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Gravybong
Apr 24, 2007

Smokin' weed all day. All I do is smoke weed. Every day of my life it's all I do. I don't give a FUCK! Weed.
Do you like good fantasy? Or young authors? Well get the gently caress outta here. We won't be discussing that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4OYYjXWCoI

Instead, I'm here to tell you about Gloria Tesch's Maradonia series. Ms. Tesch claims to be the youngest novelist in the world, as well as a musician, model, filmmaker, and a valedictorian. Of where, I have no idea, but her Twitter and personal website have that listed first, before author/musician/filmmaker/model. As far as I can tell, and as the video above illustrates, Gloria, and her parents, like to make bold, patently false claims, then support them with the huge reserves of cash her family has access to by self-publishing, paying people for fake reviews, using legal threats to silence the near universal criticism, or good old fashioned sockpuppetry.

Now, there's a lot of material to be found across the internet about Ms. Tesch and her family's behavior surrounding their daughter's pursuits. I feel like these people did a more thorough job than I covering that aspect. Beyond the heaps of negative amazon reviews, I haven't seen much material reviewing the actual contents of the books. Due to a series of bad life choices, I found myself having to read the first book in the series, Maradonia And The Seven Bridges. For an idea of the quality of work we're looking at here, take a look at this "trailer" for the movie that is supposedly being made of this series, starring Gloria herself and some poor schlub who must be desperate for a paycheck:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dC7KqZ3Zm4

This movie has been in production for about four years, and has gone through a few changes in directors, staff, and PR which is its own crazy saga, which you can read about here: http://impishidea.com/criticism/the-state-of-the-maradonia-movie

According to Gloria's Twitter, production has wrapped on this masterwork, so maybe we can expect to see some actual product. But in the meantime, why not look at what Gloria has actually produced?

Now, let's be clear about something. Gloria wrote most of these books when she was a teenager. I'm sure anyone who's had a passing interest in writing or any creative pursuits made some really awful dreck when they were younger, and it's a necessary first step in pursuing anything creative. I certainly did. The difference is that after Gloria sat down at her laptop or computer or antique typewriter or whatever her family provided for her and took a literary poo poo the size and smell of an overstuffed garbage dump, there was no editing, self-evaluation, criticism, or even a gentle nudge in the direction of self-improvement. Instead, a manuscript that would only do as a rough draft of a rough draft produced after a week long Adderall binge was sent to the vanity presses, giving us a glimpse into the mind of someone who ignores any kind of criticism of their work, and instead operates as if every stream of consciousness word that spills out of her brain is her personal gift to readers everywhere. I don't condone making fun of children who are just starting to work out their creativity; their efforts should be praised, but tempered with learning how to take criticism, evaluate your own art, and make a point of working on your personal weaknesses in order to produce better material. Gloria and her family choose to continue to present this material as worthwhile and genius level, when, as a 21 year old, she should be able to realize exactly how much of a sin it is to print this material on paper from trees that had been providing the world with nourishing oxygen until their next life as a lovely novel/toilet paper. With that, let's get cracking.

The plot of the first book is a hasty rip of The Chronicles of Narnia. Maya and Joey are two of the Mary Sue-est Mary Sue characters since the squawling, awkward birth of fanfiction. I honestly can't give you a description of either character though, since Maya is a black hole of no characterization, beyond a fight she gets into with a school bully early in the story. The bully is harassing her at her locker for ???? reasons, at which point Maya throws her to the ground and begins reworking her face for a good few minutes before a friend of the bully breaks the fight up, but not before also getting caught in Maya's wrath. This fight has no bearing on the rest of the story, since she never gets into a physical fight ever again it seems. Joey has a bit more to him, in that he is a sociopathic rear end in a top hat who shoves his sister into a pool during a party his high school aged friends were having in a hotel lobby. To quote Joey:

Joey posted:


"Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha...! Ahhh, look at my sister! She beats up two chicks and now can't even help herself!"

Maya cracks her head on the side of the pool, and has a hallucination of voices calling to her to help her. She is saved when the doorman at the hotel is harassed by a flock of doves, and convince him to come outside by, as the doorman puts it, "snatch[ing] the guest list out of my hands and...pull[ing] me by my hair and look I don't have too much hair!". Maya and Joey suffer no consequences for either of these incidents, and they are never brought up again.

