# Whats the worst you've ever read? Scifi/Fanstasy



## Mystery Man (Nov 12, 2004)

Harry Harrison's, Bill the Galactic Hero. Stupid characters, stupid use of satire, stupid writing. Just stupid. I couldn't finish it.  
What books have ever made you die a little inside after reading them?


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## ragboy (Nov 12, 2004)

Mystery Man said:
			
		

> Harry Harrison's, Bill the Galactic Hero. Stupid characters, stupid use of satire, stupid writing. Just stupid. I couldn't finish it.
> What books have ever made you die a little inside after reading them?



That Star Wars Bounty Hunter series... Can't remember the title of the first one. I started it a few weeks ago for some light entertainment and it ended up not jiving with my expectations. I mean, it's Star Wars, so you expect a lot of action, some quips, and some crazy Force stuff... Three-quarters of the book comprised people talking about what they were going to do over and over and over again. What a letdown! I've had that experience with a previous attempt at reading a Star Wars novelization... Is there a good, fast-paced one out there??... anyway, I went back to _Cryptonomicon_ for a second time...


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## Pielorinho (Nov 12, 2004)

For me it's a tie.  The first book in the tie is _The Stars, Like Dust_, by Isaac Asimov.  Never mind that the characters are one-dimensional, not even well-developed enough to rise to the level of cliche.  Asimov's not about the characters:  he's about the McGuffin, about the ideas.  And this book's central conceit is both so obvious and so stupid that I spent the entire book cringing, hoping against hope that it wouldn't be what I was afraid it'd be.

The second tie is gonna annoy some of ya:  I hated hated hated _Starship Troopers_.  I thought the description of battles was insanely dull, and that several of the characters were just crude mouthpieces for Heinlein's philosophies.  None of the characters were remotely interesting to me, and I've rad far better stories that follow the same plot (witness _Ender's Game_, a book with eerie similarities when you think about it).

Daniel


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## Storminator (Nov 12, 2004)

The first of Melanie Rawn's Exiles series. Absolutely god-awful. 


PS


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## Fast Learner (Nov 12, 2004)

Pielorinho said:
			
		

> several of the characters were just crude mouthpieces for Heinlein's philosophies



How much Heinlein have you read? In which stories _doesn't_ he do this? 

Also, I quite liked _Bill the Galactic Hero_.

I was really, really disappointed with Greg Bear's _Darwin's Radio_. I kept expecting something to either (a) happen, (b) be explained, or (c) end. No interesting science, philosophy, characters, or story.


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## barsoomcore (Nov 12, 2004)

I thought _Bill, The Galactic Hero_ was hilarious. It's a wacky world.

I hate most books, though. Certainly most fantasy. It's all so atrociously written. Elizabeth Moon, Robert Jordan, Storm Constantine, even the vaunted George Martin -- these people just aren't really skilled writers. Their prose is bad, or worse, dull. And they don't seem to have anything to say. At least Harry Harrison has something on his mind that his writing is an effort to communicate. He's never very subtle about it, but at least there's a reason to read it.

I prefer writers who A) have something to say, whether an axe to grind or an argument to make or a view of humanity to communicate; and B) can do so in exquisitely-crafted prose.

There's too many GREAT writers to bother about the OKAY ones.

Books I have given up on:

_Perdido Street Station
Game of Thrones
Pattern Recognition
The Darkness That Comes Before_

Books I wish I'd given up on:
_The Deed of Paksenarrion_ -arrrrgggghhhh!!!! How does crap like this even get published?
_Whatever the first Robert Jordan book was called_ -- obviously people are getting something out of this sort of thing. It's not literary appreciation, but it must be something.

Sorry, I'll stop ranting now.


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## barsoomcore (Nov 12, 2004)

And I should point out that none of that stuff is by any means the WORST I've ever read. I mean, the vast majority of anything is crap (see Sturgeon), and so of course there's WORSE stuff floating around.

Thankfully I seem to have put most of what I might have read out of my mind.

But there lurks a dark, nameless thing in my cranium that craves the blood of R.A. Salvatore.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Nov 12, 2004)

ragboy said:
			
		

> That Star Wars Bounty Hunter series... Can't remember the title of the first one. I started it a few weeks ago for some light entertainment and it ended up not jiving with my expectations. I mean, it's Star Wars, so you expect a lot of action, some quips, and some crazy Force stuff... Three-quarters of the book comprised people talking about what they were going to do over and over and over again. What a letdown! I've had that experience with a previous attempt at reading a Star Wars novelization... Is there a good, fast-paced one out there??




Thrawn Trilogy...X-Wing novels...some of the NJO books...

But really, the Bounty Hunter series was horrible. There were two that were worse though...first, the Glove of Darth Vader. Ugh. Pain. And then there's the Black Fleet Crisis. I had to force myself to finish it just hoping that maybe something interesting might happen. Nothing did.


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## takyris (Nov 12, 2004)

I hit _Bill the Galactic Hero_ at too tender an age, I thought -- I was a kid, and thought it was going to be, y'know, actually about a galactic hero.  So I didn't get it, but assume I'd like it more now.

Not sure I can actually say what the *worst* thing I've read is -- and I'm not even sure how to judge which ones I disliked personally the most.  If I give up laughingly on a book, is that worse than getting all the way through only to throw the book across the room?

Recognizing that this is all opinion, my short list o' dislikes includes:

_Perdido Street Station_ -- I could get all deep and philosophical about it, it boils down to a few salient points:

1. I have enough ideas of my own that reading a book whose main selling point is having a ton of ideas doesn't impress me all by itself. I believe that said plethora of ideas overwhelmed the editors and made them leave everything he wrote in there, even the stuff that made no sense, belonged in a different story, or was just stupid.

2. I found the voice pretentious.  If you're going to impress me with your voice (instead of trying to make me forget them I'm reading a story at all, maintaining such a transparent voice that you feel like you're watching a movie or something), you're going to have to do more than sling a lot of big words out there.  While reading the novel, I felt like that's what Mieville was doing.  Doesn't mean I was right -- just means that I felt that way.

3. The fundamental unpleasantness of everyone and everything in the story.  As I said in another thread -- when I come home after work, I have about twenty minutes before my wife gets home, and then we're dealing with bills and finances and stuff.  I want those 20 minutes to be fun, and while I'm fine with unpleasant stuff happening for specific plot-necessary reasons (I love murder mysteries, for example), I read through the entirety of this book and never got past the feeling that Mieville was acting like an eight-year old impressed with his ability to say naughty words and do unpleasant things to his characters.

Not that it didn't have ideas.  Not that he doesn't have a very distinct style.  Not that it isn't different from Tolkien.  Please note: Not saying any of that.  But for the reasons listed above, it didn't do it for me.

_Rhapsody_ -- Elizabeth Hayden's fantasy novel had an interesting idea, but I read through this entire novel feeling as though everything was too much of a power-fantasy cliche.  She's the most beautiful woman in the world, but never realizes it.  He's the strongest dude in the world.  He's the best warrior in the world.  And, for whatever reason, she never sold me on it, like other authors have.  It was too simplistic and read like... well, alright, to be blunt, it read like a teenage girl writing fan-fiction about her favorite MMORPG.

_That Wayfarer Sara Douglass Thing_ -- I posted here about this, but this one was frustrating not because it was uniformly bad, but because it had so much potential and kept thudding relentlessly to the ground just as it was about to take off.  Sara Douglass can create beautiful, breathtaking images that make my eyes fill with tears -- but every one of her characters is led through the novel by more powerful people who want to make sure that the characters fulfill the prophecy, and it's so heavy-handed that it strips all the passion from the novel.  Which is bad, since passion is what the first book, at least, was built on.

_Wizard's First Rule_ -- I've also posted about this one several times.  I hated this book, and finished it solely so that I could say "Yes, I read all the way to the end" when talking to fans who disagree with me.  My reasons:

1. The last third of the book (the Terry Goodkind Bondage Hour Special), which, above and beyond the unpleasantness and style clash, was just *stupid* -- evil women who use foot-long leather rods with knobs on the end?  Um, Terry, is there any hidden subtext you're trying to get across here?

2.  Laziness.  I'm fine with authors who buck epic-style and go for colloquial conversation, and I'm fine with authors who go full-epic and just write "Archetype" on their character's forehead.  But you can't do both.  You can't have colloquial style unless you actually have characters, and he just goes right to people bantering and such without ever giving us actual characters to base this stuff on.

3. Insulting portrayal of the female lead. If you're going to give me a female lead who weeps and whines her way through the entire novel, just own it, man.  Don't write explanatory dialogue like, "I'm usually so strong, and lately, it feels like all I do is cry."  That's not fixing it.  That's telling me, the reader, that you, the author, have lost control of your own book, and that your supposedly strong female lead has turned out to be a codependent weeping lump on the page.

4. The fundamental badness of the sword and the fight scenes.  If you make one of the two biggest artifacts in the novel a sword, you might wanna actually let him use it in, I don't know, a fight scene.  Against another guy with a sword.  Instead, the sword never becomes anything more than a symbol, which would be great if other people in the novel were doing exciting things.  Instead, it's like Goodkind read David Eddings and thought "I'll do dialogue like him" and read Terry Brooks and thought "I'll have my sword be symbolic, like him" and never figured out that those guys, while they have their own issues, were doing other things in their work as well, other good stuff that made this stuff work.

(I know, he uses the sword in one or two fight scenes -- but they're horribly described.  And just from my memory, I can't recall, but does he ever actually describe the sword in the first book?  Or is he too deep and symbolic to tell us if we're dealing with a rapier, machete, or claymore?)

Of all those, Goodkind wins for me as Worst Overall, Mieville wins as Most Overrated, and Douglass wins as Most Frustrating Because it Could Have Been Good.  Hayden just gets the Mediocre But Not Wholly Atrocious Enough to Really Laugh At award, such as it is.


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## Cthulhudrew (Nov 13, 2004)

Mystery Man said:
			
		

> Harry Harrison's, Bill the Galactic Hero. Stupid characters, stupid use of satire, stupid writing. Just stupid. I couldn't finish it.
> What books have ever made you die a little inside after reading them?




I'd second that Bill, Galactic Hero. Didn't get more than a chapter or two in it before I set it down.

Another one would be one of those Castles books by John DeChancie (the first one, can't recall the name.) The characters were boring and lifeless, the humor not funny, there was no rhyme or reason to the powers each of the characters got in the Castle- just that they were the most convenient powers for them to solve their dilemma. How fortunate.

Other books... hm. The Amber prequels- "Dawn of Amber" and "Chaos and Amber". I read the second one, hoping that maybe, just maybe, it would be better than the first. The main character, Oberon, is just not anything like the Oberon in the Zelazny books- I realize its been several thousand years, but there should at least be some echoes of the man he is to become. He is just not compelling at all- he has no real "voice" of his own (not like Corwin and Merlin), and he spends way too much time in the first book crying "like a little girl"- not that there's anything wrong with crying, but this is the legendary Oberon, for pete's sake! It seems so vastly out of character for him. I wouldn't even mind it, if there were a compelling reason for him to do so (something truly tragic), but nope. Nothing. His brothers and sisters are ciphers- just a random assortment of names, nothing interesting about them at all- not like the other Amberites of Zelazny's books. And some of the cosmology of the stories is wonky and doesn't quite fit with the "original" Zelazny versions.

Bleh.


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## Cthulhudrew (Nov 13, 2004)

One more that I just thought of- Timeline. Terrible story, with terrible characters. The absolute worst part of it is that the entire story is based on a premise that the story itself invalidates as a possibility within the first couple of chapters. I love some of Crichton's work (Jurassic Park, Rising Sun, Disclosure, Airframe), but he really dropped the ball on this one.


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## Lazybones (Nov 13, 2004)

Ha! I was thinking about the topic while waiting for the page to load, and takyris hit my yuck-champions. I totally agree on _Rhapsody_, Sara Douglass, and Terry Goodkind's WFR. I'd also add _Kushiel's Dart_, which admittedly I could not finish.

Also, Eddings's _The Redemption of Althalus_ was just plain _bad_. It was a carbon copy, at least in terms of tone, of his earlier books, but it just lacked the same spark.  My first Eddings book was _Belgarion the Sorcerer_, which I enjoyed, so it's not like it's just his style that puts me off.  RoA was the same book, only less.


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## Starman (Nov 13, 2004)

Lazybones said:
			
		

> Also, Eddings's _The Redemption of Althalus_ was just plain _bad_. It was a carbon copy, at least in terms of tone, of his earlier books, but it just lacked the same spark.  My first Eddings book was _Belgarion the Sorcerer_, which I enjoyed, so it's not like it's just his style that puts me off.  RoA was the same book, only less.




This was also the first thing I thought of when I saw the thread title. I try not to put a book down without finishing it and it was very painful with this book. I'm not sure I've ever read another book where the antagonists were so painfully stupid and pathetic. The protagonists just breezed through the whole story with nary a challenge. Just plain horrible.

Starman


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## mhacdebhandia (Nov 13, 2004)

Robert Jordan's _Wheel of Time_ series - I haven't actually completed even a chapter of one of his novels, for the simplest of reasons: I don't read writers who can't write in good, atmospheric English, and I've rarely encountered a more widely-read and less-capable writer of prose than Jordan.

Even Tolkien, whose raw skills as a writer of English I frequently disparage, is more palatable than Jordan.


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## Tarrasque Wrangler (Nov 13, 2004)

I've started reading a lot of books that I regret not finishing.  But the only book I regret STARTING was "Lord Foul's Bane" by Stephen Donaldson.  Thomas Covenant is the most reprehensible lame-o piece of crap main character I've ever had the misfortune of reading about.  There's a line between "complex anti-hero" and "protagonist whose face you want to liberally apply a Louisville Slugger to", and it's not a fine one.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Nov 13, 2004)

Edding's 'The Belgariad'
Anything by Kevin Anderson
Any Dune past 'Messiah'


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## CCamfield (Nov 13, 2004)

I've probably blotted out the very worst, and I screen out a lot of junk (I think) but I did read Dawnthief, by James Barclay, when I was on a real "fantasy mercenaries" kick, and thought it was atrocious.  Indistinguisable characters, ... aaaaugh, just bad.


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## James Heard (Nov 13, 2004)

Everything by L Ron Hubbard and I forget what the name of the series was, but Lawrence Watt-Evans - a guy I normally like very much in a fluffy way - wrote a series a long time ago that I truly, deeply regret reading all the way through.


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## Filby (Nov 13, 2004)

Tarrasque Wrangler said:
			
		

> I've started reading a lot of books that I regret not finishing.  But the only book I regret STARTING was "Lord Foul's Bane" by Stephen Donaldson.  Thomas Covenant is the most reprehensible lame-o piece of crap main character I've ever had the misfortune of reading about.  There's a line between "complex anti-hero" and "protagonist whose face you want to liberally apply a Louisville Slugger to", and it's not a fine one.




I second that. I loathed Thomas Covenant. He was a reprehensible person. I only got about six chapters into the story before giving up. I just didn't get it. He finds himself transported to a magical land, miraculously cured of his leprosy, and his first impulse is to rape an innocent young woman?! I must have missed something.

The worst sci-fi novel I ever read from beginning to end, though, was _Mostly Harmless_ by Douglas Adams, the fifth and last book in the "increasingly innappropriately named Hitchhiker's Trilogy". It was like Adams was saying, "Here's your effing sequel, I hope you choke on it!" I finished it in despair for the utter loss of everything that had made the other books great.


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## Barendd Nobeard (Nov 13, 2004)

Filby said:
			
		

> I second that. I loathed Thomas Covenant. He was a reprehensible person. I only got about six chapters into the story before giving up. I just didn't get it. He finds himself transported to a magical land, miraculously cured of his leprosy, and his first impulse is to rape an innocent young woman?! I must have missed something.



And I third it.  Read 250 pages and then put it down.



			
				Filby said:
			
		

> The worst sci-fi novel I ever read from beginning to end, though,



Hmmmm, for book I actually finished....I don't know....there are so many bad ones.  Any novelization of a movie (Susannah Sparrow's *Dawn of the Dead*) or lame book that just made an even worse movie (Stephen King's *Cujo*).  Crappy sequels (*Dragonsong*, *Dragonsinger*, *Dragondrums* in Anne McCaffery _Pern_ series).

Maybe Herbert's second Dune book (*Dune Messiah*?).  I still don't believe it was written by the same person who wrote *Dune*.

The last book (well, most recent; more are planned) in Orson Scott Card's "Alvin Maker" series, *Heartfire*.  The first one (*Seventh Son*) was so good.  Each successive novel slowly got worse.  But *Heartfire*--ugh.  If I graded them, they'd go:  A, B, C, D, and not F, but 0 (zero).  Well, maybe a 1 out of 100 since it was made of paper.

OK, Herbert's *Dune Messiah* wins.  The Card book is a 4th sequel, so it's to be expected.  But, the first sequel?  To be that bad--to be that unlike the first one in level of talent and writing?  Sorry, Frank, you win my "worst ever" award.


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## Hypersmurf (Nov 13, 2004)

CCamfield said:
			
		

> I've probably blotted out the very worst, and I screen out a lot of junk (I think) but I did read Dawnthief, by James Barclay, when I was on a real "fantasy mercenaries" kick, and thought it was atrocious.  Indistinguisable characters, ... aaaaugh, just bad.




