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The Seaman: A Ghost Book in the Machine?
Ever heard of a book called The Seaman? Neither have I. Which is odd, considering that I supposedly wrote it.
When my son was building this website, he kept coming across online references to a book called The Seaman, written by Christopher Stasheff, and published in 1997. It even had a ISBN number! He finally asked me which series it belonged to, or if it was a standalone novel.
He was surprised when I told him it wasn't one of mine. Apparently, he'd come across at least four different websites that listed this book in my list of novels. He just assumed it was just one of my books he hadn't gotten around to reading yet.
My first instinct was that The Seaman was a real book that had been attributed to me by an accidental typo (things like that happen all the time). As far as I can tell, though, there is no book by this title--or if there is, Amazon.com has never heard of it.
So where did this phantom book come from, and why was it attributed to me? I have no idea. My son theorizes it's what he calls an "internet ghost."
He tells me a "ghost" is inacurate information put on the internet by someone, somewhere, at some time. The origional author may have realized the mistake and taken the information down, but not before other people copied the information onto their own websites... and other people copied those... and other people copied those... until the information appears in so many places, people automatically assume it's true.
It's a fascinating concept. It's like watching a myth or legend arise in months instead of centuries. Gives me an idea for a St. Vidicon story, actually...
Now, I'm hardly an expert at seaching the internet, so I could easily have missing something. If anyone out there has ever heard of this novel, please let me know. It would solve the mystery, and... well, I'd like to read this book now, if it exists. I'm too curious not to.
5 comments
My first guess would be a mis-spelling of The Shaman somewhere, at some time, by somebody who didn’t recognize the term, and so got the title wrong.
Thanks, Jon. It might give me an idea for a second book – about a Finnish sailor. The Finns, according to legend, could literally whistle up a wind. Captains were very polite to them.
I thought it might be the Shaman as well, but it has a different ISBN and was published 2 years later…weird.
Amazon has it listed as…
“Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #8,417,590 in Books”
not sure how a book that doesn’t exist made the charts though. lol
It’s listed everywhere though - all currently out of stock of course.
My current thinking is that you wrote this in the future after Doc Angus became your agent.
The Seaman is a book written by one Jane Yolen in 1997 about sailors aboard a dutch ship in 1663 finding/capturing a creature that is a mix between fish and man. As I’ve never read the book I cannot honestly tell you more about it, or if this is the book alledgedly written by yourself.
Off subject but very intresting to me is your comment about a ghost in the machine. It is my understanding that such is not inaccurate imformation carried on, but rather bits of information from unknown origin that occassionally come together to do rather crazy, and sometimes not so crazy, things to, or within, our machinery. Such as a machine designed to make soles for shoes suddenly spitting out a size it was never designed to make.
I found this book listed on Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/The-Seaman-Christopher-Stasheff/dp/0517175525
It attributes it to our beloved writer here. I’d like to snag a copy for no other reason than curiosity.