Vikings Raider

Last week I saw a post with a few likes on Bluesky by Alex Harvey, author of Forgotten Vikings: New Approaches to the Viking Age, who was justifiably pissed off about “an AI-‘written’ complete copy of my own book … on Amazon; same title, more-or-less the same blurb, and exactly the same impetus”. I took up his challenge to “absolutely dive-bomb this plagiaristic piece of shit” by posting a review, which Amazon rejected because I’d quoted the phrase “plagiaristic piece of shit”. By then I’d visited the author page of “Andrew.V Smith” and seen its parade of 32 AI-generated books, most on Viking themes. So I took a few minutes to cut and paste a warning into the review form of every single one: Plagiarised AI-generated rubbish. Do not buy or read this AI-generated “book”, by the same “author” who plagiarised a genuine book about Vikings published in 2024 by Alex Harvey. Presumably this is plagiarised from some other real human author’s work, so this can get in the sea as well. Amazon…