The following Dodgers have been smited by the JDK for their crimes against Jam:
All the girls! for picking on the JDK and damaging his already delicate self esteem!
The Basserd Who Nicked Copper's Stuff For the offense of nicking Copper's stuff. You are a tw*t, whoever you are and we all hope you get run over by a tram in Nottingham. Or Liverpool. Or whereever else they have trams!
Copper For the crime of playing with her Wii instead of her Jammie pals!
I'd like to see some ouf your so called bestelling authors compete with the magnificent prose of this guy:
The ethereal harmonies of the laserpipe orchestra echoed off the solid diamond walls of the Galactic Overlord's pleasure chamber. As I slowly made my way through the gyrating throng of human, plasmid, and arachnoid revelers, the arcanite sensors on my integrated detectograph started going haywire. "Just as I thought," I thought. "She's here."
It was another two hundred ticks until I saw her, dancing languidly with a spice runner out of Betelgeuse VII. He was a hulking brute, with a wickedly edged macrosword slung over the back of his metaluminum armor, the kind that would have struck cold fear into the heart of a lesser man. But I was no lesser man. "Mind if I cut in?" I intoned, silencing the smuggler's enraged grumble of objection with a stealthy blast from my deliminator rifle.
"What took you so long?" cooed Abraxxia, her words subtly quavering with the universal inflections of desire. Ignoring my own fierce need, I furiously scanned my surroundings for danger -- she was crafty, and I knew that the slightest mistake would prove fatal. Not just for myself, but for the entire United Alliance. Inevitably, my gaze settled back upon the smooth curves of skin that peeked out from under her transparent holodress. How many rounds of Uranian Megasex would it take before she surrendered the alloy?
I'm off to find me some Uranian Megasex and a deliminator rifle! Woohoo!
So... who's the best and worst writers you've ever come across - not neccessarily your favourite (or least favourite)... just in terms of their literary ability.
This book won the Nobel Price for literature a few years back (1998 maybe?). It was next to impossible to read. I think it had something to do with the fact that it was translated from Portugese. It had almost no breaks in paragragh. You know when two people are talking and there is a paragraph break when the other person starts talking to signify the switch? This book would just flow from one person to the next with no break in paragraph to tell you that a new person was talking. It made everyone look like they were talking to themselves. Drove me batty. Otherwise it was a good story and all, just a headache to read.
I heart Gaiman as well.. I met him and he scared me.
Dan Brown is either the greatest writer ever because he knew how to write to the lowest common denominator thus ensuring that he would sell 8 gajillion copies of his books, OR he's the worst writer who is PART of the lowest common denominator and people flocked to him as such. He can tell a good story, I'll give him that much, but the man's writing is more or less on par with "It was a dark and stormy night..."
I thought Dan Brown sucked, frankly. I read Angels and Demons and The Davinci Code and I thought his prose was sucky. His plots were sucky (and almost identical) and the whole thing smacked of a guy trying to show off some stuff that he read somewhere.
Gaiman on the other hand is a god. Neverewhere was a bit amateurish in it's prose, but his storytelling is fantastic and when he got to American Gods it was just glorious. I met him last year and he was cool. We discussed the role of jam in literature and his large nose. He's in Bristol signing his new book Anansi Boys while I'm on my hols. I may go and meet him again!
oh and i just read the 5 books in a trilogy thing by douglas adams.. the first few were awesome, i was getting realllly weary with them at the end - i know i know - it's just like he started to get so ridiculously far-fetched and stupid -
Books 1-4 were great. I think So Long And Thanks For All The Fish is actually my favourite. Mostly Harmless was pants, though. Apparently he was chronically depressed when he wrote it. It kinda shows.