Don't Tease The Panther - Post Your Favorite Terrible Published Writing

[clockworkjoe]

Counterpoint: The Eisenhorn trilogy by Abnett is a fun pulp read and focuses on investigating evil cults by a psychic inquisitor and his entourage. Space marines barely make an appearance.

[ArtfulShrapnel]

Counterpoint: The Eisenhorn trilogy by Abnett is a fun pulp read and focuses on investigating evil cults by a psychic inquisitor and his entourage. Space marines barely make an appearance.

Point taken. I still wish he would stop DESCRIBING and NAMING things so much. Just tell me what HAPPENS.

[Kroack]

Hugh Cook's "Wizard War", aka "The Wizards and the Warriors" is a terrible, horrible, hysterical book. You will be a better person for having read it. The plot is a meandering, nonsensical mess, the heroes travel across the kingdom on a walking mountain, and the bad guy has an Armageddon stone with which he hopes to destroy the world. When the heroes catch up to the bad guy, they find that he's already killed himself experimenting with the Armageddon stone, so they do the only logical thing and take the Armageddon stone back to the quarry where Armageddon stones are mined.

Hugh Cook presents: Adventurers of Synnibarr: Legend of the Weremountain

My contribution is the Warhammer 40k novels, particularly those of Dan Abnett. They seem to have a rabid cult following, but are mostly exposition stories about how Space Muhreens go around killing dudes and being awesome. The phrase "liquid mud" is used as punctuation by Abnett. He and the other authors are in a constant battle to list the most objects, terms, and concepts from the setting. it almost feels as if they were given a list of things to include and were forced to construct a scene out of them.

EVERYTHING is described, in great detail, as if to a stranger who were not part of the world. Jargon and terminology are used wherever the function of something is unclear, because it sets the MOOD.

As my gun-cutter set down on the landing cross at Tomb Point, I had pulled on an internally heated bodyskin and swathes of studry, insulated foul weather gear, but the perilous cold cut through me now. My eyes wattered, and the tears frose on my lashes and cheeks. I remembered the details of the cultural brief my savant had prepared, and quickly lowered my frost visor, trembling as warm air becan to circulate under the plastic mask.

Custodians, altered to my arrival by astropathic hails, stood waiting for me at the base of the landing cross. Their lighted poles dipped in obeisance in the frozen night and the air steamed with the heat that bled from their cloaks. I nodded to them, showing their leader my badge of office. An ice-car awaited; a rust colored arrowhead twenty meters long, mounted on ski-blade runners and spiked tracks.

Don't fucking mess with Abnett.

Besides one of the main themes of 40k is that technology is so advanced nobody understands it except for a mysterious martian cult.

[ArtfulShrapnel]

Don't fucking mess with Abnett.

Besides one of the main themes of 40k is that technology is so advanced nobody understands it except for a mysterious martian cult.

Well, apparently I'm wrong. I still don't like those books of his that I've read, but I'll have to give Eisenhorn a try.

Can we agree that Terry Brooks is the poor man's Tolkien?

[Tadanori Oyama]

Can we agree that Terry Brooks is the poor man's Tolkien?

I'm fine with that. I haven't been able to make it more than three pages into anything he's written involving elves.

I love the Knight of the Word triology even though the third book is pretty crappy.

[acronomicon]

I'm a sucker for Abnett's writing.  40K, fantasy, I've read it all (probably).  However, in the same genre, C.S. Goto is some of the most pointless writing I've ever forced myself to finish.

Battlefield Earth, in addition to being one of the worst movies ever made, is one of the worst books ever published in my opinion.  I know there are people that consider it fantastic, and probably not all of them follow Tom Cruise, but man...I couldn't even finish it.

[iceemaker]

Well, it's not really so much that the 40k technology is advanced as much as the monolithic religion erected around technology that prohibits experimentation and rapid advancement. I'm not too crazy about Abnett's work, but Ben Counter is a very good author (Soul Drinkers trilogy) that makes excellent use of vignettes to illustrate a scene rather than rely on typical third-person omniscience.

I cannot seem to find any copies, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the "Animorphs" series by Applegate is one of those "awesome at the time" childhood memories that would not stand up to my scrutiny today.

[acronomicon]

Ben Counter is a good author.  I also appreciate the injection of humor into the genre from Sandy Mitchell in the Ciaphus Caine stuff, and the non-Caine stuff is also pretty good.

Some of HP Lovecraft's stuff is damn near unreadable.  Some of it's excellent, but when it's bad it's horrendous.

[clockworkjoe]

Some of HP Lovecraft's stuff is damn near unreadable.  Some of it's excellent, but when it's bad it's horrendous.

