[DWF]

http://www.prweb.com...prweb202277.htm

Quote

Over a holiday weekend last year, some thirty-odd science fiction writers banged out a chapter or two apiece of "Atlanta Nights," a novel about hot times in Atlanta high society. Their objective: to write a deeply awful novel to submit to PublishAmerica, a self-described "traditional publisher" located in Frederick, Maryland.

The project began after PublishAmerica posted an attack on science fiction authors at one of its websites (http://www.authorsmarket.net/). PublishAmerica claimed "As a rule of thumb, the quality bar for sci-fi and fantasy is a lot lower than for all other fiction.... [Science fiction authors] have no clue about what it is to write real-life stories, and how to find them a home." It described them as "writers who erroneously believe that SciFi, because it is set in a distant future, does not require believable storylines, or that Fantasy, because it is set in conditions that have never existed, does not need believable every-day characters."

The writers wanted to see where PublishAmerica puts its own quality bar; if the publisher really is selective, as the company claims, or if it is a vanity press that will accept almost anything, as publishing professionals assert.

"Atlanta Nights" was completed, any sign of literary competence was blue-penciled, and the resulting manuscript was submitted.

PublishAmerica accepted it.

From: PublishAmerica Aquisitions [e-mail protected from spam bots]
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Subject: Atlanta Nights

As this is an important piece of email regarding your book, please read it completely from start to finish. I am happy to inform you that PublishAmerica has decided to give "Atlanta Nights" the chance it deserves....Welcome to PublishAmerica, and congratulations on what promises to be an exciting time ahead.

Sincerely,
Meg Phillips
Acquisitions Editor
PublishAmerica

The hoax was publicly revealed on January 23, 2005. PublishAmerica withdrew their offer shortly afterward:

From: "PublishAmerica Acquisitions"
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005
Subject: Your Submission to PublishAmerica

We must withdraw our offer to publish "Atlanta Nights". Upon further review it appears that your work is not ready to be published. There are portions of nonsensical text in the manuscript that were caught by our editing staff as they previewed the text for editing time assessment pending your acceptance of our offer.

On the positive side, maybe you want to consider contracting the book with a vanity publisher such as iUniverse or Author House. They will certainly publish your book at a fee.

Thank you.
PublishAmerica Acquisitions Department

Those who wish to see the novel, "Atlanta Nights" by Travis Tea, for themselves can find it at
http://www.lulu.com/travis-tea

Publication at Lulu.com is free.

For more information about PublishAmerica and vanity presses, see:
http://www.sfwa.org/beware/
http://www.washingto...-2005Jan20.html

I would have liked to have read this.

[Redshirt #24]

Apparently, this deliberate train wreck on parchment actually did get printed! And there's even a sample of it, basically the first page, which goes like this:

"Travis Tea said:

Chapter 1

Pain.
Whispering voices.
Pain.
Pain. Pain. Pain.
Need pee—new pain—what are they sticking in me? . . .
Sleep.
Pain.
Whispering voices.
“As you know, Nurse Eastman, the government spooks controlling this hospital will not permit me to give this patient the care I think he needs.”
“Yes, doctor.”  The voice was breathy, sweet, so sweet and sexy.
“We will therefore just monitor his sign’s.  Serious trauma like this patient suffered requires extra care, but the rich patsies controlling the hospital will make certain I cannot try any of my new treatments on him.”
“Yes, doctor.”  That voice was soooo sexy!
Bruce didn’t care about treatments.  He cared about pain, and he cared about that voice, because when he heard the voice, the pain went away, just for a few seconds, like.

Hmm...replace Bruce with Harper, and Nurse Eastman with Rommie...

EDIT: out of curiosity, has anybody stepped forward and admitted to being part of the group that wrote this?

This post has been edited by Redshirt #24: 06 February 2005 - 12:00 PM

[Gvambat]

LMAO!

From the blurb on the website:

Quote

The prose is an education all by itself. The chapter numbering has to be seen to be believed. Watch out for the two wildly disparate chapters written by two different authors who were independently working from the same segment of plot outline. Then there are the characters who die in one chapter and wander back into the action in a later one, and the characters that idly change race, gender, and motivation (it was a very sparse plot outline). Space, time, and causality are trifled with shamelessly. The especially beloved and completely incoherent Chapter 34 was written by a text generator that had been fed some earlier chapters.

But the book's moment of true genius comes, not when one of the characters wakes up and realizes that all of the foregoing chapters were a dream, but when that happens AND THEN THE BOOK CONTINUES ANYWAY.

James D. Macdonald is credited as the mastermind for the project.

[Chakotay]

ROTFLMAO

[Redshirt #24]

On a related tangent: a one-sentence review of Atlanta Nights on embiid.com made reference to what is apparently an equally if not more horrendous train wreck on parchment, Jim Theis' The Eye Of Argon.
Which features such powerful, moving prose as

Jim Theis said:

"Prepare to embrace your creators in the stygian haunts of
hell, barbarian", gasped the first soldier.
    "Only after you have kissed the fleeting stead of death,
wretch!" returned Grignr.
    A sweeping blade of flashing steel riveted from the massive
barbarians hide enameled shield as his rippling right arm thrust
forth, sending a steel shod blade to the hilt into the soldiers
vital organs.  The disemboweled mercenary crumpled from his
saddle and sank to the clouded sward, sprinkling the parched dust
with crimson droplets of escaping life fluid.

I just don't have the words...I mean, damn.

This post has been edited by Redshirt #24: 06 February 2005 - 04:57 PM

[cylkoth]

^^Hey, you've just uncovered Bob Engels' pseudonym!

[LittleRedhead]

Oh too funny. I wonder if the publisher that withdrew the offer is embarrassed at all.

[SnarkyPants]

The scary thing is, The Eye of Argon was written for real. At least, I don't think it was ever proven to be a parody.

I heart The Eye of Argon. Oh, Grignr...

[Redshirt #24]

^ Actually, according to Wikipedia's entry for The Eye Of Argon, it was written in 1970 by the then sixteen-year-old Jim Theis. How it came to be widely known:

Quote

Some time in the 1970s author Thomas Scortia obtained a copy, which he mailed to Californian SF writer Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. She took it to a meeting of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society (LASFS), where it met with a tremendous and incredulous reaction. The work was copied and distributed widely around Los Angeles and soon spread around the US. Readings quickly became a common item on science fiction convention programmes.

To quote the MSTing of the story: can I buy a vowel?

[ChicaFrom3]

DWF, this makes my day!

[SnarkyPants]

Is it true that at sf conventions, fans would sit in a circle and compete to see who could read Eye of Argon the longest without cracking up?


...I admit it makes me a little sad that Jim Theis was only 16 years old when he wrote it, because now I feel a little guilty about making fun of it. It would've been so much better if he were a 48-year-old arrogant guy who should've known better.

[KRAD]

SnarkyPants, on Feb 7 2005, 05:25 PM, said:

Is it true that at sf conventions, fans would sit in a circle and compete to see who could read Eye of Argon the longest without cracking up?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's not only true, I recently participated in such an event at PhilCon in December, though we were in a ballroom, not in a circle....

[Redshirt #24]

So who won?