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Ghost Leviathan posted:Dongs flapping all over the place. Undulating into the room.
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Jan 5, 2020 16:24
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food court bailiff posted:While Rendezvous with Rama isn’t a terrible book, its sequels literally inspired this thread. Most all of those "written by Arthur C Clarke and (Hack Author)" are freaking awful. One of them included Clarke's original 5 page treatment for the book, tipping you to the facts that 1. That was all Clarke had contributed, 2. The actual book had no resemblance to the treatment, 3. It was all Hack Author's fault
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Jan 5, 2020 16:36
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Jesus I'd change my name.
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Jan 5, 2020 17:10
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Jerry Cotton posted:Jesus I'd change my name. I don't think that would have saved him. People will remember the guy who introduced himself as Mr. Christ.
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Jan 5, 2020 18:59
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If Damon Suede and Hack Author fought who would win?
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Jan 5, 2020 21:02
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Dongs flapping all over the place.  In the Ocean of Night by Gregory Benford
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Jan 5, 2020 22:06
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nonathlon posted:Most all of those "written by Arthur C Clarke and (Hack Author)" are freaking awful. One of them included Clarke's original 5 page treatment for the book, tipping you to the facts that 1. That was all Clarke had contributed, 2. The actual book had no resemblance to the treatment, 3. It was all Hack Author's fault Hack Author loves to ignore whatever Good Author had in mind and shoehorn in whatever they want. See also that Foundation prequel that was mostly about "what if Voltaire and Joan of Arc were AIs and also they boned?"
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Jan 5, 2020 22:10
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Qwertycoatl posted:Hack Author loves to ignore whatever Good Author had in mind and shoehorn in whatever they want. See also that Foundation prequel that was mostly about "what if Voltaire and Joan of Arc were AIs and also they boned?" When I was younger going through my Asimov phase I got burned at the used bookstore getting that series and another one where people had to go through time to rescue robots. They were terrible.
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Jan 5, 2020 22:27
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I love Asimov a lot but I refuse to acknowledge those books as canon.
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Jan 5, 2020 23:58
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Jerry Cotton posted:If Damon Suede and Hack Author fought who would win? oh yeah, this was mentioned in the TBB chat/questions thread: https://twitter.com/courtneymilan/status/1165782276128460800 https://twitter.com/MarjorieIngall/status/1211139194275467264 Unpacking the Racist Drama Roiling the World of Romance Writers https://www.vulture.com/2020/01/rwa-racism-controversy-with-courtney-milan-explained.html
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Jan 6, 2020 02:45
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Damon Suede.... IS Hack Author 
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Jan 6, 2020 02:59
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I forget if The Eye of Argon has been posted before or not. http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~susan/sf/eyeargon/eyeargon.htm quote:A sweeping blade of flashing steel riveted from the massive barbarians hide enameled shield as his rippling right arm thrust forth, sending a steel shod blade to the hilt into the soldiers vital organs. The disemboweled mercenary crumpled from his saddle and sank to the clouded sward, sprinkling the parched dust with crimson droplets of escaping life fluid. quote:Eyeing a slender female crouched alone at a nearby bench, Grignr advanced wishing to wholesomely occupy his time. The flickering torches cast weird shafts of luminescence dancing over the half naked harlot of his choice, her stringy orchid twines of hair swaying gracefully over the lithe opaque nose, as she raised a half drained mug to her pale red lips. quote:Consciousness returned to Grignr in stygmatic pools as his mind gradually cleared of the cobwebs cluttering its inner recesses, yet the stygian cloud of charcoal ebony remained. An incompatible shield of blackness, enhanced by the bleak abscense of sound. quote:Situated in front of the altar, and directly adjacent to the copper pail was a massive jade idol; a misshaped, hideous bust of the shamens' pagan diety. The shimmering green idol was placed in a sitting posture on an ornately carved golden throne raised upon a round, dvory plated dias; it bulging arms and webbed hands resting on the padded arms of the seat. Its head was entwined in golden snake-like coils hanging over its oblong ears, which tappered off to thin hollow points. Its nose was a bulging triangular mass, sunken in at its sides with tow gaping nostrils. Dramatic beneath the nostrils was a twisted, shaggy lipped mouth, giving the impression of a slovering sadistic grimace. quote:"What are you called by female?"
