I’ve seen people talk about actors and artists that had a terrible time.
My own would be Anne Rice. She wrote Interview with the Vampire after her young daughter died of Leukemia. Then her husband suddenly died of a brain hemorrhage. I suspect her Christian, anti-fanfic phase was a result of mental illness and manipulation from the publishers, although I don’t think she ever apologized.
Jim Theis, autor of The Eye of Argon. Certainly not a good book, but he was only 16 years old when he wrote it for fun then published it in a fanzine, and his work got violently ridiculed and mocked by professional authors. People kept making fun of it for decades, he felt so bad he vowed to never write again. And died at the age of 48.
I’ve read it, and what really sucks is that it’s honestly not that bad for something written by a teenager.
It is though. It feels like it’s written by a deliberate troll.
I now feel bad we had mocking readings of it at the writing camp I went to as a teenager though…
I unironically love The Eye of Argon. There is such exuberance in it, and such an obvious love for the sword and sorcery genre. It’s fun, entertaining, and tremendously enjoyable. RIP, Jim.
I feel for the guy too, but no, it’s pretty damn bad.
Most of the people mocking the kid was textbook “pot calls kettle.” Fans of genre fiction acting like the stuff they like is peak literature when often it’s mostly “Here’s how awesome and clever and amazing I am for being a middle class white guy and the only reason I can’t get laid is because SOCIETY is wrong. The elves and the space goblins would totally appreciate my sensitive soul and quirky love for math and make me their king. Unlike Stacy. That bitch.”
i’m not saying you’re wrong, but there’s a lot to unpack there. i just labelled it under fanfic. arguably, the gor series is WORSE, and people actually build their irl lives around it!
I started the Gor series as a thirsty 15 year old Frazetta fan and quit around Tarnsman of Gor because the protagonist was just raping people at that point.
so. much. rape. and, y’know, slavery, for a garnish!
It made me think through what I found hot and why at an age when my mind was wide open. You could probably edit the Gor series down to one brilliant novel contrasting the fantasy and reality of our desires.
it’s an interesting idea
What fan of genre fiction hurt you buddy?
What genre fiction even fits the description you’re painting there lol, just seems like a strawman. Feels more like a manifestation of your personal dislike of people who like genre fiction or something.
How did this stupid ass take get this many upvotes? I have to assume everyone stopped reading after the first sentence.
The main complaint I hear about Eye of Argon is its rampant thesaurus abuse. If people are complaining about its characters, they clearly don’t know the state of fantasy novels in that era.
Correction. His work was published against his will. That’s what makes it even worse.
I looked it up and tried to read some of it. It isn’t completely horrible if taken for what it was - a young writer’s first attempt at creating something. If someone had taken him under their wing and gave him some solid advice (and stole his thesaurus), he might have become a very well-known, celebrated fantasy author. Weird the turns life takes and people suck sometimes…
“Grignr leashed his mount forward as the hoarsely piercing battle cry of his wilderness bred race resounded from his grinding lungs.”
Totally reminds me of my writing at a similar age.
Too many adjectives! I still do this to an extent.
Damn that’s really shitty. I guarantee you that the majority of successful authors wrote a ton of really bad stuff when they were 16. In my experience it usually takes making a lot of bad things to learn how to make good things in any art form.
The majority of successful authors write a ton of really bad stuff that ends up in Barnes & Noble.
I’ve reread old stuff I wrote in highschool I thought was hotshit only to cringe.
Not giving people the chance to grow sucks.
That’s awful.
That story pissed me off. I wrote the stupidest shit when I was younger that I feel legitimately horrified by. Only difference is my stuff didn’t get published, yet his was forcefully published.
I despise anyone who mocks him without knowing the full story. It’s gross and disgusting.
For context if readers don’t know, there is a common game in writer circles where people take turns reading The Eye of Argon out loud, and if you laugh, you have to pass it on. People argued for ages about whether it was written by a troll to be deliberately bad. It’s that intense.
I now feel bad I ever played that game.