After attacking and nearly killing his sister, Joey asks Maya to come with him to the beach the next morning. You'd think she'd want to avoid bodies of water around her brother, but she tags along happily. Once there, they find a cave with a mermaid statue in it. Joey removes the statue, they hear some funny noises, and come out the other side of the cave into the land of Maradonia, where they are greeted by a shapeshifting dwarf/grasshopper named Hoppy. Hoppy tells them they have come through the Veil of Time to Maradonia. Maya decides:

Maya posted:

"This creature seems to be smarter than my science teacher who teaches the "Big Bang Theory" and believes only what he sees with his eyes!"

Great. Don't just believe what people tell you! Except when Hoppy immediately says:

Hoppy posted:

"Well... it never gets dark in our land! It gets only dim during the night and you will also not get really hungry or extremely tired."

Joey's reply?

Joey posted:

"Hmmm... that makes a lot of sense to me!"

WHAT WHY DOES THAT MAKE SENSE?

By now, you should realize that none of this book makes sense. I'm going to start clipping through the "plot" here. Maya and Joey turn out to be prophesized saviors of Maradonia, sent to save them from the rule of The Evil Empire, yes really, from King Apollyon and his sons Abbadon and Plouton, who rule from a Glacier Palace on top of a mountain in the land of Terra Mili. They are called "The Encouragers", yes really, as their story is supposed to inspire the people of Maradonia to rise up and break the chains of tyranny. Great eagle creatures with wings covered in eyes, yes really, help them throughout their journey, which consists of seven trials they must go through. I can't tell you exactly what the trials are, since the book poorly lays them out, and only describes a few of them as having been the trials after they have happened. Joey decides that one must have been "the decision test", after he encounters a talking snake whose head he cuts off for acting smart towards him. Later he decides something was "the obedience test". These are the only named tests that I can remember. These seven tests are apparently the "seven bridges" they must cross, even though, again, it's never really clear what's a test and what's not. This book is RIFE with plot contradictions, which I will now list some of the most egregious:

--Later in the book, Joey talks about how real leaders must only use violence as an absolute last resort, and seek peaceful means of solving problems first. This is not much after he just cut that snake's head off for, as far as I can tell, just kind of being in their way a little bit

--Maya and Joey encounter a hidden army of teenagers who have been training in preparation for the arrival of The Encouragers. This army must be hidden because King Apollyon is on the lookout for the children of the prophecy. But later on in the book, Maradonia is described as having a population in the millions, including children and teenagers who are unmolested by The Evil Empire because ??????

--This teenage army is led by General/Captain Justin, I don't know which because his rank changes at random. Despite the fact that Justin has been training these teenagers in preparation of the arrival of the children who are The Encouragers, he literally gets mad and RUNS AWAY CRYING when Maya and Joey are given command of the army over him. He enlists the help of a medium to contact his dead father Kerry, who warns him that Justin will soon join him in death. Justin tries to poison Maya and Joey in order to avoid this, but Joey tells him to eat the fruit first, so he does and falls dead.

--Maya and Joey are being helped by god-like, eagle creatures with eyes embedded all over their bodies named Sagitta, Cato, and Dionysus. The eagles will carry them over some parts of the land...then drop them off for a bit until it's time to pick them up again...? They are also said to only appear to help Maya and Joey when their faith in their cause is at its highest, but there is a scene later on where Maya and Joey are about to be sacrificed on a big grill in exchange for the lives of their teenage army. The eye-eagles only show up when Joey finally accepts that they won't, and that he is really about to die...so when he had the LEAST amount of faith in his cause??

--Eventually, they meet up with the ruler of Maradonia, who I guess still rules even though his people are being accosted by King Apollyon? Anyway, this dude's name is King Astroduolos, and Maya and Joey meet him at The House of Kra, which they are at first astonished to find out is just a small structure in the woods with a few rooms. King Astroduolos hangs out in one room and glows so brightly that Maya and Joey have to cover their eyes...but when he's outside of the room, they don't have to because he doesn't glow. Also, later on the shack in the woods turns into a palace when they come back to it later, to no surprise at all by anyone, who all just accept it as if that's how it's been forever.

--King Astroduolos reveals his plan to Maya and Joey; they must bathe in a Pool of Blood that he bathed in once, which gave him immunity to all of King Apollyon's and his minions powers, except for one spot on his shoulder that was covered by a leaf when he jumped in. You can't jump back in and cover that part too since "it's a supernatural law that you can't". That's the only explanation offered. Anyway, he kept this pool a secret from his citizens/armies because ????????????? and he needs Maya and Joey to lead their three hundred strong army to the pool BLINDFOLDED so they can't tell the enemy where it is if it's captured, which the enemy can't use anyway for also some reason so what's the loving point. Why did he keep it a secret? WHY DOES HE NEED MAYA AND JOEY TO LEAD PEOPLE THERE? WHY ANYTHING????

