The author can imagine life in another solar system, but can't imagine a woman having a job.
this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2022
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One of the worst sci-fi novels I ever read had a woman with a job as a space archaeologist, but her brain effectively shut down when she saw the author's obvious middle-aged grizzled ego-insert with the timeless chiseled physique and the cold piercing steely blue eyes. She spent the next few chapters sweating in her skintight space wear and fretting about getting that senpai to notice her and kept comparing him to her now-dead father.
I swear I felt as if I grew ovaries just to feel those ovaries dry up and shrivel to dust reading that. :kombucha-disgust:
cold piercing steely blue eyes
Bad writing is its own peculiar genre. Authors never miss a chance to doggerel it up with stuff like that and also: strikingly attractive, piping hot coffee, barren wastelands, etc.
I'm not lying when I say I'd love to read a story written by AI via the prompt "Write me a laughably bad 10,000 word sci-fi story with romance that includes as many bad tropes as possible." And if I howled and chuckled at the text - I'd give the AI nearly the same prompt but make it a 100,000 word novel.
Have you read The Eye of Argon ?
I have. :agony-wholesome:
No. Holy crap. Is it a parody? Or is it unironic? In any case - it looks truly great...
"You make love well wench," Admitted Grignr as he reached for the vessel of potent wine his charge had been quaffing.
Note to self: How is it that I entirely forgot about the word "quaff"? Shame on me! It's funny even by itself: quaff.
It was indeed unironic. Became a staple of fantasy conventions over the years. Back in the day I played a drinking game where we tried to read it aloud without laughing. The fun is lessened a bit when we learn that it was a 17-year-old's first attempt at a novel that somehow made it out into the world . . . but it did make it out into the world, and it does contain the line "You make love well wench" so I think it's fair game.
a 17-year-old’s first attempt at a novel that somehow made it out into the world
Oh, that does take away most of the humor. I'm happy that nothing I did as a teenager exists in the digital world. I'd die of cringe.
I first discovered it when I was around that age, and thought it was the funniest thing ever, but that was more than half a lifetime ago so now I cringe somewhat on Theis's behalf rather than in mockery of him. But he died in 2002 so now it's the property of humankind, right? It's a conundrum.
But he died in 2002 so now it’s the property of humankind, right? It’s a conundrum.
I'll read it in a different way. I'll laugh at the text but not the author. I hate to think that in some alternate universe I wrote an equally awful sci-fi novel as a 17 year-old and everybody laughs at it.