A COMPLETE FICTION
R.L. MAIZES
Ig Publishing (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$18.95 all editions, available now
Rating: 4.25* of five
The Publisher Says: With little evidence, would-be author P.J. Larkin serves a "nibble" on the trendy new social-media app Crave, accusing editor George Dunn of stealing the novel she submitted to him for publication. The nibble shoots to the top of the site's Popular Menu Items and before you can say "unpaid literary labor," George is embroiled in a scandal, his job and book deal in jeopardy. P.J.’s novel is snapped up amid the publicity, but has she revealed secrets belonging to her sister, Mia, in the book? Some diners on Crave think so and now it’s P.J.’s turn to feel the public’s scorn.
Told in the humorous vein of Where'd You Go, Bernadette?, A COMPLETE FICTION examines the very serious questions of who has a right to tell a story, and has cancel culture gone too far in our social media-drenched world.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: Bitterly funny takedown/send-up of the corrosive world-view promoted by the algorithms of "engagement" that tech scum have foisted on social media users.
A writer manquée takes umbrage at a writer-editor (dangerous combination) publishing a novel that she feels is closely based on her own rejected novel. She stirs up a firestorm of outrage by accusing the male editor of plagiarism. The entire little world of this (invented; also brilliant, someone get on developing this!) app erupts! The consequences are multivarious, and serious, for all concerned.
Using social media is something most of us do, in 2025 in the US anyway. We're increasingly dependent on it. Without it, stuck in a place I can't physically leave with any ease or comfort, I'd go insane from boredom. Yet I see frequent idiocy plagues run rife on many platforms, as well as the darker side of the world of these apps that spy on us via "cookies" and increasingly via "AI" moderation. It's a world run by algorithms. These do not, in and of themselves, present a problem; it's the scum that decide how the algorithms should be written that present an existential threat to civil discourse.
In the publishing industry, plagiarism accusations are taken very seriously. It's shocking to me that more of the opposition to "AI"'s rise isn't centered very publicly, very loudly, and outside industry circles around the reality that it's trained on plagiarized material. Nonetheless, the use of this colossal, often career-blemishing accusation as the basis of this tale is heartening. It is not a "yes he did it" or a "she made this accusation in bad faith" story. It really delves into the complicated reality of emotional reality not meshing with consensus reality. It offers a chance to examine how deeply the roots of creativity entwine with personal identity. How very toxic anything can become when it attacks, as you see it, the roots of your identity. How deeply unwise, how destructive, how of necessity unfair, it is for outsiders to take sides and form mobs about things they can't know in detail sufficient to warrant such partisanship.
In this way, Author Maizes skewers our cultural moment's absence of perspective. She offers us alternating perspectives. She makes each writer take a turn in her narrative hot seat because "nobody's perfect" isn't a nostrum for defusing conflict by accident. In the end, however, I was enlightened by this technique more than I was drawn to invest in the characters by it. I had no sympathy for PJ and fairly little for George at any given moment, yet their imbroglio compelled my attention throughout the read.
So while I can't offer a full fifth star, I can say I was eager to come back to the read every time I had to put it down, and had the fun I badly needed while reading this pretty scathing story. No one, especially not the reader, comes out of this fight unscarred.
Very much a recommended read.