--By the way, this Pool of Blood was created by accident after the King Of Light, Ruach, got upset with Apollyon for building a great palace on top of a mountain, so he throws the mountain into a lake which creates the Pool of Blood. Apollyon TOTALLY FORGETS ABOUT THIS until after Maya and Joey successfully lead their small company to the pool and Apollyon's armies have no effect on them. Well really all they did was try to create a blizzard of burning snowflakes that doesn't burn anyone who had jumped into the pool, they had weapons with them too but they ran away instead of trying those after the burning snow didn't work. This is considered a huge victory on Maya and Joey's part, even though they didn't do poo poo.

There's way wayyyy more. But for now, let's talk a little about the sheer ineptitude dripping from every sentence in this book. Formatting is nonexistant. No spellchecking occurred at any point. Syntax is awful. Random words are capitalized and/or italicized. What follows is a list of some phrases/words/errors I found throughout my reading of the book. This is a VERY TINY list. You can't go more than three sentences without some atrocious mistake appearing. It reads as if this book was written by an ESL student who was much younger than 13, the age Gloria Tesch "published" this literary holocaust.

-"The king was pretty good informed by his border patrol."

-"Kasimir stepped frustrated back and asked with a melancholic voice, "Why are you so angry with us?!"

-"Electric shockwaves, ponderous thunder and blinding lightning's inflated the hall."

-"The teacher avoided to see this occurrence."

-"Alana marched fast forward and pushed Maya rude aside."

-"This is tyrannical crazy!!"

-"I had a Blitz Action in my brain!" <---I don't know what the gently caress this means, it's just dropped in randomly and never explained

-"I see a smoke sign and I surly see a single column of smoke!"

-"Seeing the king was a very seldom event"

That's just a few. There's SO MUCH more to discuss about this travesty of writing, but I've spent two hours on this post already. If you'd like a bit more in depth discussion on this book, I'm considering going through chapter-by-chapter in this thread and talking about ALL the issues, but I sort of did a good general overview in a podcast I do with my roommate, who also read this. You can listen to that here: http://terriblebookclub.libsyn.com

I'll most likely be back with some more stuff to sift through, namely, the dozens and dozens of dopey italicized aphorisms that litter this book in an attempt to sound deep and profound.

Gravybong fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Jul 19, 2015

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Klaus88
Jan 23, 2011

Violence has its own economy, therefore be thoughtful and precise in your investment
That first youtube link me laugh out loud for the first time this week so thanks for that.

Ccs
Feb 25, 2011


The vanity press thing is fun, but going the extra mile to try to make a movie makes this story amazing. Who are these parents?

Anyway they should just pay a bunch of animators to make a movie in Flash. It would honestly look better and be more convincing fantasy than anything they could do in live-action.

esn2500
Mar 2, 2015

Some asshole told me to get fucked and eat shit so I got fucked and ate shit
Gloria: "I don't know what the coming years will bring, but I work every day...every weekend... very, very hard, often late in the night... creating characters and writing stories."

Changing the writing game. Clearly a goddess among us.

Gravybong
Apr 24, 2007

Smokin' weed all day. All I do is smoke weed. Every day of my life it's all I do. I don't give a FUCK! Weed.

esn2500 posted:

Changing the writing game. Clearly a goddess among us.

It's not just her storytelling that will change the game, she has lots of advice to give on how to live your life as well!


Very often throughout the story, random phrases and sentences will be italicized. It's like you're playing an n64 Zelda game where they highlight bits of texts that are supposed to be important, but instead it will be some weird thing Gloria made up, like "Blitz Action", or more commonly, a little proverb or aphorism spouted by a character. Maya and Joey are supposed to be growing and changing into good leaders, and the phrases/slogans they come up with are a way of illustrating this, I think. Other characters are just as bad about this, especially Apollyon and Astroduolos, being the respective leaders of their factions. Here's a smattering of life advice from Gloria and her characters, as well as my best interpretation of their meaning and the situation they're used in.