It _is_ atrocious... and yet, for some reason, I read it twice, and actually really enjoyed it second time through.

The writing didn't improve, but it was sorta fun, somehow 

It's quite like a transcript of a RPG campaign, in some ways.  I read them more like that than as a novel, and it made it cooler 

To the point that I paid money for the sequels 

-Hyp.


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## Filby (Nov 13, 2004)

Hypersmurf said:
			
		

> It's quite like a transcript of a RPG campaign, in some ways.




Oh, yeah. That reminds me, I forgot _Shadowdale_. Gah.


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## Pants (Nov 13, 2004)

My Worst (in no particular order):
1. _Crossroads of Twilight_ by Robert Jordan - Wins the 'Most Useless Book in a Series Award,' in that it really didn't further the plot at all.  In fact, the first HALF of the book is spent retreading the last day and a half (about) of tha last book.  When a whole chapter is used to describe a woman taking a bath without giving any nice, juvenile, sexual descriptions, then the book has more than jumped the shark, it jumped eight sharks and killed Hitler with a garbanzo bean.

2. _Redemption of Athalus_ by David Eddings - I like Eddings despite his problems.  His villains are worthless, his heroes perfect, and the plots simplistic, but he usually writes some good, fun stories.  Not so with Redemption of Athalus which manages to make villains even more worthless than usual who are getting the crap kicked out of them by a bunch of cardboard, super heroes.  Flush it, it sucks.

3. _A Sword of Truth_ books by Terry Goodkind - Poor characterization, poor writing, boring, poor plot, pretty much poor everything.

Most Overrated Books:
1. _Dune_ by Frank Herbert - Yeah, I can see how everyone and their dog loves this book, but it honestly didn't do a damn thing for me.  I've tried to read it at least twice, but I usually only get about halfway through before I get bored and put it down for something else.

2. _Deadhouse Gates_ by Steven Erikson - A pretty good book actually, with some fairly solid writing and characterization, but it's overly philosophical and Erikson REALLY tries to write in a poetic, prosaic style that occasionally hits the mark, but usually ends up falling flat or sounding very awkward and _very_ stilted.  

3. _The Dark Tower_ books by Stephen King - Great ideas contained herein, although marred with usually poor execution.  Let me say that, overall, I am not a King fan.  His dialogue usually sounds stilted, he's very verbose when brevity would work better, and he seems to really stray off on tangents.  The Dark Tower suffers occasionally from this, but really, the biggest problems I have with these books is that the characters do very little for me (aside from Roland, I dislike the rest) and the fact that the series seems VERY aimless at points, as if King had no idea of what was going to happen beyond the next few pages.


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## Cthulhudrew (Nov 13, 2004)

Filby said:
			
		

> The worst sci-fi novel I ever read from beginning to end, though, was _Mostly Harmless_ by Douglas Adams, the fifth and last book in the "increasingly innappropriately named Hitchhiker's Trilogy". It was like Adams was saying, "Here's your effing sequel, I hope you choke on it!" I finished it in despair for the utter loss of everything that had made the other books great.




It was pretty bad. It did have one great moment, though (possibly one of the best in the series). When Ford is being hunted in the Hitchhiker's Offices by killer robots, and he stops and looks at them disparagingly and says, "Hey..." and then proceeds to jump out the window. For some reason, the visual I get of that moment, of him about to chastise the robots and then rabbiting, just cracks me up.


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## The Other Librarian (Nov 13, 2004)

Pants said:
			
		

> 3. _The Dark Tower_ books by Stephen King -
> 
> <snip>
> 
> the fact that the series seems VERY aimless at points, as if King had no idea of what was going to happen beyond the next few pages.



 I think this is symptomatic of King's writing process.  From what I know about his methods, he is not someone who plots out or outlines his novels, so your assumption is largely correct.  

 FWIW, I really like King as a writer of characters.  His characters usually strike me as quite believable, and good characters will hold my attention even if the plot is wobbly.  

 Dark Tower covers a lot of ground, and I've enjoyed some books more than others, but none made it close to "worst ever".  That honor has to go to... oh I dunno, what was that Darth Maul novel called?  I tend to agree with Barsoomcore and Mr. Sturgeon; 90% of all fantasy and sci-fi is crap.  But that goes for all genres.  I thought the DaVinci Code was pretty useless as a novel, especially given the premise and material he Dan Brown drew on.


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## Sado (Nov 13, 2004)

_The Jackal of Nar _ by Jon Marco and its sequels. This was a lousy series that tried to be both heroic saga and military fantasy and failed at both. I can't believe I read the whole trilogy, but I hate not finishing something.

The writing style is clumsy and disjointed. It also feels railroaded, as if he wrote it backwards, starting with a specific ending and forcing every plot turn to lead toward it, no matter how illogical.

The actions, thoughts, and reactions of most characters are simplistic, inappropriate, and at times a bit irrational.  I can't imagine real people having the reactions some of his characters did.  At times it seemed like a kid trying to write a grown-up novel.

It is obvious that the characters are all stereotypes (the noble warrior lord, the silent mysterious foreign sidekick, the beautiful princess in distress, the devious scheming enemy leader and his ruthless general, etc), which is not a problem in and of itself, but these were all taken to the extreme and turned into almost ridiculous caricatures of these archtypes.  

In addition, in the battle scenes the armies seem incredibly small.  Most of the "grand" battles had no more than a few hundred men. Richius held the Dring Valley for years with 200 men. I believe the largest force assembled at one time was the Imperial Legion with 1000 men.


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## Fast Learner (Nov 13, 2004)

I'd managed to blot _The DaVinci Code_ from my mind. Man, talk about poor writing. It really stunned me that it became so popular. That dude just can not write.


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## Mystery Man (Nov 13, 2004)

This is almost to embarassing to admit openly.

Phule's Paradise left me wondering why I read it all the way through.


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## Villano (Nov 13, 2004)

Off-hand I can think of (in no particular order):

*The Howling* , by Gary Brander.   Thankfully nothing from the novel made it into the movie.  Actually, if you want to see a faithful adaption of this book, rent Howling IV: The Original Nightmare.  It should have been called Howling IV: Y'know Howling II And III Really Weren't That Bad In Retrospect.   

*Red Sonja: The Ring of Ikribu* and *Red Sonja: Demon Night*, the first two Red Sonja novels, by David C. Smith & Richard L. Tierney.  Thrill as Sonja sits and does nothing for the last half of the stories!   Be amazed as the villains are killed by supporting characters!  Throw down the books in disgust as Sonja saves absolutely no one from anything!

*The Bride Of Frankenstein*, by Carl Dreadstone.  A pretty terrible adaption of the movie, written in the '70s.  I got it at a used book store for a dime and still felt ripped off.

*The Devil's Brood*, by David Jacobs.  Some time ago, Universal decided to try to revived their classic monster line in novel form.  First was the excellent Return Of The Wolfman, by Jeff Rovin.  I gave up on this book, however, in 24 pages.   

*Moon Dance*, by S.P. Somtow.  The concept of Eastern European werewolves conflicting with Native American werewolves in pre or post Civil War America sounded pretty cool.  I never could actually bring myself to finish it.


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## Fast Learner (Nov 13, 2004)

I quite liked _Moon Dance_. Somtow has a certain style that, admittedly, if you dig it then you dig it, and if you don't then you don't.


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## Kesh (Nov 13, 2004)

Villano said:
			
		

> *Moon Dance*, by S.P. Somtow.  The concept of Eastern European werewolves conflicting with Native American werewolves in pre or post Civil War America sounded pretty cool.  I never could actually bring myself to finish it.




I finished it. The ending was laughably predictable.



Spoiler



The female protagonist becomes a werewolf, and takes control of the packs. ie., Queen of the Werewolves.



There were some nice visual moments, including a few disturbing ones, but overall I thought the characters were pretty silly. As was the plot.


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## Doc_Klueless (Nov 14, 2004)

Pick a _Gor_ book. Any of them. Ick.


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## velm (Nov 14, 2004)

For my 'horrible' list, anything by Ed Greenwood.  I found just about ALL of his FR stuff to be a chore to finish.  I think I from after a certain point, whenever I saw his name on the cover, I just left it there.  
I was never able to get into the stories he did.  They just seemed so dry.
Other than Ed, I am unable to think of a any other bad books.  I have not gotten any books in years due to seeing the high prices of something I am probably only going to use once.  
But I have skimmed thru a few books at our local library, and I try to take ones that seem interesting, and have been lucky so far.


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## Orius (Nov 14, 2004)

It looks like everyone forgot to mention Rose Estes' godawful Greyhawk books, so I'll at that to the discussion. Though I really shouldn't be surprised because those books were largly forgettable junk writing to begin with. Maybe I'll have to pick up the Gord books to see what Greyhawk is really supposed to be like.

 Crossraods of Twilight was pretty bad too, and I still like the WoT. Too much focus on that twit Elayne, whom I hate; I could have lived without an hour-long description of her taking a bath. Nothing is resolved with Perrin's plot. The Forsaken do nothing. Then there's that argument Rand has with Logain, the worst part there, is he jumps right into the middle of that scene! I'd been waiting a while for the two to meet, and Jordan blew it.

 And Eddings can wallow in mediocrity a lot. I haven't read his latest one, and it looks like I haven't missed anything. Which is really a shame, because he is capable of good writing when he isn't padding his books. I thought he started the Belgariad out fairly well, and the Elenium is pretty good if you skip the filler.


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## David Howery (Nov 14, 2004)

I almost hate to say it on a D&D fan site, but 80% of the D&D related novels are nothing but crap crap crap.  Estes' GH novels were the worst of the lot, but she has plenty of company.....


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Nov 14, 2004)

David Howery said:
			
		

> I almost hate to say it on a D&D fan site, but 80% of the D&D related novels are nothing but crap crap crap.  Estes' GH novels were the worst of the lot, but she has plenty of company.....



 Worry not about that, for many of us agree with you. Me being one of them. Pain those books are. Lots of pain.


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## OregonGM (Nov 14, 2004)

> Maybe I'll have to pick up the Gord books to see what Greyhawk is really supposed to be like.




No, don't.  Gygax's novels read like term papers and will make you pine for something less dry, needlessly verbose, and self-important, like a Dune novel.


Curse you, I had Estes blocked out completely and now I'm back to the fetal position.


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## billd91 (Nov 14, 2004)

I don't think I'd rate the Thomas Covenant books as really bad from a quality point of view. I hated _Lord Foul's Bane_ just the same as many of you because the protagonist was so annoying. The writing had potential though. 

I couldn't get more than 1 or 2 chapters into the Paul Kidd Greyhawk books. He's the guy responsible for the Justicar books, right? Bad. Really bad. 

I also hated the first book in some pseudo-Celts-in-space book by Patricia Kineally. It was like watching stereotypics dance before my eyes, it was that bad.


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## Pants (Nov 14, 2004)

The Other Librarian said:
			
		

> Dark Tower covers a lot of ground, and I've enjoyed some books more than others, but none made it close to "worst ever".



I actually gave it the honor of being highly overrated, which is in the same category as _Deadhouse Gates_, a book that I enjoyed.


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## cignus_pfaccari (Nov 14, 2004)

The worst book that I actually finished:

_The Dreamthief's Daughter_, by Michael Moorcock.  It's okay for a while, and then it starts to go downhill, fast.  It's, in fact, insipid towards the end.  I used to like Moorcock, to the point I was going to try and bring back my Von Bek omnibus with me at Christmas.  Now, no.

Craptastic books that I just couldn't finish:

_Grunts!_ by Mary Gentle.  There's apparently a dividing line between satire and stupidity, and this crossed it.  I made it about 100 pages before returning it to the friend I borrowed it from, with invective about how could he possibly like that.  I liked the Book of Ash, but sheesh!

_Wizard's First Rule_, by Terry Goodkind.  Other people have described its horrors, so I won't go into detail.

Whatever the first book of David Eddings' Belgariad was.  Some people on my floor freshman year thought that it was great, loads better than WoT, and was witty and whatnot.  I think I quit about the time what's-his-face meets whoever killed his parents and the "wise chick" tells him to torture them to death or something.  The "wit" was painfully bad.

_Angels & Demons_, by Dan Brown.  I like the genre this book's in.  However, let me describe what happened when I started reading it:
_(open book)  "(So-and-so) woke up.  He'd just had the best sex of his life with a prostitute."  (fling)_  How he can be a best-seller is completely beyond me.  This is the only book I've ever wanted to turn in for a refund.  I trashed it instead.

_Freedom & Necessity_, by Steven Brust & Emma Bull.  I liked the Jhereg books, and I heard good things about Emma Bull, so a collaboration should be okay, right?  Wrong.  Writing a book as a series of letters, postbills, and other such stuff is a poor choice.

I never actually cracked any of the "Celts in Spaaaaace!" books (the Keltiad, I believe...), but the author put a short story in a Knights Templar short story collection that a friend gave me, and the description of the "warm, buttery air" in the first paragraph made me skip to the next story.  (shudder)

Brad


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## Brakkart (Nov 14, 2004)

Doc_Klueless said:
			
		

> Pick a _Gor_ book. Any of them. Ick.




Definately can agree with you on that one with regards to the dialog, page after page of He said, she said, he said, she said.

Can't agree though with regards to the world that is detailed in them, which is very rich and interesting. Norman would be better off writing sourcebooks or travel guides to his world, not novels.

And who mentioned Rose Este's Greyhawk novels? I mean even in a thread about worst novels we've read there are some standards that should be adhered to right? Those are just too awful to mention.


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## Mouseferatu (Nov 14, 2004)

billd91 said:
			
		

> I couldn't get more than 1 or 2 chapters into the Paul Kidd Greyhawk books. He's the guy responsible for the Justicar books, right? Bad. Really bad.




*blink*

Wow. Talk about differences in taste. I thought Kidd's books were some of the best D&D-related novels I've ever read--and I've read multiple dozens of them. No, they aren't high art, but they're a lot of fun, and very enjoyable reads.

Really enjoyed most of Eddings' stuff as well; despite the fact that he's a very poor plotter, I find his writing fun to read.

I will, however, agree with everything people have said about Thomas Covenant and Rose Estes. *shudder*

I've enjoyed the first few chapters of _Wizards First Rule_, but it's slipping fast. I've reached the first few chapters that focus on the villains, rather than the heroes, and they're just awfully written. These aren't villains, they're cartoons. :\


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## Hypersmurf (Nov 14, 2004)

cignus_pfaccari said:
			
		

> _Grunts!_ by Mary Gentle.




Grunts! is a bad book, with a few fabulously quotable lines 



> Freedom & Necessity[/i], by Steven Brust & Emma Bull.  I liked the Jhereg books, and I heard good things about Emma Bull, so a collaboration should be okay, right?  Wrong.  Writing a book as a series of letters, postbills, and other such stuff is a poor choice.




I _adore_ Freedom and Necessity.  It's one I've reread a few times.

-Hyp.


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## Deaths_Fist (Nov 14, 2004)

I couldn't stand <i>The Catcher in the Rye</i>.  Why do they teach this crap in school?


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## Fast Learner (Nov 14, 2004)

You just weren't sufficiently disaffected.


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## Yuan-Ti (Nov 14, 2004)

Going back nearly 2 decades... Dennis McKiernan wrote a trilogy about these little people who go on a quest to save their world from an evil overlord who lives in a volcano and sends out bands of orcish creatures to conquer the world. Along the way they form a fellowship with heroes from other races in the world, including elves and dwarves and, IIRC, travel beneath a mountain in an ancient dwarven city, now controlled by orcish creatures, and so on ad nauseam... I think what really struck me as interesting about the series was how, at the end of the trilogy (I couldn't not finish books back then) these little people, having saved the world, return home to their village and have to defeat some thugs who have taken over in their absence. Gee, I don't think there could have been a more original ending ever invented for a fantasy series. 

As a reviewer at Amazon said of this series: "It starts of in the land of the small, quiet people and the quest is for the bad sorcerer/overlord to be overthrown forever. The hero from the small, quiet people will have as his companions an uncrowned king of men, a warrior-elf, and a mighty dwarf. They will be forced to travel through an ancient dwarven kingdom under a mountain range that has become the haunt of the demonic creature....the final battle is not so much a forlorn hope as it is a diversion..."
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...f=sr_1_3/102-2301772-9303367?v=glance&s=books


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## Pozatronic (Nov 14, 2004)

cignus_pfaccari said:
			
		

> ... "warm, buttery air" in the first paragraph made me skip to the next story.  (shudder)







It's not the heat, it's the butter.


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## Mouseferatu (Nov 14, 2004)

Yuan-Ti said:
			
		

> Going back nearly 2 decades... Dennis McKiernan wrote a trilogy...[/url]




_The Iron Tower_, I think it was called.

Not only was it utterly unoriginal, it was _bad_. The writing, the characters, the 0.087% of the plot that wasn't Tolkien's, were all utter crap.

And yet, McKiernan is reportedly fanatical about refusing to let anyone use his material for RPGs or anything else. As if he had anything original, or of the slightest quality, to protect...


