I've continued browsing through very old stories and in the course of this, happened upon "Slave Boys" of unknown authorship, dated Nov 28th 2000 on the archive, but in the text October 23rd 1997.

In a sense there is a case for leaving this piece where it is, as an object lesson in how NOT to write. It's an example of what my teachers might have called verbal diarrhoea - it goes on and on, without a break - and it stinks.

There is a screen-ful of unbroken text - not a paragraph in sight. Grammar and syntax are alike atrocious, and the writer has never heard of SpellChecker. "Byzantine" is rendered "bysantic" (yes, small "b"), "Female" as "fewmales" and there is the interesting word "noicely" Nicely? Noisily? Your guess is as good as mine.

It purports to be a historical look at the practice of castrating boys in the Byzantine Empire - a topic that has been handled a thousand times better by the distinguished scholars who support EA. As an essay it would score Delta Minus or worse.

This has been a severe comment I know, but I feel that SOMEONE ought to say these things where they are deserved.

C van D

Gosh, two posts about this in as many days.

I've noticed much of what you have but this stuff is not Shakespeare.

We all need to remember that the Eunuch Archive is ANCIENT by Internet terms. Bboy set it up on his home computer, with a home-written program, in 1997. There was very little activity and essentially everything submitted was accepted. When Bboy set up the separate Story Board, it was again on a home-written program which does not allow deletions without fear of crashing the entire system.

We just need to consider the earliest stories as artifacts of ancient history – curiosities, but of little current utility. They tell us how far we've come.

Yes, Bboy's theory back in that day was "accept it if there's a eunuch in it."

That's why you're bound to find some real turkeys on the older parts of the story archive!

Well some of the early stories, while they lacked a lot of depth, were pretty imaginative. And I've seen for a fact that later authors have used older stories as a model for much better (or worse) new stories. And generally, I think many of the older stories, from like 98 - 2003, are also some of the best. So I'm not really sure which authors you dislike the most, but many of them were just fine, especially when considering back in 1998 there was this and the now long-gone Greasetank.com, and that was it if you had this particular fantasy.

BullGator (imported) wrote: Sun Mar 28, 2010 7:59 am Well some of the early stories, while they lacked a lot of depth, were pretty imaginative. And I've seen for a fact that later authors have used older stories as a model for much better (or worse) new stories. And generally, I think many of the older stories, from like 98 - 2003, are also some of the best. So I'm not really sure which authors you dislike the most, but many of them were just fine, especially when considering back in 1998 there was this and the now long-gone Greasetank.com, and that was it if you had this particular fantasy.

I agree totally with what you say. Have just reviewed "First Boy" dated November 2000 which is cleverly crafted and very well written, if a trifle long.

Losethem (imported) wrote: Wed Mar 03, 2010 11:07 am Gosh, two posts about this in as many days.

I've noticed much of what you have but this stuff is not Shakespeare.

Not Shakespeare, eh? I happen to be Scottish. In my schooldays, my form master despised the Bard of Avon to such an extent that he used to ridicule the surname Shakespeare - "Might as well be called Brandish-Gun".

I remember I never posted a story for years because I was so intimidated by the other authors, how good their stories were. And I didn't want to be like this one crappy Anonymous writer. It was only after some started to disappear that I felt like writing, or that I had to if I wanted to keep the particular niche I liked most alive. There was this one point when just nothing of value was coming onto the story board and I got so feed up.

First story read on Archive: The Fucking Tables of the Past (now with many excellent parts) by Nathan

Favorite story: 1947 S-4 by Chad Addison