--"The failure to prepare is the preparation to fail!"
Apollyon lets his henchmen in on the fact that his leadership skills consist entirely of slogans from lovely motivational posters

--"Faith is like a magnet in your heart and a compass in your head! Never forget... when you handle yourself, always use your head and when you handle others, always use your heart."
A shapeshifting elf/toad lets Maya and Joey in on the secret that this book has a lot of Christian overtones about having faith with the one of the most confusing metaphors ever. So your head's compass needle points to the magnet of faith in your heart, but no they're both faith...? Also use the faith compass in your head when you masturbate, but use the faith magnet in your heart magnet if you're trying to get someone else off. I know that's not what she really meant but it's the only way I can try to parse this.

--"Mountains cannot be conquered! You conquer yourself! You conquer your hopes! You conquer your fears and you can conquer your own future, but you will never conquer a mountain!"
Sagitta the eagle with eyes on its wings tells Maya and Joey this when they fly over some mountains and Joey says he wishes he could conquer them. I guess being the ruler of a land and having dominion over it doesn't count as conquering a mountain, or hell even just climbing to the top. Also conquer doesn't sound like a real word anymore.

--"If you are afraid and want to avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing!"
I actually like this one. Sagitta the eye eagle is giving Maya and Joey more advice when they express their fear that they won't be accepted as The Encouragers. Essentially, the only way to avoid criticism is to avoid doing anything ever, which honestly will still get you criticized, but I get the point trying to be made here. You can't be afraid of criticism if you want to accomplish something, since you'll always be criticized by someone. However, I think Gloria took this one to heart a little too much, and avoids engaging with ANY criticism ever, instead choosing to ignore it entirely and call everyone who might give her some "haters"

--"Eagles don't flock! They fly very high in the air and you have to find them by looking up and not down."
I really don't know. Maya says this to Joey when he's looking for Sagitta after it randomly abandoned them in a field. It was italicized as if it was important though.

--"The man who leads the orchestra must turn his back to the crowd."
Joey says this when he and Maya start meditating to try and figure out a way around a giant iron wall that has appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the forest. The solution they end up with after meditating for hours is "dig under it". The only way I can interpret this is "if you want to be a good leader, focus on those you're leading and block out the people criticizing you" but it has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the situation they are in.

--"Having a vision is the art of seeing things invisible!"
This is used multiple times. My favorite one is when Maya uses it to convince Joey to jump through a wall of fire magically created by some fairy-witches that accost them throughout the story. I guess she means her faith lets her see through the fire illusion, although if these witches can make giant metal walls and rain fire down from the sky, why would they make an illusory fire wall this time?? Or maybe their faith renders the fire wall ineffective? But then why would Astroduolos send them to the blood pool to gain invulnerability if faith is enough??

--"Today a Reader and Tomorrow a Leader!
There's lots of stuff like this throughout the book, pithy sayings that read like they're lifted straight off some classroom posters in some school Gloria attended, even though as far as I can tell she was homeschooled until she reached high school, and even then, I'm not sure what school she is the supposed valedictorian of, since my roommate actually researched valedictorian listings for the year she graduated in her county/state, and there was NO mention of any Gloria Tesch. Joey drops this one after starving the teenage army for days on end in a demonstration of leadership. He starves them, and then says "go take a drink of water from the river there". The people who take handfuls of water become his true army since they followed his orders directly. Those that jumped into the water and bathed/drank were sent home. Joey reveals he stole this strategy from a book he read and that he's a sociopath as well.

--"A worried person sees a problem and a concerned person solves a problem."
Really splitting hairs here. Some member of Joey's army says this after Joey stumbles rear end backwards into a solution to some problem I honestly forget at this point.

--"Leadership, Joey, is not a right, it is a responsibility and real leaders are ordinary people with extraordinary determination. The first rule of winning a fight is... don't beat yourself."
I don't know why these two are next to each other, but the "leadership is responsibility" part is repeated in many different forms throughout the book. Also the first rule of leadership is STOP HITTING YOURSELF. STOP HITTING YOURSELF.

--"I learned in Sunday School that a person who wants to win his life will lose it, but the one who loses his life for his friends in the name of the Kingdom of Light shall win his life."
Oh I guess Sunday School is where Gloria got all these. Even though this one doesn't make sense, unless she means "eternal life in heaven" being the life you supposedly win by sacrificing your earthly life. I went to a Catholic school for elementary and high school, but there wasn't much of this kind of stuff around.

--"The powers of evil believe in teamwork!
Don't work in teams, people. IT'S EVILS GREATEST STRENGTH. That's being a bit facetious, one of the generals of Joey's small army of three hundred says this to reinforce the idea that teamwork helps you win, but it definitely comes across as 'evil people work in teams'.