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Jan 6, 2020 09:16
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Eye of Argon is a masterpiece.
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Jan 6, 2020 09:40
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Sayeth she.
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Jan 6, 2020 09:49
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bustily
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Jan 6, 2020 10:06
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Krankenstyle posted:bustily I think you mean "huge outcropping breasts".
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Jan 6, 2020 10:08
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The lithe opaque nose is a work of genius. Actually although the prose in Eye of Argon is hilariously inept, the story has certain qualities that disqualify it from being truly terrible. Chiefly, it's brief and to the point, and while the plot may be simple it moves along at a good clip.
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Jan 6, 2020 11:14
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https://twitter.com/FoldableHuman/status/1213359187599605761
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Jan 6, 2020 11:19
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Groke posted:The lithe opaque nose is a work of genius. I got the impression it's someone trying their hand at a classic Conan style story while trying way too hard to be old-style with the prose. And doesn't it not really have an ending?
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Jan 6, 2020 11:25
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Ghost Leviathan posted:I got the impression it's someone trying their hand at a classic Conan style story while trying way too hard to be old-style with the prose. And doesn't it not really have an ending? The usual form of Eye of Argon doesn't have an ending, I think because it was discovered in a university fanzine (in the 1970s?) and in the repeated photocopying and mimeographing, the last few pages were lost. The ending has been (re-)discovered twice with reference to the original story. And that (classic Conan) is exactly what it's trying to be. The guy who wrote it was 16 and was later terminally embarrassed by it. I can't get too interested in EoA: it's an adolescent story never intended to be widely distributed and more a thing that fans have worked themselves up over, insisting that it's insanely funny.
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Jan 6, 2020 11:40
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Isn't Eye of Argon the story that's only known because people at fantasy cons would compete at who could read it out loud the longest without laughing?
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Jan 6, 2020 12:05
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How is something "riveted FROM"?!?!??
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Jan 6, 2020 12:45
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FreudianSlippers posted:Isn't Eye of Argon the story that's only known because people at fantasy cons would compete at who could read it out loud the longest without laughing? That's it. Pulled from obscurity for that reason and only that. Seems to me it'd be much more interesting to read and poke fun at mainstream trash, rather than an unpublished teenagers scribblings.
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Jan 6, 2020 12:51
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Powerful Two-Hander posted:I think you mean "huge outcropping breasts". mastodonic jutting chest orbs
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Jan 6, 2020 15:04
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Proud granitite eruptions.
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Jan 6, 2020 15:20
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Jerry Cotton posted:How is something "riveted FROM"?!?!?? I reread that line so many times. Like I get what he's going for: the sword is riveted to a shield and extends to kill fuckers when he moves his arm just right, I think. But yeah, nothing is riveting from anything.
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Jan 6, 2020 15:53
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nonathlon posted:That's it. Pulled from obscurity for that reason and only that. Seems to me it'd be much more interesting to read and poke fun at mainstream trash, rather than an unpublished teenagers scribblings. I Don’t Even Own a Television exists, and it is loving delightful.
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Jan 6, 2020 17:26
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nonathlon posted:That's it. Pulled from obscurity for that reason and only that. Seems to me it'd be much more interesting to read and poke fun at mainstream trash, rather than an unpublished teenagers scribblings. Honestly I think they picked the unpublished scribbling because if they used some actual published trash there would be a decent chance there would be fans of that writer and/or the writer themselves doing a panel at that convention, and they didnt want that drama. So instead they make fun of the thing which no-one at the con could have been an unironic fan of.
