# Worst novel ever published **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 13, 2009, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-novel-ever-published/481097 "2009-01-13T14:44:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-novel-ever-published/481097/21 "2009-01-13T16:51:48Z")
And look at even the title, “The Ski People”. A book about people at a skiing resort. What should I call it. I know! I will call it “The Ski People”. I mean the dude didn’t even TRY! Dark Continuum at least has a little bit of evocativeness about it. Sorry, mine’s crappier! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-novel-ever-published/481097/22 "2009-01-13T16:54:49Z")
You want more? > [@](#): > > Beyond the sea a coastline, Greek coastline. Rugged, rocky, tortuous. A coastline as strong and as forthright as the nation who lived beyond it. The brilliant cunning of the Greek mind-as twisted as the inlets of their coastline, with its promontories, its peninsulas and its gulfs. Beyond the coastline fields. Cultivated fields; beyond the fields, mountains-high, forbidding, frightening, dangerous, and in the fields and the mountains, men . . . Men in the cities too. Men in the cities and in the towns. Men of Athens, men of Corinth, men of Medara, men of the Peloponnesus, men of the great northern mainland, men of Naxos, men of the islands, men of Greece. Farmers, artificers, craftsmen, sailors, politicians, democrats, oligarchs, tyrants; living together in a great tangled heap of humanity. A heap of humanity that led the world in its own time, and whose influence extended for five millennia into the future. The World of ancient Greece. A world of gladness and beauty. A world of pain, and savagery, and death. A world very much like our own, a mixed world, a perplexing world. A world in which everything was different except basic human emotions. A world where there were secrets. From **The Last Valkyrie** You’re mistaking a high word count for evocativeness. Fanthorpe/Torro/GodKnowsWhat doesn’t believe in PLOT. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-novel-ever-published/481097/23 "2009-01-13T16:58:06Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > Never read it myself but for all the controversy it created **Salaman Rushdie’s** _The Satanic Verses_ was known to be a crappy read. I tried reading _Midnight’s Children_, it had **one** moment of decent writing, literally nothing more than a decent paragraph in the first quarter of the book. I never made it much farther than that, however, as the book just plunged into the worst kind of meandering navel gazing, as it was more about him talking about writing the book, than actually writing the book. Back when Rushdie was in hiding, my step-brother gave me a book called _Einstein’s Dreaming_ (or something like that), which was just this short, rambling book, that was like an ultra-sanitized version of something Burroughs would have written. One the jacket, was a blurb from Rushdie, talking about how it was a great book. I seriously considered sending him a letter telling him that he needed to get out more. ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-novel-ever-published/481097/24 "2009-01-13T17:14:44Z")
> [@WF\_Tomba](#): > > Well, the narrative style is impressively muddled and confusing. Let’s hear some dialogue! I was going to spare you that, but let me flip though some pages… Flipping, flippping, finger, THERE! Oy, I can barely stand to type it out. And I have no idea what is going on in this scene. The whole book seems more and more bizarre as I read random segments. Anyway, here goes: \*\*“What’s now the difficulty?” “Nothin’.” It hapened again. “Somtimes it’s just 'specially hard if I try and sneak 'em.” “I know already how because with the language it gets pretty often too _treach_erous for me, jah, but when you-” was she hemorrhaging internally? “Nothin’, din’t I just say?” She waited silent; turned up her eyes; gave in. “I fart lots,” Russell’s sister said. “_Das_ war’s,” Othmar exhaled, released, instantly, she was a child. He withdrew at first the blood-smeared intervening fingers, waited, unstuck after that the pushing of the thumbs. Where it tore open the deepest was congealed pretty well already, drying blackly-even a little bit dead looking- “Got any idea what a ferb is?” she suddenly asked him. \*\* I kid you not. Right there on page 95. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-novel-ever-published/481097/25 "2009-01-13T17:17:28Z")
I mean “the pushing of the thumbs”?!? Is that like the “airing of the grievances”? Happy festivus! ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-novel-ever-published/481097/26 "2009-01-13T17:20:44Z")
Yeah, “heap of humanity”. Pretty bad. My creative writing 101 teacher warned us about alliteration. The fighting is always “fierce”, etc. Useful if you are writing copy for “Live at Five”, not so much if you want to win some kind of literature prize. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-novel-ever-published/481097/27 "2009-01-13T17:24:51Z")
