pking@denelcor.UUCP (10/04/83)
As in the discussion concerning bad films, I'm sure there will be some controversy as to what is the worst science fiction book of all time. There are many books of noteworthy badness, some even make it to the best sellers list (Battlefield Earth). Most, of course, get the obscurity they so richly deserve. There is the category of completely unnecessary books; mediocre followups to quality novels. In this group I include: "Foundation's Edge" by Asimov, "Dune Messiah", "Children of Dune", "God Emperor of Dune" by Herbert, and "2010: Odyssey Two" by Clarke to name a few well-known examples. These are books that clearly should not have been written, they are useless (except for profit con- siderations). Then there are the books that are similar to the last category, completely unoriginal "novels", such as the aleph- null "Chronicles of Thomas Covenant" the leperous rapist, that manage to become extremely popular. I'd rather not concern myself with this subject. Far more interesting are the stupefyingly plotted, ineptly written, yet somehow published books that fall into the category of ULTRA-TRASH. Prime examples of this category include : "The Clones" by P.T. Olomy, "Colossus and the Crab" by D.F. Jones, "The Flying Eyes" by J. Hunter Holly, "Laid in the Future" by Rod Gray, "Wolfman versus the Vampire Woman" author unknown (features poetry, actually doggerel), and "Pleasure Planet" by Edward George. But I'm not going to talk any more about this stuff. I'm going to tell you about the very worst book ever written ... "Galaxy 666" by Pel Torro. Galaxy 666, as you might surmise, concerns the exploration of a demonic, by virtue of an arbitrary numbering scheme, galaxy. The plot is, aside from the rather predictable exploratory adventure, completely asinine; the characterization could only be termed ludicrous; the writing would be called sophomoric only by someone more generous with their praise than am I; but those aspects of the book that are not common in other bad sci-fi (not s.f.) are almost bad beyond belief. In the event you have not read this monumental work, I will include a couple of real socko passages ("for the purposes of review"), to give you some idea of Torro's incredible talent. As you will notice, the most noteworthy feature of the master's writing is that he can not say something once. Actually, if you do not have this book, you really should get a hold of a copy and subject yourself to it. (describing the landscape) "... Across to their right they could see two round hillocks coming out of the ground itself. Between their own position and those two hillocks, there was an expanse of flat smooth rock, so flat and smooth that it was slippery and difficult to walk on. There were pinkish streaks among the rock, and it seemed that some of the chromatic tint from the atmosphere owed its origin to these. There were a number of white veins in the rock, which bore some kind of resemblance to marble, but the majority of it was grey. It gave an over-all impression of greyness streaked with pink and white, rather than an over-all impression of whiteness tinged with grey and pink, or an over-all impression of pink streaked with grey and white. Greyness was the dominant background shade; neither black no (sic) white, but something midway between the two. It was a light rather than a dark grey, yet it could never had (sic) been so light that it might be mistaken for an off white. The four explorers carried on across this flat terrain; Ischklah suddenly tripped and sprawled full length. The substance on which they walked was hard, and yet did not have the same unyielding hardness as granite or flint. It was more like the hardness of tough and highly polished wood. Ischklah picked himself up and rubbed ruefully at a bruise on his shin. 'Darn stuff is hard,' he said." (on meeting aliens) "...Through the pinky white light something that was obviously a living creature was coming toward them. In fact, several somethings were coming toward them. They were not the kind of somethings that commend themselves by virtue of the charm of their physical appearance. Some people would say that there is much to be said for first impressions; others try to dis- regard first impressions on principle. Bronet was of the latter school of thought; otherwise he, being the nearest of the four explorers to the things, would have taken to his heels with a scream of fear. There are some strange life forms in the universe. Judged by humanoid standards, these things were not only strange; they were revoltingly strange. ... The things were odd, weird, grotesque. there was somethinhg horribly uncustomary and unwonted about them. They were completely unfamiliar. Their appear- ance was outlandish and extrodinary. There was some- thing quite phenominal about them. They were super- normal; they were unparalleled; they were unexampled. The shape of the aliens was singular in every sense. They were curious, odd, queer, peculiar and fantastic, and yet when every adjective had been used on them, when every preternatural epithet had been applied to their abberant and freakish apperance, when everything that could be said about such eccentric, exceptional, anomalous creatures had been said, they still remained indescribable in any concrete terms." (the scientific method) "...'Co-ordinates 1,9,7,5,4,862/003,' called Ischklah. '9071 3/4. O24 co-ordinates CBJ, para co-ordinate 198, 002,' called Bronet. 'Hyper co-ordinate 10467,' said Korzaak. 'Ultra- co-ordinate 194/312/564/8179,' said Ischklah. 'Infra-co-ordinate,' began Bronet. '987.56 refer- ence co-ordinate 1325.' 'Alpha reading high.' said Ischklah. 'Beta scale medium.' called Bronet. 'Gamma steady,' said Korzaak. 'Aleph pointer, zero. Beth pointer, zero.' 'Gimel pointer minus 2,' cut in Korzaak. Oski was tickling his toy computer with the desper- ate fury of an accordionist trying to make himself heard at a space veterans concert, competing with three electro-tapes and a hi-fi color organ. He was scratching away at the computer as though it were a part of his own body that was particularly sensitive and had been invaded by fleas. There was a particularly virulent flea on an odd little world round one of the less significant planets in Galaxy 297. It was known as a matchi. Ischklah looked at Oski for a second and grinned. 'You're scratching that computer as if it were covered with matchis,' he said. 'Ugh,' said Oski. 'Have you ever gotten tangled up with those brutes?' 'No thanks,' said Ischklah. 'But I knew an old space veteran once who did! He's still got the twitch!' 'They're hellish things,' said Bronet. His face clouded over momentarily. 'Hellish things.' he re- peated. 'By the seven green moons, I'd rather take on an Altarian gasha beast than get mixed up with those little devils. There's nothing much you can do when the matchis are on the warpath. What they lack in size they more than make up for in ferocity, persistence and numerical superiority." 'O.K. I'm ready for the next set of figures,' said Oski. Well, that ought to convince even the most skeptical of you out there in net land. "Galaxy 666" by Pel Torro was published by Belmont/Tower books (in the U.S.), by somebody else in England (both hardcover and paperback). P. King (...!seismo!hao!csu-cs!denelcor!pking)