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## Pozatronic (Nov 14, 2004)

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> _The Iron Tower_, I think it was called.
> 
> Not only was it utterly unoriginal, it was _bad_. The writing, the characters, the 0.087% of the plot that wasn't Tolkien's, were all utter crap.
> 
> And yet, McKiernan is reportedly fanatical about refusing to let anyone use his material for RPGs or anything else. As if he had anything original, or of the slightest quality, to protect...





Yeah. Before I realized that he sucked so hard, I got one of his paperbacks at a used book store. It was part one of a two parter. The story is this...some dwarves want to go back to the Moria rip off (whatever he called it) and kill all the orcs and goblins and whatnot inside and make it safe for dwarves again. In the opening of the book he even say's he wanted this to be a continuation to LotR, but that he couldn't get the license to do it, so he had to make up a back story...Do you see what I'm saying here...He admits to ripping off Tolkien. Balls of Steel I tell you.


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## Wombat (Nov 14, 2004)

My goodness there are so many to choose from...

_Firebrand _ by MZ Bradley has a special place in my heart as the first book I ever hurled violently across a room, and that was by page 12, but since I never finished reading it, it would be difficult to say what the full impact (other than on the other chair) would have been like.

_Beggars in Spain _ -- highly recommended, absolutely atrocious and utterly unbelievable.  I disliked the characters, the plot was well beyond contrived, and the world made no sense whatsoever.  

_Lord Foul's Bane _ -- many people have commented so far about Thomas Covenant himself (one of the single most pointlessly vile characters in all of creation), but on top of this The Land itself was so insipid and _boring _ that I was willing to let Lord Foul have it and bad luck on him for having to digest it.  

...how many others...

Nah, that's more than good enough.


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## Andre (Nov 14, 2004)

These aren't the worst I've ever read, but they're pretty bad:

Anne McCaffrey's _Freedom_ series. The first book was mediocre, the others terrible.

The entire _Butlerian Jihad_ trilogy. Boring characters. Re-wrote much of the Dune history (not for the better). Books were so bloated, an editor could cut half the pages from each and still not get all the unnecessary stuff out.

Robert Asprin's _Time Scout_ books.


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## RangerWickett (Nov 14, 2004)

I've read a few romance novels with fantasy or sci-fi backdrops.  These should not be in the sci-fi section of the book store.

Oh, and I didn't like Mists of Avalon.  Not enough happened, plot-wise or character-wise, for it to be as long as it was.  It wasn't terrible, but it was overlong, and there was too much scheming, and too little actual conflict.  Also, it felt at times like the late Ms. Lackey wrote it just to say how much she disliked Christianity, because apparently the religion hates women.


One day, I decided I would pick a random book from the sci-fi section, and read it, just to see what a random novel is like.  Y'know, something not D&D or Star Trek, which were what I was mostly reading at the time.  So I end up reading 'StarDoc,' a novel about a doctor, obviously based on the author (author: C.J. Veihl, character: Cheri-Jo Grayveil), who goes to a remote planet/colony to do medicine for aliens.  She falls in love with an alien, and some drama happens in the last few chapters.

I wasn't bad, but it didn't feel like a novel, because there wasn't an overriding conflict that stayed throughout the story.  Oh, and it was 'part one of a trilogy.'

I swear, I will never write a trilogy.


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## LostSoul (Nov 14, 2004)

Deaths_Fist said:
			
		

> I couldn't stand <i>The Catcher in the Rye</i>.  Why do they teach this crap in school?




You didn't like that?  I thought it was great, even if the protagonist was crazy.

I'd probably have to say some of those Dragonlance trilogy books.  The first ones.


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## Hypersmurf (Nov 14, 2004)

RangerWickett said:
			
		

> Oh, and I didn't like Mists of Avalon.  Not enough happened, plot-wise or character-wise, for it to be as long as it was.  It wasn't terrible, but it was overlong, and there was too much scheming, and too little actual conflict.  Also, it felt at times like the late Ms. Lackey wrote it just to say how much she disliked Christianity, because apparently the religion hates women.




[coughMarionZimmerBradleycough]

-Hyp.


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## Dakkareth (Nov 14, 2004)

I'm quite good at forgetting books/movies I find awful and blank out parts that bog down an otherwise good story. In fact I can't think of any name right now, though I know there have been some, and I'm not sure, whether this is a good thing or not. Of course it may just be, that it is a little late ...

Mmmhh, seems there's little point to this post.


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## Taren Seeker (Nov 14, 2004)

Piers Anthony...pretty much all of it cept maybe the first one.

When I read them as an impressionable youth I didn't realize just how _creepy_ they were, and not in a good way.

Edit: Gurgh, I have to add as proof: Bio of a Space Tyrant, where one of the biggest plot arcs of the series was whether or not he had sex with his sister...oh yeah then there was that one woman who liked being raped...yeah.


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## swordsmasher (Nov 15, 2004)

I am really shocked no one has mentioned the two novels that were sequels to the movie Willow.

The movie was cool, but the sequels sucked.

I read the first book (I forget the names), and it was terrible from page 1 on. You can totally tell George Lucas basically signed the project over to Chris Claremont, who wrote the novels like they were comic books.

I had to force myself to finish it, just to see if it would get better (with many breaks to read a short Dragonlance story or two from the Second Generation, which is a good novel if you like DL and haven't read it yet), and it totally DOES NOT!!!

Any other opinions, and maybe someone could fill me in if the second book in the series was just as awful (If anyone read it, of course! )


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## Fast Learner (Nov 15, 2004)

Don't be shocked, no one read them. Be shocked that you read them.


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## RangerWickett (Nov 15, 2004)

Hypersmurf said:
			
		

> [coughMarionZimmerBradleycough]
> 
> -Hyp.




Oops.  Well, I got the first initial right.


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## velm (Nov 15, 2004)

Andre said:
			
		

> These aren't the worst I've ever read, but they're pretty bad:
> 
> Anne McCaffrey's _Freedom_ series. The first book was mediocre, the others terrible.
> 
> ...





For something really funny, go to OLDMANMURRY.COM and read the review on a computer game based on the freedom series.


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## Hypersmurf (Nov 15, 2004)

Andre said:
			
		

> These aren't the worst I've ever read, but they're pretty bad:
> 
> Robert Asprin's _Time Scout_ books.




Ah.

My local Borders has books two and three, I think, but not book one.  I haven't been interested enough to order it, but I've always thought that if the first one ever shows up on the shelf, I'll buy it and take a look...

Now I'm not so sure 

-Hyp.


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## Pants (Nov 15, 2004)

Fast Learner said:
			
		

> Don't be shocked, no one read them. Be shocked that you read them.



I read them.  The first one, I thought, had some promise, even if it did kill off Madmartigan and had very little semblance to the movie.  The biggest problem was that Claremont couldn't write worth crap.  Entire passages would pass and I'd have no idea what had just happened.

The second one was much worse.  It was just as poorly written and it was boring too! Yowzers!


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## Andre (Nov 15, 2004)

Hypersmurf said:
			
		

> Ah.
> 
> My local Borders has books two and three, I think, but not book one.  I haven't been interested enough to order it, but I've always thought that if the first one ever shows up on the shelf, I'll buy it and take a look...
> 
> ...




I've been a fan of Asprin's stuff since I first read _Another Fine Myth_ in 1981. That said, his writing just hasn't been the same since he and Lynn Abbey split. The first Time Scout book had some interesting ideas, but I hated what happened to one of the main characters, and the ending was absurd. I tried to read the second book and gave up about half-way through. 

If you want to read some excellent Asprin, try the Myth books through _Sweet Myth-ery of Life_ and _Bug Wars_ (one of my all-time favorites)


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## ShadeMoon64 (Nov 15, 2004)

Cthulhudrew said:
			
		

> One more that I just thought of- Timeline. Terrible story, with terrible characters. The absolute worst part of it is that the entire story is based on a premise that the story itself invalidates as a possibility within the first couple of chapters. I love some of Crichton's work (Jurassic Park, Rising Sun, Disclosure, Airframe), but he really dropped the ball on this one.



I have to agree with this one.  Crichton has done some great reads but this ain't one of 'em!


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## alleynbard (Nov 15, 2004)

Hmmmm....anything by Mercedes Lackey. I especially hate Arrows of the Queen, Mage-Storm Trilogy, and...oh what can I say, every book I picked up pretty much reeked.

I really tried to like the Valdemar novels but I often found I cared very little for the characters.

I came very close to enjoying the Last Herald Mage.  I started to relate to Vanyel but something happened somewhere along the way and I simply stopped caring for him.  I think I realized he was nothing more than another thinly veiled stereotype.


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## Ulorian - Agent of Chaos (Nov 15, 2004)

All the writers on my 'bad' list share a common trait: they have a complete inability to show how people actually socialize and interact. Not that I'm looking for indepth character development, but I need the characters to be real enough that they don't distract me from the story on which I'm trying to focus.

Having said that, here are the writers I find unreadable:

*Robert Jordan* 
I was actually into the first few books, but the one-dimensional characters and his failure to advance the plotline have really turned me off this series.

*David Eddings*
I honestly don't know what people see in this writer. I find the characters silly, the world crudely defined, and the plots simplistic.

*Terry Goodkind * 
The worst of the worst.. simplistic plot.. characterization is so immature, and the efforts at a 'love story' are so fumbling, it left me wondering if I was reading the efforts of a precocious twelve year old.

*Dennis L. McKiernan*
That Iron Tower Trilogy was.. wow.. I don't know where to begin.


Writers I like:

*Stephen R. Donaldson*
Hey, I loved the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.. despite the fact that the character was impossible to like.

*George R.R. Martin*
Gritty and interesting characters.

*David Gemmell *
The stories are somewhat repetitive though.

*Steven Eriksson* 
The most enjoyable epic fantasy I've read. The depth of the world is breathtaking.

*Gene Wolfe*
Awesome stuff, but a difficult read. Latro in the Mists was particularly enjoyable.

*Michael Moorcock*
Although his more recent stuff is pretty weak. The original Elric saga is phenomenal.

*C.J. Cherryh*
Sometimes. That Well of Shiuan series was good, and I like a lot of her sci-fi.

*Isaac Asimov*
The writing is pedestrian, but I like most of the stories.


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## Wolf72 (Nov 15, 2004)

Fast Learner said:
			
		

> Don't be shocked, no one read them. Be shocked that you read them.




I read them ... I got thru the second book, but the third one almost gave me migraines ... but I finished, cuz I can be stubborn like that.


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## DonAdam (Nov 15, 2004)

I think the title was The New Rebellion; it was a Star Wars novel in which they had a mysterious masked villain named Kruger or something. Through the whole novel they kept trying to figure out who he was, and when he was finally unmasked they found out it was...













Spoilers...














Dolph!
Who?
Yeah, some guy they just made up. Worst mystery ever...


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## Desdichado (Nov 15, 2004)

I barely read fiction anymore, so I guess I've missed out on a lot of the worst of it.  And even mediocre stuff; I tend to drop lately.  Here's some truly atrocious stuff I've read in my day, though.

_Lord Foul's Bane_ -- I actually read the next book in the series too, _The Illearth War_ but like many have said here, I couldn't get past the absolutely tedious main character, or the plain boringness that is The Land.  Blah.

Rose Estes Greyhawk books -- quite possibly the worst fiction ever written by an actual adult.

_Wizard's First Rule_ -- dropped this one halfway through.  Horrible characters, horrible plot, horrible dialogue, horrible premise.

Robert Jordan -- I actually liked the first few books of the _Wheel of Time_ series, but I have completely given up on them lately.  I was also turned off by the way he wrote his books; the climaxes came too soon and were over in a confusion of just a few paragraphs.  Every time, I kinda wondered what exactly had just happened.

R. A. Salvatore -- OK, I guess he's not really that _bad_, but talk about over-rated.  The first three Icewind Dale books by him were OK, everything else I've tried to read of his I've put down in disgust.  I actually perservered and finished the first book of the Cleric Quintet, or whatever it was called, but it certainly didn't inspire me to pick up the second book.

Terry Brooks -- when I was a kid, I read the _Sword of Shannara_ and I remember thinking it was OK.  Somehow, though, I haven't been able to either reread that, or read any of his other books without my attention wandering in the first few pages.   They absolutely do not hook me.

David Eddings -- I still think the original _Belgariad_ series isn't bad.  The problem is, that's the only plot he has, so he keeps recycling it over and over.  The "witty banter" gets old too, and really breaks the mood more often than not.  And the racial stereotypes are just plain annoying.

I actually only ever read the first Gor book _Tarnsman of Gor_, but I didn't think it was that bad.  I was pretty young at the time, and it just felt like another Edgar Rice Burroughs type of thing though; maybe he gets worse as the series progresses.  In fact, I've heard that specifically.  I'd actually like someone to write some more of that exotic, barbaric and swashbuckling "planetary romance" variety of sword and sorcery, but without the domination and submission nonsense.  I could get into that.


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## ShadowDenizen (Nov 15, 2004)

So many bad books, so little time to name them all....

Well, I'll second the nominations of:

A) Dennis McKiernan: Just bad. Not much more to say on that.
B) Robert Jordan: Friendly note, Rob? Finish one series before you start the prequel. (Oh, and you suck EVEN MORE, because "A New Spring" first appeared in the "Legends" anthology, and THEN you decide to EXPAND the whole thing? WHAT-EVER!) I'm -so- done with the whole WoT series.
C) Terry Godkind. See above.
D) RA Salvatore: nmot a terrible writer, exactly, (the "Cleric Quintet" didn't really bother me) but I'm -so- sick of hearing abotu "Drizzt" this and "Menzonerranzan" that. And if one more player I know opts to make a drow ranger who wields two scimitars, I will not be held responsible for my actions. (Not even gonna talk about the little twerp who came to my door in full Drizzt regalia for Halloween!)

And, I'll add someone to the list:
Whatever crappy author wrote the crappy series that had "The Fifth Sorceress" and "The Gates of Dawn" in it.  So mind-blowingly bad, I've blocked both and the author and the series from my mind in protest.


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## drnuncheon (Nov 15, 2004)

cignus_pfaccari said:
			
		

> _Freedom & Necessity_, by Steven Brust & Emma Bull. I liked the Jhereg books, and I heard good things about Emma Bull, so a collaboration should be okay, right? Wrong. Writing a book as a series of letters, postbills, and other such stuff is a poor choice.



 Hmm. _The Color Purple_..._Dangerous Liasons_..._The Screwtape Letters_...  

 The epistolary novel is a product of the times Brust and Bull were writing about, so I'd find it hard to call it a 'poor choice'.  Still, it's a lot more enjoyable if you recognize what they're doing - just like Brust's _The Phoenix Guards_ is more enjoyable if you've read Dumas, or S. Morganstern's _The Princess Bride_ (abridged by W. Goldman) is funnier if you've read the stuff it's satirizing.



			
				Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> I actually only ever read the first Gor book _Tarnsman of Gor_, but I didn't think it was that bad. I was pretty young at the time, and it just felt like another Edgar Rice Burroughs type of thing though; maybe he gets worse as the series progresses. In fact, I've heard that specifically.



 You heard right.  It doesn't descend to the depths of the truly awful until about book 6, and I managed to fight through even that until the first book he wrote with a female viewpoint (Slave Girl of Gor, #11) which earned the dubious distinction of hitting the far wall.


 Er, and for my addition: Robert Charles Wilson's _Darwinia_ for the most egregreious bait-and-switch ever, that made me say "well, I don't care what happens to these people anymore."


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## alepulp (Nov 15, 2004)

*Some more worthless ones*

Anne McCaffrey - dragon love books. Hmmm - just an excuse for Mills and Boon in a fantasy world.
Dune - books 3 and 4. Once past this is got good again. Worth the fight through? Nope.... 
Michal Moorcock - now that is a set of depressing books and they all seemed the same. I read these ages ago - so I might be wrong.
Jack Vance books - read 3 of them - that was enough. Story seemed to be "person gets displaced and is in trouble and returns by way of a long journey"


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## drnuncheon (Nov 15, 2004)

alepulp said:
			
		

> Jack Vance books - read 3 of them - that was enough. Story seemed to be "person gets displaced and is in trouble and returns by way of a long journey"



 The Odyssey: "A guy goes on a boat ride and gets lost."
 Lord of the Rings: "Two short guys drop a ring into a volcano."
 The Incredible Journey: "Some pets decide to go home."
 Travels with Charlie: "A guy and a dog drive around for a while."
 Around the World in 80 Days: "A guy goes around the world in 80 days."

 Sometimes the journey _is_ the story.

 J


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## The Other Librarian (Nov 15, 2004)

drnuncheon said:
			
		

> Sometimes the journey _is_ the story.
> J




Any good Buddhist would agree!


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## barsoomcore (Nov 16, 2004)

Jeez, drnuncheon, that's some list. I don't know that _The Incredible Journey_ counts as sci-fi/fantasy, but I guess if it's the worst you ever read, then it's the worst.

But I kind of liked _The Odyssey_. And _The Lord of the Rings_.


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## Mad Hatter (Nov 16, 2004)

Interesting...I adored all the Dune books in the original series.  I like Anne McCaffrey.  Her mid series Dragonriders of Pern books were nice.  She co-wrote her Plante Pirates series and I enjoyed those.  Her Powers that Be series is nifty. And I liked her Killishandra trilogy.