Ladies and Gentlemen, **Atlanta Nights** (pdf). Random pargraphs: > [@](#): > > His den! Henry holed up in his den like a wild beast, hoarding his pray and > coming out to hunt when he hungered for food or lusted for sex or thirsted for liquor or > water or will or juice. The back to his den or out to hunt the lives and fortunes of other > men or off to his wife, that abominable Callie Archer who took up so much of his time. > But he always came back, always came back for her athletic body and her wild sex and > her Margarita and tequila sunrises and omelettes and steaks and chops and their video > tapes, the ones recorded by the hidden cameras in the bedroom when they made love like > wild beasts, like penguins of the Sahara diving into the sand and rutting wildly after > feasting on sand sharks. She envied those penguins. All that hot sand to swim through, > the raspy grains sliding over their feathers as they hunted in wild packs, baying at the > moon, and diving deep, deep, down into the dusty depths of the dry smooth sand. > What would penguin leather be like? Would it have lots of dense patterns of > whirls where the feathers grew, like ostrich leather did? Perhaps she could have > something made of penguin > leather to remind her of Henry, a love seat or a fine set of whips and straps. Perhaps she > might travel to the Sahara someday to watch them from the tops of the pyramids, Mount > Fujiyama off in the distance, duplicating the smooth slanted sides of the pyramids. Oh, > Henry, you jerk, why didn’t you ever take me places like that? Why didn’t we travel > instead of being cooped up in hiding, in your den, rutting like penguins or ostriches or > lions on the leather cushion and couches and chairs and rugs? ---
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-novel-ever-published/481097/28 "2009-01-13T17:26:37Z")
> [@Stan\_Shmenge](#): > > \*\*“What’s now the difficulty?” > “Nothin’.” It hapened again. “Somtimes it’s just 'specially hard if I try and sneak 'em.” > “I know already how because with the language it gets pretty often too _treach_erous for me, jah, but when you-” was she hemorrhaging internally? > “Nothin’, din’t I just say?” She waited silent; turned up her eyes; gave in. “I fart lots,” Russell’s sister said. > “_Das_ war’s,” Othmar exhaled, released, instantly, she was a child. > He withdrew at first the blood-smeared intervening fingers, waited, unstuck after that the pushing of the thumbs. Where it tore open the deepest was congealed pretty well already, drying blackly-even a little bit dead looking- > “Got any idea what a ferb is?” she suddenly asked him. > \*\* It does not say that, you lie! ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-novel-ever-published/481097/29 "2009-01-13T17:32:02Z")
> [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](#): > > It does not say that, you lie! Look you little ferb, If I say it says that, then by ferb, that is what it says! Now run along and stop ferbing me off. ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-novel-ever-published/481097/30 "2009-01-13T17:36:03Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Ladies and Gentlemen, **Atlanta Nights** (pdf). > > Random pargraphs: Quite frankly, I often thirst for [wil](http://farm1.static.flickr.com/80/241602984_405d9007c0.jpg?v=0). The guy never returns my e-mails though. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-novel-ever-published/481097/31 "2009-01-13T17:38:30Z")
[Lionel Fanthorpe Random Quote Generator](http://www.peltorro.com/examples.htm). His publisher wanted books of a specified length turned in every month. He literally did not care what they were filled in. Fanthorpe obliged. British science fiction is filled with works like this. For the worst science ever in science fiction, you can’t untop two-book wonder Terence Haile. These are from _Galaxies Ahead:_ > [@](#): > > ‘His quick-thinking brain told him that, with a slight adjustment of his atomic “sprayer”, and used in the close proximity of the water, which had great density, judging by its appearance, he stood a chance of turning the atoms making up Peters, Van and the rest, into a genuine atomic cloud. If that cloud rose to the surface of the hole, and his sprayer still operated, he should be able, with a final shot into the centre of the cloud, reverse the process because of the absence of water, and reconstitute his friends into their normal shapes. Their atoms, in other words, would be drawn together again to make them into human beings.’ > > ‘“Peters, we are over a million years old!” he announced quietly. “When we were caught up in that double-sun explosion, we must have been carried along in its giddy orbit for over a million years! We were kept alive simply because we were in an air-locked compartment and did not do anything but sleep for most of the time, thus conserving our energy and our bodies to allow us to behave now as if we were normal men.”’ > > ‘… they were on the verge of being sucked under a lake of molten magnetic lava when, by sheer theoretical knowledge, they pulled out and made off into space once more. / A barrage of cosmic rays, turned on them by inhabitants of a queer, elongated planet, had almost spelled disaster, but radio beams saved them. / Once, in mid inter-planetary flight, they were brought to a dead stop. The cause? They had entered the “no-man’s land” between two planets, where, opposed to all normal theory, the two worlds, acting in complete unison, were poised on the same plane, although millions of miles apart.’ > > ‘We found that all the planets were being drawn quickly towards the sun, and the effect this extra-sudden dash had on Mars was catastrophic. All the oxygen, we learned from the one lucky space-ship crew who got back safely, was absorbed into space by the action of a violent earthquake …’ ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-novel-ever-published/481097/32 "2009-01-13T17:44:38Z")
All kidding aside, this “novel” was published by a major publisher and was apparently meant to be taken seriously. I think it is worse than some of the examples given because of it’s banal setting in a ski resort. It is like a novel that was typical of the era, but so completely off the rails that the suckyness of it is all the more pronounced. Someday I will actually sit down and read the damn thing cover to cover, just for hell of it. I mean, it is a bad example of a bad genre, taken to the extreme. To me, that is what makes it suck so hard and bad. I wouldn’t want to read a “good” novel about people at a ski resort. Yet I find it oddly compelling… ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-novel-ever-published/481097/33 "2009-01-13T17:45:45Z")
