# "For various complicated reasons, I have decided to piss all over my own work" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 26, 2007, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-various-complicated-reasons-i-have-decided-to-piss-all-over-my-own-work/424165 "2007-10-26T21:13:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![ladybug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/46a35a/32.png) [@ladybug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ladybug)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2007, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-various-complicated-reasons-i-have-decided-to-piss-all-over-my-own-work/424165/61 "2007-10-28T23:41:58Z")
[QUOTE=Drain Bead] On that note, don’t even get me started about Jean M. Auel. [/QUOTE] Sad but true. I read the first four books in the series in high school, and was so excited when the fifth book came out. Then I read the book. Jean Auel will not get another penny of my money. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2007, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-various-complicated-reasons-i-have-decided-to-piss-all-over-my-own-work/424165/62 "2007-10-29T12:59:48Z")
[QUOTE=Anaamika] Oh, ok…hmm. How about Norway? [/QUOTE] Um, excuse me? THOR is from Norway. I’m not picking a fight with the freaking God of Thunder for no good reason. Are you TRYING to get a magical hammer shoved up my ass? ---
**Author:** ![shamrock227](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@shamrock227](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shamrock227)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2007, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-various-complicated-reasons-i-have-decided-to-piss-all-over-my-own-work/424165/63 "2007-10-29T13:10:58Z")
[QUOTE=Skald the Rhymer] Um, excuse me? THOR is from Norway. I’m not picking a fight with the freaking God of Thunder for no good reason. Are you TRYING to get a magical hammer shoved up my ass? [/QUOTE] _cough_scaredycat_cough_ ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2007, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-various-complicated-reasons-i-have-decided-to-piss-all-over-my-own-work/424165/64 "2007-10-29T13:13:42Z")
[QUOTE=Skald the Rhymer] Um, excuse me? THOR is from Norway. I’m not picking a fight with the freaking God of Thunder for no good reason. Are you TRYING to get a magical hammer shoved up my ass? [/QUOTE] Oh, good grief. Just destroy Detroit and be done with it. No one could possibly object to destroying Detroit. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2007, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-various-complicated-reasons-i-have-decided-to-piss-all-over-my-own-work/424165/65 "2007-10-29T13:29:29Z")
[QUOTE=Lightray] Oh, good grief. Just destroy Detroit and be done with it. No one could possibly object to destroying Detroit. [/QUOTE] I grew up in Detroit - suburbs thereof - and I’m not objecting to destroying Detroit. Have at it. But a _real_ God-emporer wouldn’t fear Thor. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2007, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-various-complicated-reasons-i-have-decided-to-piss-all-over-my-own-work/424165/66 "2007-10-29T13:33:05Z")
[QUOTE=Lightray] Oh, good grief. Just destroy Detroit and be done with it. [/QUOTE] And risk the Wrath of Mom?! Some slight attention must be paid to John Waters. He went from making brilliant transgressive art to “Pecker” and “Cecil B. Demented.” I mean, I understand the career arc (he’s said many times he doesn’t want to be “80 years old and making films about people eating their colostomy bags”) but that doesn’t mean I have to agree with it. ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2007, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-various-complicated-reasons-i-have-decided-to-piss-all-over-my-own-work/424165/67 "2007-10-29T14:41:40Z")
Robert Jordan, anyone? All of his characters became parodies of themselves by the 7th book. I fully expect Nynaeve to die of a bleeding scalp by the end. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2007, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-various-complicated-reasons-i-have-decided-to-piss-all-over-my-own-work/424165/68 "2007-10-29T14:53:57Z")
[QUOTE=Anaamika] But a _real_ God-emporer wouldn’t fear Thor. [/QUOTE] I agree! Besides, he’s likely too drunk to hit the broad side of a barn with that hammer, even if he were inside it. “With my mighty hammer I shall smite - oooh, butterflies!” Of course, a _real_ God-emporer would go for pissing off the real baddie of Norse Myth - old One-eye. Lots of good karma there. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2007, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-various-complicated-reasons-i-have-decided-to-piss-all-over-my-own-work/424165/69 "2007-10-29T14:56:41Z")
