Today's ISFDB weirdness

[James Nicoll]

ISFDB has a "disowned by its author" tag. The books thus tagged are:

The Wind from Nowhere by J. G. Ballard
Probe by Margaret Wander Bonanno
The Star Conquerors by Ben Bova
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Survivor by Octavia E. Butler
Rage by Stephen King
Astronauci by Stanislaw Lem
Aeneis by Virgil

The Butler is a legit awful book, the only true dud Butler ever wrote
(very early in her career). The Bova is also from early in his career,
his first novel, written for Winston. I must have read it but I don't
remember it. In fact, I thought the book Bova disowned was the sequel,
Star Watchmen. The others, I don't know the backstories.

Weird so many of them are from authors whose surnames begin with "b".

[Chris Buckley]

Post by James Nicoll
The Wind from Nowhere by J. G. Ballard
Probe by Margaret Wander Bonanno
The Star Conquerors by Ben Bova
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Survivor by Octavia E. Butler
Rage by Stephen King
Astronauci by Stanislaw Lem
Aeneis by Virgil
(very early in her career). The Bova is also from early in his career,
his first novel, written for Winston. I must have read it but I don't
remember it. In fact, I thought the book Bova disowned was the sequel,
Star Watchmen. The others, I don't know the backstories.
Weird so many of them are from authors whose surnames begin with "b".

Interesting. But no Harlan Ellison? I know he disowned SF TV scripts,
and he bought up copies of his _Doomsman_ novel so he could destroy
them - I don't know if that counts as disowning.

Chris

[James Nicoll]

Post by Chris Buckley

Post by James Nicoll
The Wind from Nowhere by J. G. Ballard
Probe by Margaret Wander Bonanno
The Star Conquerors by Ben Bova
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Survivor by Octavia E. Butler
Rage by Stephen King
Astronauci by Stanislaw Lem
Aeneis by Virgil
(very early in her career). The Bova is also from early in his career,
his first novel, written for Winston. I must have read it but I don't
remember it. In fact, I thought the book Bova disowned was the sequel,
Star Watchmen. The others, I don't know the backstories.
Weird so many of them are from authors whose surnames begin with "b".

Interesting. But no Harlan Ellison? I know he disowned SF TV scripts,
and he bought up copies of his _Doomsman_ novel so he could destroy
them - I don't know if that counts as disowning.

It is almost as though that tag was added by someone who got tired of
using it early in the alphabet.

The Bonanno is there because Probe was actually mostly written by
Gene Deweese.

https://fanlore.org/wiki/This_is_the_tale_of_PROBE:_The_Novel_I_Didn%27t_Write

Rage is about a Columbine-style school well regulated militiaing.

The Ballard was apparently hackwork to get his foot in the book
of paperback publishing.

The Burgess omitted a vital chapter.

The Virgil was not finished. Still isn't, even thought the author
has had lots of time.

[Cryptoengineer]

Post by James Nicoll

Post by Chris Buckley

Post by James Nicoll
The Wind from Nowhere by J. G. Ballard
Probe by Margaret Wander Bonanno
The Star Conquerors by Ben Bova
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Survivor by Octavia E. Butler
Rage by Stephen King
Astronauci by Stanislaw Lem
Aeneis by Virgil
(very early in her career). The Bova is also from early in his career,
his first novel, written for Winston. I must have read it but I don't
remember it. In fact, I thought the book Bova disowned was the sequel,
Star Watchmen. The others, I don't know the backstories.
Weird so many of them are from authors whose surnames begin with "b".

Interesting. But no Harlan Ellison? I know he disowned SF TV scripts,
and he bought up copies of his _Doomsman_ novel so he could destroy
them - I don't know if that counts as disowning.

It is almost as though that tag was added by someone who got tired of
using it early in the alphabet.
The Bonanno is there because Probe was actually mostly written by
Gene Deweese.
https://fanlore.org/wiki/This_is_the_tale_of_PROBE:_The_Novel_I_Didn%27t_Write
Rage is about a Columbine-style school well regulated militiaing.
The Ballard was apparently hackwork to get his foot in the book
of paperback publishing.
The Burgess omitted a vital chapter.
The Virgil was not finished. Still isn't, even thought the author
has had lots of time.

The Ballard is indeed his first published novel. Its a not-so-cozy
catastrophe, a format he repeated for his next three novels.

pt

[Kevrob]

Post by Cryptoengineer

Post by James Nicoll

Post by James Nicoll
The Wind from Nowhere by J. G. Ballard
Probe by Margaret Wander Bonanno
The Star Conquerors by Ben Bova
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Survivor by Octavia E. Butler
Rage by Stephen King
Astronauci by Stanislaw Lem
Aeneis by Virgil
(very early in her career). The Bova is also from early in his career,
his first novel, written for Winston. I must have read it but I don't
remember it. In fact, I thought the book Bova disowned was the sequel,
Star Watchmen. The others, I don't know the backstories.
Weird so many of them are from authors whose surnames begin with "b".

Interesting. But no Harlan Ellison?  I know he disowned SF TV scripts,
and he bought up copies of his _Doomsman_ novel so he could destroy
them - I don't know if that counts as disowning.

It is almost as though that tag was added by someone who got tired of
using it early in the alphabet.
The Bonanno is there because Probe was actually mostly written by
Gene Deweese.
https://fanlore.org/wiki/This_is_the_tale_of_PROBE:_The_Novel_I_Didn%27t_Write
Rage is about a Columbine-style school well regulated militiaing.
The Ballard was apparently hackwork to get his foot in the book
of paperback publishing.
The Burgess omitted a vital chapter.
The Virgil was not finished. Still isn't, even thought the author
has had lots of time.

