I take it that raiding the Thog archives is cheating, as well? Goodness knows there's enough of this kind of thing in there.

(Grainger's immortal line "Come, muse, let us sing of rats" presumably doesn't count either. It appears in a published work, but that work is a collection of bad poetry. It got deleted from the actual poem because it was too giggle-worthy to live.)

Posted September 5, 2008 1:02 PM by Nix

Dang! I already re-purposed the worst books in my (former) possession by sending them to a friend in Illinois. (If I can't read it without pain, it goes in that pile and I send them away.)

Posted September 5, 2008 1:05 PM by Ginger

Ginger #2: Does your friend still speak to you? (Or does she have a wood-burning stove?)

Posted September 5, 2008 1:13 PM by albatross

Do labels count? I hope so, because I was greatly amused by two labels recently.

1) A label on my peanut butter, noting that "this product contains peanuts". I certainly hope so.

2) A label on a package of something in the South-east Asian grocery store. "Spice for Spiced Food." That was the entire English description of the product.

Posted September 5, 2008 1:13 PM by SamChevre

Came across this gem in an otherwise by-the-book (heh) detective number:

The moon hung in the sky, like a luminous rock.

I read it a couple more times, just to be sure I'd really read it, but the sentence stubbornly refused to vanish from either page or brain. That was when I shut the book and walked away.

Posted September 5, 2008 1:13 PM by Nicole TWN

Abi --

Should it disturb me that, aside possibly from the choice of quote, I can't see what's to complain about in your example?

Posted September 5, 2008 1:19 PM by Graydon

Are we allowed foreign languages? Because the only one I can do from memory (misspent youth) is:

O fortunatam natam me consule Romam! - Cicero, On his consulship.

It's a hexameter. Just about. Fortunately, the rest of the epic is lost.

Posted September 5, 2008 1:21 PM by chris y

May I intrude upon this post with verse? If so, I can supply this thrilling stanza from Edward George E. L. Bulwer-Lytton's King Arthur, in which Gawain advises his king to rest before questing for various McGuffins hidden by dwarves. (I believe that's the context, anyway. It's a bit difficult to follow Bulwer-Lytton's plot among the wilds and thickets of his syntax.)

"Permit me now your royal limbs to wrap,
In these warm relicts of departed bears;
And while from Morpheus you decoy a nap,
My skill the grain shall gather from the tares.
The pigmy tongue my erudite pursuits
Have traced ad unguem to the nasal roots!"

Posted September 5, 2008 1:22 PM by Rymenhild

"We were bogged down in circular arguments going nowhere. We needed to break the logjam - but time and money were running out." - from Fighting the Banana Wars, by Harriet Lamb.

Posted September 5, 2008 1:24 PM by Peter Robins

2) A label on a package of something in the South-east Asian grocery store. "Spice for Spiced Food." That was the entire English description of the product.

A lot of that stuff is computer-translated (and not with the good software). 'Snot really fair to single out Asian uses of English - it's often used in Japan, frex, as a sort of advertising garnish, where the meaning to a native speaker is of negligible importance. One day I hope to learn enough Japanese to be able do to their language what they do to ours.

Posted September 5, 2008 1:25 PM by Adrian Smith

OK, found one (small pile behind the settee):

from Jennifer Fulton, who also writes as Grace Lennox and Rose Beecham; this is the beginning of a bad book:
"There should be a law against you," said the corn-silk blonde sharing Penn's table.
"For making women wet?" Penn asked.
The leg touching hers quivered. "Arrogant and hot. How can I resist?"

Posted September 5, 2008 1:28 PM by Ginger

"He has both feet firmly on the ground, but without going overboard about it."

(From an article in the Business Section of the San Francisco Chronicle.)

Posted September 5, 2008 1:29 PM by Serge

Should it disturb me that, aside possibly from the choice of quote, I can't see what's to complain about in your example?

Yeah, I thought it was a little overwrought, but not without charm.

Posted September 5, 2008 1:31 PM by Adrian Smith

albatross @3: Apparently, her partner likes most of what I send. The rest can be recycled to the younger crowd at the college where she teaches.

There's just no accounting for taste. I would have posted from a truly awful book, only I checked the publisher and darnit, it's a vanity press! I could only go to Amazon and point this out in my 1-star review. The other reviews for this same book, by the way, were 5 and 4 stars.

I guess some women are just so desperate for any book at all with lesbians in it that they ignore the awful writing.

Posted September 5, 2008 1:32 PM by Ginger

We will leave off the Fanthorpe. That's too easy a source. Instead, let us go to the writing of H.C. Turk. I'm unfortunate in not currently having access to either Ether Ore or Black Body. The first is bad enough -- when I ask people to guess the ending of the book, about 2/3 succeed. And it's full of Artful Misspellings.

More than 10 years since my last reading, I still remember (approximately) the opening line of Black Body: "Little did I know as I slipped in the birth slime between my mothers' legs that of the three women watching, two were witches and one was a hag." The only possible excuse for the publication of the rest is that someone thought it was a pastiche of bad Victorian pornography. And it was published by a major hardcover art publisher (Villard).

Makes "The Eye of Argon" look tame.

Posted September 5, 2008 1:33 PM by Tom Whitmore

Graydon @6:

The book is intended as a scholarly examination of the art of bookbinding from the perspective of a book collector.

I have many books about books, but no other author in the field has reminded me of Thomas de Quincey on a bad day.

Posted September 5, 2008 1:34 PM by abi

And me with all my Jim Butcher books in my other suit.

Posted September 5, 2008 1:35 PM by Ulrika O'Brien

On the subject of bad prose, I'm sure most people here will be familiar with it, but if anyone hasn't read Matt Taibbi's masterly dissection of Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat", you just should.

Posted September 5, 2008 1:43 PM by Adrian Smith

Tom, #15: Is the misplaced apostrophe your typo, or does it appear that way in the original? If the latter, all I can say is that he must have been talking about an alien species!

Posted September 5, 2008 1:44 PM by Lee

In the Bad Writing by Great Writers category--Theodore Dreiser trying to sound like Henry James.

"Oh, Carrie, Carrie! Oh, blind strivings of the human heart! Onward, onward, it saith, and where beauty leads, there it follows. Whether it be the tinkle of a lone sheep bell o'er some quiet landscape, or the glimmer of beauty in sylvan places, or the show of soul in some passing eye, the heart knows and makes answer, following. It is when the feet weary and hope seems vain that the heartaches and the longings arise. Know, then, that for you in neither surfeit nor content. In your rocking-chair, by your window dreaming, shall you long, alone. In your rocking-chair, by your window, shall you dream such happiness as you may never feel."

*wiping the purple off my hands*

Posted September 5, 2008 1:44 PM by Sarah S

I don't know if advertising is cheating?

"When Baldacci is on fire, no one can touch him."

-From a subway ad earlier this year for the new David Baldacci novel. I'm not even sure whether that qualifies as a mixed metaphor or something else entirely.

Posted September 5, 2008 2:05 PM by Emily H.

