So, King of the Undies World (damn fine novel) is now available for free download.

The parasite that stole my book — Illustration by Chris Page

It went on offer on May 24 and is presented online, complete with full-colour reproduction of the cover — Hades in his underpants glory — and an impressive Twitter-like feed of user comments — glowing, effulgent user comments!

Here are some of the comments:

Jenny Martins
Finally I get this ebook, thanks for all these King of the Undies World (Underpants of Fire Book 1) I can get now!

and

Markus Jensen
I did not think that this would work, my best friend showed me this website, and it does! I get my most wanted eBook

and

Michael Strebensen
wtf this great ebook for free?!

And so the comments go on at embarrassing length. Dozens of them!

Well, the punters seem to be well pleased — ecstatically so!

Aw, shucks, guys, you’re really too much!

This would be fantastic but for one thing: none of these people are real and this exciting giveaway has nothing to do with me.

King of the Undies World has effectively been stolen — yes, someone is giving my book away without asking me, without paying me and without even telling me. I found out about this irresistible offer completely by accident, not through any approach of proposal or permission.

How is a potential Nobel laureate to make a living when pirates are pinching his hard work and spreading it across space like confetti?

But wait!

It gets worse.

I have reason to believe that the link does not in fact lead to 75,000 words of underpants jokes, but to a virus infected file — a nasty Trojan worm of a a destructor file that will steal your life, kill all those dearest to you and repaint your house in an embarrassing shade of mauve before setting fire to it.

A dollop of digital sociopathy with my bloody name on it.

No, I’m not good with this at all.

So, who the fuck is this that’s stealing my life’s work to his own knobby end?

No idea. This worm seems to be tucked away in a maze of fake domains and cyber mirrors and trap doors but the fake offer also gets listed on at least one Google directory.

So, no, this is not good at all.

I complained to someone but I’m not sure in all this shifting cyber-fuge who I actually complained to. My message might have led to a dawn raid by Interpol on the rock under which this worm hangs out, or the complaint might have slipped down a virtual hole into the laps of the giggling, piratical hackerpaths themselves. It might have gone to my grandmother in the afterlife. It might turn up tomorrow in my morning sandwich. I really don’t know.

So, let’s be clear, I have not offered any of my books for free. If you come across a too-good-to-be-true offer to download and wallow in my words, be aware that it really is too good to be true. And if it is an actual download of the book, then it is stolen. If it’s a virus, then your hard drive might end up a smoking ruin,

So, if you find any free downloads of my stories, they are not legit and may even be contaminated. You might drop me a message to say that you have seen this deal, and maybe include the URL, so I can home in on this bastard and nail his scrotum to his own forehead.

If I do any free downloads they will go through psipook.com, chris-page.com, Kindle, or Goodreads, and that’s that.