I tried finding the Amazon review linked but didn't see it. While it seems that Lewis has a distorted view, there still hasn't been a compelling reason for HFT other than the exploit the edge cases and loopholes of the current system.
It has negatively impacted investors doing large trades, but those investors generally have more tools at their disposal to break their trades into smaller groups, or whatever. The major example impact I've heard is that the larger investors can't look at the order books at all the markets, and issue one order (to one exchange?) and take all the orders.
It seems that the automated players are duplicating their orders at multiple exchanges, and removing or replacing orders at other exchanges when one fills. A simple solution would be for the large investor to send individual orders to each exchange, and pace them so they arrive simultaneously at each exchange (instead of sending them simultaneously); of course, if you do that often enough, automated traders will probably put out smaller orders or do less duplication.