I wish I could remember the author who wrote the following paragraph, seared into my brain in its idiocy: > [@](#): > > Dust moved randomly in the air, like particles in Brownian motion. I chucked the book against the wall then. ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-novel-ever-published/481097/34 "2009-01-13T17:49:21Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > [Lionel Fanthorpe Random Quote Generator](http://www.peltorro.com/examples.htm). > > His publisher wanted books of a specified length turned in every month. He literally did not care what they were filled in. Fanthorpe obliged. > > British science fiction is filled with works like this. For the worst science ever in science fiction, you can’t untop two-book wonder Terence Haile. These are from _Galaxies Ahead:_ Allright, but we expect penny a word SF to be like this sometimes. What makes “The Ski People” more atrocious is that it was, I gather, a mainstream novel meant to be a summer read by your average person. How could an editor pass on this crap? The sheer lack of attention to even the most minor things (typos in the final draft) didn’t matter. Was the industry really that fast and loose back then? ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-novel-ever-published/481097/35 "2009-01-13T17:53:08Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > You’re mistaking a high word count for evocativeness. I said the TITLE was evocative. At least more evocative than “The Ski People”. I mean, Mellville didn’t call his book, “The Whale People”. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-novel-ever-published/481097/36 "2009-01-13T18:00:34Z")
Stan, it sounds like it was run through a translator! Is there another publication date listed in Germany or somewhere ---
**Author:** ![vison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/e47774/32.png) [@vison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vison)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-novel-ever-published/481097/37 "2009-01-13T18:08:15Z")
It’s a tie: The Bridges of Madison County and The Horse Whisperer. I think they have to be the 2 worst, since they were both HUGE best sellers and were, beyond doubt, the worst, most time-wasting dreck I have ever had the misfortune to read. They are both, in equal measure, the “literary” equivalent of a Thomas Kincaide painting. There is a special place in hell for these people and I am going to be in charge of it for eternity. They are going to be sorry, sorry, sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-novel-ever-published/481097/38 "2009-01-13T18:15:23Z")
> [@Ellen\_Cherry](#): > > Stan, it sounds like it was run through a translator! Is there another publication date listed in Germany or somewhere Well, I don’t think they had babelfish in 1968. This is an old hardbound book. Some more, for those who can take it: > [@](#): > > “Doctor Alfred, might I interrupt for just long enough to tell everybody that Lea here would like to know what everybody is drinking?” Vivian’s request gave them a chance to look each other over formally, decide on drink orders, settle among the glove-soft conversation-pit upholstery. Betsy Warble offered Othmar a cigarette and before he could think he had already accepted it, sucked flame she had already struck from a kitchen match out of the coutour of her hand. From page 150. God, even the character names! Othmar? Betsy Warble? Oy freakin’ vey. And you know, if there were some racy scenes, I could understand. Haven’t found one yet. ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-novel-ever-published/481097/39 "2009-01-13T18:18:19Z")
> [@vison](#): > > It’s a tie: The Bridges of Madison County and The Horse Whisperer. > > I think they have to be the 2 worst, since they were both HUGE best sellers and were, beyond doubt, the worst, most time-wasting dreck I have ever had the misfortune to read. > > They are both, in equal measure, the “literary” equivalent of a Thomas Kincaide painting. There is a special place in hell for these people and I am going to be in charge of it for eternity. They are going to be sorry, sorry, sorry. Gee, I kind of like the “bridges” movie. Haven’t read the book. Of course Clint is a God, and can do no wrong. Even his movies with the Orangutan were pretty good. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-novel-ever-published/481097/40 "2009-01-13T18:20:03Z")
> [@Stan\_Shmenge](#): > > Allright, but we expect penny a word SF to be like this sometimes. What makes “The Ski People” more atrocious is that it was, I gather, a mainstream novel meant to be a summer read by your average person. How could an editor pass on this crap? The sheer lack of attention to even the most minor things (typos in the final draft) didn’t matter. Was the industry really that fast and loose back then? From two listings on [bookfinder.com](http://bookfinder.com): > [@](#): > > First novel by a much praised author better known for his biographies of political and financial figures. > > Warmly inscribed and signed by the author to US Poet Laureate William Jay Smith. I can’t find out much else about him. He’s still around, having published another novel (with mostly five-star reviews) in 2002. Probably this was a first novel by a promising writer and they took a chance that didn’t work out. Not all that unusual for publishing. You can certainly find equivalently bad albums from groups signed in 1968 that nobody ever heard from again. Better to put them put and get some return from your advance than to write the whole thing off. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-novel-ever-published/481097.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-novel-ever-published/481097.md?page=3)