the erstwhile reviewer turns investigative journalist---and falls flat

Ms Klausner's broad side concerning me at her blog seemed to require a response. I would ask Amazon to have this posted because it's really the only way I can defend myself. I start with her attack in which she got a few things wrong. My response follows: Now, two things. First, "Joel, Holden", perhaps unwittingly, breaks the code here: this Klausner excretion is (as all of them are) a preview, not a review. Second, when I see someone praising Harriet ("Thank you, Ms. Klausner for a wonderful, intriguing preview. My copy is on the way."), I kinda feel funny. Is it possible to be such an imbecile as to be honestly pleased by a Klausner blurb? And so (perhaps it's paranoia, I don't know) I just have to suspect a "scratch-my-back" action by a pleased author/flunkey/publisher employee. Iow, someone shilling for the shill (many of you will recall similarly unctuous posts by Mark Blackburn and JP Pix in the Harp realm). Iow, it's Quality Comments™ (remember Quality Comments™¹ ?). So, driven by my paranoia, I begin to trace out who the hell this "Joel, Holden" might be. First I click on his name and go to his profile page, where I discover that he is (surprise, surprise!) an author (whose nom de plume is apparently "Barry Eysman"; among other things on this page there's an Amazon UK page holding something like a catalog of "Barry Eysman"'s oeuvre). Going back to Joel/Barry's US page: he's got some reviews; let's visit there. Well, nothing eye-catching, the prose a bit purple, otherwise all right... not all five-star, there are some negatives too... looks fine to me. Except notice that like every second review of his contain a strange link - a link that doesn't seem to have anything to do with the book reviewed or the review itself. And (bet you know where it's going) if we visit those links, we'll find out that all of them lead to the books by? yes, by Barry Eysner. So this is one of those guys who don't do things just for the heck of it: they've got a product to puff, and everything they do has to serve that purpose. It's like the reviewers who always include in all their reviews that they are "the author of" this and that, and so on, which has nothing to do with the book/review - which invalidates their reviews, 'cause you immediately think, all right, this guy posts reviews not to review anything but to promote his own stuff; this is not a real review: he's a member of the scribbling crowd who review (always five stars) one another's crap as a matter of course, adding nothing - other than a faint smell of s..t - to the universe; to be ignored. And so getting back to this Harriet review: do you think Joel/Barry's is a bona fide remark, or is it Quality Comments™? Note 1: Remember Quality Comments™? The site that sold their shilling services, where for a payment their employees would visit a designated website and post "realistic-looking" comments - "Our Blog Comments are of high quality! [...] Our promise to you is that the comments will look very real[...] The blogger won't recognize that its [sic] a paid post" - kinda like Astroturf? I don't know if that BuyBlogComments.com vendor is still in business, but we've blogged a lot about them - or rather about the phenomenon itself - like for example here PS. No, the place is no longer online, unfortunately. But there's plenty of it in caches, like this page, for example (here's a google search on their name; if the pages are absent, use the cache). Posted by Malleus at 3/27/2011 01:38:00 AM 0 comments MY RESPONSE I didn't want to hurt you. I no longer care. I didn't read your preview. I was just excited about a new book from Richard Matheson. Joel, Holden is a pen name. My real name is Barry Eysman. It's gotten confused, but I have to leave it that way. I really don't owe you an explanation of anything. Your investigative reporting is flawed. The product links I put in my reviews, (One would think a well researched journalist would know this.) are links to my books and Kindles. I'm surprised you did not find them. Click on one of the links sometime. I have no ulterior motives. You say the links lead back to books by Barry Eysner. You are in error. To write that I am a fake reviewer is laughable. I review what I like and what I don't like. Many times I don't put any links at all. When I do, I try work of mine in the same general area. If you want to write that my reviews have an "air of s..t" about them, and that I am a flunky who writes puff pieces, I think this should disabuse you of that notion. If you want to write this stuff, go ahead, but, get it right. Ask me. Don't go behind my back. Otherwise you are like other so called journalists in this country. Do you even know what country I'm in? I've written 7 books, numerous short stories, and you lady can put a sock in it. I am not a shill. What in the world could I get out of scratching your back? Who are you? I get nothing for my reviews one way or the other. If I were such a thing, just look at how my reviews stack up at the bottom of the list. My writing is interior. It is not in any way going from A to B to C. I've worked the majority of my life learning to be a writer. I don't attack people who write reviews or spend my life writing them. Thanks for destroying Richard Matheson's new novel for me. I'm proud of my fiction. I think it is worth while and complex. What you call purple prose is your business. Johnny Boy, you are so right and so fair. I completely agree. I'm on your side 100%. Hope you get a chance to look at this one and know why. Believe me, I know how it feels. I wish you well. There is a difference between tracking down clues and skulking around in the dark. Rod Serling had a better analogy than that. He called them "night crawlers". I too have read an awful lot of books. I mean I've really read a lot of books. Just please, next time you try to slander someone, be sure you've got your facts right. Hope this makes for another newspaper article somewhere. Maybe you read too fast. Makes you all swimmy headed. Kinda take a powder. Rest yourself. Barry Eysman