I enjoy Mercedes Lackey.  Her books on Valdemar I find interesting.  I read her Gryphon series books set in early Valdemar history, and her Arrows of the Queen Trilogy.  Someone mentioned not liking those, but those are the only ones I read and I enjoyed them.

Stephen Donaldson rocks.  I read Terry Goodkind until Blood of the Fold but even before then I was wondering about that guy.

And there are many more that I love but to list them would take forever

I have never actually hated a book or series.  There were moments of "I'll prolly never read that again" and "The quicker I put this story out of my head the better".  So it was to my utter and complete surprise that I actually hated a book series.  

What is the series you ask?  It's a trilogy by a chic named Gael Baudino.  I never read anything of hers after.  I read the first book and thought "ok, interesting".  I read half the second book, put it down, and seriously contemplated burning it.  I got them at Half-Price bookstore so it only cost like 2 bucks, but still it was a painful read.


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## Zaukrie (Nov 16, 2004)

I can't remember the names of them there are so many. So, I thought I'd give you all a scare. I was just in a bookstore and saw book one of a new 4 book series - the climax to the Thomas Covenant story. That's right, 4 more books are coming. Now, I read the first three a long time ago and actually enjoyed them, so I'm not one to judge, but 4 more?

The third Dune book had to be the most hated of the books I've read. I really, really liked Dune. It got me back into reading, but God Emporor of Dune made me question my sanity for actually finishing it. I'm not sure who is worse, the author that writes a bad book, or the reader who keeps reading, holding out hope...

I think I gave up on WoT after book 3. Unfortunately, I had already bought used copies up to book 5. Never cracked them open, probably never will.


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## mojo1701 (Nov 16, 2004)

Mad Hatter said:
			
		

> have never actually hated a book or series.  There were moments of "I'll prolly never read that again" and "The quicker I put this story out of my head the better".  So it was to my utter and complete surprise that I actually hated a book series.




Same here.


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## cignus_pfaccari (Nov 16, 2004)

drnuncheon said:
			
		

> Hmm. _The Color Purple_..._Dangerous Liasons_..._The Screwtape Letters_...
> 
> The epistolary novel is a product of the times Brust and Bull were writing about, so I'd find it hard to call it a 'poor choice'.




Were I a complete boor, I'd make some snide comment about how said novels are no longer being written.

Instead, I'll just say that I didn't care for it, at all.  

Brad


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## Squire James (Nov 16, 2004)

I think Dennis McKiernan got better over time.  I agree that the Iron Tower trilogy and the Moria Ripoff duology were both wretched, and Dragondoom mediocre, but his stuff from "Eye of the Hunter" on seemed pretty good to me.  "Eye" was one of the few books I've read where the odds were pretty even and the main villain was pretty scared of the heroes when he didn't have the upper hand.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Nov 16, 2004)

Zaukrie said:
			
		

> I can't remember the names of them there are so many. So, I thought I'd give you all a scare. I was just in a bookstore and saw book one of a new 4 book series - the climax to the Thomas Covenant story. That's right, 4 more books are coming. Now, I read the first three a long time ago and actually enjoyed them, so I'm not one to judge, but 4 more?
> 
> The third Dune book had to be the most hated of the books I've read. I really, really liked Dune. It got me back into reading, but God Emporor of Dune made me question my sanity for actually finishing it. I'm not sure who is worse, the author that writes a bad book, or the reader who keeps reading, holding out hope...
> 
> I think I gave up on WoT after book 3. Unfortunately, I had already bought used copies up to book 5. Never cracked them open, probably never will.




'God Emperor' was fourth, and should never have been written.  I think the only thing that stopped Herbert from turning into a Robert Jordan-esque hack was his death.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Nov 16, 2004)

Rodrigo Istalindir said:
			
		

> 'God Emperor' was fourth, and should never have been written.  I think the only thing that stopped Herbert from turning into a Robert Jordan-esque hack was his death.



 Funny, I liked all the Dune books, and God Emperor was great. Of course, none of the sequels were as good as the original(though Messiah was close). And Herbert WOULD have stopped writing them after the epic unconclusion we got with Chapterhouse...no matter how much I don't like the Anderson/Brian Herbert prequels, I'm glad the last book is being written for at least some kind of resolution.


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## Mad Hatter (Nov 16, 2004)

> 'God Emperor' was fourth, and should never have been written. I think the only thing that stopped Herbert from turning into a Robert Jordan-esque hack was his death.






> And Herbert WOULD have stopped writing them after the epic unconclusion we got with Chapterhouse...no matter how much I don't like the Anderson/Brian Herbert prequels, I'm glad the last book is being written for at least some kind of resolution.




To the first statement, he would have stopped.  And to the second statement, I am wary of the last book because it is said that Herbert lived by one of the tenets that he wrote that Muad'Dib taught, which was the attitude of the knife:  

Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife -- chopping off what's incomplete and saying: "Now, it's complete because it's ended here."
"Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
Dune 

I think Chapterhouse should be the last and no more, which is why I'll probably never read the prequels.  Besides if you read some of the accounts of his personal life, it makes perfect sense.

I would like to add that I loved all those books.  It's a great work of philosophy and intrigue.  It's what high sci-fi should be like imho.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Nov 16, 2004)

Mad Hatter said:
			
		

> Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife -- chopping off what's incomplete and saying: "Now, it's complete because it's ended here."
> "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
> Dune




A good point. I just want some kind of closure to the everything. At least cutting something with a knife gives you that, but there were notes FOR the unwritten last book so it didn't really just stop with Chapterhouse.

Maybe I'm just on a 'need answers' thing from reading the 2001 books...just finished 2061 and can't find 3001 anywhere...


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## Mad Hatter (Nov 16, 2004)

> At least cutting something with a knife gives you that, but there were notes FOR the unwritten last book so it didn't really just stop with Chapterhouse.




I would agree with that; however, better to live with what Frank gaves us then have it tainted by what his son and that other guy will write.  At least that's what I believe.  And even with the notes, Frank Herbert's death was for all intents and puproses the knife.    

Although we'll see when it comes out.  I might have the unquenchable urge to read and lay my mind to rest.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Nov 16, 2004)

I seem to recall an interview with him in the early 80s, post God Emperor, pre Heretics, in which he was asked if he saw  himself continuing to write 'Dune' novels, and which he answered in the affirmative.  I've not been able to find the interview on the 'net, so maybe I'm misremembering it, or its old enough or obscure that it will be hard to find. 

In any event, the latter books, in my opinion, were insufferably boring.  There were good ideas in there, but the pacing was so bad, the prose so dense, that reading them became a chore.  I'll admit I found 'Dune' a hard read at first -- it took three starts before I got into it and finished, but it became one of my all time favorites.  But everything I read of Herbert's (7 non-Dune books) was the same way - very dry, verbose, and glacially plotted.  The first three Dune novels were good enough to overcome that; the rest I not think were.


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## WayneLigon (Nov 16, 2004)

cignus_pfaccari said:
			
		

> Were I a complete boor, I'd make some snide comment about how said novels are no longer being written.



There are still some, though I've usually seen the form used in short stories. The 'Griffin and Sabine' novels are collections of letters (in some cases, literally), postcards, etc.


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## The_Universe (Nov 16, 2004)

I loathe everything I have ever read by Marion Zimmer Bradley, especially the _Mists of Avalon_. Her cavalier attitude toward incest (seeming to go so far as to insist that it's a perfectly worthwhile and noble practice) are horrific. 

I just picked up Zelazney's big Amber book, and found some of the ideas interesting, but the vast majority of the book too dry for my tastes. 

Tried to read Eddings once but couldn't finish the first book.

Tried to read SM Stirling's _Island on a Sea of Time_ after really liking _The Peshawar Lancers_ - couldn't make it past page 50.


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## drnuncheon (Nov 16, 2004)

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> I don't know that _The Incredible Journey_ counts as sci-fi/fantasy, but I guess if it's the worst you ever read, then it's the worst.



 See? It's so bad at being sci-fi/fantasy that you didn't even know that it was!


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## barsoomcore (Nov 16, 2004)

cignus_pfaccari said:
			
		

> Were I a complete boor, I'd make some snide comment about how said novels are no longer being written.



It wouldn't be boorish, it would just be wrong.


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## Orius (Nov 16, 2004)

swordsmasher said:
			
		

> I am really shocked no one has mentioned the two novels that were sequels to the movie Willow.
> 
> The movie was cool, but the sequels sucked.
> 
> I read the first book (I forget the names), and it was terrible from page 1 on. You can totally tell George Lucas basically signed the project over to Chris Claremont, who wrote the novels like they were comic books.



 Actually, there were three.  They're not the easiest reads either.  Lucas has a pretty good story with it, but Claremont's very uneven writing makes it hard to notice.


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## Presto2112 (Nov 16, 2004)

Ulorian said:
			
		

> *Robert Jordan*
> I was actually into the first few books, but the one-dimensional characters and his failure to advance the plotline have really turned me off this series.




Books 1 through 6 were enjoyable.  Lord of Chaos especially was memorable.  But after that he seemed to just.... stall.  Needless description, pointless politicking, endless chapters about characters that don't matter, and entire books that don't mention at least one of the three main characters!  I've picked up Crossroads of Twilight twice from the library, fully intending to read it, but then I see a Dave Barry book from the corner of my eye and CoT gets sent back, unread.


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## Desdichado (Nov 16, 2004)

All this talk of Dune reminds me; I couldn't ever get past about the first half of that book.  It was extremely poorly written, although the plot itself seemed to be fine.  I had it as an AudioBook that I was listening to as I commuted to and from work, and listening to it out loud really emphasised how awkward the prose is.


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## Patman21967 (Nov 16, 2004)

Tarrasque Wrangler said:
			
		

> I've started reading a lot of books that I regret not finishing.  But the only book I regret STARTING was "Lord Foul's Bane" by Stephen Donaldson.  Thomas Covenant is the most reprehensible lame-o piece of crap main character I've ever had the misfortune of reading about.  There's a line between "complex anti-hero" and "protagonist whose face you want to liberally apply a Louisville Slugger to", and it's not a fine one.




Yeahhhhhh...finally someone who agrees with me....I could not even make it through the book...


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## Wombat (Nov 16, 2004)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> All this talk of Dune reminds me; I couldn't ever get past about the first half of that book.  It was extremely poorly written, although the plot itself seemed to be fine.  I had it as an AudioBook that I was listening to as I commuted to and from work, and listening to it out loud really emphasised how awkward the prose is.




I love it _ideas _ in Dune immensely, but the prose, as you say, is truly awful.

This is why I label it as the Best Badly Written Book I Know  

Of course very few people "get" what Herbert claimed he was trying to write, that fanaticism, under any guise, is evil.  Thus Paul, at the beginning, is good, but by the end he is evil because he leads fanatics.  Somehow that got really, really lost...


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## Black Omega (Nov 16, 2004)

Patman21967 said:
			
		

> Yeahhhhhh...finally someone who agrees with me....I could not even make it through the book...




I do think  there is some confusion on the Thomas Covenant books.  Some books have such good ideas that they are stil readable even when not well written.  Some books well written, so even if their ideas suck, people will still read them.  I don't think Lord Foul's Bane and the other books in that series are poorly written in a technical sense.  Just poorly conceived and designed, without any real thought to how much the protagonist detracts from the books.


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## drnuncheon (Nov 16, 2004)

Black Omega said:
			
		

> I don't think Lord Foul's Bane and the other books in that series are poorly written in a technical sense.



 Well, aside from an overuse of the words "roynish" and "vitriol".

 J


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## LostSoul (Nov 16, 2004)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> All this talk of Dune reminds me; I couldn't ever get past about the first half of that book.  It was extremely poorly written, although the plot itself seemed to be fine.  I had it as an AudioBook that I was listening to as I commuted to and from work, and listening to it out loud really emphasised how awkward the prose is.




Huh.  I really liked the prose in Dune.  Thought it was great - I read that book about 3 times a year.  Tastes differ.

I thought the ending of Chapterhouse: Dune was good enough to end the series.  



Spoiler



The two characters at the end of the book - Tleilexu Kwisatz Haderachs, I believe -seemed to sum up the Golden Path that Paul turned away from and Leto II embraced.


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## barsoomcore (Nov 16, 2004)

Comments:

DUNE: Yeah, it's really weird how people keep wanting to make Paul a hero. His story is TRAGIC, people! He turns into a DICTATOR! I've never noticed the crappiness of the writing -- could be that the ideas are so compelling to me that I ignore the prose -- though most of his other books I never made it through (The Lazarus Effect, The Jesus Incident (or something like that)). _Dune_ is one of those rare genre books that's actually about something adults might find interesting to think about.

THOMAS COVENANT: The books are reasonably well-written, and I don't think it was ever Donaldson's intent to create books that were easy (or even pleasant) to read. I don't object to writers tackling ugliness and asking us to look at evil, which is I think one of the things Donaldson tried to accomplish. I've read a variety of books and watched a number of movies about very unpleasant characters; far worse than poor old whiny Thomas. I doubt I'll ever read them again, and I didn't like them much when I read them, but I remember Donaldson with FAR more respect than an utter hack like Jordan. At least Donaldson's trying to grapple with something approximating actual emotional struggle. Jordan's just applying a word-hose to one page after another.

In the words of Truman Capote: "That's not writing, that's typing."


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Nov 16, 2004)

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> DUNE: Yeah, it's really weird how people keep wanting to make Paul a hero. His story is TRAGIC, people! He turns into a DICTATOR!




Yep, but a case CAN be made for him being a hero in that he eventually DOES see what's happened and tries to stop it. Not that he succeeds(well, Paul doesn't at least), but his attempt to fix what's happened after he becomes a dictator can help his case some.  [/re-hijack]


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## barsoomcore (Nov 17, 2004)

Sure, but that's a different book. In DUNE, the lad's a bad guy. Sort of.

And you can never overuse the word "vitriol". It was investigated by a team or Prussian field hockey players.

You want vitriol? Prussian girls in short skirts beating each other on the shins with heavy clubs. I guarantee vitriol.


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## Mystery Man (Nov 17, 2004)

Dune - Read the first book and liked (not loved) it, but I never got thru the first part of the second book. Glad to see it wasn't just me regarding this series.

Thomas Covenant - Anti-hero to the extreme. I liked the books but towards the 5th one he got metally just tiring.


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## cignus_pfaccari (Nov 17, 2004)

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> It wouldn't be boorish, it would just be wrong.




Haven't seen them.  From seeing Freedom & Necessity, don't want to, either.

And, to reiterate, I don't like the style.  I made it about 10 pages in before realizing that it didn't agree with me.

Brad


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## Someone (Nov 17, 2004)

I can´t mention my first pick because of the boards policy on religious discussion, but I´ll mention the two Sword of Shannara books, good examples of poor language, lame plot and generally bad writing.


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## Mad Hatter (Nov 17, 2004)

> DUNE: Yeah, it's really weird how people keep wanting to make Paul a hero. His story is TRAGIC, people! He turns into a DICTATOR! I've never noticed the crappiness of the writing -- could be that the ideas are so compelling to me that I ignore the prose -- though most of his other books I never made it through (The Lazarus Effect, The Jesus Incident (or something like that)). Dune is one of those rare genre books that's actually about something adults might find interesting to think about.




I think this is an overly simplistic view of Paul/Muad'Dib, Alia, and Leto II/Ghanima mythos.  These people will tell you that they are dictators.  They tell you that they do bad, reprehensible things.  Muad'Dib and Alia began the worship, they began the refinement of the merging of state and church, whose entire mythos and coming were orchestrated by the Bene Gesserit.  They halted the very wheels of their universe by threatening spice.  However, you also fail to consider their enemies: the Harknonnen, the Padishah Emperor/House Corrino, the Bene Gesserit, the Tlielaxu, and CHOAM.

Muad'Dib especially empowered the Fremen, and if you'll notice the Jihad was inevitable even if Muad'DIb had tried to stop it.  He says as much in Dune Messiah.  Even Leto II recognized the horror of what he did.  He willingly created the person who would kill him through his genetics program (which was far more sophisticated than the Bene Gesserit could even hope).  And Atreides genes stayed in the population by his doing for the expressed hope that never again could a kiwsatz haderach or an Abomination or a God Emperor could use prescience to rule.  As long as the genes are there, humanity will always have the chance of overthrowing whatever oppresses them.  

I think that you have glossed over the Golden Path entirely.  Each of these dictators taught a very harsh, hard lesson to humanity because they allowed themselves to be sheep.  Never be oppressed.  During much of Leto's reign and after, the common people begin machinations to free themselves, not just the wealthy powerful.  Herbert makes sure that each and every institute set up in the beginning of the book falls in the end especially after God Emperor.  These lessons taught by Leto, by Muad'Dib, and by Alia forced humanity to spread.  Elsewise you'd have Feyd-Rautha ruling, or the Spacing Guild, or the Bene Gesserit, or even House Corrino (who would probably have been destroyed by the Harkonnens without Muad'Dib's influence). 