Many good suggestions here: Anne Rice (who is unreadable for me), King, and MacCaffery and Pern etc. I nominate Elizabeth George, for not only killing off the wrong character, but then writing a book about the killer ( **What Happened Before I Shot Her** or some such thing). Gah-bad. and Patricia Cornwell as well. May she be forced to read and reread her stuff in the afterlife. Autopsy shows overbrushing(of teeth), indeed. Comedians are ripe for this cateogy as well, but I can’t think of any offhand. Please don’t attack Norway. Detroit you can level at your pleasure. And Trenton–take out Trenton. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2007, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-various-complicated-reasons-i-have-decided-to-piss-all-over-my-own-work/424165/70 "2007-10-29T15:20:19Z")
William Goldman, a number of years after writing his great thriller _Marathon Man_, decided to write a sequel called _Brothers_. Made no sense at all. Brought back a major character from the dead with practically no explanation, and the main plot was incomprehensible. There were some great set-piece chapters, but overall it was a sad mess. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2007, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-various-complicated-reasons-i-have-decided-to-piss-all-over-my-own-work/424165/71 "2007-10-29T15:35:53Z")
[QUOTE=eleanorigby] Many good suggestions here: Anne Rice (who is unreadable for me), King, and MacCaffery and Pern etc. I nominate Elizabeth George, for not only killing off the wrong character, but then writing a book about the killer ( **What Happened Before I Shot Her** or some such thing). Gah-bad. and Patricia Cornwell as well. May she be forced to read and reread her stuff in the afterlife. Autopsy shows overbrushing(of teeth), indeed. Comedians are ripe for this cateogy as well, but I can’t think of any offhand. Please don’t attack Norway. Detroit you can level at your pleasure. And Trenton–take out Trenton. [/QUOTE] Sob, tell me about it. And a more relentlessly depressing FOR NO REASON AND NO GOAL book than _What Came Before He Shot Her_ you will not find. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2007, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-various-complicated-reasons-i-have-decided-to-piss-all-over-my-own-work/424165/72 "2007-10-29T15:44:05Z")
I’d second Anne Rice - after the original vampire trilogy her work just descends into lower levels of crapness. I beg to differ on Ursula le Guin, “the Dispossessed” was one of the best books I’ve ever read (although City of Illusions was fairly bad). Maybe if I read more of her books I’ll agree, don’t know. I didn’t like the Earthsea books at all, I got bored and gave up reading half way through the first one. Terry Pratchett seems to only be going through the motions now, he seems unable to come up with an original idea. The same with Tom Holt who I used to love but now have great reservations about reading. I don’t class the travesties produced by Anderson and Herbert’s son as related to his work, they’re just bad pulp sci-fi. Saying that the books after God Emperor weren’t so great either. If we’re nominating places to destroy can I suggest Birmingham? It’s a complete shit hole. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2007, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-various-complicated-reasons-i-have-decided-to-piss-all-over-my-own-work/424165/73 "2007-10-29T15:56:06Z")
[QUOTE=HazelNutCoffee] Robert Jordan, anyone? [/QUOTE] This is for work that’s gone downhill over the course of a series. Jordan sucked rocks from book one. ---
**Author:** ![A.I.Wintermute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@A.I.Wintermute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A.I.Wintermute)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2007, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-various-complicated-reasons-i-have-decided-to-piss-all-over-my-own-work/424165/74 "2007-10-29T16:02:40Z")
I think “The End of Evangelion” needs to be mentioned again. I really liked the end of the TV series; the show was derailing itself quickly with its mess of confused plot threads and mishmash of symbolism, and to me it seemed like in the final two episodes the show managed to take a step back and save itself from an impending trainwreck. Leaving so much unexplained detracts, for sure, but the series end touched me. It felt like the director was saying “OK, I was getting pretty off-track there, here’s what this show was really supposed to be about.” It was a pretty brutally honest look at insecurity and loneliness, which were the crippling flaws of the (otherwise boring) main character from the very beginning. Then along comes the movie. Or actually, it didn’t, since I’m quite happy pretending that “The End of Evangelion” never happened. I liked the show’s ending, and I’m not going to let the movie ruin it. This one is far less egregious, but I’d also nominate the movie for Fullmetal Alchemist. Dammit, you were supposed to undo the series ending, not make it worse! ---
