Great, someone published the Eye of Argon

The BBQ Pit
1

This is accepted as by far the worst piece of fantasy ever written in the hopes of being published.

One can only hope they the person who wrote this never reproduced.
My problem is I’ve read something worse.

Enter here, for my review of the first 53 pages of The Kingless Land by Ed Greenwood.

In a perfect world the Barns and Nobel store that sold me this book would have a kindly old Japanese man sitting next to the registers with a dull, rusty, lemon juice covered tanto who sole purpose in life is to disembowel you after purchasing this book.

Simply put, reading this is like reading the Eye of Argon, except you PAID for it, and it’s not bad in the funny way that EoA is.

Those of you familiar with Ed Greenwood know he was one of the creators of TSR owners of D&D, and satan followers all.

Here my breathern is proof that he TRUELY is the SPAWN of SATAN HIMSELF!

Fuck me this book is bad.

I’m trying to come up with words the describe the first 53 pages.

Being eye socket fucked by a rhino with a nasty urethral discharge comes close. Winning the Guinesess World Reccord for colostamy bag chugging. Having sex with Michael Jackson and telling him how pretty he looks. Using a ballpen hammer to make your testicals explode.

All of these activities seem preferable to continue reading this book.

But I have this obscene fascination for reading bad fiction.

I hate it, but I have to KNOW if it gets any worse.
Now onto my review.

Charge 1: Pathetic/Embarassing/Useless Dialoge:

Everyone talks in bizzare argonese–grammar designed to put you right into the middle ages. Neglecting the fact that nobody reading this book has any FUCKING CLUE WHAT THEY ARE SAYING.

In a council meeting: “Wherefor we are here, to speak freely. Sing out, if you will.” Must pad word count, the morgage is comming due and I’m getting paid by the word!
“I–and many who swing swords–…”

“UP! Up and run! Run, you thick-headed sword swinger!” Yes, we’re being chased, hit by bladed weapons and electrocuted all at the same time, I’m going to STOP and say ALLLLLL that. Whatever happened to RUN BITCH!

or WE"RE FUCKED!

Charge 2: Over dramatization:

Obscene use of words to attempt to evoke a reaction from the reader other than the desire to vomit out their internal organs.

“As their eyes met, it snarled and sprang down on her, claws and jaws extened to slay!” I’m still trying to figure out how you extend a jaw to slay.

“Was it ever soon enough to die?” – Yes, by page 10 you’ll want to die. But unfortunatly other than cramming this book into your airway it can’t kill you.

Charge 3: Abuse of ‘descriptive words’"

THEWS: NOBODY SHOULD EVER USE THIS WORD. Using it ONCE in a 50,000,000,000,000,000 page novel is TOO OFTEN. The systamtic annihilation of our ancestors who created this word is NOT PUNISHMENT ENOUGH for CREATING THIS WORD!

“With his last sobbing strength Craer ran into the curtains and tore at them, bring them down.” With my last sobbing burst of sanity I curse the god that created man kind. For in creating mankind he created THIS ABONIMATION OF A BOOK!

“His gasp was almost a sob, this time, and became a low, wet moaning as the procurer writhed against the wall, limbs trembling.” Nothing like a good orgasm

Charge 4: Random name changes:

Each character has a first and last name. Randomly used seperatly or together along with a role–fighter, thief, whatever–which goes by two names, the normal name and the more fluffy, bodice ripping name.

Thief — Procurer (Spanky)

Warrior–armaragor–sword swing–2 or 3 others I can’t find. (I think he’s into autoerotic circumcision)

Give people a FUCKING NAME and KEEP IT CONSISTANT!
Punishements from the charges of reader abuse:

Charge 1: Luckilly NOTHIGN happens in the dialoge that isn’t repeated later in the page not totally fucked by how the author makes people talk. So you can largely skip the dialoge and not really have any problems. Charges dismissed with reluctance.

Charge 2: Author is hereby given to his editor as the Editor’s Bitch for a period of no less than 5 years.

Charge 3: Punishable by forced copulation with a backend loader, as the reciever. Lubricant to be provided by the tobasco company.

Charge 4: Is just an example of pathetic writing. Author should have hands and word processor removed.

Basically, what’s wrong with this piece of shit book is that SO much effort andwordage is spent to embelishing the characters actions and their dialoge it becomes background. If that makes sense. All of the descriptions that should have been used telling where the characters are, and what is going on is being used on HOW they do it.

So what’s actually going on in a larger sense, like where the plot is going and what the fuck the characters are doing is lost in this obscene mass of words.

2

Oh come on. It’s Ed Greenwood. It’s like watching a Michael Bay movie and then complaining it was bad afterwards. You should have known that going in!

The only books of his I’ve read are the Forgotten Realms Shandril books, but I’ve read some reviews of his other work. If only MST3K worked on the written word they’d have fodder for years!

Question about the books you read, btw. Out of curiosity, did any of his characters cry at the drop of a hat? Were there many couples that were undyingly in love with each other? Those seem staples of his books.

3

So, I should sign you up for the Eye of Neon?

