In the forward to his book Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon, Spider Robinson writes:
He goes on to say that it’s a reasonably famous anecdote. Now I’m intrigued. Anyone here know what series he’s referring to?
Maybe the Ian Fleming James Bond novels. I love the movies, but I can imagine that the novel forms of them would be rather hackneyed.
AWB-- Bah and hambourg! The James Bond novels are very well written, and still intriguing. They are very different from the movies – DR NO and FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE are closest to the novels. Movies thrive on large explosions, bright colors, and fast action; while the books have their share of fast action, they also include introspection, travel descriptions, and character analysis. I’m not putting them forward as great literature, mind, but I am saying that they’re far from hackneyed.
Besides, there are only around a dozen.
**Cabbage wrote:
As the story goes, this writer proceeded to write the worst, most hackneyed novel of which he was capable–and not only did he succeed in selling it, the public demanded better than two dozen sequels**
I don’t know if this is the RIGHT answer, but I’m going to guess anything by L. Ron Hubbard. He’s done some really LONG sequels and his writing (from what little I’ve been exposed to it) is pretty bad.
The Tarzan series and the Martian Tales series by Edgar Rice Burroughs both come to mind. Is there any indication what year we’re talking about?
I’m pretty sure it’s the Gor Books by John Norman. Not only did he cave in and write sequels, but after he died, others continued the parade of excrement. I’ve heard the annectdote attributed to that series of books before, but never from such a reputable source as Spider. And having tried to read at least one of them, I’m emotionally, intellectually and aesthetically prepared to declare them the winner by default.
They suck canal water. Love Canal water.
Yeah, but the appeal of Gor wasn’t supposed to be the story, it was supposed ot be the S&M, from what I understand.
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“Is this children of the damned day at the brain institute?”
I know the anecdote,and I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about literary SF. I’m glad to see others guessing as well, because I don’t know. I would just note that if you say L. Ron Hubbard, I think you’re conflating this story with the one about Dianetics, which supposedly rose out of a bet with Asimov that he could start a religion and get people to buy it.
My guess is Robert Jordan, though I don’t know how many installments exist in “The Wheel of Time” ghastliness at this point, and I don’t care. If it’s not him, my next guess would be Stephen Donaldson.
Then there’s Weiss and Hickman.
The S&M appeal didn’t really enter into it until book 5 or 6. The first few really weren’t that terrible, even if they weren’t that hot.
Oh, MAYBE Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover. I’ve never read any of them, but the series runs to that number of installments. From what I can pick up, it seems like pretty stock fantasy.
And, finally, maybe Terry Brooks’ “Sword of Shannara” stuff, which was a blatant Tolkien ripoff. That also ran to a LOT of sequels.
Both of these feel right.
Maybe Piers Anthony’s Xanth novels. Anthony has said in interviews that he regards these novels as his lesser work but he keeps writing them because they sell so well.
For obvious reasons, The Icerigger Trilogy by Alan Dean Foster.
I eliminated Xanth in my thinking. Anthony is actually a decent essayist, and has explained in print how he came to be a best-selling writer. In one of his forwards he explained how, at the start of his career, he would write books and try to publish them. Then, he wised up, and wrote outlines, only writing what publishing houses expressed an interest in ahead of time. His income multiplied, and there were things he might have liked to write, but the publishers weren’t buying the outlines, so he didn’t. He explained this, IIRC, in the forward to the “Incarnations of Immortality” series, which was a departure, according to him, from this usual mode of operation.
Anthony is a good writer who has sold his soul to be a commercial hack, or is a total pro who realizes that writing is a business, whichever you prefer.
Anyway, the first few Xanth’s were actually pretty good. The first one garnered an award or two. He just ran the whole thing totally into the ground because people kept buying.
At least it’s a good, readable rip-off! 
There are not even close to two dozen sequels to “The Sword of Shannara”. Even if you count the prequel, there are:
(leaving the 'The’s out to conserve typing)
First King of Shannara (prequel)
Sword of Shannara
Elfstones of Shannara
Wishsong of Shannara
Scions of Shannara
Druid of Shannara
Elf Queen of Shannara
Talismans of Shannara
Voyage of the Jerle Shannara (which just recently came out)
This doesn’t even make a single dozen, much less two dozen.
I keep thinking that it’s van Vogt, and The World of Null-A. I’m sure that I read, somewhere, that van Vogt wrote WNA as a parody of a literary style. I read this about 3 moves ago, though, so it’s been a while.
Actually, almost none of the suggestions at this point, including mine, run to 2 dozen installments. That really limits the field, or Robinson was exagerrating for rhetorical effect. I just looked up Xanth, which has 22. It still doesn’t feel like the right answer to me - doesn’t sound like something Anthony would do.
All the examples given so far are books where the author was trying to write a good novel. There was no attempt in any of them to write something as bad as possible (just because you think they’re bad, doesn’t mean it was deliberately so).
I’ve never heard that particular anecdote. I suspect Robinson was repeating (or creating) an urban myth.
The closest I’ve heard was the story that when an editor read Stephen Donaldson, he said “I hate this book. But it’s going sell millions” and published it. Years later, the same editor read Terry Brooks and said, “I hate this book – and in the same way I hated Donldson,” so published it.
Norman Spinrad’s “The Iron Dream” was deliberately written poorly, but only because the nature of the book required it (It was supposedly written by Adolph Hitler in an alternate universe, and Adolph didn’t speak English all that well, since it wasn’t his native language). No sequels, though.
Just a note - they weren’t years apart. A little searching reveals “The Sword of Shannara” and “Lord Fane’s Bowels”, er, “Lord Foul’s Bane” having been published the same year (1977). I looked because I was thinking Brooks was well before Donaldson.
What!!! These early adventure/science fiction works by ERB may seem a bit stilted and non-PC to our modern sensibilities but they are well written and if you can dis-regard some of the anachronisms, are still excellent adventure reading, even today.
John Norman (real name Professor John Lange) is dead? I was part of a three way phone conversation with him about four years back. I hadn’t heard he had died.
Judging from that conversation, he would be out of the running for intentionally bad book writing. He thought quite well of his stories and only underpublicized himself because of backlash to the content. He caught a lot of shit from feminists because of content.