Sci Fi writers hoax Sci Fi Critic

A small publishing house, PublishAmerica, came out last year with a serious criticism of science fiction and its writers.

As a rule of thumb, the quality bar for sci-fi and fantasy is a lot lower than for all other fiction.... [Science fiction authors] have no clue about what it is to write real-life stories, and how to find them a home." It described them as "writers who erroneously believe that SciFi, because it is set in a distant future, does not require believable storylines, or that Fantasy, because it is set in conditions that have never existed, does not need believable every-day characters.

Well, a group of over 30 sci fi writers were incensed at the article and decided to see just how high the quality of PublishAmerica's own standards were by producing the worst novel they could possibly create collectively. The effort, dubbed "Atlanta Nights", was submitted - including large portions of nonsense text and some of the worst dialogue I have every read - and was promptly accepted by PublishAmerica!!! The writers have revealed their hoax, and released a version of the story on the Net.

Some days, you have to love getting up in the morning.