The Patriot’s Edition,” Evil Wylie is capitalizing on our country’s new-found love of elite fighting forces by replacing the controversial “n word” with “Navy Seal.” So now when you read the classic Twain tale you won’t feel that twinge of guilt at every mention of Jim but you will feel a burst of patriotic pride.

And as the Gothamist notes, “If you’re going to read a censored version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, it might as well be the version about Huck and his Navy SEAL friend Jim.”

MobyLives