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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.55
Posted on Wednesday, September 22, 2010 - 04:18 pm:   

What's the WORST short-story you've ever read? We're always doing best ofs, lest have a worst of for a change.

My vote would have to go to The Suicide Man by Nickolaus Pacione aka Lloyd Phillip Campbell.

It would take far too long to list what's wrong with it but the review of EG10 that someone posted online does a grand job.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, September 22, 2010 - 05:06 pm:   

Good idea, Weber.

These are the very worst stories I have read in the first 21 Pan Horror Books:

'The Bats' by DG (1965) - 7th
'Eustace' by TL (1967) - 9th
'Man Hunt' by RW (1967) - 9th
'The Acid Test' by CM (1968) - 10th
'The Midnight Lover' by GA (1969) - 11th
'The Scientist' by GA (1969) - 11th
'Getting Rid' by NPK (1969) - 11th
'A Question of Fear' by BL (1969) - 11th
'The Lift' by BL (1969) - 11th
'A Case of Insanity' by BM1 (1969) - 11th
'Hand in Hand' by BM2 (1969) - 11th
'Sergeant Lacey Demonstrates' by NPK (1970) - 12th
'In Mother’s Loving Memory' by BM1 (1970) - 12th
'Patent Number' by GA (1972) - 14th
'Revolt of the Ant People' by LEC (1974) - 16th
'An Experiment with H2O' by NPK (1974) - 16th
'Debt Paid' by CT (1974) - 16th
'Quod Erat Demonstrandum' by JEG (1976) - 18th
'The Inquisitor' by SW (1977) - 19th

The 11th Pan Horror Book may be looking hard to beat for weakest of the Series, but things got a lot worse than that later on...


By contrast the 20 Fontana Ghost Books only had one story I would rank as bad:

'Here Today' by JF (1978) - 15th


And the 17 Fontana Horror Books had only these two:

'Homecoming' by SJB (1974) - 9th
'For Charity's Sake' by BJE (1976) - 11th

Every one a cringeworthy piece of sub-standard, barely readable, abject rubbish - which is why I've only included the author's initials. All in my humble opinion, of course...
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Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 78.22.237.21
Posted on Wednesday, September 22, 2010 - 05:23 pm:   

"The Little Black Bag" by Cyril Kornbluth. So awful I couldn't finish it.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.55
Posted on Wednesday, September 22, 2010 - 06:23 pm:   

This is the review of The Suicide Man from the A.N.Mouse review. It's a lot more fun to read than the story itself.


“The Suicide Man” by Nickolaus Pacione, sorry, Lloyd Phillip Campbell I’ll try to keep this short and succinct, but when you try to describe what’s wrong with a Pacione story, it’s easy to get carried away. This is the story he bigs up on the back cover, claiming it will be as controversial as Antichrist Superstar. Now we know why he does it. Just another example of his ego, his story must be the one we turn to first. It’s also the only story with illustrations – and they’re functional at best, which is more than can be said for the story.

In the opening paragraphs we learn that “Back in 1990, no one really spoke of suicide in the open but it was a topic the church tried to avoid because a former pastor’s wife hung herself after a service.” This has no relevance to anything as the story takes place entirely in 1987 as we then jump back 3 years and stay there. Also, we learn that she hung herself during the sermon not after the service. Maybe she found out she was going to be in this story and decided the corpse was the most dignified role.

As we’re told more detail of the suicide we find that – “Rope strangled every bit of her neck.” Did she have a particularly small neck? Was it a very thick rope? Maybe she’d wound it round a few times?

A few lines later we see the phrase “…while her now lifeless corpse…” Did she have a living corpse at one point? Come on Nicky, your guidelines said no zombies!


“Four days had passed after Donna Jacobson’s self-murder, was the wake.”
??? Am I the only person who thinks that makes less sense than usual?

The reverend makes a new friend at the wake.
“ ‘Reverend Jacobson, I would like to… blah blah boring blah for 4 lines of bad speech’ the stranger introduced himself.
‘What’s your name son?’ Rev Jacobson asked.
‘Randall Philbin, I run a small magazine …blah blah boring blah for another 4 lines of bad speech’ the stranger said, introducing himself.”
He’s already introduced himself once you fool!

In the middle of this rather tedious conversation we get this…
“She watched her father get beheaded in the middle of the living room with an ax.”
There’s no grammatical thing wrong with that, it’s just the funniest piece of dialogue I’ve ever seen. I rofl-ed at that one, never mind lol-ed.

When Nick himself, aka Justin appears, he’s described like this.
“Justin appeared young, somewhere between the age of twenty two to twenty four.”
So that’ll be 23 then?

And even my grammar check is screaming at me to stick an S on the end of age as there’s more than one mentioned so it’s a plural… but Nick, sorry Lloyd, knows best.

Discussing the Pastor’s wife’s death, we hear
“ “If she was sleeping, would she be dreaming?” one of them discussed among themselves.”

No comment needed.

I could go on like this forever but I promised to try to keep it short. So lets summarise some bits.

We are told three times on one page (twice in the same paragraph) that Justin’s brother decorated the wall with his brain matter. This phrase appears twice more in the rest of the story, despite the fact that the first reference to his brother’s suicide is Justin thinking “Is this because my brother hanged himself?”

There are 16 separate references to the fact that Donna will burn in hell for committing suicide.

The phrase “black, charred skin/flesh” appears 15 times in the story, despite its first appearance being on page 4. The word fuck is referred to twice as the F-bomb.
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 82.38.75.85
Posted on Wednesday, September 22, 2010 - 08:21 pm:   

That review is hilarious! And isn't NP supposed to be an editor?

Talking of bad stories in PBoH, someone suggested I try "Love on the Farm" - can't recall the author or book number. I couldn't get further that 2 pages in - it was awful!