My issues with Mr. Battershall:

In Attic groves he was ever a terror to the tender nymph, a follower of wine-bibbers, and of general ill-repute.

That last clause, while technically grammatical, took extra effort to parse because the second "of" led me to expect a parallel construction (something like "a follower of wine-bibbers, and of harlots"). It's a modest example of a garden-path sentence.

suffers a “sea-change” into something fair

Cliché abuse.

Posted September 5, 2008 2:08 PM by Tim Walters

I'm at work so I'm quoting from memory, but I know where the book is at home. I'm reasonably certain it's in Debra Mullins' Scandal of the Black Rose

"her orgasm left her shaken like a wet kitten"

Posted September 5, 2008 2:09 PM by Tania

Ginger @ 14... Didn't Dick Cheney's wife once write a novel about two lesbians on the Frontier?

Posted September 5, 2008 2:10 PM by Serge

"He rolled on his hip, tipping her. The room rocked around him and her thighs parted. He lowered himself into the splay, touching stiffly against her. She flinched. He made a humorous face, but it faded straightaway. Then he strained forward and she spread around him.

Sam felt her emotions in a vibrant cascade: her wonder, her joy, her longing. She tendered him what was innermost--her hunger, her sadness, her desperate hope. And then she was asking, reaching for his heart. He hesitated at her insistence. She met his fear as she had before, elation vanishing, risking abandonment, summoning her courage and asking again, showing him how to surrender. His resistance dissolved and he let himself go, heart molten and flowing to meet her. He felt himself at her center, warm and joined, her soft moan in his ear. It was if she'd been searching for her real self her whole life, and now she had found it. They rode the moment together.

Then, strangely, Sam felt her ask again. Had he only imagined her peace? How could it fade so quickly? Her body strained violently, ignoring the pain of a still tighter coupling, or seeking it, as if what had just past was nothing, and there was something deeper and more meaningful to feel. He hesitated asa sigh hissed from her throat and her teeth raked his neck. It was as if she was seeking some kind of weakness in him, delving for flaws, or stirring herself to create them. Lindy appeared to sense his alarm, but instead of calming him, she grew bolder. 'This body isn't my real one,' she seemed to say. 'Watch me shred this soft skin and pull my sweet face off.'"

--from Wild Animus by Rich Shapero
the worst book I've ever read

Posted September 5, 2008 2:11 PM by cmb adams

Not to mention that classic by Keats, Woman! when I behold thee flippant, vain:

...My ear is open like a greedy shark,
To catch the tunings of a voice divine.

Posted September 5, 2008 2:13 PM by Doctor Science

Well, since The Eye of Argon has finally been published, I nominate this:

Eyeing a slender female crouched alone at a nearby bench, Grignr advanced wishing to wholesomely occupy his time. The flickering torches cast weird shafts of luminescence dancing over the half naked harlot of his choice, her stringy orchid twines of hair swaying gracefully over the lithe opaque nose, as she raised a half drained mug to her pale red lips.

Emily H:
Ninjas can't catch you if you're on fire. Which comes from here.

Posted September 5, 2008 2:17 PM by wintermute

"Ashley was now wearing only brief white panties. She had signaled her desire by removing her shirt and skirt, and by leaning back on the couch. She closed her eyes, concentrating on nothing but Shannon's tongue and lips. He gently teased her by licking the areas around her most sensitive erogenous zone. Then he slipped her panties down her legs and, within seconds, his tongue was inside her, moving rapidly."

- Bill O'Reilly, Those Who Trespass

Although maybe all writing about sex should be excluded, since it's exceptionally difficult to write that well.

Posted September 5, 2008 2:19 PM by Fred

Serge @ 24: Why, so she did. Searching for Lynne Cheney brought me to Sisters. Too bad this isn't one of the books you can "look inside", or I'd have quoted from it.

Posted September 5, 2008 2:20 PM by Ginger

..and apparently, Mrs. Cheney's opus is out of print, with no one allowed to reprint it, so I must search the used bookstores for it.

Posted September 5, 2008 2:23 PM by Ginger

..but wait! Someone has the pdf online!

The White House?

Posted September 5, 2008 2:25 PM by Ginger

Emily H #21:

Well, not without oven mitts.

Posted September 5, 2008 2:30 PM by albatross

Er, shouldn't that be whitehouse.GOV? Then again, maybe not....

Posted September 5, 2008 2:32 PM by albatross

I think we may want to go lightly on the sex scenes.

Posted September 5, 2008 2:32 PM by abi

Wow. Over thirty posts in and not a mention of the dreaded Harry Stephen Keeler? Note to self: Once home, retrieve copy of Riddle of the Traveling Skull...

Posted September 5, 2008 2:33 PM by dlbowman76

Fred #28:

Is it that such writing is exceptionally difficult to do well, or just exceptionally easy to do badly? (Or both?)

(Wasn't there a thread on ML a very long time ago about this?)

Posted September 5, 2008 2:33 PM by albatross

Now I wish I hadn't taken the Ken Follett to the charity shop. All I have left is bad sex writing.

"Barbee was looking at her teeth. They were even and strong and very white - the sort of teeth with which beautiful women in dentifrice advertisements gnawed bones. It occurred to him that the spectacle of April Bell gnawing a red bone would be infinitely fascinating."
- from Darker Thank You Think. Something on your mind, Jack Williamson?

"Luxuriant hair grew thickly upon the round hill of her pubic mound. Sometimes she liked to imagine it was a forest and she the most diminutive of explorers, wandering through it. He fingers slipped down to the opening of her labyrinth, felt moistness, and lingered. It was an enchanted forest, and silent. Not even birds sang in the branches."
- from around the point when The Iron Dragon's Daughter took a very strange turn.

I was going to quote a bit from 'The Mouser Goes Below' by Fritz Leiber, but the prose isn't really that funny - just the fact of the Mouser witnessing a sado-masochistic lesbian threesome.

Posted September 5, 2008 2:41 PM by Vef

#28 Fred: By that Bill O'Reilly? *shudder* (I did think it was a lesbian scene until the "his". Hmph, unisex names. :D)

Posted September 5, 2008 2:42 PM by Nenya

It can't quite compete with all the delightful lubricious extracts already posted, but when I'm particularly depressed, I turn to Joan Windham's delightful martyrology, MORE SAINTS FOR SIX O'CLOCK to cheer me up.

A snippet can't begin to convey the cumulative hilarity, but here's an extract from "St. Dorothy" (capitalization original):

"Well, what Happened was that Theophilus and his friends finished having Tea and then went to the Governor Fabricius, and the Pagan Ones said that they'd turned into Christians, and the Others said that they were sorry they'd Stopped Being Christians and that they were going to Be Them Again, and the Governor Fabricius gave them to Lions to Eat, and so they were Martyrs too! Dorothy and All the Others were pleased to see them when they got to Heaven! Well, there seem to be Rather a Lot of Martyrs in this Story, don't there?"