Leto II's reign was the longest and most stabilized reign by far (3500 yrs):



> When I set out to lead humankind along my Golden Path, I promised them a lesson their bones would remember. I know a profound pattern which humans deny with their words even while their actions affirm it. They say they seek security and quiet, the condition they call peace. Even as they speak, they create the seeds of turmoil and violence. If they find their quiet security, they squirm in it. How boring they find it. Look at them now. Look at what they do while I record these words. Hah! I give them enduring eons of enforced tranquility which plods on and on despite their every effort to escape into chaos. Believe me, the memory of Leto's Peace shall abide with them forever. They will seek their quiet security thereafter only with extreme caution and steadfast preparation.




And in that time there were few wars, many plots, but few out and out wars.  Muad'Dib only ruled for around 12 years, and Alia for 9 years.  And Paul returned to his good guy status in Children of Dune as the Preacher of Arrakeen:



> This is the fallacy of power: ultimately it is effective only in an absolute, a limited universe. But the basic lesson of our relativistic universe is that things change. Any power must always meet a greater power. Paul Muad'Dib taught this lesson to the Sardaukar on the Plains of Arrakeen. His descendants have yet to learn the lesson for themselves.




In my opinion, the Dune series is a great philosophical work.  You just gotta dig deep.     If we want to keep this debate going, maybe we should form a new thread and not hijack this one?


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## Thotas (Nov 18, 2004)

You know how the Chronicles of Amber is supposed to be this incredible classic?  I was amazed at how little I liked the first book.  The vivid description of the trumps was a nice set of word pics, but otherwise I found it dull -- until the end, where the plot got incredibly dumb.  I've been told that what I found so stupid makes sense if I go further, but ... uh-uh.  No way.  

As for the literary technique of telling a story by compiling letters, journal entries, etc., completely apart from the question of merit it has, I can't believe those posting examples of it missed the obvious one.  I used to know Bram Stoker's grand-niece, and let me just say, in her name:  DRACULA.


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## Someone (Nov 18, 2004)

> I've started reading a lot of books that I regret not finishing. But the only book I regret STARTING was "Lord Foul's Bane" by Stephen Donaldson. Thomas Covenant is the most reprehensible lame-o piece of crap main character I've ever had the misfortune of reading about. There's a line between "complex anti-hero" and "protagonist whose face you want to liberally apply a Louisville Slugger to", and it's not a fine one.




OMG, how could I forget that one (it must be one of these mechanisms the brain has to get rid of dangerous memories). Those books went directly to the trash bin, I couldn´t even finish one of them.


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## Storm Raven (Nov 18, 2004)

Someone said:
			
		

> OMG, how could I forget that one (it must be one of these mechanisms the brain has to get rid of dangerous memories). Those books went directly to the trash bin, I couldn´t even finish one of them.




For all their faults, the Covenant books at least have their own story (unlike McKiernan's _Iron Tower_ trilogy, which was a badly written rip-off of the _Lord of the Rings_).

It also has an actual story (unlike Louise Cooper's _Indigo_ series, which was just an excercise in watching the hero watch other people do stuff).

It also has a different story in each book (unlike Modesitt's _Recluce_ books, which generally are just the same story, told over and over again with different characters).

Covenant has faults certainly, but he's not the hero, he's the protagonist. The heroes are those around him, using him for their own ends. It helps to read through a series of books before deciding that they are bad.


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## takyris (Nov 18, 2004)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> It helps to read through a series of books before deciding that they are bad.




Having not read the Covenent books, I'm not qualified to judge the rest, but I will say that I disagree respectfully with this.  As a literary critique, perhaps I need to read it all and think about it contextually before saying what I think, but as a customer, I have the right to say "It's bad" as soon as I decide that I don't want to keep reading it*.  If I bought a chair that made my back hurt, and the guy at the chair store said, "Hey, just try it for a few more weeks, really, before saying that it's not comfortable," I would give him the raised eyebrow of doom.

* With the caveat that "It's bad" in this instance only means "I don't personally enjoy it," and is not an objective value judgment by any stretch.


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## devilish (Nov 18, 2004)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> For all their faults, the Covenant books at least have their own story (unlike McKiernan's _Iron Tower_ trilogy, which was a badly written rip-off of the _Lord of the Rings_).
> 
> It also has an actual story (unlike Louise Cooper's _Indigo_ series, which was just an excercise in watching the hero watch other people do stuff).
> 
> ...




Well put!  Thanks!


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## devilish (Nov 18, 2004)

takyris said:
			
		

> Having not read the Covenent books, I'm not qualified to judge the rest, but I will say that I disagree respectfully with this.  As a literary critique, perhaps I need to read it all and think about it contextually before saying what I think, but as a customer, I have the right to say "It's bad" as soon as I decide that I don't want to keep reading it*.  If I bought a chair that made my back hurt, and the guy at the chair store said, "Hey, just try it for a few more weeks, really, before saying that it's not comfortable," I would give him the raised eyebrow of doom.
> 
> * With the caveat that "It's bad" in this instance only means "I don't personally enjoy it," and is not an objective value judgment by any stretch.




Yes, but the same could be said if you tried working out or eating better and gave up.  A friend say "Just try it for a few more weeks and you'll see."
That's giving up.


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## Mallus (Nov 18, 2004)

takyris said:
			
		

> If I bought a chair that made my back hurt, and the guy at the chair store said, "Hey, just try it for a few more weeks, really, before saying that it's not comfortable," I would give him the raised eyebrow of doom.QUOTE]
> Sure... but on the other hand, books aren't chairs. If I never returned to certain books I didn't like upon first reading, then I would have missed out on some of the most pleasurable reading experiences of my life.
> 
> I know they are books worth discarding after 10 pages. And others whose rewards become fully apparent only after hundreds of pages.
> ...


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## Storm Raven (Nov 18, 2004)

takyris said:
			
		

> Having not read the Covenent books, I'm not qualified to judge the rest, but I will say that I disagree respectfully with this.  As a literary critique, perhaps I need to read it all and think about it contextually before saying what I think, but as a customer, I have the right to say "It's bad" as soon as I decide that I don't want to keep reading it*.  If I bought a chair that made my back hurt, and the guy at the chair store said, "Hey, just try it for a few more weeks, really, before saying that it's not comfortable," I would give him the raised eyebrow of doom.




Of course, a chair isn't a book, so your analogy basically doesn't make sense.

In the case of a book (or a movie, or television show for that matter), it is not uncommon for the payoff on something to come deep into the subject matter. For the Covenant books, saying that they are awful after just 100 pages misses a lot of what makes the books worthwhile.

In point of fact, if you don't read all of the way through a book, you don't know if a book is bad, and saying so makes you look foolish. The best you can say is that you didn't enjoy it enough to finish it, and it may be good or bad, depending upon the content of the material you didn't read.


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## KnowTheToe (Nov 18, 2004)

But if the book can't grab your attention or interest after 100 pages why would you continue?  Is it really a good book if the author takes too long to engage the reader?  IMO, almost everything ever written has some level of merit, but it does not mean they are always god reads.

If I gave you a crap flavored lolly-pop with a center of honey is it really worth all of that crap just to get to the good part?  Why not get something with less of a crap flavor to start with. 

I say, if one book does not grab your interest, toss it aside and choose another.


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## Storm Raven (Nov 18, 2004)

KnowTheToe said:
			
		

> But if the book can't grab your attention or interest after 100 pages why would you continue?  Is it really a good book if the author takes too long to engage the reader?  IMO, almost everything ever written has some level of merit, but it does not mean they are always god reads.




Most people who toss aside the Covenant books do so because of a single scene that takes up a single page within the first 100 pages. But if you toss aside a series of books that spans more than 3,000 pages because you didn't like the first 100, are you truly qualified to judge whether the books are good or not?


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## Wombat (Nov 18, 2004)

Personally, I tried three times, all false attempts, to read _Lord Foul's Bane_.  I never got beyond page 75.

Then I had a friend recommend the series to me; he told me that if I only persevered, I would come to admire the series.  I respected his reading habits and also I understand the difference between a hero (King Arthur) and a protagonist (Raskolnikov).  So I plowed on in.

I finished the book.

I ended up loathing Covenant even more, finding The Land boring, and having no further interest in reading anything else by the author, either in that series or any other.

So, I gave Donaldson not 1, but four different chances with the series.  Not only did they not pan out initially but, when I finally made my way through the first book, I found no reason to keep going.  At least at the end of _The Fellowship of the Ring_, or the end of the first third of _War & Peace_, _Le Morte D'Arthur_, and _Crime & Punishment_, I was excited to keep going.

For those of you who like Donaldson's Covenant books, good luck to you and I hope you like the latest batch.  But remember there are a lot of us who do not like him, will not like him, and have even given him the chance.  Please don't expect us to change our minds.


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## devilish (Nov 18, 2004)

Wombat said:
			
		

> Personally, I tried three times, all false attempts, to read _Lord Foul's Bane_.  I never got beyond page 75.
> 
> Then I had a friend recommend the series to me; he told me that if I only persevered, I would come to admire the series.  I respected his reading habits and also I understand the difference between a hero (King Arthur) and a protagonist (Raskolnikov).  So I plowed on in.
> 
> ...




This was my exact reaction to Lord of the Rings!

I don't think we're trying to convert -- just saying that you can't judge
a book by it's cover/first 100 or so pages.  I started reading Tigana, and kept starting and stopping after the first 50 pages and couldn't get into it. 
Finally, I got through it and loved it!  If I had
given up after those starts and stops, I would've missed out.

That's what we're trying to convey.  It's just getting a bit hot in
here with the "Argh! I hate Thomas Covenant more than pig vomit! Argh!!
Argh!  Argh!"

-D


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## Mallus (Nov 18, 2004)

KnowTheToe said:
			
		

> But if the book can't grab your attention or interest after 100 pages why would you continue?  Is it really a good book if the author takes too long to engage the reader?



I think there are _extremely_ rewarding books that aren't _immediately_ rewarding books... in fact, I'd put LotR in that category.


> If I gave you a crap flavored lolly-pop with a center of honey is it really worth all of that crap just to get to the good part?  Why not get something with less of a crap flavor to start with.



What if the center wasn't honey? What if it was _enlightenment_ or _pharmaceutical grade morphine_? 

What if sometimes writing shouldn't be compared to the outer covering of a Charms blow-pop?


> I say, if one book does not grab your interest, toss it aside and choose another.



I say, usually that's a good plan, but sometimes you'll being throwing away the gold with the dross. 

Mind you, I'm totally not refering to Covenant in this...


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## barsoomcore (Nov 18, 2004)

Mad Hatter said:
			
		

> I think this is an overly simplistic view of Paul/Muad'Dib, Alia, and Leto II/Ghanima mythos.



You think? 

On the whole "Try it, try it again, try it again!" thing:

If a writer creates a book that is hard to read, they shouldn't be surprised if lots of people don't like it. Lots of artist set out to make deliberately challenging, difficult, unpleasant works. Nothing wrong with that, just like there's nothing wrong with not liking such things.

It is true that some pleasures must be acquired. You have to make yourself like it.

When I first started reading sonnets, I had to force myself to do it. Sonnets are hard to read -- their rewards are unfamiliar to modern readers, and take training and persistence to acquire. I'm glad I did so, because no matter how good you think William Shakespeare is, if you don't understand the Shakespearean sonnet, you don't know how good he REALLY is.

Same thing with jazz -- first time I heard Thelonious Monk I had no appreciation for it and didn't pay any attention. Little different, now.

Same thing with BEER, for crying out loud. When I was a kid I thought beer was revolting. You can learn to like anything, I guess.

Not everything is worth putting that effort into, of course, and we all of us have to make decisions on where we spend our time, and sometimes we decide without ALL the information at hand, because, hey, I can just read a different book, right?

Somebody who hasn't actually finished a book, however, isn't in much of a position to say much about it except "I didn't finish it and here's why."


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## Villano (Nov 18, 2004)

In my previous post, I forgot to add another book, *Night Of The Crabs*, by Guy N. Smith.  Smith is a British horror novelist known for churning out cheesy and sleezy books.  A few friends recommended his series of books about giant, killer crabs.  They described them as homages to the 50s giant monsters, as crabs battle tanks and jets.  

They sounded like fun books, so I took to tracking them down.  Sadly, even though he wrote something like 5 or 6 of the series, only 3 were printed in the US.  Luckily, I was able to snag them on eBay from a library unloading its old books.  I managed to get the set for only a couple of bucks.

The first book was Origin Of The Crabs.  It was kind of stupid and I was a bit disappointed that the promised crabs vs tanks never occur in this novel (only a few people know of the crabs, they are all dead by the end, and the menace continues unbeknownst to the world), but I found it to be fun. 

Here's a pretty funny (and spot on) review of this book:  http://www.geocities.com/paladin_s98/cliff5.html

Since I liked the first novel, I immediately jumped into volume 2.  However, Night Of The Crabs was just awful.  This time, the crabs come ashore at a resort island and finally do battle with the military.  Talk about being careful for what you wish.

I doubt anyone would accuse Smith of being a good writer, but Origin had its own goofy charm.  Unfortunately, the sequel is populated with unlikeable characters and people doing the dumbest things possible.  

And then there are the crabs.  In the first book, the crabs are described as being the size of cows.  Pretty darn big for a crab and certainly enough to present itself as a threat to a man.  However, the crabs are no bigger in this novel.  A crab the size of a cow is not going to be able to carry away a tank or survive artillery fire.

Oh, I actually mispoke there.  There are a few crabs bigger than cows in this book.  The big ones are described as being the size of donkeys!  

"But, wait", you say as you scratch your head in confusion, "aren't donkeys actually _smaller_  than cows?"  

Yes, my friends, Guy N. Smith has apparently never seen either a donkey or a cow and clearly was too lazy to research them.  If you want a good laugh, check this website.  Scroll down a little bit and you'll see several pictures of men ridding these gigantic creatures known as donkeys!  Surely, you can picture how a crab this size could carry away a tank!   

http://www.imh.org/imh/bw/donkey.html

Oh, and before I forget, the ending is truely noteworthy.  You see, Night of the Crabs was printed 2nd in the US because that is when it takes place chronologically.  It was actually published later in the series originally.  The novel ends as the crabs have pretty much killed everyone and are continuing on their way.  Then there's a one paragraph afterward that says that some scientist found a way to kill them.    

Honestly, I can't remember is the scientist is even mentioned anywhere else in the book!   He may have had a cameo, but that was about it.   Terrible, terrible way to end a book.


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## takyris (Nov 18, 2004)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> Of course, a chair isn't a book, so your analogy basically doesn't make sense.




I think that's overstating things a trifle, Storm Raven, and there's no need to be brusque.

You're correct, however, in that a chair isn't a book.  A chair is utilitarian, while a book (not all books, but most of the books we're discussing here) is intended to be used for entertainment.  Eating vegetables or exercising might not be enjoyable, but they're also not supposed to be entertaining -- they're supposed to be good for you.  (Although I do enjoy some forms of exercise, and some forms of vegetables, that's just a happy coincidence).

If you read the first hundred pages of something you purchased to entertain you and you are not being entertained, that's not good.  That doesn't mean it's a bad book in the perfect platonic sense, but for you, unless you're really into delaying gratification and just sure that the book is going to come off the hook at the end, that's a completely fine reason to stop reading.  And to say that you didn't like it.  And to say "I thought that this was bad" in the common meaning of such a statement, which is "I didn't like it".



> In the case of a book (or a movie, or television show for that matter), it is not uncommon for the payoff on something to come deep into the subject matter. For the Covenant books, saying that they are awful after just 100 pages misses a lot of what makes the books worthwhile.




Bearing in mind that I haven't read the Covenant books, so I have no idea what context to take this in... um, no.  If an hourlong TV show has nothing to entertain me for the first fifty minutes except the prospect of the last ten, then that hourlong TV show has failed everyone except the hardcore fans.  That's lame.  Does that mean that it has to be wall-to-wall fight scenes?  No.  It doesn't have to entertain me with action.  It doesn't have to entertain me with plot.  But if it doesn't entertain me with *something* right out of the gate, then the author has failed.

And different people are going to be entertained by different stuff. For example, I love reading the last seventy-five percent of most Connie Willis books. Her opening parts always bore the snot out of me.  A lot of people love them and say that they are immediately grabbed by the technobabble and the "thrown into it with little information" aspect -- not me.  I did get through the first one I read, because my friends spoke so highly of her, but it wasn't entertainment, it was work.  Now I know that I should just skim that stuff.  They're great books, but for me personally, those are bad openings.

The possible caveat here is author cred -- I finished Connie Willis's book because of her author cred.  If Terry Pratchett or Christopher Moore has a dull first fifty, I'm going to go, "Well, if it's a clunker, it's a clunker, but I trust him," and continue.  So some authors can get famous enough and big enough to write stuff that opens badly but still holds onto its fanbase.



> In point of fact, if you don't read all of the way through a book, you don't know if a book is bad, and saying so makes you look foolish. The best you can say is that you didn't enjoy it enough to finish it, and it may be good or bad, depending upon the content of the material you didn't read.




In point of fact, you're ascribing an objective meaning to "bad" that, while completely correct in the dictionary, is somewhat silly in the context of a thread involving people sharing their opinions about books they personally didn't like.  We're all giving our opinions.  If you read my little footnote, you'll see that I mentioned as much with an asterix.  Attempting to zing me with something I said first in my own post is not exactly conducive to a friendly sharing of opinion.

