The Worst - Substack 2024 In Review

A look back on my worst stories, essays, and book reviews in 2024. You know, for kicks.

Much like that bitter old Ebenezer Scrooge, sometimes life gives us the opportunity to see what’s coming and avoid a lonely grave. Other times it keeps that hidden and we stumble into it entirely on accident. While there’s no true graveyard of dead work to be found here, a lot of what I have on this list comes pretty close.

Yes, friends, in the spirit of the Christmas season and the coming end of the year, I’ve decided to take a page from the books of a good many of you, frankly. I’ve seen quite a few posts of people looking back on their best or worst on Substack in 2024, and it’s made for some interesting insights into what the various writers I follow do and don’t like about their own work, or what their audiences did or didn’t engage with.

That being said, I will be doing things slightly differently. By that, I mean I’m going to capitalize on this opportunity by providing a list featuring both my best and my worst! Cheeky? Perhaps, but exploring these curious trends are all meant to be in good fun. So, without much further ado, shall we take a look back at the times I tried to run only to slip and fall flat on my face? I think we shall.

A shockingly accurate representation of how most of these entries turned out.

Before I fully dig into my worst of the year, I’d like to give caveat similar to the one

Eric Falden

gave when examining his best of the year last week. As he rightly pointed out, terms like “best” and “worst” have multiple ways in which they can be approached, ranging from low engagement to audience feedback to our own personal feelings on the work. As such, I’ll be looking at the worst through the following lenses:

- Worst performing fiction, essays, or book reviews based on likes, views, comments, and other interaction metrics.
- Worst of my work in terms of audience feedback.
- My personal least favorite piece of writing published this year.

Hopefully this will make discussing these works more interesting than mere coverage of likes, comments, and whatnot. Now then…

Least Interactions

Flutes, Nightingales, and a Youth's Revenge - Reviewing Eiji Yoshikawa's "Musashi"; Book II: Water
4 Likes. 0 Comments. 0 Restacks.
In all honesty, these metrics don’t surprise me. What surprises me is the very low margin by which the second part of my ongoing Musashi review took this prize - one like. I have a couple options that could’ve tied for this point if this had received just a single extra like on it, including the review of Book III: Fire.

However, the issue is visible right in the title - it’s the second part of an ongoing book review. Book reviews are already limited by the fact that if the book hasn’t yet been read or isn’t one that my audience is particularly interested in reading, then they’re not likely to engage with it. Couple that with my unusual approach for Musashi, which is reviewing each “book” within the novel as I finish it, (think acts of a play, that’s functionally what they are) and it’s of little shock to me that the reviews of anything past Book I are showing significantly lower engagement.

Nevertheless, I’ve been enjoying putting together my thoughts on this densely packed Japanese classic as I’ve been reading through it. As such, I have every intention of completing this multi-part review whether the engagement picks up or not.

Worst Performing Essay

Lord Vauthry, and the Insanity of Self Professed Innocence
It’s pretty well known at this point that in addition to my fiction writing, I enjoy a bit of musing about subjects related to it. This essay is one such musing, and it ended up being something of a dud with my readers. This isn’t because it’s poorly written or due to me screwing up some obvious details and getting things wrong. In fact, I’m quite pleased with how this essay came out and I think I presented my ideas within it quite well.

No, it’s not the quality of the work itself that hindered this essay, but the subject matter. Most of you who would read the name “Lord Vauthry” will have no idea who in the world I’m talking about. The reason is simple: most of you haven’t played the MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV. Take into account the fact that Vauthry isn’t a character from the base game, but rather a secondary villain from its third expansion, and that means the likelihood you’re going to be in the know about the character is even lower than it already would be.

In this case, my worst performing essay is a matter of something written largely for my own enjoyment performing about as well as I could reasonably expect it to. It’s a well written breakdown of a thoroughly engaging villain that gets thoroughly overshadowed by the primary villain of the Shadowbringers expansion. Considering that, it’s sort of darkly poetic that my essay about him became as forgotten as he did.

Least Impactful Book Review

"Vanity's Brood," House of Serpents Book III: Welcome to the Jungle

I love the House of Serpents books. I really do, and I made that pretty clear in my review of Lisa Smedman’s pulpy Forgotten Realms trilogy. But therein lies the problem, I love these books, but I’m one of a very small number of people who actually know and remember they even exist.