Posted September 5, 2008 2:43 PM by hapax

If someone else has taken that dreadful Keats sonnet, then I get McGonagall:

It must have been an awful sight,
To witness in the dusky moonlight,
While the Storm Fiend did laugh, and angry did bray,
Along the Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay,
Oh! ill-fated Bridge of thSilv'ry Tay,
I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.

(The Tay Bridge Disaster)

Posted September 5, 2008 2:45 PM by abi

abi @ 34... I think we may want to go lightly on the sex scenes

...especially if Holly is going to have breakfast at Tiffany's.

Posted September 5, 2008 2:45 PM by Serge

Nenya at #38: Wikipedia is your friend:

Those Who Trespass, a novel by that Bill O'Reilly.

Posted September 5, 2008 2:49 PM by Dave MB

Deadly Perversions by Brett Arquette was a very thorough example of how to do appalling things to poor innocent words. As proof that I'm just not that bright, a friend gave it to me and said it was the worst thing he'd ever read, and I said "Really? Can I borrow it?" I'm also the one who always falls for "This is gross; here, try it." Sadly, I've since passed it on, and Amazon won't let me look inside it.

Actually, I'm perfectly okay with that.

Posted September 5, 2008 2:51 PM by Sarah

Serge @41.

True, man.

Posted September 5, 2008 2:53 PM by Sarah S

I have read almost the entire "Touched By Venom" (a.k.a., the "Venom synonym-for-rooster") series. In fact, I am so much of a masochist that I recently requested the third book from my local library.

The books won't get any points for tone not matching subject, unfortunately.

I'm sure there are others (I threw Sphere across the room, for one), but as those are the most recent horror I've subjected myself to, they're the ones I'm listing. That, and I have a tendency to purge bad books from my memory.

Posted September 5, 2008 2:54 PM by SisterCoyote

I haven't read this book, but The Book of Kings by James Thackara is the subject of one of the great critical hatchet-jobs of all time; there's enough of a flavour of JT's masterwork in Philip Hensher's review that I'm always on the lookout for it in second-hand bookshops...

Posted September 5, 2008 2:55 PM by Emil

One of my favorite bits of strange prose is from the label of a cider I much enjoy. I keep meaning to send it to "sic" on World Wide Words.

Ingredients: Hard Cider, Less than 1% of natural flavor, Sulfites and sorbates added to protect flavor, Naturally gluten free.

Posted September 5, 2008 3:00 PM by Terry Karney

I remember a book called To the Resurrection Station by Eleanor Arnason, but no longer have a copy. I seldom outright discard books, but that one was so bad I couldn't stand to have it in my house.

I read some passages of it at a Fanoclasts meeting, to general hilarity.

Posted September 5, 2008 3:04 PM by Xopher

"And you cannot deny that he has a magnificent death ray."
"That's... That's hardly a basis for a stable relationship."

(From Girl Genius of course.)

Posted September 5, 2008 3:04 PM by Serge

SisterCoyote @ #45. Wow. You are a strong and brave reader. I'm known as the "Mikey" of my set, as I'll read almost anything. Even I could not finish the Venom series.

::genuflects::

Posted September 5, 2008 3:08 PM by Tania

Soemone has to mention James Fenimore Cooper: open any book to any page, and you can find such wonders of prose as the following. (From "The Spy").

To Katy Haynes it had been a day fruitful of incident. The prudent housekeeper had kept her political feelings in a state of rigid neutrality; her own friends had espoused the cause of the country, but the maiden herself never lost sight of that important moment, when, like females of more illustrious hopes, she might be required to sacrifice her love of country on the altar of domestic harmony. And yet, notwithstanding all her sagacity, there were moments when the good woman had grievous doubts into which scale she ought to throw the weight of her eloquence, in order to be certain of supporting the cause favored by the pedler. There was so much that was equivocal in his movements and manner, that often, when, in the privacy of their household, she was about to offer a philippic on Washington and his followers, discretion sealed her mouth, and distrust beset her mind. In short, the whole conduct of the mysterious being she studied was of a character to distract the opinions of one who took a more enlarged view of men and life than came within the competency of his housekeeper.

Posted September 5, 2008 3:09 PM by SamChevre

Emil@46: From the review, quoting from the book:
Justin's friend was not in the courtyard, but the fountain was.

That's... wow. Words, they fail me. Now I have to be on the lookout for this masterpiece, too. Thanks for alerting me to its existence!

Posted September 5, 2008 3:11 PM by Nicole TWN

"I never make love on an empty stomach."
- Eva Marie Saint to Cary Grant in North by Northwest

Posted September 5, 2008 3:14 PM by Serge

How about the Canadian poet James McIntyre's Ode on the Mammoth Cheese?

We have seen the Queen of cheese
Laying quietly at your ease.
Gently fanned by evening breeze --
Thy fair form no flies dare seize.

All gaily dressed soon you'll go
To the great Provincial Show.
To be admired by many a beau
In the city of Tornto.

(Typos are my own. My keyboard was so horrified it refused to cut and paste.)

Posted September 5, 2008 3:23 PM by Julie

"My ear is open like a greedy shark, to catch the tunings of a voice divine."

John Donne, as quoted by Peter Wimsy in Gaudy Night.

Posted September 5, 2008 3:25 PM by RiceVermicelli

I think that slacktivist's leisurely demolition of LaHaye & Jenkins' odious Left Behind series deserves a lifetime achievement award in this category.

Posted September 5, 2008 3:34 PM by joel hanes

Xopher @48: I have that book around here somewhere. Sadly enough, I've read things far worse than that one.

Posted September 5, 2008 3:38 PM by Ginger

I nominate everything on the Sticks and Stones page. This page contains nothing but samples of bad published writing.

Posted September 5, 2008 3:44 PM by Tracey

#37: "The Mouser Goes Below" wasn't really "bad", it was just boring. And everyone knows there were only five Fafhrd and Mouser "Swords" books.

Posted September 5, 2008 3:47 PM by Jon Meltzer

"Oh," said Hart, as he felt the curve of her breast through the thermal underwear.

Possibly one of the less ept sex scenes in the canon.

Sam Llewellyn, Great Circle. A thriller set on a round the World yacht race. Sex, sailing and skullduggery at 60 degrees South - unputdownable, even given the occasional blip (see above).

Posted September 5, 2008 3:52 PM by legionseagle

Only that morning he had been talking with some one in the office about it, and had been laughingly informed that there was a method that could bring back to his memory that which he desired so ardently to recollect. "If you will tell me how to unravel this tangle that is in my brain, you will have my everlasting gratitude," declared Lester, earnestly.

"It takes people with nerves of steel to accomplish it. A person who is nervous to the slightest degree would not dare to try it, for fear of turning suddenly insane from the terrible mental struggle. Do you still wish to know what it is?"

"Yes," responded Lester, "and I can use my judgment whether I dare try it or not."

"Very good," replied the gentleman, "then here it is: Counting five thousand backward will either restore your loss of memory, or, as I have taken care to warn you gravely in advance, cause you to go insane. It must be done rapidly, and in a given space of time. In my belief the remedy is by far worse than the malady. I feel, somehow, as though I ought not to have told you about it."

