As you probably know, Lulu allows anyone to publish a book for free. This means that they publish some of the most godawful crap imaginable. Some of their stuff seems to be good too, though; I noticed one book that has a positive review by Kirkus in its description. Books like that don't interest me right now. I'm going to share some of the descriptions from their Science Fiction & Fantasy section that are so horribly written, you just wonder about how bad the book is.
Here's one for a book called Weird Wide Web. This one is actually fairly intriguing, and I'd almost like to buy it just to find out if it's any good. If it was written this way on purpose, it may be very funny, or it may be the deranged ramblings of a lunatic:
Weird wide web Fantasy and Science Fiction authors invent weird worlds. Often with planets with unlikely names like Google or Lycos with gods with names like Sergey and Brin who live on a mountain called Altavista, high view, the centre of a weird world endlessly searching, searching, like the Flying Dutchman. My computer came from a company called Time Computers. It is was a Time machine. But Time computers have ceased to exist. Time has stopped. But the clock still ticks. The internet has heroes with made up names like Captain Bill Gates on spaceships with names like Explorer. The starship Internet Explorer has a wizard to magic you up. No witches though. Sexist. The Weird Wide Web invents non-existent characters. They invent a world where nothing and nobody is real. Fantasy land. Arthur Brownwindsor is on all the major search engines. As is his lady wife Lucinda Brownwindsor. And their friend, mime artist star of Windsor Silent Radio, Marcel L’Aise. I bet you are not.
Here's one called Eden (sic throughout). I'd also like to say, "Mr. M. C. Duncan, if you want to review your own book, please use a better alias than Melvin Duncan.":
A lost colony. Supplies run out and they revert to horses and water wheels. For two thousand years they live the primitive life. New customs develop to fit the situation.Poor Mark, He becomes a keeper at age eleve with a mystery to solve. At age thirteeh he has to choose a bride. Who should he chose. Find out what happens. How do they survive? Will Mark make a good choice? Will the space ships come again?
From the description of Carouse the Planet Paltip, I'm guessing it might be a Choose Your Own Adventure type of thing, but at only nine pages, it seems a little short even for that:
Carouse of the Planet Paltip is a guided sci-fi adventure to land on the planet, and this broadminded fun here begins at describing it as a miscellaneous panorama.
Here's the description of The International Guild, which leaves me with a few questions. How can a novel that seems to be set in the future take place in contemporary times? Wouldn't a woman who is unique be very special by definition? Why would a Christian organization be preserving science and a Secular Humanism organization be trying to destroy it when experience indicates the opposite is far far more likely? Anyway, here's the quote:
The Guild is the result of the world going into the dark ages and a group of scientists, theologians, and philosophers that formed a secret society to preserve knowledge. Through the years the Guild became far more advanced than the rest of the world. The First Caste is the adversary of the The Guild. War is imminent between the two. The book is set in contemporary times. The main character is Michael, and a very special and unique woman named Jane. The longer Michael spends time with Jane the more he realizes there is something very different about her and her family. He learns that she is part of a secret society, a society that he will join. As Michael and Jane’s relationship grows a war breaks out between the two groups. Michael and Jane both get caught up in the war. The book portrays The Guild, the protagonists, as Christians. The contrast is between the Christians and those with humanist world views, The First Caste.
Despite the fact that Revelations has a good review and a high rating, it's description is very poorly punctuated. A comma is used in place of a semicolon, and there's no comma in a compound sentence:
A disease plagues the dark streets of Colton Falls, a disease that bleeds softly up from the catacombs below. Men and women dissappear into the night and those few that are seen again are something different. Into this nightmare scape walks a man whose days are destined to be numbered.
Okay, that's all the time I have for now. I'll be back soon.