The Ballard is indeed his first published novel. Its a not-so-cozy
catastrophe, a format he repeated for his next three novels.
pt

[quote]

Burgess dismissed A Clockwork Orange as "too didactic to be
artistic".[33] He said that the violent content of the novel "nauseated"
him.[34]

In 1985, Burgess published Flame into Being: The Life and Work of D. H.
Lawrence and while discussing Lady Chatterley's Lover in his biography,
Burgess compared the notoriety of D. H. Lawrence's novel with A
Clockwork Orange: "We all suffer from the popular desire to make the
known notorious. The book I am best known for, or only known for, is a
novel I am prepared to repudiate: written a quarter of a century ago, a
jeu d'esprit knocked off for money in three weeks, it became known as
the raw material for a film which seemed to glorify sex and violence.
The film made it easy for readers of the book to misunderstand what it
was about, and the misunderstanding will pursue me until I die. I should
not have written the book because of this danger of misinterpretation,
and the same may be said of Lawrence and Lady Chatterley's Lover."[35]

[/quote] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clockwork_Orange_(novel)

A testimony to "the only reason to write is for the money," and its
consequences?
--
Kevin R

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

Post by James Nicoll
The Burgess omitted a vital chapter.

Is that a literal misprint issue at the publisher, or a "Burgess really
needed to finish the novel and didn't, leaving it a pointless unpleasant
mess" snark?

Cheers - Jaimie

[Bice]

On 31 May 2024 08:54:28 GMT, Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by James Nicoll
The Burgess omitted a vital chapter.

Is that a literal misprint issue at the publisher, or a "Burgess really
needed to finish the novel and didn't, leaving it a pointless unpleasant
mess" snark?

According to this:

https://www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/did-anthony-burgess-hate-the-american-ending-of-a-clockwork-orange

it's a myth that Burgess didn't like the American version of the book
which dropped the final chapter. Burgess himself approved the change.

The American version ends like the movie did, with Alex still a nasty
bastard, having "recovered" from his treatment.

The British version has a final chapter in wich Alex grows up, reforms
himself and starts to consider settling down and having a family.

Maybe it's just because I saw the movie long before I read the book,
but I think it works much better without that last chapter.

-- Bob

[William Hyde]

Post by James Nicoll
The Wind from Nowhere by J. G. Ballard
Probe by Margaret Wander Bonanno
The Star Conquerors by Ben Bova
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Survivor by Octavia E. Butler
Rage by Stephen King
Astronauci by Stanislaw Lem
Aeneis by Virgil
(very early in her career). The Bova is also from early in his career,
his first novel, written for Winston. I must have read it but I don't
remember it. In fact, I thought the book Bova disowned was the sequel,
Star Watchmen. The others, I don't know the backstories.
Weird so many of them are from authors whose surnames begin with "b".

In an interview Ballard mildly regretted that he had only ten days in
which to write "The Wind from Nowhere", but went on to say that he
wasn't too sorry as "The wind thing isn't really that interesting".

I don't think that counts as disowning a book.

Stephen Jay Gould, on the other hand, expressed a wish to buy up and
destroy every copy of his first book of essays. Now that's disowning.


William Hyde

[Default User]

Post by William Hyde
Stephen Jay Gould, on the other hand, expressed a wish to buy up and
destroy every copy of his first book of essays. Now that's disowning.

Which book specifically? Wikipedia lists the first as Ever Since
Darwin, and I didn't see anything about that being problematic in a
brief web search.


Brian

[William Hyde]

Post by Default User

Post by William Hyde
Stephen Jay Gould, on the other hand, expressed a wish to buy up and
destroy every copy of his first book of essays. Now that's disowning.

Which book specifically? Wikipedia lists the first as Ever Since
Darwin, and I didn't see anything about that being problematic in a
brief web search.

That one.

I was going to comment that had he tried it, he would have found that a
lot of us were not going to give it up.

When I was a grad student I was somewhat surprised when a postdoc
referred to his master's thesis as "That Abomination".

When I had to refer to my own MSc thesis a few years later the word
"abomination" came to mind.

We learn by writing, to some degree anyway, and some of us are appalled
by our earliest efforts.

It may further be the case that while writing his first articles, Gould
did not appreciate how dishonestly creationists will quote-mine, and
Gould's work was very commonly lied about in this way, as shown in one
of the talk.origins pages:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/author.html

William Hyde

[Christian Weisgerber]

Post by James Nicoll
Astronauci by Stanislaw Lem

That was Lem's first novel. I think it was the last ever book I
read in translation. There was some nonsense on the first few pages
where I couldn't figure out if it was from a naive young Lem or
from a science-illiterate translator--an issue that has been plaguing
the genre, because translators tend to come from a humanities
background.

I don't think the novel was THAT bad, and it already had the theme
of aliens being too alien for our understanding that Lem would
return to again and again, but yes, it wasn't up to the level of
Lem's later output.

[Lynn McGuire]

Post by James Nicoll
The Wind from Nowhere by J. G. Ballard
Probe by Margaret Wander Bonanno
The Star Conquerors by Ben Bova
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Survivor by Octavia E. Butler
Rage by Stephen King
Astronauci by Stanislaw Lem
Aeneis by Virgil
(very early in her career). The Bova is also from early in his career,
his first novel, written for Winston. I must have read it but I don't
remember it. In fact, I thought the book Bova disowned was the sequel,
Star Watchmen. The others, I don't know the backstories.
Weird so many of them are from authors whose surnames begin with "b".

"Jumper: Griffin's Story" by Steven Gould should have this tag.
https://www.amazon.com/Jumper-Griffins-Story-Steven-Gould/dp/1250164575/

Lynn