(Mischievous Maid Faynie, a 19th century romance novel by Laura Jean Libbey)

Posted September 5, 2008 3:55 PM by Steven desJardins

The only one I can call to mind comes from the book where I realized that just because I enjoy a writer's humor, that doesn't mean they can actually write drama.

It was Keith Laumer, but I don't recall which book for sure. It wasn't a Retief novel, and it was supposed to be serious.

I stopped being able to take it seriously when the bad guy's smile "dropped like a stripper's bra." Shortly after that I got confused by the timeline of the novel and in trying to figure it out realized that I was confused because it was crap.* It became one of my early experiences in refusing to finish something.

I have a very recent book at home that was a freebie from DragonCon, and while I'm reluctant to diss it specifically in public, it had some rather heavy handed "the anti-hero is absolutely perfect, don't you fear/want/want to be him"? My husband said it read like the character description on a MUSH.

*Society collapsed to the point where people forgot that food came from the ground, not cans, in less than eighty years from a late twentieth century level start? No freaking way.

Posted September 5, 2008 4:00 PM by R.M. Koske

Not sure if this is what you mean, but: I've inadvertently read my share of lurid so-purple-it's-fuschia prose. Bleach works for most of it, except for one instance. I only recall that the story had plot no.4 slathered with every fantasy trope out there and saddled to boot with a cardboard, if breathlessly melodramatic, romance. Yet, pedestrian became classic in a single line:

...a lone rider separated himself from Winthrop's writhing thong, coming to a stop mere feet from Gareth...

I will never forget that visual. Believe me, I have tried.

Posted September 5, 2008 4:06 PM by kaigou

I give you this passage from The Betrothed by Sir Walter Scott, which impressed me enough that I blogged about it, leaving it available for me to copy and paste:

So saying, and overpowered by the long-repressed burst of filial sorrow, she sunk down on the banquette which ran along the inside of the embattled parapet of the platform, and murmuring to herself, 'He is gone for ever!' abandoned herself to the extremity of grief. One hand grasped unconsciously the weapon which she held, and served, at the same time, to prop her forehead, while the tears, by which she was now for the first time relieved, flowed in torrents from her eyes, and her sobs seemed so convulsive that Rose almost feared her heart was bursting. Her affection and sympathy dictated at once the kindest course which Eveline's condition permitted. Without attempting to control the torrent of grief in it's full current, she gently sat down beside the mourner, and possessing herself of the hand which had sunk motionless by her side, she alternately pressed it to her lips, her bosom, and her brow, now covered it with kisses, now bedewed it with tears, and amid these tokens of the most devoted and humble sumpathy, waited a more composed moment to offer her little stock of consolation in such deep silence and stillness, that, as the pale light fell upon the two beautiful young women, it seemed rather to show a group of statuary, the work of an eminent sculptor, than beings whose eyes still wept and whose hearts still throbbed.

Note the length of the final sentence in particular.

Posted September 5, 2008 4:11 PM by Neil Willcox

Many moons ago, in the thick of my "Brent Spiner is teh Awesome!" phase, I bought the Spiner-read audiobook version of Philip Kerr's The Grid (or, if you were in the UK, Gridiron).

Mr. S was the only thing that made the work tolerable.

Besides a spate of alliterative names (Ray Richardson, Kay Killen, Helen Hussey), which is one of my pet peeves anyway, we were favored with a description of one of the characters removing a pair of panties from the person of his girlfriend:

"She straightened her feet and the little stealth bomber of black lace and silk was his."

I nearly drove off the road, I was laughing so hard.

Oh, and while searching inside the paperback edition to verify the stealth-bomber comment, I discovered that the first sentence of that edition spells the Los Angeles street La Cienega as La Cienagna.

Hmmm...I wonder where I put those cassettes?

Posted September 5, 2008 4:27 PM by Syd

I confess that at one point in my life (stationed in Japan; the base library wasn't very good) I read a lot of Zane Grey. I tossed any and all copies of his books I once may have had, but boy were they bad.

From After Worlds Collide, theorizing about the origins of the cities found on the planet which hit Earth several chapters earlier:

"Beings of a high order of intelligence dwelt here. We have evidence that in science they had progressed beyond us -- unfortunately for themselves. Poor fellows!

Dramatically, Duquesne stopped.

When I was a teenager I thought those two books were good. Ouch.

Posted September 5, 2008 4:37 PM by Linkmeister

"Gradually, night stumbled as if stunned and wandering aimlessly into an overcast day--limped though the wilderland of transition as though there were no knowing where the waste of darkness ended and the ashes of light began. The low clouds seemed full of grief--tense and uneasy with accumulated woe--and yet affectless, unable to rain, as if the air clenched itself too hard for tears. And through the dawn, Atiaran and Covenant moved heavily, unevenly, like pieces of a broken lament."

Stephen R. Donaldson, Lord Foul's Bane

Open to any page, and you'll find more where that came from. It's quite possibly the most inept published prose I have ever read. Dig that stunned, stumbling night. Marvel at those tense clouds. And check out those people moving like pieces of a broken lament. Hell, I didn't even know pieces of a broken lament could move.

Posted September 5, 2008 4:37 PM by Matthew Rotundo

I've been told that one of David Webber's later novels had a space battle where missiles were frustrated in their attempts at penetrating the other side's defenses. Sometimes a missile is just a missile. And I haven't read whichever book that was in. Then again, one of his novels had someone describe another person as being almost 1m70. Do real people ever think such thoughts?

Posted September 5, 2008 4:51 PM by Serge

I attempted Lord Foul's Bane a few years back and couldn't finish it; I guess it didn't get any better from where I gave up. Every mention of 'High Lord Kevin' sent me off into giggles anyway.

Posted September 5, 2008 4:56 PM by Vef

I... don't know if poetry should count, but this thread /needs/ Robert Buchanan's "Camlan", which I have read in full. (Someone had to!)

The moon is cold on Camlan,
And on its thousands slain,
Save but the pillers pille the dead,
None trode that silent plain!
To help Sir Arthur at his need
But only two were found,
Of all that brave three hundred
Sat at his Table Round!

Trode!

And this! Same source!

A priceless gift gave Merlin,
Won from his peerless make.
Within their bower of pleasure,
The Lady of the Lake.

Oh, and also this:

His fainting head they pillowed
That lady's lap upon;
"Now row ye, sisters, row ye
With speed for Avalon!"

I could go on.

Posted September 5, 2008 5:00 PM by Nanni

Lee @ 15 -- quite possibly my typo, quite possibly not (it's been a long time). The book definitely has aliens in it, only they're called witches. Witches are all female, and can only reproduce by being raped by human males: their vaginas nip off the offending organ at the moment of ejaculation. This happens once in the book, and a few hours later the witch vomits up what she has taken.

This is an internal structure not found in higher organisms on earth.

Posted September 5, 2008 5:03 PM by Tom Whitmore

Serge: Yes they do think such thougths. I have heard people say such words.

Not many, and stitled it was, but said it was too.

