You crapper encounter...

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Brad Roberts" <braddr at puremagic.com> wrote in message 
news:lhsxxvmhqpqmygxockuq at forum.dlang.org...
>
> There's a group of sci-fi authors that took this concept to a whole new 
> level (to demonstrate how awful a publisher was).  The result of their 
> work is nothing short of amazing:
>
>     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_Nights
>
> An excerpt from that page:
>
> ==========
> In retaliation, a group of science fiction and fantasy authors under the 
> direction of James D. Macdonald collaborated on a deliberately low-quality 
> work, complete with obvious grammatical errors, nonsensical passages, and 
> a complete lack of a coherent plot. The effort was partly inspired by 
> another collaborative "hoax" work, Naked Came the Stranger, as the working 
> title of Atlanta Nights was Naked Came the Badfic.[6]
>
> The distinctive flaws of Atlanta Nights include nonidentical chapters 
> written by two different authors from the same segment of outline (13 and 
> 15), a missing chapter (21), two chapters that are word-for-word identical 
> to each other (4 and 17), two different chapters with the same chapter 
> number (12 and 12), and a chapter "written" by a computer program that 
> generated random text based on patterns found in the previous chapters 
> (34). Characters change gender and race; they die and reappear without 
> explanation. Spelling and grammar are nonstandard and the formatting is 
> inconsistent. The initials of characters who were named in the book 
> spelled out the phrase "PublishAmerica is a vanity press."[7]
>
> Under Macdonald's direction, the finale revealed that all the previous 
> events of the plot had been a dream, although the book continues for 
> several more chapters.
> ==========
>
> I've tried to read it, several times.  The first chapter is so horribly 
> perfectly wonderfully bad writing.  I've never made it to chapter 2.
>

Someone (maybe you) mentioned Atlanta Nights here about a year and half ago. 
Since then, I ordered myself (and my brother) hardcopies of it and it's 
become one of my all-time favorite...umm..."novels". Right up there with 
Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy, IMO.

I still haven't gotten all the way through it, but that's more due to lack 
of time for reading than anything else. I've finished the first 11 chapters, 
though. Some really great stuff in there (for some definition of "great" 
;) ). I think I'm going to have to restart it though because it's been such 
a long time since I've picked it up.

Has anyone here seen the Futurama episode where Fry has to save everyone 
from being trapped in books by the evil floating brains by writing his own 
ending? "Now I am leaving Earth for no good raisin!" It's like that.

It would made a fantastic movie, too. Every time I read it, I can't help 
wanting to see actors actually delivering the absurd lines with straight 
faces :) It would make Zucker/Abrahams seem tame.