Several things, all of them bad

I don’t mean to rag on the Presbyterians as a group. I worshiped at a PCA church for some time in Florida, and it was one of the finest churches I’ve ever been associated with. But this story about the PCUSA (via Town Hall Blog) takes my breath away. It’s not enough for these people to apostasize. That’s appalling, but it’s sort of old news. We’ve come to expect it from them. But the PCUSA has published a book promoting the view that the Bush administration engineered the 9/11 attacks, a position generally held by people who’ve forgotten to take their medication because it fell through a hole in their raincoat pockets while they were fishing for lunch in a dumpster. From a materialist point of view, heresy is sort of understandable, because true doctrine can’t be scientifically proven. But these people have lost touch even with this-worldly reality.

Not that I don’t believe in conspiracies. I’m growing more and more convinced that the people who run road construction in the Twin Cities conspire to make their construction projects as inconvenient to the public as possible. Not for money. Not because of political corruption. But just because it’s so much fun to sit down around a map with their coffee and bagels and draw a red circle around a neighborhood, then pose the question, “How can we completely cut this neighborhood off from the outside world, blocking not only the primary but the secondary routes into it?”

Such is the fate of my pleasant little part of Robbinsdale. I dwell in a sort of a bottleneck—not the useful kind that could easily be defended if the Assyrians attacked (a possibility that grows more and more likely with the passing years), but a traffic bottleneck. I live to the east of a park. Not far north of the park is a freeway. Not far to the south is a lake. My workplace is to the west. The practical jokers tore up the main artery yesterday, while I was at work. I made the mistake of following their “Detour” signs on the way home, and ended up lost in Brooklyn Park. I’ve found a way to get home from work (and vice versa) now, but it involves passing through a construction zone.

Commenter Aitchmark sent me the following entertaining review. At his request, because he is a tenderhearted man, I have excised the name of the author and the title of the book:

I kind of enjoyed ___________’s recreation of classic kid SF in _____________, so I went into the online system for the library and put a hold on the sequel____________.

Well, there’s another book with the title ___________, and in some kind of mental glitch, I clicked the right title but the wrong author. So I ended up with a cop thriller called ___________ by a fellow named _____________.

One of the worst pieces of writing I’ve ever read. Unimaginably bad. Bad grammar, bad diction, one gaping howler of disregard for reality after another, plot transparently ripped off from another book….

Example — a burglar gets killed by a booby trapped clock that fires a 2-inch dart at him…. which injects 6 ounces of snake venom.

Must have been from a neutronium snake.

And the writing….

“The darkness enveloped him with the suddenness of an unexpected physical attack.”

“An investigation that had nearly gotten him killed but had brought him and Detective Edna Gray very close together.” (yes, that’s the complete sentence)

I can’t go on. It’s just too much.

This is the guy’s 5th published book!

I’ve read 37 pages (Carmen challenged me to read 50). I can’t decide whether to just take it back to the library, or keep slogging through it to see how bad it can get.

Be careful if you see this book. It may rub off on you. Like a virus. A big, nasty virus that hurts people and sometimes even kills them. Dead. And dead is forever. So you have been warned. In case it infects your brain and makes you less intelligent than you were before reading the terrible book, you won’t be able to say you weren’t warned emphatically by me. Who warned you to be careful and think before picking up this terrible tome.

(help me. please… help me. Send Shakespeare or something. Fast.)

0 thoughts on “Several things, all of them bad”

  1. That’s hilarious, but how are we supposed to avoid this awful book if we don’t know the title or author? Should we avoid all cop thrillers by five-time authors?

    My wife said a 6oz. baby bottle is about two inches and as wide as a half dollar. I can see that coming out of a clock.

    And I’m tempted to look up other titles from this PCUSA publisher. Are all liberals destined for kookery?

  2. As far as your post on the PCUSA goes; I’ve seen something similar at the Libertarian sites I visit. The rhetoric has been ratcheted up lately. I think the reason for this is that it’s no longer enough for opponents to Iraq to speak their mind… they are now determined to get results. As far as I can tell, they think (or hope)if they insult supporters of this engagement in a vile enough manner they will finally stop supporting it. In my opinion they know they are going way over the top but they feel their lies are in a good cause. It seems as if taking action (work strikes, etc.) is considered too much of a sacrifice. But if they were as opposed to the war as they say, surely they would have engaged in concrete action instead of merely slandering everyone who disagrees with them.

    p.s. that was too long I know; excuse.

  3. Just open a suspect book and read a few sentences at random. You’ll know it if you stumble across it.

    But do be careful. I made the mistake of reading the 50 pages my wife dared me to read, and now I’m continuing. I have the horrid kind of fascination with it–I keep thinking “Surely nobody could produce a worse sentence than this….” and then I read a few pages just to be sure, and I find another one.

    I’m so ashamed….

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