Posted September 5, 2008 5:03 PM by Terry Karney

Terry @ 72... What do they do for a living that they would think such thoughts?

Posted September 5, 2008 5:11 PM by Serge

Oh! How could I have forgotten Stephen Donaldson playing My Word-Hoard Surpasseth Yours!

A friend of mine and I used to make a contest of spotting the oh-so-casually-dropped tidbits, designed to send the abashed readers scurrying to the OED like so many roynish ur-viles...

Posted September 5, 2008 5:21 PM by hapax

I actually own all the Covenant books.

And reread them frequently.

Boy, is my face incarnadine.

Posted September 5, 2008 5:30 PM by Manon

Tania @50 I had to know what the fuss was all about, and while I'd like to claim that my ability to read the first two (remember, I haven't actually started #3 yet) came from a stalwart stomach or from my love of really bad horror flicks (er. Except that I wouldn't insult my really bad horror flicks that way), the simple truth of the matter is that I was that bored.

Here's some Deathless Prose from Stephenie Myers' Breaking Dawn:

I heard the soft, wet sound of the scalpel across her stomach. More blood dripping to the floor.

The next sound jolted through me, unexpected, terrifying. Like metal being shredded apart. The sound brought back the fight in the clearing so many months ago, the tearing sound of the newborns being ripped apart. I glanced over to see Edward’s face pressed against the bulge. Vampire teeth--a surefire way to cut through vampire skin.

Yes, that would be cesarean by vampire teeth.

Posted September 5, 2008 5:41 PM by SisterCoyote

Serge 68: Isn't he the writer who had a commie revolutionary leader named Rob S. Pierre? And his heroine* gets in trouble for Doing The Right Thing, never for an actual bad act or even a simple mistake? And she's always vindicated and rewarded with another castle or a planet or something at the end?

I've read several of those books. I'm still not quite certain why I finished the first one.

Vef 69: Another writer whose popularity is a deep mystery to me. "The horses were almost prostrate upon their feet." Yes, I'm almost lying down while standing, too!

Manon 75: We'll forgive you if you started very young, and have therefore never noticed the abominable, thesaurus-filtered prose.

*Ubabe Znel Fhr Uneevatgba

Posted September 5, 2008 5:42 PM by Xopher

The trouble is that our standards have changed from those of out forefathers. What seems to out eyes to be pedestrian and prolix may have been, in its time, the prose of an educated and fluid writer.

After somewhat varied and troublous school days, young Dana entered Harvard University, where he took high rank in his classes and bid fair to make a reputation as a scholar. But at the beginning of his third year of college a severe attack of measles interrupted his course, and so affected his eyes as to preclude, for a time at least, all idea of study. The state of the family finances was not such as to permit of foreign travel in search of health. Accordingly, prompted by necessity and by a youthful love of adventure, he shipped as a common sailor in the brig, Pilgrim, bound for the California coast. His term of service lasted a trifle over two years--from August, 1834, to September, 1836. The undertaking was one calculated to kill or cure. Fortunately it had the latter effect; and, upon returning to his native place, physically vigorous but intellectually starved, he reentered Harvard and worked with such enthusiasm as to graduate in six months with honor.

Such is the style of the introduction to Two Years Befopre the Mast, which posesses the virtue of clearly outlining the tale which is to be told. A reader of its time would not need to be told that a voyage from Boston to California must, perforce, include a passage around Cape Horn, that dread, windswept, arm of the Southern Ocean, though it may be that, unfamiliar with the career of Hornblower and Aubrey, he lacked our literary appreciation of the privations of nautical life.

No matter. In the language of today's reader, "They're just fucking words."

Posted September 5, 2008 5:47 PM by Dave Bell

Sara Douglass' Crucible trilogy has a lot of horrible, horrible gems, but the one that burned itself into my brain is this one:

"No doubt 'dear Robbie' taught Richard to do a great many things with his manly poker other than to piss with it."

Oh, and "Soon the entire court -- nay, the entire country! -- would be dancing to his depraved tune!"

Context makes it clear that the depraved tune is "It's Raining Men."

Posted September 5, 2008 5:49 PM by Lea

Then again, one of his novels had someone describe another person as being almost 1m70. Do real people ever think such thoughts?

Er... French people might?

Came across this atrocious mixed metaphor:

"It was a great ride for a lot of investors but eventually the music stopped and someone had to pay the piper," says Mr Kane. "What was supposed to be a liquid asset becomes a ball and chain around your neck when you owe more than the market value of the property."

Bernard Woolley would have a seizure...

Posted September 5, 2008 6:02 PM by ajay

#80: "It's my poker, and I'll piss if I want to ..."

Posted September 5, 2008 6:04 PM by Jon Meltzer

Agh. That should be #79. Has there been a posting in this thread too squamous and rugose to be displayable in written text?

Posted September 5, 2008 6:06 PM by Jon Meltzer

Tim@#22, that's a mild example of what the Language Logicians call WTF coordination (apparently formally called syllepsis, but this is a less interesting name so I scorn it).

Posted September 5, 2008 6:06 PM by Nix

Xopher @ 77... Honor Harrington, right? As for Rob S. Pierre... I've heard of him. And rolled my eyes when I did.

Posted September 5, 2008 6:09 PM by Serge

Someone here recently posted the first sentence of a John Grisham novel that made me roll around on the floor for an exceptionally long time, and I think it deserves another mention here. Where was it...ahh, here it is: "The shots that fired the bullets that entered Pumpkin's head were heard by no less than eight people."

Also: I don't have it handy, and I know a lot of people here liked it (and now I'm almost scared to post this, because maybe Patrick edited it?...well, I'm saying it anyway, and if you did edit it, Patrick, I'm sorry, I love you, the rest of your career is sterling), but the sex scene about halfway through The Execution Channel is what finally convinced me that no, I didn't have to finish that book. That scene is ridiculous.

Posted September 5, 2008 6:15 PM by ethan

Syd #65:

I think we would *all* treasure the outtakes from that recording session. How could anyone possibly read that out loud without totally collapsing in hysterical giggles?

Posted September 5, 2008 6:16 PM by joann

Xopher @ #77:

It seems appropriate that that rot13ed to "ubabe". (For those not exposed to the books: Yet Another female character who is devastatingly attractive but thinks she's ugly.)

Posted September 5, 2008 6:29 PM by Trip the Space Parasite

It is doubtless cheating to refer to the works of Dan Brown. But I am a notorious cheat, and shall so do.

"One mile away, the hulking albino named Silas limped through the front gate of the luxurious brownstone residence on Rue la Bruyere. The spiked cilice belt that he wore around his thigh cut into his flesh, and yet his soul sang with satisfaction of service to the Lord. Pain is good." I've often said so!

"The curator looked down and saw the bullet hole in his white linen shirt. It was framed by a small circle of blood a few inches below his breastbone. 'My stomach.' Almost cruelly, the bullet had missed his heart." Almost cruelly. But not quite. The appendix, now, that would have been cruel.