Will that be cash or check?

4

I’ve made it up to page 64 now… Which is scary when you consider I read about 120 pages an hour.

I’m trying to make up my mind if I’m bored enough to read this book :confused:

(FYI I bought this book during lunch yesterday so I’ve been reading it for about 5 hrs)

I’ve been reading the David Weber’s Honor Harrington series, which are pretty good. Except for he’s kinda doing that whole cliched hero saves the day is injured… I’m not done with the series but the main character is starting to run out of body parts :confused: I’m trying to remember who did the FANTASTIC spoof of that concept.

However, other than that Weber has created a VERY interesting scifi universe and write good military fiction.

My problem is I’m out of things to read :confused:

I will take suggestions.

5

Re: Honor Harrington

Do yourself a favor and stop after “Ashes of Victory”. The latest, “War of Honor”, blows chunks. The rest are very good though.

Well, you’ll probably read it anyway. I would have, even if someone had warned me ahead of time how bad it was. Once you’ve gone that far, you have to know what happens next. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

6

That piece’o’crap you have linked doesn’t even tempt me to go past page 2 - I think I wrote better as a 12 year old.

Ugh.

7

Uh, Venoma, that piece linked to in the OP is widely regarded as the worst piece of speculative fiction ever written. It’s legendary (notorious?) for it’s badness. :slight_smile:

8

Ed Greenwoor is amazing in that he manages to make people think he’s good. I read one of the Elminster books and it was just aweful. One of the more annoying things is it was written as if the reader had in-depth knowledge of the Forgotten Realms. There was literally no back story. It picked up where the book before left off. Really. As if were the next page. I had no idea what was going on.

Terrible. Just terrible.

9

I’d like to mention that Greenwood’s Elminster: Making of a Mage is the one and only book that I ever burned.

Yes burned.

Go together with some friends, soaked it in lighter fluid, set it aflamed and had a drink and a cigar while the evil was putrified by fire.

Food for thought.

10

His prose is terrible, his characters are completely uninteresting, and any time he writes about one of his female leads, I wonder how he types so well with just one hand. (It’s creepy reading him write about his female characters, as you can tell what his little masturbatory fantasies are. I remember the scene in the oh-so-crappy Shadows of the Avatar trilogy where Sharantyr, the female ranger, is practicing her swordwork by moonlight… clad in nothing but her boots and swordbelt. Yeah, right.)

I didn’t burn the Elminster book, but it’s one of the few I’ve ever thrown out (to me, throwing out a book is almost sacreligious, and it’s a mark of how much I hate Ed Greenwood that I actually shitcanned that book).

11

I’ll second what Ferrous said about War of Honor.

It really stinks. I’ll probabably read the next one when it comes out, though.

I’m pathetic.

12

I gathered that much Cerowyn - but I can usually slog through almost anything. I was quite surprised :slight_smile:
(I rarely buy an author I haven’t read at least once from a library - makes for safer investments :smiley: )

13

See I was under the mistaken impression that he was a fair writer :confused: I mean I didn’t realize anyone could be this bad and get more than 1 book published.

Yeah purification by fire… Sounds like a good idea.

ROAD TRIP!

14

FWIW, there’s some background as to why. It doesn’t change the fact that it sucks, but it makes it more understandable.

Per a thread from hell in rec.arts.sf.written, per Eric Flint and S.M. Stirling (who’re buds with Weber) Weber had a medical problem and can’t type any more (I think he broke his arm). Anyway, he dictated the novel with voice recognition software and (per a whole bunch of writers, Lawrence Watt-Evans, John Ringo, Flint, Stirling, etc) dictating a novel is a whole 'nother skill than typing a novel. Every writer in the thread agreed that there’s a huge difference.

Then, per Baen Book’s infinite stupidity, they figured that since it was so very late, they wouldn’t bother editing it 'cause it would take too long. :rolleyes:

Anyway, I expect substantial improvement for the next one.

Fenris

15

I’m very pleased to hear that, as he was one of my favorite authors prior to his last two books.

(Is that also the reason why The Shiva Option sucked?)

16

Yeah, I share your feelings about books, the only books I ever thrown away where so badly battered paperbacks that I decided to replace them, but the Elminster book was so bad that just throwing it away wasnt enough.

17

This book review called to mind another from days of yore.

18

Thanks, Fenris.

I was extremely disappointed in Weber, and I’m glad to know there is an explanation.

As you say, though, it does’nt change the fact the fact that it sucked.

19

Oh if anyone is interested, try the following books by Mathew (or Matt) Reilly

I think I got the name right.

Ice Station

Temple

Area 7

He’s a young (early to mid 20’s) Aussie author. He writes like a big budget hollywood movie, but his characters are interesting, the plots are good and they keep going.

The action sequences are a bit over the top, but he’s also REALLY young for an author. In about 10 years he should be fantastic.

20

You’re probably thinking of Moorcock’s short story “A Tale of Many Parts”, in which he spoofs his own habit of mutilating characters. The penultimate line of the story, spoken to the hero by the romantic interest is “Did it have to be made of sandstone?”