In the context of literary criticsm, your statement is completely true -- although "bad" is a term that becomes so arbitrary as to be useless in such a conversation.  But in the context of reading for entertainment, the only viable definition of 'bad' that I can come up with is "Did I enjoy it?  Did it entertain me?  Did it make me want to finish it?  No?  Bad book."  And that means that "Bad" and "Worst" are going to have different meanings for different people, and people might disagree about books.  Which is why we have fun, polite, mutually respectful threads like this one.


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## barsoomcore (Nov 19, 2004)

takyris said:
			
		

> Which is why we have fun, polite, mutually respectful threads like this one.



We do?

*looks around wildly*

This IS ENWorld, isn't it? Huh.


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## jasamcarl (Nov 19, 2004)

Hmmm...the worst of perhaps the worst genre of commercial fiction. 

Of what fantasy I've read, Martin is the most entertaining. He is complete pop, and his narrative amounts to a written soap, but he is smart enough to know his own limitations as a writer and not pump up the verbeage like most godawful fantasy authers and he is not overly literal, i.e. he doesn't crowd the story with copious world building and a heavy handed narrative. He 'shows, not tells' by following the characters, something that most fantasy hacks never seemed to learn in their creative writing classes. And, unlike Bar, whose post was pretty much spot on, Martin does deserve a tad bit of credit for being able to maintain a very specific type of cynical tone, which, combined with his recent political utterances, do seem to be making a point. He does have an axe to grind, unlike ...the irrelevant, boring escapism of most elf-loving pulp trash. 

As for Dune, read the first two books my freshman year of highschool then quit. Series is generally overrated, though I actually preferred the second one, mostly because I prefer that type of tight conspiracy as oppossed to the broad epic.


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## WayneLigon (Nov 19, 2004)

I'll give a book a certain amount of space to interest me; that space varies by the author, what the book is about, what other people have said, and other factors. 

The biggest factor is my mood at the time. Last night, I was done with my previous book and looking for another to take with me to read at dinner. I picked up three or four books, pondered, put them down. I started 'God Stalk' again because I finally have a collected edition of that and it's two or more sequels - but I discovered I was not in the mood for it. 

I've started several books, put them down, then returned to them at a later date. Books I was convinced I would not finish, I finished. I liked them a great deal and afterwards could not imagine why I disliked it enough to put it down in the first place. 

Most first readers look at, I think, the first three or four pages of the manuscript. If it doesn't grab them, it goes back into the pile or is rejected. Some, I've read, will spend as much as the first fifty pages but not past that. So the first readers (the people that see a manuscript before almost anyone else, if I recall correctly) do much the same process as y'all do 

I've been trying to think of books that I hated but generally I cannot say that I remember most that I really disliked. I guess I purge it from my memory. Some do come to mind, though. 

David Feintuch; Nicholas Seafort series starting with Midshipman's Hope. I found it almost painful to read, even after a couple people recommended him to me. I tried the second book, and then borrowed one other to see if it ever got any better... nope. So he's off my list. 

Storm Constantine is one I'll have to get back to. Have the first book, tried to read it, couldn't. Have to try again sometime. 

In the past, I haven't been able to read much Cherryh. Fortress in the Eye of Time seems like it will be good, but I've started it twice and can't get very far.


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## Storm Raven (Nov 22, 2004)

takyris said:
			
		

> I think that's overstating things a trifle, Storm Raven, and there's no need to be brusque.




No, it's not, stating that the analogy doesn't make sense isn't bruqe, it's truthful.



> You're correct, however, in that a chair isn't a book.  A chair is utilitarian, while a book (not all books, but most of the books we're discussing here) is intended to be used for entertainment.  Eating vegetables or exercising might not be enjoyable, but they're also not supposed to be entertaining -- they're supposed to be good for you.  (Although I do enjoy some forms of exercise, and some forms of vegetables, that's just a happy coincidence).




And you miss the essential reason that the book-chair analogy doesn't make sense by devolving into a side discussion about utilitarian items vs. entertainment. You see, the distinction doesn't fall along the lines of utilitatiran vs. entertainment, but along a more fundamental distinction: chairs generally do not develop over time.

You see, when you sit in a chair, you get a good idea of how comfortable it will be for the forseeable future. Sure, it might break in some, and change a little, but the fundamental nature of the chair will not change significantly after your first use of it. A book, on the other hand (and any other sequential media), needs to be moved through to evaluate. What happens in the next twenty pages may radically alter the last twenty, and may change you opinion tremendously.



> If you read the first hundred pages of something you purchased to entertain you and you are not being entertained, that's not good.  That doesn't mean it's a bad book in the perfect platonic sense, but for you, unless you're really into delaying gratification and just sure that the book is going to come off the hook at the end, that's a completely fine reason to stop reading.  And to say that you didn't like it.  And to say "I thought that this was bad" in the common meaning of such a statement, which is "I didn't like it".




No, you are saying "I read a tiny portion and decided it was bad, but I don't really know what I'm talking about because I didn't read through the book". Its an opinion, but it is an uninformed and unuseful opinion.



> Bearing in mind that I haven't read the Covenant books, so I have no idea what context to take this in... um, no.  If an hourlong TV show has nothing to entertain me for the first fifty minutes except the prospect of the last ten, then that hourlong TV show has failed everyone except the hardcore fans.  That's lame.  Does that mean that it has to be wall-to-wall fight scenes?  No.  It doesn't have to entertain me with action.  It doesn't have to entertain me with plot.  But if it doesn't entertain me with *something* right out of the gate, then the author has failed.




The problem is that we aren't talking about an hour long television series. We are talking about something more along the lines of an entire series. To use the Covenant books as an example, they extend over just more than 3,000 pages. To say that the books are bad after reading the first 100 pages is tantamount to saying that _Babylon 5_ or _Farscape_ are bad television series because you didn't like the pilot episodes. I don't think anyone would take seriously anyone who evaluated those television series' and attempted to make a pronouncement on their quality after such a short viewing, but you seem to think it reasonable for someone to make a similar judgment regarding a series of books after an even smaller sliver of knowledge.



> In point of fact, you're ascribing an objective meaning to "bad" that, while completely correct in the dictionary, is somewhat silly in the context of a thread involving people sharing their opinions about books they personally didn't like.  We're all giving our opinions.  If you read my little footnote, you'll see that I mentioned as much with an asterix.  Attempting to zing me with something I said first in my own post is not exactly conducive to a friendly sharing of opinion.




No, I'm requiring a certain level of knowledge as a requirement before your opinion holds water. Saying "these books are bad" after reading through 3.33% of the text makes your opinion not worth bothering with.


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## diaglo (Nov 22, 2004)

i can't get into Robert Jordan's stuff. i read the first few pages and put it down and never return to finish it.


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## Berandor (Nov 22, 2004)

Of all the books I didn't like in the beginning but I finished, anyway, the ratio of books that stayed bad to those I even kind of liked in the end is somehwere along 50:1.

Perhaps Covenant is the exception to the rule; I don't think it's unreasonable to stop reading and say you didn't like it or thought it was bad, however.

And as a Buffy fan, I can attest to the fact that a lot of people only watched one episode and stopped, and then go on and claim Buffy's bad. Obviously, I think different. But I understand it's difficult to see the series's values from jst one show. I've found two people whom I could cure from their dislike by watching a full series with them, but also a lot of people who watched some episodes and still didn't like it. 

I'm sad for them, because they don't derive enjoyment from something I like very much, but they're probably sad for me for not liking Charmed, as well, so it all evens out.


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## Storm Raven (Nov 22, 2004)

Berandor said:
			
		

> Of all the books I didn't like in the beginning but I finished, anyway, the ratio of books that stayed bad to those I even kind of liked in the end is somehwere along 50:1.




I'm guessing your figures on this score are not even close to real, since it assumes that you read through to the end at least 51 books you didn't like to begin with, and given your stance on this thread, that seems highly unlikely.



> Perhaps Covenant is the exception to the rule; I don't think it's unreasonable to stop reading and say you didn't like it or thought it was bad, however.




No, it makes you uninformed as to whether it was good or bad. It means you don't have the information that would arm you to make a useful observation. And thus, it means your opinion is pretty much worthless on the subject.



> And as a Buffy fan, I can attest to the fact that a lot of people only watched one episode and stopped, and then go on and claim Buffy's bad.




And they would be uninformed on the subject.



> Obviously, I think different. But I understand it's difficult to see the series's values from jst one show. I've found two people whom I could cure from their dislike by watching a full series with them, but also a lot of people who watched some episodes and still didn't like it.




You seem to not be able to grasp the distinction between these two statements:

1. "You don't have the information necessary to form a worthwhile opinion concerning this work"; and
2. "This book is objectively good and you can't say it isn't."

I am not saying 2. However, most of the people on this thread discussing the merits (or lack therof) of Covenant are subject to the first criticism, as they have actually read almost none of the book. It would be akin to saying _Lord of the Rings_ is bad because its just a story about a birthday party gone wrong, so you stopped after chapter two of _Fellowship_. You may or may not like _LotR_ in the end, but a criticism on the basis of two chapters of reading just doesn't carry any weight.


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## The_Universe (Nov 22, 2004)

> It would be akin to saying _Lord of the Rings_ is bad because its just a story about a birthday party gone wrong, so you stopped after chapter two of _Fellowship_. You may or may not like _LotR_ in the end, but a criticism on the basis of two chapters of reading just doesn't carry any weight.



 Actually, I think this completely possible, probable, and apropriate.  Your argument is based on the idea that it's impossible to judge things based on their parts.  While it _would _be a little silly to judge the Lord of the Rings by something as trivial as the picture on the cover, judging it by its first two chapters is completely reasonable.  

I can say with all validity that I do no like mayonaise.  If you then offer me a turkey and mayonaise sandwich, would you berate me for not trying the whole thing?  Perhaps, by the end of the sandwich, I will have learned to appreciate if not love it?  

Unlikely.  

The fact is that things can be validly judged in whole _or_ in part.  Sometimes, ignoring part is worthwhile.  Sometimes it is not.  Regardless, if the first two chapters of _Fellowship of the Ring_, or the first 100 pages of _Thomas Covenent_ _*suck*_, well - how can you be surprised that no one kept reading?   

I exaggerate above, but a bad start is still _bad_.  Failing to recognize that is just silly, if also harmless.  

All IMHO!


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## devilish (Nov 22, 2004)

*Sigh*  I shouldn't prolong this "opinion war" but....




			
				The_Universe said:
			
		

> Actually, I think this completely possible, probable, and apropriate.  Your argument is based on the idea that it's impossible to judge things based on their parts.  While it _would _be a little silly to judge the Lord of the Rings by something as trivial as the picture on the cover, judging it by its first two chapters is completely reasonable.




For me, I think it was Tom Bombadill....or the 3rd Deus Ex rescue that
the little hobbits went through -- was when that book was launched
into the opposite wall!!  (I did finish it and liked it, but didn't love it.)




> I can say with all validity that I do no like mayonaise.  If you then offer me a turkey and mayonaise sandwich, would you berate me for not trying the whole thing?  Perhaps, by the end of the sandwich, I will have learned to appreciate if not love it?
> 
> Unlikely.




But that's dealing with something you already loathe --- if you told
me, "I hate any story where there's a rapist in it" and I recommended
Lord Foul's Bane, yes, you have every right to kick me as hard as
you can in the face.  If you say, "I've never tried pepperoni on a 
pizza before" and I encourage you to try it, I'd hope you'd
at least eat some of the pizza besides the crust before giving up.

(I'm doing this now trying to convince my kids to each good food!)


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## The_Universe (Nov 22, 2004)

devilish said:
			
		

> But that's dealing with something you already loathe --- if you told
> me, "I hate any story where there's a rapist in it" and I recommended
> Lord Foul's Bane, yes, you have every right to kick me as hard as
> you can in the face. If you say, "I've never tried pepperoni on a
> ...



 Very true! 

I suppose I need to come up with a better analogy, then.  Suffice to say, the basic argument remains valid - disliking part of something is a perfectly reasonable precursor to disliking the entirety, even if the whole is not read/consumed/watched/whatever.


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## Storm Raven (Nov 22, 2004)

The_Universe said:
			
		

> Actually, I think this completely possible, probable, and apropriate.  Your argument is based on the idea that it's impossible to judge things based on their parts.  While it _would _be a little silly to judge the Lord of the Rings by something as trivial as the picture on the cover, judging it by its first two chapters is completely reasonable.




Except that it isn't reasonable. It is judging a book by a limited amount of information - a trivial piece of the book to boot. If you judge a work of sequential media by less than 5% of the material in that book, then your opinion on that book can only be described as "uninformed" (and that would be the polite phrasing).



> I can say with all validity that I do no like mayonaise.  If you then offer me a turkey and mayonaise sandwich, would you berate me for not trying the whole thing?  Perhaps, by the end of the sandwich, I will have learned to appreciate if not love it?




A totally inapt analogy. Mayonaise does not change flavor as you eat it, it will taste the same with the last bite as it did with the first (assuming, of course, you didn't dally with the sandwich long enough to allow it to spoil). But a book, or any other piece of sequential media _does_ change - the story develops, the characters change, what happened on page 10 may have a very different meaning by page 280, and what happens on page 137 may be more interesting than what happened on page 52.

The point is that while some things can be judged at the point of contact - the taste of a food, or the comfort of a piece of furniture for example, books cannot. Making analogies comparing disliking mayonaise to disliking a book just illustrates the weakness of your argument, since it is completely out of left field.



> Unlikely.
> 
> The fact is that things can be validly judged in whole _or_ in part.  Sometimes, ignoring part is worthwhile.  Sometimes it is not.  Regardless, if the first two chapters of _Fellowship of the Ring_, or the first 100 pages of _Thomas Covenent_ _*suck*_, well - how can you be surprised that no one kept reading?




A book (or movie) can only be fairly judged as a whole, or at least upon reviewing a substantial part. I can fairly say that _Pitch Black_ was a bad movie, because I watched it the whole way through and it was bad. I can say _The Eye of the World_ was a bad book, because I read it the whole way through. I can't validly say that the _Wheel of Time_ is a bad book series, because I didn't read past the first book.



> I exaggerate above, but a bad start is still _bad_.  Failing to recognize that is just silly, if also harmless.




A bad start does not make a bad book though. The problem here is that people are confusing a slow start and a difficult character for a bad book.


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## barsoomcore (Nov 22, 2004)

If I can jump in here, I'll state first of all I'm with Storm Raven that an opinion from somebody who has not read at least a significant part of a story is not an opinion that's worth very much in terms of debating the quality of a work.

As an opinion in and of itself, it's as valuable as any other opinion, but as a comment on the work, the best you can say is that it provides very little information. If I'm looking for helpful input on a book, and one opinion comes from somebody who gave up after ten pages, and one opinion comes from somebody who read the entire thing, ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL, I have to give the one that has the more information more weight.

All other things are never equal, so that might not be important, but it is logically true.


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## EricNoah (Nov 23, 2004)

It's been really interesting seeing all of the reactions to different works. 

Of the (many many) books mentioned in this thread, I did enjoy the following enough to read them once but not twice:

Thomas Covenant books -- I might undertake a 2nd read -- it has been a long, long time since I read these
Mists of Avalon
First three Elric novels (just didn't get into it)
First three Eye of the World novels (couldn't get through book 4)
Gene Wolfe's Urth books
many Asimov novels

There have been some books mentioned that I never did get through, for example the Dune prequels -- particularly disappointing as I enjoyed the original series.

Books/series I have read multiple times (or intend to):
Dune series 
Lord of the Rings of course
Song of Fire and Ice

I agree that most D&D-based novels are pretty cruddy (what makes a good D&D session does not make a good novel). Particularly found the Avatar trilogy for FR to be unreadable (and it also mucked up the RPG products that came after it). I have been disappointed with a lot of Star Wars novels. I have likewise been disappointed by a lot of Star Trek novels (though there are some so good that I wish they could have been any of the odd-numbered movies).

I have recently been reading a lot more sci fi than fantasy.  Two of my favorite "recent discoveries" are Stephen Baxter (read _The Time Ships_ -- everyone -- I command you!) and Robert Charles Wilson (read _The Chronoliths_ -- I gently request you!).


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## Cannibal_Kender (Nov 23, 2004)

Books I disliked:

Thomas Covenant (and just to make it clear I dislike the first book, Lord Foul's Bane which I have read the entire way through, and not the entire series which I haven't read)

Many FR books (too many to name)

Eye of the World Novels (thuogh to be fair this series was pretty good through book 4)


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## knitnerd (Nov 23, 2004)

Doc_Klueless said:
			
		

> Pick a _Gor_ book. Any of them. Ick.




The author's attitude toward women was scary. I can only hope he was writing from inside a nice, quiet maximum security mental hospital.


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## Prince of Happiness (Nov 23, 2004)

"Quag Keep" by Andre Norton. Sweet gods.