"Symbologists often remarked that France - a country renowned for machismo, womanizing, and diminutive insecure leaders like Napoleon and Pepin the Short - could not have chosen a more apt national emblem than a thousand-foot phallus." I personally can't think of France without thinking of Pepin the Short.

"Almost inconceivably, the gun into which she was now staring was clutched in the pale hand of an enormous albino with long white hair."

And the pièce de resistance:

"His captivating presence is punctuated by an unusually low, baritone speaking voice, which his female students describe as 'chocolate for the ears.'"

Let that metaphor seep into your ducts for a while. Chocolate for the ears. For a brief period in my early twenties, female students described me as "chocolate for the anus", but I've put all that behind me now.

Posted September 5, 2008 6:30 PM by SeanH

Nix 83: Thank you!! You've taught me a new word today! I love clever syllepses, but I never knew what they were called.

Posted September 5, 2008 6:32 PM by Xopher

Since no one seems to have mentioned it yet, there's always Of Saints and Shadows by Christopher Golden:

Carnage!

Mulkerrin loved the carnage, loved the absolute destruction of a human life. His passion for the massacre was unmatched by any other emotion he had experienced. In many ways, it made the fact of his celibacy a moot point.

Yes, he had a gift.

You know, sometimes I like to read schlock. But then, there's just some schlock that makes you want to scrub your eyes, your brain, and your hands, and tempts you to swear, Never again.

Unfortunately, the memory of "Carnage!" has proved indelible, and Amazon's Search Inside this Book feature is easy to use...

Maybe this'll be an act of exorcism?

Posted September 5, 2008 6:47 PM by Alberto

I don't really understand why people say that Donaldson writes like he's swallowed a thesaurus. He doesn't: it's the opposite. He only knows about a dozen words and deploys them relentlessly, inappropriate though they might be.

(I mean, that sentence alone had 'clench', 'woe', *and* 'lament': it only needed 'ruin' to have the full set.)

Posted September 5, 2008 6:57 PM by Nix

Bulwer-Lytton of course gave us the dark and stormy night, too.

The worst published prose I've ever encountered was the James Bond novels.

At one point in the Army I read a number of Mills and Boone romances. Surprisingly they were curate's eggs, parts of them were if not excellent at least perfectly tolerable prose.

My bete noir is "The Secret Life of Bees". My wife read it once, I've picked it up a couple of times, but the first paragraph is pure fingernails on chalkboard to me.

Posted September 5, 2008 7:13 PM by Doug K

I can't remember the title of the book. Something about a maze? The author was Brian Lumley. After struggling through the first two chapters, I flipped to a random page and read the first full sentence on the right-hand leaf:

"The giant scorpion moved like a larger version of its much tinier namesake."

Tossed the book against the far wall and never picked it up again.

Posted September 5, 2008 7:25 PM by mjfgates

Doug K. (92): curate's eggs

Not familiar with that phrase. Explain, please?

Posted September 5, 2008 7:28 PM by Mary Aileen

Mary Aileen, in brief:

The young curate was visiting the bishop's palace for the first time. At breakfast, the bishop observes They've given you a bad egg.

The curate replies Oh no, my lord, parts of it are excellent.

(This appeared in Punch and if my memory serves was accounted the first comic cartoon, at least in that publication.)

Posted September 5, 2008 7:40 PM by cmk

It comes from a British anecdote about the humble curate who is invited to breakfast with the Archbishop. He is served a soft-boiled egg which turns out to be rotten. As he is sitting there, trying to avoid giving offense, the Archbishop notices that he is not eating, and asks "Is your egg bad?" "Oh no, your holiness", replies the curate. "Parts of it are excellent."

Posted September 5, 2008 7:40 PM by Clifton Royston

SeanH @ #88, you had to bring up Dan Brown. Here's Neddie Jingo's review of Brown's masterpiece (or best-selling piece of tripe, if you prefer). His conclusion?

Its wretchedness may entertain for short periods, but eventually the sheer, blistering clumsiness of it makes one pine for a horde of lawyers at one's disposal.

Posted September 5, 2008 7:48 PM by Linkmeister

Here's a quote I used when Tor.com had its "weirdest book" thread:

“What’s that? What’s that?” Cleek’s voice flicked like the crack of a whip. “Good God! Dancing round in circles? His mouth open? His tongue hanging out? His fingers thrust into his nostrils? Was that what you said?”

“Yes. Why? Do you see anything promising in that fact, Cleek? It seems to excite you.”

That's from Cleek of Scotland Yard by Thomas Hanshew. Not only is this a real book, it's part of a whole series of stories about the great golden age detective Hamilton Cleek. I read these sometimes when I'm feeling down.

I've been exposed to a certain amount of bad prose via Doctor Who fandom. One of the worst-written books I own, on a sentence-by-sentence level, is The Colony of Lies by Colin Brake, which contains sentences like this: "He did not really know why he was running, the man in the skirt with the strangely accented English didn't seem particularly threatening, but the manner of his arrival had been so unusual (coupled with the fact that Billy Joe was somewhere he shouldn't be), that had been enough to set him off." Someone copyedited this. This book also describes something as "about the size of a pound of sausages." And then there's The Eight Doctors by Terrance Dicks, with lines like "His place in the Sontaran Hall of Fame was assured," and "I don't smoke--I don't even drink Coke. I'm a vegetarian."

I remember Wizard's First Rule made me laugh out loud a few times, although I'd have to dig the book out and search through it to quote anything. (I haven't read any of the rest of the series; I suspect the unintentional joke would get old.)

One book I've never read, but that I'd like to someday, is The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman by Arthur N. Scarm. The quotes I've seen--there are a few at that link, and a few more in a review at Amazon.com--are tantalizing.

Posted September 5, 2008 7:55 PM by Wesley

A screaming comes across the sky, which was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel like a patient etherized upon a table. The moon was a ghostly galleon hanging in the sky like a luminous rock. It was a dark and stormy night.

Posted September 5, 2008 7:58 PM by Erik Nelson

Oh, well then, if stuff we've previously blogged is germane, allow me to present passages from a review by Jim Mateja, the Chicago Tribune's veteran automotive writer:

There are also power plugs front and rear, umbrella holder along the driver's floor, two gloveboxes, an optional center console (part of $2,080 preferred package) that can hide purse or computer or slide back 21 inches to serve the second row and YES Essentials stain/odor/static resistant seat fabric.[...]

Options include a $1,720 DVD entertainment system with pull-down screens for the second and third rows, Sirius satellite TV for $495 with live Disney Channel, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network (free for one year, $12.95 a month thereafter) and a $2,080 preferred equipment group with MyGig entertainment system that stores movies pictures and music plus MP3 compatibility, as well as such goodies as first and second row heated seats and power liftgate.

At the time, I wrote:

"Do not attempt to diagram this [latter] sentence, lest it drive you to madness.

"An automotive journalist must frequently write sentences that are long lists of features, gimmicks, gadgets, and options. A senior automotive journalist might be expected to have developed ways to do this smoothly. Sadly, this does not appear to be the case.

