Re: Today's ISFDB weirdness

On 5/30/2024 10:21 AM, James Nicoll wrote:

In article <lbret1Fc66qU1@mid.individual.net>,
Chris Buckley  <alan@sabir.com> wrote:

On 2024-05-30, James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:

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".

>
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