I agree with the first two series by Dennis McKiernan. Boy, talk about a pair of Double-Quarter Pounder A$$ Burgers With Cheese. The later books aren't so Tolkien-ish rip-off, and I really got into "Voyage of the Fox Rider" and some others, except when he'd try to fit in some pat moral (and dropped on your head like a ton of bricks, and then has a steam roller drive over the wreckage to compound the point) or when the naive protagonist's jaw dropped at learning something new for the umpteenth time. Like fingernail's on a chalkboard, I swear.

I'll have to give a shot again at the Amber series. I tried the first book and couldn't get past the first 100 pages. I dunno, I guess I was expecting more out of it, not just some extended interview.

I thought the first Willow book was so utterly disappointing, I just avoided the others. I mean, what's with the "Thorn Drumheller" thing and Madmartigan dying and grrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaugh!!!! Yeah, I *hate* that book.


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## takyris (Nov 23, 2004)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> No, it's not, stating that the analogy doesn't make sense isn't bruqe, it's truthful.




Stating it in a brusque manner makes it brusque.  In a perfect world, I carefully consider all the facts, regardless of the tone in which it's delivered.  In this world, you've made it wholly unlikely that I'd agree with you on anything.



> And you miss the essential reason that the book-chair analogy doesn't make sense by devolving into a side discussion about utilitarian items vs. entertainment. You see, the distinction doesn't fall along the lines of utilitatiran vs. entertainment, but along a more fundamental distinction: chairs generally do not develop over time.




Maybe I deleted the bit where I was talking about how the chair required you to sit in a different position, which might eventually make you more comfortable.  I might've thought the analogy was taking up too much screen-space.



> A book, on the other hand (and any other sequential media), needs to be moved through to evaluate. What happens in the next twenty pages may radically alter the last twenty, and may change you opinion tremendously.




I might be coming at this from too professional a viewpoint.  When I spent a summer reading manuscripts in New York (short fiction, not novels), the editor in question watched me read a few short stories all the way through before form-rejecting them, and then she asked me when I knew that the story was bad. I said, "The first or second page."  She said, "Then that's when you reject them."

She is not in the minority in the editing field.  Now, granted, all the fiction that gets published has passed this test with at least a few editors, but as a consumer, I can very quickly decide whether or not I'm being entertained.  And thus, I can decide whether or not to continue.

And that doesn't make the book bad in an objective sense, but, as I've said twice with no response from you, when you're reading a thread titled "What's the worst you've ever read?", I think it's fairly obvious that we're talking about personal opinion rather than objective critical discussion.  And thus, "It was bad" can be read as "I did not enjoy it" without much irate discussion on the subject.



> No, you are saying "I read a tiny portion and decided it was bad, but I don't really know what I'm talking about because I didn't read through the book". Its an opinion, but it is an uninformed and unuseful opinion.




With respect, bull.  It's interesting, because I thought that you just didn't get (or didn't accept) that we were talking opinion, here.  But now I know that according to Storm Raven, I'm not even allowed to have an opinion until I finish the novel.  I mean, dude, I own that it's good form to note that you didn't finish, but if you have a problem with, "In my opinion, this book was so bad that it wasn't worth finishing," then you and I must be reading different stuff.  Now, mind you, I finish most books, but that's stubbornness (and the knowledge that someone somewhere would have called me out for not reading all the way through Wizard's First Rule and declared that I wasn't entitled to my opinion that it was a pretentious, derivative, poorly written bunch fof drivel, which is what I'd figured out by the third chapter, but I was home sick with a cold and that was all I had to read).

I'm gonna have to come down on the side of people who have read enough and have enough critical thinking ability to know whether a book is likely to turn around in a positive way for them in some great last-minute twist.  I've had a few books thud at the end with a twist I didn't like, but it's been a long, long time since any book has surprised or shocked me with a twist that redeemed what was otherwise bad.

If you can't figure out that a book is atrocious without reading it all the way through, that's your problem.  Ain't nothing could've happened in the last quarter to make Wizard's First Rule a good book.



> To use the Covenant books as an example, they extend over just more than 3,000 pages. To say that the books are bad after reading the first 100 pages is tantamount to saying that _Babylon 5_ or _Farscape_ are bad television series because you didn't like the pilot episodes. I don't think anyone would take seriously anyone who evaluated those television series' and attempted to make a pronouncement on their quality after such a short viewing, but you seem to think it reasonable for someone to make a similar judgment regarding a series of books after an even smaller sliver of knowledge.




As much as you enjoyed declaring the ineptitude of my chair metaphor, I'm going to have to turn this analogy down.  A book series is not a television series.  The media are different, and the number of variables are different, and it's perfectly possible for a show to dramatically improve or decline.  Perhaps they get a bigger budget.  Perhaps there's a change in the main cast.  Maybe they bring on *new writers*.  None of these things are possible (or matter to the same extent, at least) in books.  R.A. Salvatore doesn't have to worry about Drizzt Do'Urden's actor getting hospitalized in a car accident.  Martin doesn't have to worry about the budget for his fight scenes.  Jordan doesn't lose sleep wondering if Fox is going to air his books out of order in order to save the most exciting ones for sweeps.

Now, I'll agree that improvement is possible -- a singleton book that everyone loves can get a contract for multiple sequels, giving the author the chance to turn something that had to be self-contained into something that can have a larger scope.  That's definitely good.  So if plot was the only thing keeping you from enjoying a story, it's possible that you could like the followups, when the author has more books to work with.

But if you hated the author's tone, characterization of his people, fight-scene depiction, setting, system of magic or technology, or use of dialogue... you can usually be sure that it's not going to improve in the last hundred pages.  Or at least, I can.  'Cause that's been my experience in the books that I've read all the way through.



> No, I'm requiring a certain level of knowledge as a requirement before your opinion holds water. Saying "these books are bad" after reading through 3.33% of the text makes your opinion not worth bothering with.




Perhaps we'll just agree to disagree here.


----------



## Bloodstone Press (Nov 23, 2004)

Spellfire by Ed Greenwood.


----------



## Berandor (Nov 23, 2004)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> I'm guessing your figures on this score are not even close to real, since it assumes that you read through to the end at least 51 books you didn't like to begin with, and given your stance on this thread, that seems highly unlikely.



Your knowledge of my reading habits astounds me. In fact, I myself cannot think of a book right now that I didn't finish, but of several books I finished despite my negative assessment of them: Intruder, The Orcs, Tod des Samurai, a whole lot of D&D fiction, The DaVinci Code...

ETA: I'm not saying I never put a book down. But I give every author the benefit of the doubt; I put a lot of trust in authors. If it's his/her first book I read that's not to my liking (even if it's the first book I've read by him/her at all), I'll try to always finish it. I'm always hoping the author has a plan, and it will all be remedied in time. But sadly, as I said above, mostly it won't be remedied, at least for me.


> It would be akin to saying _Lord of the Rings_ is bad because its just a story about a birthday party gone wrong, so you stopped after chapter two of _Fellowship_. You may or may not like _LotR_ in the end, but a criticism on the basis of two chapters of reading just doesn't carry any weight.



What if I read the first two chapters and say I couldn't stand the prose, the writer's style, it turned me off. Do I really have to read the whole book just to see that amazingly, the author doesn't completely change his style?


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## XO (Nov 23, 2004)

*Asimov's Foundation IS a Trilogy*

First three books were great ; anything after that is a cash-grabbing nuisance.


----------



## Berandor (Nov 23, 2004)

Oh, and 50 books is not very much. That's roughly how many books I read per year since I was at least 16. I'm 27 now, so I've read ~ 500 books so far (probably a lot more; I've been reading since I was 6). According to Sturgeon's Law, that would be a great quota, but I've probably read more than 100 bad books, and a *lot* of mediocre stuff. I even disliked some literary  classics.

oh, and I remembered a book I put down. After 3 years of absence to this literary genre, I recently tried the D&D novel (FR novel) "Lady of Poison". I didn't finish it.


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## diaglo (Nov 23, 2004)

Berandor said:
			
		

> oh, and I remembered a book I put down. After 3 years of absence to this literary genre, I recently tried the D&D novel (FR novel) "Lady of Poison". I didn't finish it.





Lady of Poison by T.H. Lain aka Bruce Cordell is a slow read. it usually takes me 2-3 days to finish one of the FR novels... i started Lady of Poison weeks ago...and i'm not even past page 32.

edit: but thing is i've read the whole D&D line that Bruce wrote in a day or two/ book.


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## EricNoah (Nov 23, 2004)

Not every book I have put down stayed down ... I wasn't mentally ready to tackle Umberto Eco's _Focault's Pendulum_, so I put it down after a few pages.  A year later I tried it again and it suddenly "clicked" with me.  It was a great reading experience once I was in the right frame of mind for it.


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## The_Universe (Nov 23, 2004)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> A book (or movie) can only be fairly judged as a whole, or at least upon reviewing a substantial part. I can fairly say that _Pitch Black_ was a bad movie, because I watched it the whole way through and it was bad. I can say _The Eye of the World_ was a bad book, because I read it the whole way through. I can't validly say that the _Wheel of Time_ is a bad book series, because I didn't read past the first book.
> 
> A bad start does not make a bad book though. The problem here is that people are confusing a slow start and a difficult character for a bad book.



While I shall not stoop to insulting your intelligence, as was your particular recourse, I will merely point out that IN MY OPINION (as noted in every one of my previous posts) a bad start _does _make a bad book.  If you had read the first 40 pages of the _Eye of the World, _though to yourself, "Gee, this is unmitigated drivel," and then put it down forever, I would call that opinion valid.  

Some things DO develop over time.  But not everyone on this earth sees the value of slogging through fecal matter for the _chance_ of smelling roses at the end.  Similarly, had you sat down with your significant other to watch Pitch Black, and then turned it off after the effects-laden crash scene that marks its beginning, well - that would be fine, too.  The beginning is _part_ of the movie, and thus must be considered in its judgement.  If it's so overwhelmingly bad that you don't want to see more, I fail to see why you, or anyone else, would keep watching.  Do you have some _obligation _to Vin Diesel?

Although media (unlike a sandwich) is _sequential, _one cannot eliminate the fact that something at the beginning, middle, or end of that sequence can foul the whole.  But perhaps the sandwich analogy can still be used.  If I take a bite of my once-mentioned turkey and mayonaise sandwich, and the _first_ bite is a culinary assault, would I not be _insane_ to expect something entirely different from the second, third, and fourth bites?  

Why should it matter if the part that 'sucks' is at the _end_ of the book, rather than the beginning? Does your suffering through poor writing somehow make your opinion more valid?  

Perhaps some simply enjoy self-torture more than others. 

But I am just prolonging a silly argument, where none shall be persuaded and many angered.  I apologize if I have offended someone by comparing Fellowship of the Ring to a sandwich.


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## Berandor (Nov 23, 2004)

EricNoah said:
			
		

> Not every book I have put down stayed down ... I wasn't mentally ready to tackle Umberto Eco's _Focault's Pendulum_, so I put it down after a few pages.  A year later I tried it again and it suddenly "clicked" with me.  It was a great reading experience once I was in the right frame of mind for it.



 That book is my curse.

I've been reading it for four years now. I really have to take my time when I read it, because otherwise I'll just skim over the text and stop reading soon thereafter (it's my third try). But I find myself only rarely returning to it, so I'm still at page 130 or so.

It's one of my goals in life - finishing it


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## Kanegrundar (Nov 23, 2004)

I started reading Jack Vance's Compleat Dying Earth (the misspelling is intentional) and put it down after the second story.  There was little in the way of story, it was too weird, and the characters were terrible.  I had always heard how great Vance was, well, I don't see it.

As for Horror/Sci-Fi...It would be Stephen King's Insomnia.  I love King's work, but this one just dragged on and on with no end in sight.  It was so vulgar in spots that it felt like he was being vulgar for the sake of being vulgar.  I put it away after getting a third of the way through.  

Kane


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## drnuncheon (Nov 23, 2004)

Kanegrundar said:
			
		

> I started reading Jack Vance's Compleat Dying Earth (the misspelling is intentional) and put it down after the second story. There was little in the way of story, it was too weird, and the characters were terrible. I had always heard how great Vance was, well, I don't see it.



 Try the second book (Cugel the Clever). The tone does change, and there is more story, and you don't have to have read the Dying Earth stories to understand it. But if you don't like the first Cugel story there is little point in continuing - skip Eyes of the Overworld as well (it's more of the same).  Give the last book (Rhialto the Marvelous) a try - it's the only one fo the four that was written as a complete novel, but if you didn't like any of the preceding then it's not likely to be to your taste.

 J


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## Storm Raven (Nov 23, 2004)

takyris said:
			
		

> Stating it in a brusque manner makes it brusque.  In a perfect world, I carefully consider all the facts, regardless of the tone in which it's delivered.  In this world, you've made it wholly unlikely that I'd agree with you on anything.




I'm sorry, but stating that an analogy isn't applicable isn't being brusque. I think your hide is wafer thin.



> Maybe I deleted the bit where I was talking about how the chair required you to sit in a different position, which might eventually make you more comfortable.  I might've thought the analogy was taking up too much screen-space.




I believe you did, and it still doesn't make the analogy hold water, since you can figure that out immediately. A piece of sequential media takes time, if you don't invest that time, your opinion concerning the work is suspect at best.



> I might be coming at this from too professional a viewpoint.  When I spent a summer reading manuscripts in New York (short fiction, not novels), the editor in question watched me read a few short stories all the way through before form-rejecting them, and then she asked me when I knew that the story was bad. I said, "The first or second page."  She said, "Then that's when you reject them."
> 
> She is not in the minority in the editing field.  Now, granted, all the fiction that gets published has passed this test with at least a few editors, but as a consumer, I can very quickly decide whether or not I'm being entertained.  And thus, I can decide whether or not to continue.




And people wonder why much of what is currently published is crap. Perhaps if the editors weren't so busy coming up with methods to avoid actually doing their jobs better material would be published. Perhaps your problem is that you have been infected with the slap-dash, hurry through it viewpoint of bad editors.



> And that doesn't make the book bad in an objective sense, but, as I've said twice with no response from you, when you're reading a thread titled "What's the worst *you've ever read?*", I think it's fairly obvious that we're talking about personal opinion rather than objective critical discussion.  And thus, "It was bad" can be read as "I did not enjoy it" without much irate discussion on the subject.




I've added some emphasis here to your quote to make a point. FIrst, I've never said there is an objective good or bad here, and that this is all opinion. I'm not debating whether this is opinion. What I am talking about here is the quality of that opinion. This thread is about the worst you have _ever read_. Having not read through a book, your opinion is (1) not applicable to this thread, and (b) not very valuable anyway, as it is woefully uninformed.



> With respect, bull.  It's interesting, because I thought that you just didn't get (or didn't accept) that we were talking opinion, here.  But now I know that according to Storm Raven, I'm not even allowed to have an opinion until I finish the novel.




No, the point is that your opinion that a book was good or bad is not particularly worthwhile. If you didn't finish it, you don't know if it was good or bad, you just know you didn't finish it. Perhaps you are missing the point here.



> As much as you enjoyed declaring the ineptitude of my chair metaphor, I'm going to have to turn this analogy down.  A book series is not a television series.  The media are different, and the number of variables are different, and it's perfectly possible for a show to dramatically improve or decline.  Perhaps they get a bigger budget.  Perhaps there's a change in the main cast.  Maybe they bring on *new writers*.  None of these things are possible (or matter to the same extent, at least) in books.  R.A. Salvatore doesn't have to worry about Drizzt Do'Urden's actor getting hospitalized in a car accident.  Martin doesn't have to worry about the budget for his fight scenes.  Jordan doesn't lose sleep wondering if Fox is going to air his books out of order in order to save the most exciting ones for sweeps.




Which remain a bunch of variables not particularly apt in this analogy. The point is that a television series, like a book, is experienced over time, and through that time the book (or movie, or series) develop and change. Characters change, events takes place that affect your perception of the previous ones and so on. Not going through that series of experiences means your opinion on the work is uninformed, no matter how good you think you are at reviewing later material you didn't actually read.


----------



## Storm Raven (Nov 23, 2004)

The_Universe said:
			
		

> While I shall not stoop to insulting your intelligence, as was your particular recourse, I will merely point out that IN MY OPINION (as noted in every one of my previous posts) a bad start _does _make a bad book.  If you had read the first 40 pages of the _Eye of the World, _though to yourself, "Gee, this is unmitigated drivel," and then put it down forever, I would call that opinion valid.




No, it doesn't. A bad start makes a bad start. A spade is a spade. Calling it a bulldozer doesn't make it so.


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## Storm Raven (Nov 23, 2004)

Berandor said:
			
		

> What if I read the first two chapters and say I couldn't stand the prose, the writer's style, it turned me off. Do I really have to read the whole book just to see that amazingly, the author doesn't completely change his style?




No, you have to read the whole book to have an opinion on the quality of the _book_. After reading the first two chapters, your opinion is on the quality of the first two chapters, and not much good for anything else.


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## The_Universe (Nov 23, 2004)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> No, it doesn't. A bad start makes a bad start. A spade is a spade. Calling it a bulldozer doesn't make it so.



 See, what's happening is that we're both seeing a spade - I know it's not a bulldozer, but can you at least recognize that it _is _a shovel?  

God bless, buddy!  I shall speak no more (on this subject)!