**Author:** ![Busy\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@Busy\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Busy_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2007, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-various-complicated-reasons-i-have-decided-to-piss-all-over-my-own-work/424165/75 "2007-10-29T16:11:33Z")
[QUOTE=Illuminatiprimus] I’d second Anne Rice - after the original vampire trilogy her work just descends into lower levels of crapness. I beg to differ on Ursula le Guin, “the Dispossessed” was one of the best books I’ve ever read (although City of Illusions was fairly bad). Maybe if I read more of her books I’ll agree, don’t know. I didn’t like the Earthsea books at all, I got bored and gave up reading half way through the first one. [/QUOTE] I wouldn’t get so bent out of shape with **tehanu** if I wasn’t a big fan of Ursula - the Dispossessed, the lathe and LHoD are great, great books from that time period. I’ve even read ‘Always coming home’, which takes some dedication. [QUOTE=Illuminatiprimus] If we’re nominating places to destroy can I suggest Birmingham? It’s a complete shit hole. [/QUOTE] I was in Birmingham at the weekend for a football match and thought it was great! Really nice city centre. It was at night, though. ---
**Author:** ![iftheresaway](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ecae2f/32.png) [@iftheresaway](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iftheresaway)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-various-complicated-reasons-i-have-decided-to-piss-all-over-my-own-work/424165/76 "2007-11-01T02:16:03Z")
[QUOTE=Mr Shine] Highlander: There should have only been one… [/QUOTE] i cannot hear this in any other voice but Milkshake’s. As for the rest of the thread - I loved the Rama books, I’ve never been able to read Ursula K. LeGuin (although, to be fair, all I have is The Left Hand of Darkness. Every few years I pick it up and start it… and put it down less than 20 pages later.) As for my own, this is a really short series, but I thought that Son of a Witch (sequel to Wicked) was a huge disappointment. Of course, the disappointment really started at the end of Wicked, but there was some stong writing and imaginative character development up until there, and so I was hoping for better in Son of a Witch. It was, in fact, much worse. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-various-complicated-reasons-i-have-decided-to-piss-all-over-my-own-work/424165/77 "2007-11-01T02:49:49Z")
[QUOTE=Illuminatiprimus] Terry Pratchett seems to only be going through the motions now, he seems unable to come up with an original idea. The same with Tom Holt who I used to love but now have great reservations about reading. [/QUOTE] Funny, I think Pratchett is getting better with every book. [QUOTE=eleanorigby] Comedians are ripe for this cateogy as well, but I can’t think of any offhand. [/QUOTE] George Carlin. Bill Mahr. Dennis Miller. Any comedian who tries more for applause than laughter. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-various-complicated-reasons-i-have-decided-to-piss-all-over-my-own-work/424165/78 "2007-11-01T03:18:18Z")
How can we have gotten to 78 posts with no mention of Bob Dylan? I was a fan of his for about one or two albums in the 1970s (e.g. _Blood on the Tracks_), but lost interest before he was born again, and haven’t paid any attention to him since. But I happened to see him on some award show in the last month or two and he was awful. And [these reports](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=440556) from a recent concert bear that impression out. Of course, many people think he’s been pissing on his own music for decades, and I wouldn’t argue. But what else can you do when you’re legend in your twenties and don’t have the sense to die young, but hang around for another 40 years? Just imagine the shit that Mozart would have been churning out if he had lived to be 70. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-various-complicated-reasons-i-have-decided-to-piss-all-over-my-own-work/424165/79 "2007-11-01T04:25:53Z")
I don’t know if it was years after the original, but I’ll have to name Niven’s _Protector_, here. _Ringworld_ was a masterpiece of epic scale, where you could just sit back (like, many AUs back) and gawk at the wonder of it all. Then he wrote _Protector_, and revealed that all of the protagonists of _Ringworld_ were monumental idiots with the attention span of a lobotomized goldfish. Mind you, _Protector_ was bad enough on its own merits (I’m not getting arthritis. I’m getting better! Also, I like sweet potatoes more now than I used to.), but the notion that Louis, Speaker to Animals, Teela, and Nessus and the entire Puppeteer race could all somehow forget about the Pak just doesn’t make any sense. ---
**Author:** ![cedman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cedman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cedman)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-various-complicated-reasons-i-have-decided-to-piss-all-over-my-own-work/424165/80 "2007-11-01T13:08:21Z")
[QUOTE=Chronos] _Ringworld_ was a masterpiece of epic scale, where you could just sit back (like, many AUs back) and gawk at the wonder of it all. [/QUOTE] I read “Ringworld” and did the very thing of which you speak. Then I found “Ringworld Engineers” and did more of the same. From time to time, I still reread these great tales and enjoy them. I eagerly bought and read “Ringworld Throne” when it came out and wondered WTF and why did I waste my money? Does “Protector” come after? If so, I’m glad to pass it by. CedricR. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-various-complicated-reasons-i-have-decided-to-piss-all-over-my-own-work/424165.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-various-complicated-reasons-i-have-decided-to-piss-all-over-my-own-work/424165.md?page=5)