Amazon is *usually* pretty good about removing fake reviews. I say usually because there have been a few individuals I'm acquainted with who have unfortunately had digital stalkers.

These fellows would basically troll around everything related to the author and his/her books, posting bad reviews, negative comments. From what I recall, Amazon didn't do anything there except maybe remove ones involving personal insults, profanity and the like.

I suppose it depends upon the validity of the reviews themselves, which in the case of poor (stupid) Mr. Beiswenger, most are fake. A whole lot of hate came pouring in starting 4/18, so even the ones trying to sound real pretty obviously aren't.

Best guess is Amazon will remove anything from that timeframe, but you never know.

Judging from the book description, it probably deserves a one-star review, but it should be legitimate.

Not that I agree with the plaintiff, he's indeed greedy and stupid, but what is worst? Those "reviewers", extremely immature whiny AC fanboy.

The only valid "review" in there is the one in July 29, 2007 (i.e. the first review). The rest of the so called "review" are just from raging fanboy nerd.
Notice how all the negative review start from 18 April 2012, and all of them mention AC. There's 1% chance that those "reviewers" actually go buy the book or even read it somewhere. Those can't be called review, just immature nerd raging, period.

its possible that he didn't know his idea was being used. Not everyone plays games and he probably never knew until recently. Just looking at reviews/descriptions:
http://tinyurl.com/86h9rnw , http://tinyurl.com/87ftvma. No way someone could tell from that anything about animus or reliving past lives unless they physically play the game. If he did wait until AC became a hit, that will hurt him more in court than anything else cause he should of taken action then and not now.

I wouldn't say Assassin's Creed is a "cultural phenomenon" because quite frankly it hasn't impacted our culture in any way... maybe AC3 will change my mind.

I will probably get so much flack for this but Call of Duty, despite who likes it and who doesn't, IS a cultural phenomenon. They have conventions for it, tournaments, apparel, brand recognition, the games sell gangbusters, and literally everyone has played a seventh generation Call of Duty (4 and onwards). Don't get me wrong Assassin's Creed series is good but it doesn't have the same impact as something like Call of Duty or Mario or even Pokemon.

I think after AC2 was released it "spiked" the first one was dull and relatively unpopular.

it certainly got more popular after ACII.

AC3 has the series highest record of pre orders... its safe to say the popualrity spiked up, also Ubi keeps calling it the companies most ambitious project, and they are going to spend a lot on marketing.