My copy of
Harry Potter 5 arrived on
Saturday, the release day, in the middle of our
shabbos meal, along with my sister's copy and our houseguest's copy. I couldn't start it until
Shabbos was over, so at around 10:00, I picked up the book. I finished it at 5:00 the next morning, then promptly fell asleep. It took me a total of 6 hours to
read (subtracting breaks), and it was a wonderful addition to the
series.
I decided that I would re-read it, but didn't want to lug around a 10 lb. book, so I decided, hey, I bet Gnutella has a copy that my palm would run, and a 60-second search later, there were my search results. I downloaded the two with the largest number of sources, so I would get the files quickly, then went back into the other room. 15 minutes later, I came back, and the files were downloaded.
Of course, the first though that popped into my head was "Wonderful!" but then I opened the first copy of the file, a pdf document. (No, it's not a spoiler for the book, you'll see...)
Chapter 1 - The Trip
It was the most wonderful feeling harry ever experienced. He was flying through the air, feeling the wind blow by and through his entire body. The warm sun...
Now, I wasn't certain, so I went to get my copy of the book, and sure enough, that didn't even resemble the opening of the 5th book. Not at all. I checked again, confused. I looked further, and sure enough, the online version had only 32 chapters. It was only 357 pages. But it was 357 pages...
Clearly, somebody decided to write a 350 page book, in the universe of Harry Potter, following the fourth book, and make it seem like the 5th book! It was rather miserably done, as a large section of the book spelled Voldemort Veldomert, the plot was more than just a bit weak, the writing is just plain bad, and the whole thing reeks in every other way I can think of. I'm still kind of suprised, though... Harry Potter 5 is fake!
PS. The PDF file says it was created on friday, and I think that the text version on gnutella is earlier. I am truly amazed that a good copy did not arrive to my segment of gnutella until sunday afternoon.