"I can only conclude that the Trib is economizing, in these difficult times, by rationing commas severely (especially Oxford commas), and has locked away its supply of semicolons someplace where the staff cannot get any."

Posted September 5, 2008 8:00 PM by Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey

Can't believe the thread has gotten this far without mention of the Paladin of Shadows series. I can't possibly do it justice, so I'll just link to the original OH JOHN RINGO NO review, which can.

Posted September 5, 2008 8:09 PM by Lee

Bill Higgins@100

Being an old hand at Internet humor, I carefully put my drink down before opening this thread. If not for that, your final sentence would surely have resulted in a born-again keyboard. Well done, sir.

Posted September 5, 2008 8:09 PM by Ambar

I am fortunate (errrr...) in that just today I read one worthy of inclusion.

"I saw her soul leave her body as she exhaled, and then she had no more needs, no more reason; she was released from her body, and, being released, she continued her journey elsewhere, high in the firmament where soul material gathers and plays out all the dreams and joys of which we temporal beings can barely conceive, all the things that are beyond our comprehension, but even so, are not beyond our attainment if we choose to attain them, and believe that we truly can."
-Garth Stein, "The Art of Racing In The Rain."

Not a terrible book, actually (unless you've had a dog die in the last year or so), except for its relentless insistence that "You manifest what is in front of you" and therefore it's your own fault if you get brain cancer and die.

Posted September 5, 2008 8:50 PM by Emily H.

I notice I forgot to include the link to Paul Collins's post on The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman.

Posted September 5, 2008 9:08 PM by Wesley

Damnit! I loaned out my copy of Shantaram.

Posted September 5, 2008 9:09 PM by Mary Dell

SamChevre @4: [..] A label on my peanut butter, noting that "this product contains peanuts". I certainly hope so.

Someone once enlightened me years ago that 'bacon bits' do not contain bacon (in fact, guaranteed not to contain bacon).

Posted September 5, 2008 9:14 PM by Rob Rusick

Lee @101:

I want to - thank really isn't the right word, and condemn seems unfair, since you didn't make me click the link - um, recognize you for pointing out OH JOHN RINGO NO.

OH JOHN RINGO NO, indeed.

Posted September 5, 2008 9:17 PM by Sharon M

Thanks to Scribd, I don't need to have my copy handy. Shantaram, is one of my favorite books. It's filled with interesting ideas and people, lots of wonderful writing, and also lots of awful, awful, terrible writing.

(Warning: adult content. Hilariously bad adult content.)

We kissed. Our lips made thoughts, somehow, without words: the kind of thoughts that feelings have. Our tongues writhed and slithered in their caves of pleasure. Tongues proclaiming what we were. Human. Lovers. Lips slid across the kiss, and I submerged her in love, surrendering and submerging in love myself.

I lifted her in my arms and carried her into the house, into the room that was perfumed with her. We shed our clothes on the tiled floor, and she led me to her bed. We lay close, but not touching. In the storm-lit darkness, the beaded sweat and raindrops on her arm were like so many glittering stars, and her skin was like a span of night sky.

I pressed my lips against the sky, and licked the stars into my mouth. She took my body into hers, and every movement was an incantation. Our breathing was like the whole world chanting prayers. Sweat ran in rivulets to ravines of pleasure. Every movement was a satin skin cascade. Within the velvet cloaks of tenderness, our backs convulsed in quivering heat, pushing heat, pushing muscles to complete what minds begin and bodies always win. I was hers. She was mine. My body was her chariot, and she drove it into the sun. Her body was my river, and I became the sea. And the wailing moan that drove our lips together, at the end, was the world of hope and sorrow that ecstasy wrings from lovers as it floods their souls with bliss.

The still and softly breathing silence that suffused and submerged us, afterward, was emptied of need, and want, and hunger, and pain, and everything else except the pure, ineffable exquisiteness of love.

"Oh, shit!"

"What?"

"Oh, Jesus! Look at the time!"

--Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

Posted September 5, 2008 9:40 PM by Mary Dell

Rob Rusik: Hormel bacon bit do contain bacon, it's not really recognizable as such (tasting more of liquid smoke and parrafin than meat), but it did start its life as a pig.

Posted September 5, 2008 9:45 PM by Terry Karney

Man. I clicked that John Ringo link too, and I will never sneer at the Mack Bolan "The Executioner"* books again. By comparison, they're high art.

*For good reason, these appear by the gazillion at my local used book purveyor. Nobody would want to keep them for re-reading purposes.

Posted September 5, 2008 9:45 PM by Linkmeister

Natalie Goldberg's Banana Rose is a purple prose (and purple plot if there is such a thing) classic. My brother and SIL and I had a great evening reading portions aloud and laughing ourselves silly, after a coworker of my SIL's pressed it upon her. Unfortunately I can't find any quotes on line, but the publisher's description is, itself, a peach:

Banana Rose is the story of Nell Schwartz, a Brooklyn-born Jewish girl who moves to the Taos of communes and sweet cedar smoke, transforms herself into Banana Rose (because she's "bananas"), falls in love with a horn player named Gauguin, and believes they can stop time if they just love hard enough. It's also about Nell and Anna, a strange-eyed writer as lonely as the Nebraska farm where she grew up, whose kisses taste like raspberries and who teaches Nell what it means to be an artist. But most of all, Banana Rose is about Nell's struggle with her own wild heart, with the demands of canvas and paint, with her family and faith, and with her irrepressible longing for home.

Posted September 5, 2008 9:49 PM by Mary Dell

Conan Doyle wrote some prose that is more than a bit toward the 'say what?' side of the spectrum. 'The Musgrave Ritual' is the one that comes immediately to mind, with Rachel the tempestuous Welsh housemaid.

Posted September 5, 2008 9:53 PM by P J Evans

Lee @#101: OMG, priceless.

Posted September 5, 2008 10:16 PM by Mary Dell

I refuse to go looking through boxes for the actual book, so I had to dig this one up from back when I still followed rec.arts.sf.written. I give you Alan Dean Foster, Diuturnity's Dawn:

Botha assured him that upon contact with the materials to be spread by the multiple explosions, foams and liquids intended for combating out-of-control blazes would themselves be turned into a substance suitable for supplementing the very conflagrations they were designed to quench. By the time a sufficiency of nonreactive chemical retardants and suppressants could be brought from Aurora City, much of the glorious but debauched fair should be reduced to wind-blown cinders among which would drift the carbonized components of as many baked bugs as possible.

I think the "baked bugs" at the end sets the rest off beautifully.

-j

Posted September 5, 2008 10:26 PM by J Greely

I'm surprised Scraps hasn't come in here yet with some choice quotes from allmusic.com reviews. Until he does, here's one he pointed out a while back, from their review of Kristin Hersh's last album: "Her first solo offering in nearly four years, Learn to Sing Like a Star is nigh on worthy of rejoicing over."

Posted September 5, 2008 11:03 PM by ethan

ajay @80, Serge @68:
1m70 is about 5 1/2 feet, which I can easily imagine someone saying. I smell a botched autoconversion of units.

