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)