This reminds me of
an academic work in my college library by a Classicist professor, in the form of an immense and exhaustive history of the uses of a particular particle in Latin. Once he'd finished it the don wrote a rambling jeremiad of a preface in which he basically said "Why have I wasted twenty years of my life on this book? No-one's going to read it! I've thrown my prestigious tenure down the toilet!"

See also the law professor who published "Contract Law: Part I" in the firm and croissant-clenching belief that it was the finest work in the field and would revolutionise theory and practice within the profession. About a month later a colleague published an article in a law journal that methodically ripped "Contract Law: Part I" to shreds. There was no "Part II".
( .Yeti., Fri 25 Nov 2011, 12:18, 1 reply)

The second part seems par for the course, to be fair.
Simon Blackburn has written some wonderfully waspish reviews. This one, for example, is great: though it's possible that some of the details might mean more to philosophers than those outside the profession, phrases like "the Titanic hits its iceberg before leaving port, although, if one may abuse the metaphor, it hits plenty more before the end of the voyage" ought to leave noone in any doubt about what he thinks...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 25 Nov 2011, 12:39, closed)