[clockworkjoe]

srsly just because you don't like HPL's purple prose doesn't mean it's bad.

Unless you can back up your words with some serious critiques.

LET'S HEAR IT

[acronomicon]

srsly just because you don't like HPL's purple prose doesn't mean it's bad.

Unless you can back up your words with some serious critiques.

LET'S HEAR IT

Don't get me wrong.  A lot of his stuff is excellent.  I started reading him back in high school, and have been a fan ever since.  But sometimes it's hard to overlook the blatant racism in some of his writing.

I've heard the argument, particularly in light of his wife being Jewish, that some of it was for shock value.  I suppose that's possible, but it still makes it rough for me to slog through some of his stories.

[clockworkjoe]

srsly just because you don't like HPL's purple prose doesn't mean it's bad.

Unless you can back up your words with some serious critiques.

LET'S HEAR IT

Don't get me wrong.  A lot of his stuff is excellent.  I started reading him back in high school, and have been a fan ever since.  But sometimes it's hard to overlook the blatant racism in some of his writing.

I've heard the argument, particularly in light of his wife being Jewish, that some of it was for shock value.  I suppose that's possible, but it still makes it rough for me to slog through some of his stories.

Criticizing a writer for not having the same social mores and sensibilities is pretty weak. It opens a huge can of worms for pretty much all writers of note. Shakespeare for Shylock, Twain for Nigger Jim, Conrad for the Nigger of Narcissus and on and on and on.

That being said, there has been much written about HPL's racism by some brilliant writers. I recommend Michel Houellebecq's "H.P Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life" which has a chapter addressing his racism and argues that it was part of the central motivating force in his writing.I just re-read it (starts on p. 105) and it's a great read.  After all, the Mythos are the perfect Other. So if you enjoy some of his work, then you are part to the same types of thought as HPL.  :O

Anyway, great art requires great understanding in order to comprehend. It's fine to read and enjoy the work of HPL on a surface level but disliking it because it makes you uneasy because of his antiquated racism shows that you need to dive deeper. You can enjoy his work and acknowledge his racism at the same time.

[Boyos]

Hugh Cook's "Wizard War", aka "The Wizards and the Warriors" is a terrible, horrible, hysterical book. You will be a better person for having read it. The plot is a meandering, nonsensical mess, the heroes travel across the kingdom on a walking mountain, and the bad guy has an Armageddon stone with which he hopes to destroy the world. When the heroes catch up to the bad guy, they find that he's already killed himself experimenting with the Armageddon stone, so they do the only logical thing and take the Armageddon stone back to the quarry where Armageddon stones are mined.

Hugh Cook presents: Adventurers of Synnibarr: Legend of the Weremountain

My contribution is the Warhammer 40k novels, particularly those of Dan Abnett. They seem to have a rabid cult following, but are mostly exposition stories about how Space Muhreens go around killing dudes and being awesome. The phrase "liquid mud" is used as punctuation by Abnett. He and the other authors are in a constant battle to list the most objects, terms, and concepts from the setting. it almost feels as if they were given a list of things to include and were forced to construct a scene out of them.

EVERYTHING is described, in great detail, as if to a stranger who were not part of the world. Jargon and terminology are used wherever the function of something is unclear, because it sets the MOOD.

As my gun-cutter set down on the landing cross at Tomb Point, I had pulled on an internally heated bodyskin and swathes of studry, insulated foul weather gear, but the perilous cold cut through me now. My eyes wattered, and the tears frose on my lashes and cheeks. I remembered the details of the cultural brief my savant had prepared, and quickly lowered my frost visor, trembling as warm air becan to circulate under the plastic mask.

Custodians, altered to my arrival by astropathic hails, stood waiting for me at the base of the landing cross. Their lighted poles dipped in obeisance in the frozen night and the air steamed with the heat that bled from their cloaks. I nodded to them, showing their leader my badge of office. An ice-car awaited; a rust colored arrowhead twenty meters long, mounted on ski-blade runners and spiked tracks.

Don't fucking mess with Abnett.

Besides one of the main themes of 40k is that technology is so advanced nobody understands it except for a mysterious martian cult.

I thought the the tech was advanced, but also so old that no one knows how to maintain it other then the martian cult. Because there not making new stuff, they just rebuild shit that gets blown up and maintiaing the shit.

[Kroack]

40K is a pretty shitty place to live over all.

[Charlie72]

40K is a pretty shitty place to live over all.

Really? And here I thinking the "GRIM DARKNESS OF THE FAR FUTURE, WHERE THERE IS ONLY WAR" would be a pleasant place for a simmer home.