--"A ship in a harbor is safe. But that is not what ships are built for."
Another general drops this after Maya and Joey are celebrating their 'victory' by not dieing back at one of the many city/villages, I'm never quite sure, they tramp through. This one's not so bad, but it still reeks of that Sunday School-ness that lots of other stuff in this book does.

--"There is no success without a successor!"
All your personal accomplishments don't mean poo poo if you don't have a child/heir to pass the rewards of your success onto, I guess. I couldn't disagree more. Astroduolos says this near the end when he reveals that he knows he's going to die soon for some reason, and so decrees that one of the generals following Maya and Joey is to be his successor. Not Maya and Joey, though.


Ok that's enough of that. There's at least quadruple the amount of these throughout the book, but I left out the mostly inoffensive ones that actually mean something, but were probably just lifted from some lecture Gloria heard in a Sunday school class. Lots of stuff about leadership being about responsibility and self sacrifice, true leaders being developed instead of born even though Maya and Joey barely develop besides spouting these dumb slogans, and having faith in yourself + a vision for the future. Not too terrible, but the frequency of them is astounding. Every other chapter will drop one to three of these. It's like getting face hosed by a "Hang In There, Baby!" poster.

Zasze
Apr 29, 2009
Please rename the book barn to this "This is tyrannical crazy!!".

A human heart
Oct 10, 2012

Whoa OP, can't believe there's a bad fantasy series out there.

Gravybong
Apr 24, 2007

Smokin' weed all day. All I do is smoke weed. Every day of my life it's all I do. I don't give a FUCK! Weed.

A human heart posted:

Whoa OP, can't believe there's a bad fantasy series out there.

I know you're being a little sarcastic here, but I think it's extra special when the bad fantasy is this bad. It's like walking into a room filled with vomit and there somehow being one corner of it that's more disgusting than the rest of it.

PeaceDiner
Mar 24, 2013

Gravybong posted:

I know you're being a little sarcastic here, but I think it's extra special when the bad fantasy is this bad. It's like walking into a room filled with vomit and there somehow being one corner of it that's more disgusting than the rest of it.

I think the crazy and stupid stuff her parents did to support and promote this add even more to the infamy than the normal "bad fantasy." See Robert Stanek for another example of an author that would be largely forgotten if not for the crazy stuff he did to promote his book.

By the way, anyone interested in this trainwreck should check out Conjugal Felicity's page on the author.

A human heart
Oct 10, 2012

Gravybong posted:

I know you're being a little sarcastic here, but I think it's extra special when the bad fantasy is this bad. It's like walking into a room filled with vomit and there somehow being one corner of it that's more disgusting than the rest of it.

It's unremarkable and uninteresting.

nine-gear crow
Aug 10, 2013

PeaceDiner posted:

I think the crazy and stupid stuff her parents did to support and promote this add even more to the infamy than the normal "bad fantasy." See Robert Stanek for another example of an author that would be largely forgotten if not for the crazy stuff he did to promote his book.

By the way, anyone interested in this trainwreck should check out Conjugal Felicity's page on the author.

^^^ This. Rorschach's done an amazing takedown of both Tesch and Stanek. Though I wish he'd give Stanek's works a little more hatelove more often. Though by his own admission Stanek's work is just so bugfuck incomprehensible compared to Maradonia that is requires multiple read through and rigorous cross referencing with other parts of the book just to work out stuff like basic continuity, characters' spatial relationships to each other, and what characters are actually trying to achieve from one brief appearance to the next 100 pages later.

Someone should probably make a Stanek thread too. Because while Tesch is a whimsically insulated, parent and sycophant-enabled Dunning-Kruger case, Stanek is a repugnant con artist in addition to bring a god awful writer.

Still, after years of keeping up with Conjucal Felicity, I'm kind of bemused to see a thread about Maradnonia pop up here. I'm sure you just made Rorschach's month.

nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Jul 22, 2015

anilEhilated
Feb 17, 2014

But I say fuck the rain.

Grimey Drawer
That's...one hell of a story, but I was always a sucker for obvious cases of writerial insanity. Anyone knows what she's up to nowadays?

nine-gear crow
Aug 10, 2013

anilEhilated posted:

That's...one hell of a story, but I was always a sucker for obvious cases of writerial insanity. Anyone knows what she's up to nowadays?

