History
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a [young woman] was given a book by her mother and told, "Hey daughter, you should check this out. I heard it's pretty good."
That book was Eragon.
The [young woman] excitedly dug into what she thought would be a fantastic adventure, filled with mystical objects and heroes of all kind, a book with a semblance of a plot and arranged coherently enough for one such as her to understand. But as each page drew on, her eyes only grew wider and wider, until at least she threw the book to the wall and cried out, in exasperation,
Who the fuck would publish this crap?
To her greater surprise, the crap spat out a sequel, Eldest, and suddenly she could no longer control herself. Using her state-of-the-art Pentium II computer, she opened up the internet. Here she found herself in the IMDb boards, with a space for the movie Eragon but in which mostly the books were being discussed due to the lack of a movie. She realized that most fans would immediately jump at her throat when she expressed her opinions. To her utter horror, the same could be said of other websites she went to, most of whom deleted her comments as soon as they were read.
She found a small group of like-minded people who later became her posse. Donning the name of Arget Hackslayer, in the fashion of the Inheritance series, and choosing the name Anti-Shur'tugal to parody the leading Inheritance site, she decided to take the plunge and cough up two dollars a month in order to get her own web domain.
And the rest, shall we say, is history...
Our Mission
Due to the nature of this site, we have been called everything under the sun--elitists, foaming madmen/women, morons, literary snobs, idiots, lesbians, losers, sick freaks with no time, middle-aged women who should take up knitting, etcetera. And we understand why--after all, the people who make these amusing comments feel that their interests are being 'threatened'.
Unfortunately, such is not our goal. As you may have read from our history, we started out because in the early days, before this site came up, we had no means by which to express our opinions on the Inheritance series. Amazon.com routinely deleted long-winded, negative essays, and most fansites available also chose to delete negative comments. IMDb.com remained the only place where we could say what we wanted, but even then, we were constantly forced to repeat our opinions over and over again for the sake of the fans who chose not to read our old comments.
As you see, we did not start out to 'destroy' Paolini's reputation, or ruin your favourite novel, or discourage young writers or act as if everything under the sun should be looked at with a microscopic eye. However, because our 'general' opinions were constantly tested and asked to be backed up, it resulted in this. A website full of exactly the same information that we were constantly harassed about. It saves us time, in the long run, and you have to admit, for geeks like us, writing essays about what we LOVE (writing) as opposed to what we're claimed to hate is really quite fun.
And that's really what it's all about. We like to discuss all aspects of writing. We may not be professional writers, but how else do you learn? We understand that some of the topics in the Anti-Shur'tugal forums might border on insulting or degrading, but you have to understand that these are merely people having fun. None of them, or us, are serious about actually going up to Paolini and shooting him in the head, God forbid.
Neither are we here to convert fans, which is where you (if you're a fan) come in. Please, feel free to contact us, to discuss writing with us in a civil and even carefree manner. Enjoy Paolini's work if you want to; the most we ask is that you don't attempt to tell us we're 'wrong', because that's usually the only time when it gets really ugly. If you're the rare fan who likes a debate, then you're welcome too. We're not here to torture little kids or rape little hamsters. We're here not here for the hate of Paolini--we're here for the love of writing, and hopefully you're one of those who can understand that.
