Inspired by the equivalent film thread, of course.
I was once at a talk by Tim Powers in which he apologized for his first novel and asked people not to read it.
(My emphasis; from My Early Life.)
Terry Pratchett’s first novel Carpet People was written when he was a teenager. Many years later he admitted that there was a lot wrong with it. It needed a lot of rewriting before he was willing to let it be republished.
Stephen King has admitted that many of his 1980s and early 1990s books, like “It” and especially “Tommyknockers,” were written in a haze of cocaine and alcohol; in fact, I think I saw him claim that he doesn’t actually remember writing them. That’s not what I’d call a sterling endorsement.
John Ringo. He rote a book called Ghost. It is the first of what is now a series. He admitted on his website, the idea was bugging him, and he just had to write the damn thing to get it out of his system. He said he wrote it intending to never publish it. He made mention of it on the web and his fans bugged him to post a bit. He did, and the fans said that they would buy it. So it got published.
Next comes this very funny and scathing review Oh no John Ringo!. (well worth the read btw) (He collects hookers like cats!)
This is where it really gets fun, John responded to the review and totally agreed. The best review of the Ghost books I have ever read.
Next a T shirt was suggested and approved. Over $700 dollars has been raised for charity from the sale of Oh no, John Ringo t-shirts.
I remember him saying that about Tommyknockers. He’s also said there were some blatant :smack: errors in some of his books (Some which cropped up in The Dark Tower he was able to “fix”) and there were some books he wish he could call over, brush them off, comb their hair, and straighten their tie.
I wonder how Jean Auel feels about Shelters of Stone?
So he wrote “It” high but “Dreamcatcher” was shat on paper while completely sober?
I would call that a ringing endorsement for cocaine and alcohol.
There’s an interview included in ‘Salmon of doubt’ where Douglas Adams talks about Mostly Harmless pretty critically - he calls it ‘very bleak’ and said that he was trying to write it while he was having a thoroughly miserable year for personal reasons.
Lots of authors hate their first novel. As they become more skilled, they can see exactly what they did wrong.
If you bring one particular early novel of his to Harlan Ellision, he supposedly asks how much you paid for it, gives you the cash, and then tears it up. Whether true or not, he has clearly indicated he things that particular book is terrible.
Actually, I think Dreamcatcher was lolled onto paper under the haze of Opiates. Probably, the really good painkillers like Ocycontin and what have you sometime during his accident recovery. I think the teethed anally hatched shit monster aliens were an allusion and literary device towards opiate withdrawals.
Yes, in that excellent journal, The Onion 
I know how I feel about Shelters of Stone: Bitter.
**
Ayla:** Greetings! I am Ayla of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii, formerly Ayla of the Mamutoi, Blessed of Doni, mate of Jondalar of the Zelandonii, friend to animals and protected by the spirit of the great Cave Bear. If you missed that, I will repeat it for you every ten pages from here on out.
**
New Acquaintance: **Greetings! I find you devistatingly attractive! Let us shag like minks in the uninhibited manner embraced by prehistoric peoples everywhere.
Jondalar and Wolf: Grrrrrrrr…
**Ayla: **Perhaps some other time. Here, allow me to remove your appendix while I show you some of my inventions, including fire (which I worked out when I lost my hammerstone–I’ll tell you about that again and again, just in case you forget), the needle, domesticated animals (I killed a mother horse and raised the baby because I was lonely–don’t worry; I’ll remind you of that in about five pages), sub-orbital space flight, the catalytic converter…Ooooh! A pterodactyl! Hang on, I’ll just bring that down with a rock and a piece of string…did I mention that I’m the Nelson Mandela of the Neandrathals?
**
Acquaintance: **You are also a prime piece of ass.
**
Jondalar and Wolf: **Grrrrr…
Ayla: Fear not, Jondalar! For I love you more than anything in the world and I have ever since the first moment I saw you in the valley where I lived alone and even when I almost kicked you to the curb for the P.Diddy of the steppe tribes. Love love love. In case you forgot the two years of torture that I put you through, my love, I will recount them again in no less than 15 pages.
**Jondalar: **Great Mother, woman, you are beautiful! Now let’s have sex, first by me going down on you–being sure to incorporate the term “nodule” into the process–and then letting you fellate me just short of climax. Then we’ll fuck in the missionary position and I’ll come in about two paragraphs.
Ayla: That sounds wonderful. I’ll reach orgasm three times, and then, even though we are the Curies of the Cavemen, we will prove that we are sexual dynamos by performing the same sexual acts in the same order, but about 20 pages later.
Juniper200, that was horrifically inaccurate.
Everyone knows Jondular comes after two sentences. The actual intercourse in those books is pathetically short for such a sex-soaked masterpiece. :rolleyes:
I didn’t know the Tommyknockers thing was an Onion spoof. Huh.
Juniper, that was a piece of art. I wish I knew what happened…Clan of the Cave Bear was good, Valley of the Horses wasn’t bad, but the rest were phoned in. I tried rereading Plains of Passage and got so tired of Ayla and Jondalar Pleasuring each other across Europe I gave up.
I remember reading elsewhere that he genuinely didn’t remember writing Cujo. And that he said he wished he had because it must have been fun.
I stopped by the bookstore today and paged through a copy for a couple of minutes.
:eek:
Wow, it really is that bad.
Yeah- he came to after a bender and saw that he’d killed the kid- whoops. But he left it in.
rote? :smack:
It was before coffee that is my only excuse.