Getting her rich doctor daddy to make a z-grade feature length backyard movie out of her books by throwing money at people of questionable filmmaking talent.

Earwicker
Jan 6, 2003

I cannot really understand this trend of extremely wordy posts about books that you know are terrible. yes there are a lot of crap scifi/fantasy series out there, they are better left unread

Gravybong posted:

I know you're being a little sarcastic here, but I think it's extra special when the bad fantasy is this bad.

special how? its self published fantasy written by a child what do you expect. are you next going to find the crayon scrawlings of some 5 year old and write 20000 words about how its a bad drawing?

Gravybong posted:

It's like walking into a room filled with vomit and there somehow being one corner of it that's more disgusting than the rest of it.

right... so using your own metaphor, if you walk into a room full of vomit, why wouldn't you just turn around and walk back out? why would you deliberately find the most disgusting corner and play around in it?

Earwicker fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Jul 22, 2015

savinhill
Mar 28, 2010
I'm glad this thread was posted cuz I've never heard of this Maradonia or Gloria Tesch before, and I gotta say what I've seen so far of this rabbithole is pretty funny. Weird too, like why does this smoking hot rich chick and her family need so bad for her to be known as some kinda fantasy fiction wunderkind?

esn2500
Mar 2, 2015

Some asshole told me to get fucked and eat shit so I got fucked and ate shit

savinhill posted:

I'm glad this thread was posted cuz I've never heard of this Maradonia or Gloria Tesch before, and I gotta say what I've seen so far of this rabbithole is pretty funny. Weird too, like why does this smoking hot rich chick and her family need so bad for her to be known as some kinda fantasy fiction wunderkind?

Spoiled brat who always gets what she wants. Makes sense to me.

Earwicker posted:

I cannot really understand this trend of extremely wordy posts about books that you know are terrible. yes there are a lot of crap scifi/fantasy series out there, they are better left unread


Because they are so bad it's interesting. I doubt any goon is dumb enough to actually read it, but an amusing thread making fun of it? Sure, why not?

Gravybong
Apr 24, 2007

Smokin' weed all day. All I do is smoke weed. Every day of my life it's all I do. I don't give a FUCK! Weed.

esn2500 posted:

Because they are so bad it's interesting. I doubt any goon is dumb enough to actually read it, but an amusing thread making fun of it? Sure, why not?

It's me, I'm the dumb one.

And the truth is, I like making fun of bad work, whether it's literary, musical, artistic, or whatever. If you look at it critically enough, you can avoid the same mistakes in your own art. It's no substitute for trying to analyze and emulate good work, but seeing how failure works can be funny and interesting. People are more than welcome to do it to my own bad art/posting!

A human heart
Oct 10, 2012

esn2500 posted:

Because they are so bad it's interesting.

But it isn't.

anilEhilated
Feb 17, 2014

But I say fuck the rain.

Grimey Drawer

A human heart posted:

But it isn't.
Yes it is.

Earwicker
Jan 6, 2003

Gravybong posted:

And the truth is, I like making fun of bad work, whether it's literary, musical, artistic, or whatever.

while thats not really my thing, I can at least understand the appeal of mocking something like Twilight or 50 Shades or whatever which are actual published books written by grown rear end adults advertised all over the place and big in pop culture.. but this is some obscure random self published stuff written by someone who is literally a child.

again, it just seems like picking apart some kids crayon drawings. I honestly have no idea how you would even come across it unless you go out looking for it which.. why?

Earwicker fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Jul 24, 2015

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Gravybong
Apr 24, 2007

Smokin' weed all day. All I do is smoke weed. Every day of my life it's all I do. I don't give a FUCK! Weed.

Earwicker posted:

while thats not really my thing, I can at least understand the appeal of mocking something like Twilight or 50 Shades or whatever which are actual published books written by grown rear end adults advertised all over the place and big in pop culture.. but this is some obscure random self published stuff written by someone who is literally a child.

again, it just seems like picking apart some kids crayon drawings. I honestly have no idea how you would even come across it unless you go out looking for it which.. why?

We're getting into a circle here, but I do a podcast where I read particularly awful books because I enjoy it, on some level, most likely for the critical training. This is the 12th really awful book I've read.

In any case, I'm writing up some posts where I look at each chapter a little more in depth. Feel free to use this thread to discuss more awful books/writers in the meantime, like Stanek. Has anyone in this thread heard of Rich Shapero and Wild Animus before? Because if you want something terrible written by a fully grown adult instead, that there's a gold mine.

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