Posted September 5, 2008 11:32 PM by geekosaur

Deep under the cavern city of Ra-Mu, within the diamantine inner rocks that hold all the upper rock of the upper world in its place, he built a titanic machine of more power than men had ever put in one place before. What it was is this: a thing that affected the tiny magnetic charges that are the binding of all matter's molecules, that do flow about the surface of atoms as water does about earth -- but that in this flow do bind them all into one -- as mud is bound by water, but separates when dry and becomes dust. So it is with all matter to be held by this fluid stuff into a hard thing that we call rock, or steel, or whatever it may be. This is the powerful magnetic substance that is driven out when iron is heated, and that flows back in when the iron is plunged into cold water. They give temper and hardness by binding the parts of matter more firmly together in the iron. T-ions is what the scientists of Ra-Mu called them, and they are things that can be driven and coerced in many ways. Matter does strange things when these binding magnets are removed, just as water boils and becomes steam when the heat repellence drives out the binding of the T-ions.

Just as water can become loose and agile and fly off like gas into the air, so can rock become loose and agile under certain rays that drive out this universal binding stuff of matter, and fly off into the air as smoke, or flow along like water. And Salund Mar had found in an old book in the belongings of the murdered Elder technician, Konro Loral, the drawings for a machine to make borings into rock, by the use of a ray of power that would make the rock run like water or disappear entirely as a gas, and leave a tunnel all bored through the rock without labor. And this was a great improvement over the method used now of boring tunnels with a dis-ray, for "dis" was an unpleasant stuff to be around, and gave off lava and fumes and was dangerous to all who handled it in tunnel boring.

(...)

So the thin, small, fast ships of Kui flashed impudently into the under-parts of the vast fleet of Enn, all their rays blazing, and many a winged warrior, and many an ancient bearded and tremendous Elder of Hevi Enn, who had graduated from a dozen planets to reach that famed haven of immortality, died at his vision plate before they fired a shot. And the truth of Saland's audacity was seen; for the people of Hevi Enn and the League of the Rosy Cross had removed the causes of war long ago from their life, thus little improvement had been made in the art of war for centuries, and Salund knew as much about it as they did, for neither knew much. Or so Salund thought during the first few minutes of war which were entirely his way; for one of the mighty warships came blazing down to the globe below by some lucky chance shot, and several veered from their course.

But the truth was otherwise than Salund at first thought. For the might of their strength had given the leader of the fleet from Hevi Enn the idea that even a madman would know better than to fire upon them, and expected only some kind of bluff when the tiny ships took off from the round globe far below. The mercy that was part of their hearts made them hold their fire for that split second, which gave the tiny ships with their powerful rays their chance to get in a blow. And that was the end of the space navy of Ra-Mu, for with their minds enraged at the sudden attack without parley or other usual formality, such as prevailed among the cultured men of the League, the fleet of mighty war cruisers flashed now into intricate unpredictable maneuvers so that no poor faltering human eye from the men who manned Salund's ships, against their better judgement and on pain of death, could follow, and the great rays lashed out simultaneously and down upon their poor heads came all the Hell-fire and God-anger of the power of Hevi Enn. And now a whirlpool of destruction overtook them, and the thousand and more ships, long slim needles of seeming deadly destruction that they were, were within minutes but floating, blazing hulks, riddled fore and aft, and from those blasted wrecks men cried to the Godmen of Hevi Enn to release them, or to kill them before the fire burned them alive, but the anger they had aroused left no room for mercy in the great hearts of the Elder warriors.

It was long after when all the wounds of all the Elder men had been attended before the mercy ships of the Rosy Cross flitted from wrecked hulk to burning hull to pick up the survivors and the wounded. For these were rebels, and the hearts of the Elder men had little care for men too stupid to realize that their rule was one of goodness, mercy and wisdom, and not a thing to be rebelled against by any but fools who know not where their best interest lies.

(...)

Under the great weight of the far off war-gear trundling slowly toward him Salund shot the terrible rock melting ray, and the floor crashed through under their weight and dropped them, shouting with death into the gulfs he had bored beneath them. The pillar of rock about which the machine revolved became the pillar of rock upholding the whole rock-warren city of Ra-Mu, for Salund circled and circled. seeking with his vast power-ray each last fleeing enemy tank and troop carrier and tool of war, and boring under it a vast shaft of nothingness into which it fell. And so it was that single-handed Salund Mar set at naught all the war gear and cunning of a nation of men far superior to himself, but it was with the invention of one of their number he did this deed. For this rock-melting ray was a thing that Konro Loral had worked on by himself for years. Even so, few knew of it, so that when Salund Mar unleashed its vast rock dissolving power upon them, it was a complete surprise.

Salund sat upon the seat of the vast machine for a long time, entranced with the awful power of it, as it revolved about its great rock pillar that held the weight of rock from which it had burned away all the support. Steadily the terrible rock dissolver took away all the under-rock of the land of Kui, and a vast gulf was formed under the whole land. The eyes of Salund were filled with the madness of power as he watched its terrible work. Of the armies that had entered the ways leading to the city of Ra-Mu there was left no man alive, and nothing remained of all those great ways and living places but one vast open gulf of darkness, for Salund had allowed the great ray to dissolve it all into the grey drifting smoke that filled the gulf with choking vapor of rock.

--Richard S. Shaver, "The City of Kui" (Amazing Stories, December '46)

Guess what happens next. The true story behind the legend of the lost continent.

Posted September 5, 2008 11:49 PM by Ouish

@8:

Don't worry, with enough perseverance and some fine hounds, you'll be able to hunt down that plot and kill it.

Posted September 6, 2008 12:30 AM by msanon

geekosaur @ 116... True. Still, saying that someone is 1m70 tall does not reveal anything, compared to describing this person as taller (or shorter) than average for a man (or for a woman).

Posted September 6, 2008 12:44 AM by Serge

geekosaur @ 116... True. Still, saying that someone is 1m70 tall does not reveal anything about that future civilization, compared to describing this person as taller (or shorter) than average for a man (or for a woman).

Posted September 6, 2008 12:45 AM by Serge

joanne @ 86:

If such an outtakes collection existed, I would buy it in a heartbeat. As it is, I content myself with fancying the occasion, barely repressed chuckle made it onto the completed tapes... :)

And many thanks to all for their contributions in this thread. One day, when I'm feeling very brave, I'll have to look up some of these fine examples of the stuff literary nightmares are made of.

Oh, dear. I think the purple is contagious...

Posted September 6, 2008 12:46 AM by Syd

That John Ringo book, ummm... wow. It sounds right up there with Usenet-grade "erotica". I'm amazed he published it. Not so much at the publisher - I can see it selling, all right - but that Ringo apparently doesn't care what the readers may be wondering about him after this. The obsessions leering through it kind of remind me of Autobiography of a Space Tyrant, which thankfully I don't have a copy of.

I'm also half-wanting to find a copy just to see if it lives up to the review.

Posted September 6, 2008 1:00 AM by Clifton Royston