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Jan 6, 2020 17:37
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Also it's one thing to make fun of random teen fanfics, but Eye of Argon is unique in how bizarrely awful the prose is. 16 or not, he made something unintentionally beautiful in its badness. The moment you unironically write "husked the femme" and submit that to a magazine you give up all right to avoid being laughed at.
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Jan 6, 2020 17:53
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Yeah, but it's still a kid learning to write and imagine if the stuff you wrote as a teen got trotted out for mockery by a bunch of neckbeards who wouldn't be able to string together two sentences without referencing Firefly if they tried. It's kinda lovely. Now, if he had parents who were publishers who got another publisher to print it, promote it as a Harry Potter competitor, and make a wide-release movie based on it, then it would be worthy of mockery.
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Jan 6, 2020 18:49
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If someone managed to dig up the crap I wrote when I was sixteen I'd be legitimately impressed because I think it all died with a hard drive two decades ago.
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Jan 6, 2020 19:03
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ryonguy posted:Yeah, but it's still a kid learning to write and imagine if the stuff you wrote as a teen got trotted out for mockery by a bunch of neckbeards who wouldn't be able to string together two sentences without referencing Firefly if they tried. It's kinda lovely. Eragon?
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Jan 6, 2020 19:55
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SiKboy posted:Honestly I think they picked the unpublished scribbling because if they used some actual published trash there would be a decent chance there would be fans of that writer and/or the writer themselves doing a panel at that convention, and they didnt want that drama. So instead they make fun of the thing which no-one at the con could have been an unironic fan of. There was a variation based on a popular published author -- "clench racing," where you took a copy of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and tried to be the first one to find the word "clench." Apparently it never took very long.
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Jan 6, 2020 22:05
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ryonguy posted:Yeah, but it's still a kid learning to write and imagine if the stuff you wrote as a teen got trotted out for mockery by a bunch of neckbeards who wouldn't be able to string together two sentences without referencing Firefly if they tried. It's kinda lovely. I wrote when I was 16. I can guarantee it was not anywhere on the level of Eye of Argon. That’s a special level of bad.
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Jan 6, 2020 22:40
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PYF Dumb poo poo You Wrote As A Kid 6 year old strom wrote a Christmas story about a tree that flew to the North Pole on a vacuum cleaner (the cable whirled around like a propeller)
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Jan 7, 2020 00:00
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Strom Cuzewon posted:PYF Dumb poo poo You Wrote As A Kid Please make this a thread, folks, if you have access to your juvenilia and it is not heart-stoppingly embarrassing.
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Jan 7, 2020 00:02
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In third grade, I wrote a story about a bird-man who accidentally set off a rocket to the moon with himself inside. He yelled "crud!" when this happened, and my teacher thought this was too harsh and wanted me to change it to "oh, no!" I was extremely righteously indignant about this, in the way only a snotty nine-year-old can be. EDIT: but yes, this would be a good thread
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Jan 7, 2020 00:05
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I also wrote a bunch of "comedy" "genre-savvy" short story "parodies" about ten years before TVtropes became a thing. I may still have them in a cupboard somewhere
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Jan 7, 2020 00:09
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Antivehicular posted:In third grade, I wrote a story about a bird-man who accidentally set off a rocket to the moon with himself inside. He yelled "crud!" when this happened, and my teacher thought this was too harsh and wanted me to change it to "oh, no!" I was extremely righteously indignant about this, in the way only a snotty nine-year-old can be. I wrote a story in third grade about a bunch of cats that ate some birds so of course they grew wings and were able to fly. That is how eating things works. I was praised for its length but scolded for going off topic. The story is gone now but I will never, ever stop feeling super dumb about my understanding of biology.
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Jan 7, 2020 00:10
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I more or less agree with the view I read somewhere that Eye of Argon was chosen because it is, in many ways, not nearly as bad as most bad writing. The pacing is fine, the plot is at least serviceable and the imagery is... vivid. It's the word choice that really makes it special. Whereas most bad writing is just boring with the occasional ludicrous passage.
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Jan 7, 2020 00:11
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