There are people (typically into the dominant/submissive lifestyle sub-culture) who apparently live this GOR lifestyle nonsense 24/7.
This article must be seen to be believed.
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2000/05/18/gor/index.html
The first book title that popped into my mind was Naked Came The Stranger, published under the pseudonym “Penelope Asche”. From this page about the book:
You know, folks, Robinson’s quote does not specify Science Fiction or Fantasy. Could the story (still possibly a UL, in my mind) actually refer to a mystery, a kids’ series, a romance (not a romans) or some other genre?
Could we get Ike, Eve, or Manny to look at this thread?
(I’ll start off by taking the Oz books out of the running. Baum may have wearily written some of his later stuff just for bucks, but there is no evidence that the original was written on a bet–especially to see if “bad” would sell.)
Not that I think he’s a bad writer, but has anyone considered Robert E. Howard.
I first thought of Robert Heinlein and his Ayn Rand for the retarded books, but then I remembered that Robinson is actually a disciple of Heinlein’s. If it’s not the Gor crapathon, I suspect urban legend.
Slight hijack – someone mentioned The Iron Dream. Well worth hunting down, for those who aren’t familiar with it.
First, whoever wrote that article on Naked Came the Stranger misspelled the author’s name. It’s Penelope Ashe.
I don’t think any of the authors mentioned so far could be the one mentioned in the story told by Spicer Robinson. In fact, the more I think about it, the more likely I think that’s it’s an apocryphal story.
Let me go through each of the authors mentioned so far:
Not Ian Fleming. The novels aren’t that bad, there aren’t enough of them, and Fleming seemed to believe in them.
Not L. Ron Hubbard. During his time as a pulp writer, he didn’t do series, and he didn’t consider his stuff that bad. Battlefield Earth was only one book. Mission Earth didn’t come out till after his death. There were never a large contingent of fans demanding sequels in any case, just a church that was eager to publish all his books whether anyone liked them or not.
Not Edgar Rice Burroughs. There’s no sign that he disliked any of his work. It’s really not bad stuff for a pulp writer.
Not Robert Jordan. Not enough books, and there’s no sign that he dislikes his works.
Not Marion Zimmer Bradley. She liked her Darkover books, even if she did think that some fans took them too seriously.
Not Terry Brooks. He likes his books and there’s really not enough of them. Perhaps you can blame Lester Del Rey (who rewrote some of the first book), but not the fans.
Not Piers Anthony. He likes his books.
Not A. E. Van Vogt. Not enough books.
Not Stephen Donaldson. He likes his books. Again, perhaps you can blame his editor Lester Del Rey, but not his fans.
Not Norman Spinrad. He knows that The Iron Dream was written in a deliberately pulpy style, and fans of the book know it too. Anyway, it’s just one book.
Not Alan Dean Foster. No series is long enough.
Not L. Frank Baum. It’s good stuff, and there’s no reason to think that Baum dislike the Oz books.
Not Penelope Ashe. That was only one book.
Not Robert Heinlein. Robinson is Heinlein’s greatest fan, and Heinlein didn’t do sequels anyway.
I don’t believe this story.
Oh, one more:
Not Robert E. Howard. The Conan stories didn’t get into novel form until after his death, and Howard’s own writing isn’t that bad.
I wrote:
> Spicer Robinson
Ahhhhh!!! Spider Robinson, of course.
Wow, thanks for all the responses!
I had assumed it was a somewhat trivial question that would be answered fairly quickly, merely being some common anecdote of which I was ignorant. I do know a little more which could rule out some of the guesses; he also says:
He doesn’t really indicate whether he actually believes the story to be true, or if it’s just a tall tale that’s grown over the years. He mentions “SF convention”, so it apparently is a sci-fi/fantasy series. He also mentions “his estate”, which I take to imply the author is dead, but I can’t be sure of that. Additionally, the foreword was written in 1976, which can rule out some of the possibilities.
It doesn’t seem like he’s just making the story up; on the other hand, he isn’t insisting it’s necessarily true, either, but he does say it’s “reasonably famous”.
Ron Hubbard seems likely.
