Worst. Novel. Ever.

It's official: Atlanta Nights, the Worst Novel Ever Written*, has been published. A bunch of authors were upset at a company called PublishAmerica, which had a reputation for ripping off first-time authors and for badmouthing science fiction and fantasy writing as drivel while at the same time publishing non-science-fiction-and-fantasy drivel. So thirty authors got together and in one weekend wrote this novel, which would put any self-respecting high school sophomore to shame. They then submitted it to PublishAmerica, which accepted it for publication. (When the hoax was revealed, PublishAmerica withdrew their offer.)

Excerpt:

“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!

Another, if you can stomach it:

Yvonne poured herself a drink and melted into the chair across from Callie. She brushed a strand of moltenly hair from her eyes and proceeded to carve the ham. Callie watched intently. Juice streamed from the ham in rivulets like saliva drooling from the fierce jaws of a wild dingo poised over the dead carcass of its prey in the dingo-eat-dingo world.

The Grammar Cop over at Banterist will quadruple ticket revenues just by reading this book.


* Disclaimer: I haven't read Atlanta Nights, so I can't say definitively whether it is worse than the previous holder of the title Worst Novel Ever Written. The previous title-holder was a completely politically-correct novel that some of my freshman-year suitemates were required to read, whose protagonist was a disabled Latina lesbian. The rest of the cast of characters were similarly balanced for ethnic, gender, and miscellaneous diversity. Since diversity was the aim of the book, the author didn't bother much with trivial concerns like realism, plot, or character development.