For those unawares, the Forgotten Realms books are stories set in the standardized D&D setting of, well, the Forgotten Realms. It’s the single largest and most used setting in the D&D property, to the point that almost any video game based on Dungeons & Dragons uses it. Yes, this includes all of the Baldur’s Gate games, right up to the still very popular third entry released by Larian Studios last year.

The library of Forgotten Realms books is incredibly expansive. There are hundreds of books written under this label, all covering various stories set in various regions following various groups. Unfortunately they’re of wildly varying quality as well, and very few of them end up being popular enough to garner wider attention. R. A. Salvatore’s stories about the drow ranger, Drizzt Do’Urden, are probably the single greatest exception in this regard.

When looking at the facts and taking into consideration that Vanity’s Brood is the final book in Lisa’s trilogy, this ends up being another case where the lack of reach is disappointing, but unsurprising. With single digit likes, one unrelated comment, and being tied at my lowest standing view count of the year, it’s very safe to say the interest simply was sadly, but understandably, not there.

Worst Performing Story

The Beasts of Boggart's Boneyard
6 Likes. 0 Comments. 1 Restack. (And that restack was my own, no less.)
I don’t particularly want to add this one to the list as it’s the entry that’s going to feel the most like I’m just whinging. Even so, I won’t lie. This one stings a bit.

Now it could be argued that it’s not exactly fair of me to throw “The Beasts of Boggart’s Boneyard” up here considering I only just uploaded this story this last Saturday. That means the opportunity is still very much there for me to see an improvement in its metrics, which would certainly please me. Still, it’s my list, and the numbers are what they are.

I don’t know why this story hasn’t taken off the way its predecessor, “Night of the Black Ships” has, but I’ve got some guesses. One of them is the story’s length. “The Beasts of Boggart’s Boneyard” is roughly 50% longer, which unfortunately means that I exceeded the email limit. Admittedly, I’ve never noticed that being a problem before. Every other time I saw that notification come up, it ultimately turned out that the story or article still ended up being sent out via email, too. This time around I didn’t see it show up in my own email the way others had, so perhaps that’s part of the reason? I’m not really sure.

In either case, I do hope the story does start seeing more traction. I had a great deal of fun writing this one and I think that reflects in the writing. If you were only to give a single entry on this entire list a look today, this is the one I’d ask you to. Desperate? Eh, perhaps, but worth a shot, no?

My Least Favorite of the Year

Wizard of the Coast Steps in it. Again.

Ah, yes. Wizards of the Coast. The producers of Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering. The once undisputed kings of the hobby gaming space.

What a load of bollocks.

Look, I won’t play games with you. I legitimately do think I did well with this article. I believe that my points were well reasoned, they were backed with supporting evidence that indicates a pattern which I’ve known to exist for years now, and this is further reflected in the positive reception this article received from my audience. In terms of engagement, this is one of my best.

And I hate that, because I hate writing about Wizards of the Coast. I hate the fact that situations like this need to be talked about. I hate the existence of the culture war, of DEI and ESG and all this other globalist bullshit that’s denigrating our cultures and driving us deeper and deeper into the realms of withering decadence. I never wanted to write this article, but for the reasons stated in its opening paragraph, I felt it was necessary.

Don’t get me wrong here, I’m thankful for the engagement that I got on this article. I’m glad that what I was saying clearly resonated with a good number of you, and I think we had some good discussions in the comments at that time. Yet I’d be a bald-faced liar if I said I was content to have written this. On the technical level I’m pleased with how well it turned out. Yet the more I think about it, the more I feel like Doc Holliday meeting Johnny Ringo.

In any case, with that all good and done with, Christmas will be here in a scant couple of days. So will Hanukah, as it happens. Regardless of whichever you celebrate, if you celebrate either of these holidays at all, I hope you have a lovely Christmas day and that the remainder of your 2024 is truly wonderful. I will be stepping away for the next few days to prepare for the holiday, spend time with family and friends, and all those good things. Expect to see me back come Saturday when I post my final story of the year, which will be the second part of The Jarl’s Son Chapter 11: “Rain in the Night.”

Until then, dear readers.

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