Not only did he write science fiction in childishly simple terms, but eventually he created his own religion and moved on to found Scientology, where the secret of life, liberty, happiness, the universe and everything is based on the primordial clam.
Now he gets to have people worship him as a genius, fill his coffers with coin, occasionally publishes a crappy book about the meaning of the ‘clam’ (NO, not THAT type of clam), and screws with his followers minds and probably not a few of their women.
Considering that Spider is pretty well read, don’t limit yourself to SF for the series.
Oh, I think we can eliminate John Norman, as well. According to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, he’s still alive, or at least, was in 1995, and he only has two books other than the Gor series, so he’s not likely to have made the bet in the first place. If anyone can think of any keywords I might look up in the index, I might be able to say more.
I honestly can’t think of any series that went more than two dozen books… Barsoom was nowhere near there, and even Xanth hasn’t gone quite that far yet (besides, everyone knows that Xanth is only a trilogy).
No, this story does not fit L. Ron Hubbard. During his days as a pulp writer, he mostly did short stories, and he turned out acceptable pulp fiction. He never did any series during that time. During his time as the head of Dianetics/Scientology, the only books he wrote were Battlefield Earth (which was only one book) and Mission Earth (which was a series, but only appeared after his death. At no point did he have fans clamoring for future books. You may not like Hubbard (and I don’t either), but nothing about this story fits him.
How about Zane Grey? He can’t possibly have liked every book that was published under his name.
OK. When did the author who wrote under the name E. E. “Doc” Smith die?
My guess would be the Dumarest books by EC Tubb. There were about 30 or so books in the series. They were humdrum scifi trash with all the originality of a Harlequin Romance[sup]1[/sup]. I don’t know if the first one was written to be so bad as to be unpublishable, but it could easily have been.
[sup]1[/sup] Apologies to Harlequin for insulting its Romances.
Edward Elmer Smith (his real name, but the “Doc” part was fictitious), 1890-1965. Judging from the EoSF entry, neither the Skylark of Space series nor the Lensman books seem to match the annecdote, those being his only two series. I’ve really got to read those, one of these days.
I always thought it was the GOR series, but someone pointed out the “estate might sue” comment, which rules that out.
Several clues:
The anecdote appears in either Callahan’s Crosstime which was published in +/- 1977. Robinson had heard the anecdote before then, so let’s say it refers to someone who died before 1975.
That rules out L.Ron (the Mission Earth stuff was early '80s), Terry Brooks, (the Shannara book was originally a stand-alone), Robert Jordan (who didn’t start pumping out Extruded Fantasy Product until 199?), Piers Anthony, who’d only written his first few Xanth books by then (and at that point, Anthony was a fairly well respected mid-list author)
I can’t think of many series with “more than 2 dozen” books, especially in 1975. Bradley’s Darkover stuff, maybe, but she was still alive and, in the mid-70’s was writing some cutting edge stuff (The Forbidden Tower, Heritage of Hastur). Besides, she was originally a Big Time Fan. I can’t see her taking a bet like that.
Baum and Burroughs have been discussed and disproven.
I’m not sure if or when E.C. Tubb died, but his Dumarest of Terra stuff (which I’m completely unfamiliar with) has a ton of sequels and is in roughly the right time period.)
… <10 minutes pass>
Ater a bit of research, E.C. Tubb (who has about 3 billion pseudonyms) was apparently still alive and well as of mid 2000. (And, as of 1978, only had about 16-18 Dumarest of Terra books). Ergo, it’s not Tubb.
So, I dunno.
Fenris
“Doc” was quite legitimate; he was often listed as “E. E. Smith, Ph. D.” His doctorate was in food sciences, and one of his important discoveries in the field was an improved way to make sugar stick to a donut.
I think Spider was pulling our legs.
Well, you have to admit that this was a better guess than most in this thread.
I’m trying to think of what large series were occupying the bookstore shelves in the mid-70s, and all I can think of are the Perry Rhodan books. But if I understand correctly, these were originally in German and written by several different writers, like the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books. And there were lots more than a couple dozen, more like a hundred or so.