At the sci-fi and fantasy con we organised at university (Picocon, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picocon) we had a regular slot for ‘turkey readings’ where people would read notably bad prose and take bids to stop (or continue) reading. The proceeds went to charity.
I had to read a page of AI slop ‘fiction’ this morning and my first thought was that it was so bad, it deserved to be in one of those turkey readings.
What was so obviously bad about it?
The tell which meant I lost all ability to take it seriously wasn't em dashes or three-point lists or any crap like that, it was two sentences which had a perfect metre and rhyming scheme. I can't remember what they are now (and I don't want to call it out directly anyway) but it was totally unmissable when read aloud, even by a non-native English speaker.
It broke the serious mood that the opening paragraph was trying to evoke, which was generally okay up to that point, even though there was some really cringeworthy imagery about (I paraphrase) the emptiness of space staring into a space station.
How did I spot this, and how could I put words on it? I like to think it's because I did Higher English (i.e. one year of lukio-level English philology, for the Finns reading this). For teenage David it was an awful struggle, but for fortysomething David it gave them the words and tools they need to explain why some English texts are just more interesting than others, and why large language models write such crap.
That, and it gave me a lifelong love of Norman MacCaig's poetry.
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/basking-shark/
@davidjamesweir
#Finncon used to have an event where people donated stupid sf merchandise for destruction in innovative ways - anything from chainsaw to crushing to chemical explosions. Things then turned into bidding wars for charity, where someone would pay to save that Jar-Jar Binks bubble bath bottle or whatever, and someone else paid more to see it destroyed.
In 2009 George R. R. Martin donated his flat cap.
@eemeli Here is a photo of yours truly participating in the DoDM at Picocon https://www.flickr.com/photos/cowfish/393387370/in/photostream/ (the object in question is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_E-mailer)
I think the previous year I had actually rescued something from destruction, but I can't now for the life of me remember what it was, and luckily there are very few ICSF members on fedi 🙃 (paging @davecl42)
Understandable that from a safety point of view the DoDM is nowadays hard to do at Finncon...
@eemeli (yourself excepted, of course; I was a couple of years after you, from what I recall)
David Weir
Merja Polvinen
Eemeli Aro