Fifty
Shades of Bad Writing.
Seems everywhere I look someone has written an article
about the mega-selling, publishing-game-changing, super- duper, must-read-before-you
die (or at least dis) Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James.
As a result, I am sure publishers are looking forward to
reading thousands of manuscripts full of badly written bondage scenes. Publisher’s
assistants will all be rushing home to watch porn on the web to get sex
back into some sort of normal perspective. But then again, the flood of bad
erotica might make up for those manuscripts full of teenagers in love with
vampires who refuse to give out.
Many of the articles I have read about Fifty
Shades of Grey have been about how badly written it is. An article I read in the Age today about
its awfully written sex scenes made me laugh, especially its imagined ocker
sex scene.
There was even an article about the book in today’s Chronicle, the local newspaper. Fifty
Shades has been selling very well locally. With one farmer reportedly buying it
because he wanted to see what all the hype was about (very sad). An elderly
woman who returned it to the library said it was just porn and rubbish – WTF did
she expect?
I have also read a few reviews on Goodreads and other
sites of Fifty Shades that have said it is badly written. But this badly
written book is allegedly making the author 1.36 million a week. There seems to
be one supposedly well hung ram leading a huge flock of erotically hopeful ewes.
George
Turner’s Books to be Reissued.
In my last post I mentioned having just read A Pursuit
of Miracles, by George Turner. Bruce Richard Gillespie
commented on that post on facebook saying he had control over the books of
George Turner. He said that there are plans for Gollancz to bring out a new
version of Turner’s The Sea and Summer, so you will all have the chance to go out
and buy the best Australian science fiction novel ever written.
Bruce also said he was trying to get Turner’s other
novels out as ebooks, which I would very much welcome as I am still to obtain copies
of Beloved Son, Transit of Cassidy, Vaneglory, Yesterday's Men, and Down There in Darkness.
If you want to read some of the many articles
Turner wrote on writing and science fiction, issue 76 of SF Commentary,
edited by Bruce Gillespie, has 100,000 words devoted to the writing of George
Turner.
Turned started off writing non-genre
mainstream novels in the late 1950’s. He won a Miles Franklin award in 1962 for
The Cupboard Under the
Stairs. The
Lame Dog Man won the Commonwealth Literary Fund Award in
1967. Turner quit writing after five mainstream novels because there wasn’t any
money in it.
I have read that he was asked to review science fiction
for a magazine. Which he did. He thought that he could write better science
fiction than what he was reviewing. Which he went on and did. The above
mentioned The Sea and Summer was nominated for the Nebula Award and won
the Arthur C. Clarke Award in1988.
6 comments:
Haha - very funny Graham. I call it 50 Shades of Brown.
I had the misfortune of having it in my house as my partner's workmate raved about it. The first sentence is bad. And its donwhill from there. Open to random pages and have a laugh. There must be a many previously published erotica/soft porn writers pissed off with her, just like all the vampire writers got peed off with Meyer. Why does rubbish take off? It's abyssmal and despite the humour of it all, it's rather depressing.
Keep me updated on the release of Turner's book. You've got me interested now.
Graham, I haven't read, nor do I want to read Fifty Shades of Grey. From what I've heard and read it isn't worth picking up or wasting time with. And I, for one, don't feel the need to play into the hype! How do these people put such rubbish out there? Don't we, as writer/authors, have an obligation to produce a quality read. Isn't the younger generations losing the English language as it is? I'm appalled that Random House would allow something like this get on the shelves. I wholeheartedly agree with Anthony. Argh! Maggie Anderson.
Anthony,
Yaa, I have created interest in George Turner.
Graham.
Anthony and Maggie,
I have no intention of caving into hype and reading 50 shades. Same as I did not read Dan Brown. The subject matter of both does not interest me.
I do worry about that farmer who bought the novel because he wanted to see what all the hype was about. What if it is the first book he has attempted to read for years? It might put him off reading for many more years. What if a lot of people pulled in by the hype react the same way? Yes it is good to get people reading, but we don't want their latest attempt at reading to be so negative that they give up on fiction forever.
Bruce Gillespie on Facebook informs me that George Turner wrote six, not five, mainstream novels before he turned to science fiction.
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