‘Nick Alimonos’ is Dead and the Algorithm Killed Him

I am going to try and keep this short and to the point, so forgive my rant, but I am furious at the moment because Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Amazon have all pretty much shat over my name. By mere association, my work of twenty years has been chucked into the junk bin of smut literature.

I know how the algorithm works. I know it’s a blind system driven by whatever people search for online. Complaining about it is like accusing Google of racism when people search for “why do black people . . .” and some awfully racist results pop up. Algorithms are awful because people are awful. So I maintain no illusions that anyone is out to get me. It’s just this stupid, stupid, stupid Internet-driven world we find ourselves in, the dumbest of all timelines. By design, nuance cannot exist within the algorithm because every goddamn thing anyone produces MUST fit into a neat little box. This is why every modern film, book, or movie is either Disney vanilla-dull or PornHub adjacent. If Lolita were written today, it would instantly fall into the pedophile category, no matter the author’s intent. If Watership Down were published today, assuming any publisher would be so daring, Richard Adams’ masterpiece, which has about as much sex and violence in it as A Game of Thrones, would no doubt be put on the shelf for third-grade readers because a book about rabbits CAN ONLY BE FOR KIDS, story be damned.

So this is where I’m at, folks. Hit the link for The Feral Girl on Goodreads, and ONE book comes up in comparison—just one—a cheap manga about an embarrassed female superhero. I think there’s even a term for this fetish: ENF (Embarrassed Nude Female). Now look, I am not making judgments here. If you enjoy Omega Girl, if it’s your favorite thing in the whole world, I am happy for you, but this comparison has me incensed. Other than the nudity, WHAT THE FUCK does Omega Girl have to do with The Feral Girl?

You might as well compare The Feral Girl to Sesame Street. Yet potential readers like myself are going to see this manga and think, “I’d never read that,” OR . . . people who love Omega Girl are going to buy The Feral Girl and be very disappointed.

I know how and why this happened. Thelana in The Feral Girl is naked, and the heroine in Omega Girl is naked, so they are basically the same thing, right!?! By that logic, you could say Fifty Shades of Grey is the same as A Thousand Splendid Suns because both books contain sex scenes. I guess Hamlet and Goosebumps are the same because they both have ghosts.

Why is nudity such a mind-shattering subject that it eclipses ALL OTHER aspects of the story? Nevermind that The Feral Girl explores the life of indigenous people, that it deals with famine, slavery, survival, racism, sexism, and environmentalism . . . ALL OF THAT goes straight out the window because OMG, the girl is naked!!! It baffles me to know that in this day and age, where Stephen King can write about child orgies and the latest YA book (YA, no less), like The Poppy War, features scenes where young girls get raped and murdered, we are still shocked by natural nudity.

The whole point of Thelana’s nudity is that it ISN’T an issue for early primitive cultures. But because we live in modern-day Puritan America with a nuance-killing algorithm, most of the themes of The Feral Girl take a back seat to SKIN.

I was actually worried about the algorithm from the start and took pains to avoid this. Because I didn’t want readers to get the wrong impression, I made no mention of nudity in the description and made sure only to show my character’s face on the front, and still, the ONE and only book Goodreads compares to The Feral Girl has a fully frontal naked cartoon character on its cover.

I spent two and a half years writing and researching The Feral Girl. Books I would love to see related to it would include the books that inspired it. For example:

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Readers also enjoyed:

• Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
• The Land of Naked People by Madhusree Mukerjee
• Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding

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Why these books in particular?

More than anything, The Feral Girl is a survival tale set in the jungle. Books sharing a similar plot include The Jungle Book and Tarzan of the Apes.

But I was more heavily inspired by Charles Frazier’s brilliantly told Civil War epic, Cold Mountain. In Cold Mountain, a Confederate soldier, Inman, deserts his post to return to his hometown, where his lover waits for him. Inman struggles through the harsh American frontier without food, money, and dwindling supplies. He suffers from extreme weather conditions, malnutrition, homesickness, and loneliness — all themes I explore in The Feral Girl.

The Land of Naked People by Madhusree Mukerjee is a serious work of anthropological study, a historical account of the tribes of the Andaman Islands, and an excellent reference for understanding and writing about primitive indigenous cultures similar to the Ilmar, the fictional race I created for The Feral Girl.

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer was another source of inspiration. It explores real-world wilderness survival, isolation, and loneliness. I was fascinated by the main character’s Luddite tendencies and his rejection of modern, capitalist society.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a dark look into human nature and what people can do when basic necessities become scarce.

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Look, I do not have an overinflated sense of ego. I am not saying my book is as well-written as these aforementioned titles, and for all I know, Omega Girl might be a goddamn masterpiece up there with Alan Moore’s Watchmen (I’ll never know because I have zero interest in that kind of thing). All I am asking is for potential readers to recognize the type of story I am aiming for. And it is sure nowhere near manga porn.

But that’s the algorithm for you. My only recourse now is to change my name and retitle all my books going forward because a naked girl = porn forever and always, no matter the content.

Nick Alimonos is dead and the algorithm killed him.