In fact, I find it quite difficult to list bad stories - if they're so bad, I simply don't read any further.
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Steve Bacon (Stevebacon)
Username: Stevebacon

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 90.211.103.120
Posted on Wednesday, September 22, 2010 - 09:09 pm:   

I have a hard time remembering the bad ones; they just disappear from my mind. Only the good ones stay.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Wednesday, September 22, 2010 - 09:39 pm:   

I must admit that part of the pleasure of trawling through the Pan Horror Books is masochistic - when starting each story, you never know what to expect - more often than not you get a workmanlike filler story, spiced up with outrageous gore, or a steaming piece of badly written outright kack, but, every few stories, you get the thrill of discovering some, long forgotten, hidden gem of the most extreme, sordid and gleefully un-PC horror ever put in print.

I have a vague recollection of 'Love On The Farm', Caroline, and think it might be one of those mind-boggling gems - could be wrong.
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 85.222.86.21
Posted on Wednesday, September 22, 2010 - 10:28 pm:   

Knowing NP, he'll probably have kicked in the door of the reviewer and 'strangled every bit of his neck' before 'splattering his brains over the wallpaper' x 4.

The man's a fruit-loop.
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Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.93.21.68
Posted on Thursday, September 23, 2010 - 11:08 am:   

Now, folks, the man isn't here, after all.
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 85.222.86.21
Posted on Thursday, September 23, 2010 - 11:16 am:   

Sorry, Ramsey, but this is the man who threatens people online with violence. This is the man who has made various statements as to how society should deal with homosexuals. And he's notorious for not paying any of the contributing writers to his 'magazine.' I was surprised he actually paid Weber.

BUT, apologies. It's your forum. No offense intended.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, September 23, 2010 - 11:34 am:   

Would you want an enraged Weber on your case, Frank?!
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Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.93.21.68
Posted on Thursday, September 23, 2010 - 11:41 am:   

You're right, Frank. Still, let's not attract him here...

To return to the original theme, my nomination for worst short story is "The Tomb-Herd" (1961). I reread it recently, having almost expelled all memory of it from my shrinking brain, but now I may take its horror to the grave.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.55
Posted on Thursday, September 23, 2010 - 11:49 am:   

I mis-read Stevie's last post as "Would you like an enraged weber on your face?"!!!

nasty image.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.55
Posted on Thursday, September 23, 2010 - 12:04 pm:   

Still, let's not attract him here...

He'd have to get past the Fryster first.

We can rely on him to keep fruitloops at bay.

Although he does let me in here. (before anyone else says it)
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 85.222.86.21
Posted on Thursday, September 23, 2010 - 12:25 pm:   

Ramsey - apologies again.

Not the 'Tomb Herd', please. Surely you must take into account you were a teenager.

Weber - as much as I like you, pal, no I wouldn't like an enraged Weber on my face (:
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Nathaniel Tapley (Natt)
Username: Natt

Registered: 11-2009
Posted From: 78.151.102.210
Posted on Thursday, September 23, 2010 - 01:27 pm:   

I'm having real trouble struggling through a book of J.H. Riddell's ghost stories. They are failing to grip me on any level at all. Plot, language, 'horror', all are banal, predictable and rather stodgy. I'm only carrying on through sheer bloody-mindedness.

(Oh, and the worst thing I have every read in my life was The Birthing House by Christopher Ransom - my review is here: http://inthegloamingpodcasts.wordpress.com/2010/02/15/gr5-the-birthing-house-by- christopher-ransom/)
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Thursday, September 23, 2010 - 01:35 pm:   

Let's hear it for 'Eustace', debut of a great fantasy writer and early glimmer of the 'flash fiction' craze. As bad stories go it's dangerously close to being OK.

My small press debut was a dull, portentous and self-regarding yawnfest called 'The God of Clay'. I was a scrawny teenage anorak for whose benefit happy slapping should have been invented two decades early.

I'm different now. Older.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.246.252
Posted on Thursday, September 23, 2010 - 04:44 pm:   

I remember absolutely detesting Stephen King's "Rainy Season," after I'd read it in the magazine in which it originally appeared. I thought it simply, garbage alight. It stuck in my memory as being the worst published short story. But I do wonder if I'd revise my opinion re-reading it now....
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.244.154
Posted on Thursday, September 23, 2010 - 07:00 pm:   

Not one of his best, Craig.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.110.165.236
Posted on Thursday, September 23, 2010 - 10:33 pm:   

Worst stories by major authors is a nice game to play. Posterity deals many authors an unfair hand by dragging their worst efforts back into print. Lovecraft's 'The Horror at Red Hook'... dear God. Clark Ashton Smith;'s 'The Great God Awto'... please, no. Robert Bloch's 'The Bedposts of Life'. Cornell Woolrich's 'My Lips Destroy'. Fritz Leiber's... nope, not a bad one there.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Thursday, September 23, 2010 - 10:51 pm:   

'My Lips Destroy' is a cracking title, though!

The worst stories I've ever read have all been in the small press. I remember when Gary Fry and I were taking submissions for an aborted anthology, and I got this sort of computerised rant from some guy...utterly nonsensical.
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 85.222.86.21
Posted on Thursday, September 23, 2010 - 10:59 pm:   

Yes, pseudonyms are wonderful, aren't they.
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Skunsworth (Skunsworth)
Username: Skunsworth

Registered: 05-2009
Posted From: 92.14.252.204
Posted on Friday, September 24, 2010 - 10:10 am:   

Look, I've apologised for that, Zed! I wasn't feeling myself when I wrote it....

S
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 85.222.86.21
Posted on Friday, September 24, 2010 - 11:07 am:   

Not what I heard.

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