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## EricNoah (Nov 23, 2004)

Berandor said:
			
		

> That book is my curse.
> 
> I've been reading it for four years now. I really have to take my time when I read it, because otherwise I'll just skim over the text and stop reading soon thereafter (it's my third try). But I find myself only rarely returning to it, so I'm still at page 130 or so.
> 
> It's one of my goals in life - finishing it



LOL.   I discovered to my joy that it was a good "conspiracy" novel, and even better it was, thematically, the twin of one of my favorite books, The Name of the Rose (also by Eco).  

I, however, am still not able to get my teeth into The Island of the Day Before.  That's one I may be saving for retirement.


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## Dakkareth (Nov 24, 2004)

Berandor said:
			
		

> That book is my curse.
> 
> I've been reading it for four years now. I really have to take my time when I read it, because otherwise I'll just skim over the text and stop reading soon thereafter (it's my third try). But I find myself only rarely returning to it, so I'm still at page 130 or so.
> 
> It's one of my goals in life - finishing it




I've heard from several people I know, that they somehow couldn't finish it, so you're not alone .

FWIW I rather liked it, but I'm sure, there's something eluding me - I see all the neat 'small picture' stuff, but I can't shake the feeling, that there's a 'bigger picture' in there somewhere. Though maybe that's just because people say it's hard to read, and I didn't notice


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## Rackhir (Nov 24, 2004)

The Oathbound - It's been a while, but IIRC, every last male character of significance in this book was LITTERALLY a child-molesting rapist, aside from a pacifist old monk (read non-sexual/non-threatening). I don't think Mercedes Lackey has come in for enough nearly enough drubbing over books like this. As far as I'm concerned, this is the female equivalent of GOR novels. I like strong female characters, but strong female does not require that all men are child molesting scum.

The Sword of Shanara - I've not read those Iron Tower trillogy books that people say were rippoffs of LotR, but I can't imagine that they are any worse or more blatant than this was. I still cannot imagine how he didn't get sued for plagurisim by the Tolkien Estate. He must have sat down, written a detailed outline of LotR and then written in his own dialogue. The clinchers for me were the hobbits (I mean what ever the hell he called them) running into a ringwraith (I mean Skull whatever he called them) just outside the shire. And later on Gandalf (I mean the Druid What's his name) engaging the Balrog (...) in combat in Moria (...) and falling into the... Oh you get the idea.

Any Movie/RPG/TV series novels - It's the literary equivalent of prostitution. It might feel good at first or for a little while, but eventually your pimp/publisher cuts your face up, it gives you VD or AIDS and kills your soul.

The Cornelius Chronicles - I love Moorcock's stuff, I've read nearly everything he's written, but this was simply an incoherent steaming pile of dung. It started out as another installment in the Eternal Champion saga and then just sort of wandered off into a drug trip. It became a series of unconnected page or two chapters with no consistency, discernable plot or meaning to anything. I suspect he was simply trying to see how long he could string along readers by writing random paragraphs that happened to use the same names for unrelated characters and events.


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## Ry (Nov 24, 2004)

LostSoul said:
			
		

> I'd probably have to say some of those Dragonlance trilogy books.  The first ones.




Oh, you have no idea.  It got a lot worse than that; insofar as my youth was wasted, it was wasted reading Dragonlance.  Meetings sextet... preludes... villains series... just terrible.


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## RedShirtNo5 (Nov 24, 2004)

Hey, this reminds me of a recent disccusion in 10 Forward.  Guinan was saying that there were some books by a former captain of the Enterprise that were just horrible.  Then Barclay commented that he recently got a holodeck program featuring this ex-captain in some lawyer-simulation.  

Well, Worf said that he had started that holoprogram, but hated it so much he decided to kill the lawyers with a batleth!  Wow, you should have seen the argument that started between Data and Troi!  

Deana was arguing that the whole reason for holoprograms was to learn from the interaction of the simulated characters, and you couldn't really evaluate a holoprogram until you had run it five or six times to understand who the characters were and how the plot developed.  Data said that what he wanted in a hologrom was attention to detail in the simulation, and he could calculate with 97.64% accuracy the likelihood that he would enjoy a holoprogram after just three minutes.  Honestly, I wasn't sure who I agreed with.

But then we got trapped in a temporal loop, and I had to listen to the same argument AND get killed in a warp core breach SIX TIMES!  Finally that was fixed, and I was going to mention that  Iron Tower really was worse than Sword of Shanara, and that the Death Gate series was pretty bad, but that no bad book was really on par with the pain inflicted by those flying pizza slices from Deneva.  But I never got to a chance to speak, since I got turned into a styrofoam dodecahedron and crushed into powder by some dudes from the Andromeda galaxy.  Just my luck.

-RedShirt


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## Berandor (Nov 24, 2004)

You, sir, should be promoted to ensign No.5 right now!


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## RedShirtNo5 (Nov 25, 2004)

Berandor said:
			
		

> You, sir, should be promoted to ensign No.5 right now!



Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I remember what happened to ensign Sito!   The senior officers are the only ones who get dealt the get out of jail, do not get blown up, card.

I think in part I just don't remember the bad books.   I'm sure I've read lots of stinkers.  Stuff I don't want to keep permanently on my bookshelf gets donated to the local library and forgotten.  The ones I remember are ones where I had expecations that weren't met. 

-RedShirt


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## Pants (Nov 25, 2004)

Back on topic (though the image of Worf slicing through legions of lawyers with a batleth is a pleasant one...)

I remember Modessit's First Recluse Book being incredibly hard to read... AND boring.  I believe there was a part where the protaganist made a chair and then BAM chaos attacked order!  ZING! ZOINKS! BURN! DWOP!

Man... the sound effects text was annoying... BOOM.


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## WayneLigon (Nov 25, 2004)

Dakkareth said:
			
		

> FWIW I rather liked it, but I'm sure, there's something eluding me - I see all the neat 'small picture' stuff, but I can't shake the feeling, that there's a 'bigger picture' in there somewhere.



That, in a way, is the reason I don't read most of the alternate history books that seem to be very popular now. I've tried a couple and inevitably the characters will say or do something that is obviously _meant_ to be a climactic point or Very Important Clue To The Enjoyment of The Book but I just don't get it because it will deal with some obscure point or minor incident I have no knowledge of, so the whole point of the thing just goes right over my head.


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## Sado (Nov 25, 2004)

Rackhir said:
			
		

> The Oathbound - It's been a while, but IIRC, every last male character of significance in this book was LITTERALLY a child-molesting rapist, aside from a pacifist old monk (read non-sexual/non-threatening). I don't think Mercedes Lackey has come in for enough nearly enough drubbing over books like this. As far as I'm concerned, this is the female equivalent of GOR novels. I like strong female characters, but strong female does not require that all men are child molesting scum.




Thats interesting, I was just about to start reading that. Since the two main characters are female I was kind of hoping they would get it on.  I don't think that's ML's bag though.


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## James Heard (Nov 25, 2004)

Berandor said:
			
		

> That book is my curse.
> 
> I've been reading it for four years now. I really have to take my time when I read it, because otherwise I'll just skim over the text and stop reading soon thereafter (it's my third try). But I find myself only rarely returning to it, so I'm still at page 130 or so.
> 
> It's one of my goals in life - finishing it



Heh. It's one of my favorite books. I've read it three times, and would probably read it more except it's like Hyperion by Dan Simmons - I don't want to spoil things by reading it just to read it. I consider both to be major influences and benchmarks on "what is good" in literature.


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## barsoomcore (Nov 25, 2004)

Sado said:
			
		

> Thats interesting, I was just about to start reading that. Since the two main characters are female I was kind of hoping they would get it on.  I don't think that's ML's bag though.



Hee. No, I don't think so.

For THAT you can turn to _Kushiel's Dart_ by Jacqueline Carey, a thinly-veiled romance acting like a fantasy novel. Plenty of what you're looking for there. Full of sado-masochism, rape, gay and straight sex of every description. With jacket blurbs from Robert Jordan, Storm Constantine and Eric Van Lustbader.


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## Berandor (Nov 25, 2004)

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> Eric Van Lustbader.




Cool Name.


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## WayneLigon (Nov 25, 2004)

Sado said:
			
		

> Thats interesting, I was just about to start reading that. Since the two main characters are female I was kind of hoping they would get it on. I don't think that's ML's bag though.



Nope, they don't. Many of the people they meet _assumes_ that of them, since Kethry is so pretty and Tarma is not, but they don't. Tarma's vengeance oath basically makes her neuter; it takes all the energy and drive that accompanies sex and sexual feelings and diverts it into her combat skills, so she has no feelings that way for anyone male or female. Kethry on the other hand, has quite a distinct and very hetero drive; after all she's sworn that Tarma's clan will live again through her. By the time of _By The Sword_, she has a husband and several, several kids.



			
				[b said:
			
		

> Rackhir[/b]] The Oathbound - It's been a while, but IIRC, every last male character of significance in this book was LITTERALLY a child-molesting rapist



No, not every significant male in the series is a child-raping insane person. Go read it again and pay attention this time. It might _seem_ like that since Kethry's sword geases her to find such people and lop their heads off.


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## barsoomcore (Nov 25, 2004)

Berandor said:
			
		

> Cool Name.



Crappy writer.


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## Wereserpent (Nov 26, 2004)

Rackhir said:
			
		

> Any Movie/RPG/TV series novels - It's the literary equivalent of prostitution. It might feel good at first or for a little while, but eventually your pimp/publisher cuts your face up, it gives you VD or AIDS and kills your soul.




Me and my RPG novels are currently engaged in a monogamous relationship.


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## Sado (Nov 26, 2004)

Galeros said:
			
		

> Me and my RPG novels are currently engaged in a monogamous relationship.




That's what you think. Ask them who they were with last night


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## Acid_crash (Nov 28, 2004)

barsoomcore said:
			
		

> Hee. No, I don't think so.
> 
> For THAT you can turn to _Kushiel's Dart_ by Jacqueline Carey, a thinly-veiled romance acting like a fantasy novel. Plenty of what you're looking for there. Full of sado-masochism, rape, gay and straight sex of every description. With jacket blurbs from Robert Jordan, Storm Constantine and Eric Van Lustbader.





Are there any books you do happen to like besides Barsoom?  I mean, it seems that every author mentioned you have a problem with.  I'm just curious what would make a good book to you if all these authors who have become really successful you find are bad authors?


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## Wereserpent (Nov 28, 2004)

Sado said:
			
		

> That's what you think. Ask them who they were with last night




I found one of them in my brother's room today...How could they betray me?


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## Chimera (Nov 28, 2004)

In reading bits of the conversation between *Storm Raven* and others I am reminded of an experience I had back in 1988.

I was in a bar with some friends.  I ended up talking to a man with a very pretentious name - certainly not the one he was born with.  I no longer remember the name, only that fact about it.  It was getting close to the election, which was between George Bush Sr and (I believe) Michael Dukakis.  Mr. Pretentious spent the better part of two hours harranging me and anyone who would listen on the subject.  (One of those people whose words only come out in Sneer and Contempt.)

A bit later the subject turned to Art.  He asked me about a certain famous piece that had been in the news.  I said it was crap, that I didn't consider it to be Art.  (again, I don't remember the piece)  Mr. Pretentious asks me how long I'd studied Art.  I tell him that I haven't studied Art at all, but I know what I like and don't like.

Mr. Pretentious then launches into a harrangue about how, if I haven't studied Art, if I don't know the History of Art, then *I am not entitled to have an opinion about Art!*

Gazing carefully off into the distance, I asked him how long he had studied Political Science.  "Why, not at all!  Why would I study that?" was basically his horrified response.

"Then you are not entitled to have an opinion about this election, are you?"

And I walked off, leaving his jaw hanging down to the floor.


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## Elemental (Nov 28, 2004)

L.E Modesitt Jr's Spellsong series. I read a good review of the first book, and make a point of trying some author I've never heard of every now and then, so I picked it up.


It's the standard fantasy plot--an Earthwoman gets magically transported to fantasyland, and finds that a talent she has (singing) gives her magical power. That's not too bad, and the mechanics of how spellsongs work are moderately interesting.

But after a couple of hundred mildly interesting pages, her powers become _utterly, ludicruously insanely over-powerful._ She can burn people up just by looking at them funny. She's levelling canyons and destroying enemy armies by the thousand. She's immolating enemies from hundreds of miles away. I skimmed over the second book to see if it got any better--it didn't, there's a scene where an enemy protects himself by hiding in an airtight chamber in a tower, so she just flattens the tower. Elsewhere, an assassin nearly gets her, so she immediately then makes herself completely immune to the tactic he used ever working on her again.

This could have worked if she had an equaly powerful enemy or (in the vein of the Thomas Covenant series), the story had dwelt on the consequences and responsibilites inherant in such power. But neither is there, and the author keeps beating it into the heads of the readers that she is always good and right, bringing Earth values to a backward world, so there's no personal drama there. It reads like the author was so enamoured of having a 'strong woman' main character that he forgot to give her any other character facets.

She spends the whole book crashing round like a bad Elminister lookalike, destroying stuff and having the least developed relationships with one of her henchmen ever. She figures out that the ruler of the land is plotting to kill her, so incinerates him. She civilises the fantasyland, then realises that there's a Generic Evil Kingdom (who never actually do anything worse than the heroine on screen, so we just have the word of the author for how bad they are) that hasn't been dealt with, so she destroys it. These incidents are described with only marginally more drama in the books.

I think there's some sort of pseudo-feminist moral in there, as the protagonist keeps complaining about how men hate and fear her. Of course, this doesn't stop her from exacting sadistic punishments and mindjobs on other female characters who stand in her way. And despite being given eternal youth about halfway through the first book, she's incessantly fretting about her figure. I'd mention the other characters, only there are none.

I've read books I didn't like, but those were the only ones where I want the time spent reading them back.


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## Storm Raven (Nov 29, 2004)

Chimera said:
			
		

> A bit later the subject turned to Art.  He asked me about a certain famous piece that had been in the news.  I said it was crap, that I didn't consider it to be Art.  (again, I don't remember the piece)  Mr. Pretentious asks me how long I'd studied Art.  I tell him that I haven't studied Art at all, but I know what I like and don't like.
> 
> Mr. Pretentious then launches into a harrangue about how, if I haven't studied Art, if I don't know the History of Art, then *I am not entitled to have an opinion about Art!*




Sorry, your analogy doesn't hold water. In order to be similar, you would have had to not _seen_ the works of art in question, and yet still declared they were crap. It isn't a question of study, but a question of experience. If you had not even seen the art in question, do you think your opinion on the work would have been of any value to anyone?

If not, why do you think the opinion of anyone who has not actually read through a book is actually worth something with regards to that book?


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## The_Universe (Nov 29, 2004)

Pants said:
			
		

> Back on topic (though the image of Worf slicing through legions of lawyers with a batleth is a pleasant one...)
> 
> I remember Modessit's First Recluse Book being incredibly hard to read... AND boring.  I believe there was a part where the protaganist made a chair and then BAM chaos attacked order!  ZING! ZOINKS! BURN! DWOP!
> 
> Man... the sound effects text was annoying... BOOM.



 I'll second that.  I picked up the first Recluse book on a lark, and forced myself through it only because I had nothing else to read.   

Some interesting concepts (in the end) that were very poorly executed.  VERY poorly.


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## Mad Hatter (Nov 29, 2004)

Elemental, I would have to disagree with your assesment of Modesitt's Spellsong Cycle.  I will give you that there is an insane amount of feminism going on in the book, thus is a source of annoyance.  I would recommend that people should avoid the book like the plague if feminism in the slightest annoys them.  However, she doesn't just look at the people and destroy them.  The magical system he sets up is pretty interesting and it makes sense.  For those who haven't read the series, the magic system is based on song.  She has a ton of singing experience since she's a professor of music theory and has sung in opera and other stuff.  So in light of this her eventual growth to power with education is reasonable.  She's able to blow stuff up and generally cause havoc because she's studied using her voice way better than anyone in that world.

As for the villains, they all attack her first.  It wasn't just a whimsy thing.  The Ebrans tried to kill her first, Dumar attacks Defalk first, the lords rebel, and Rabyn invades her land.  So she isn't just going places and killin' people willy nilly.  And she isn't always good and right, she makes some horrible errors; sure it works out in the end, but she is the protagonist.  I stopped reading the series after Darksong Rising because I felt that the book series should have ended there.


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## The_Universe (Nov 29, 2004)

Chimera said:
			
		

> In reading bits of the conversation between *Storm Raven* and others I am reminded of an experience I had back in 1988.
> 
> I was in a bar with some friends.  I ended up talking to a man with a very pretentious name - certainly not the one he was born with.  I no longer remember the name, only that fact about it.  It was getting close to the election, which was between George Bush Sr and (I believe) Michael Dukakis.  Mr. Pretentious spent the better part of two hours harranging me and anyone who would listen on the subject.  (One of those people whose words only come out in Sneer and Contempt.)
> 
> ...



 Of course, if you _*had* _seen the piece of art in question, and had noted that the bottom right corner appeared to be a picture of festering maggot-ridden blisters, just remember that that's not enough reason not to like it.  You would be an ignoramus to base your opinion on such an insignifcant fraction of the work!  So what if you don't like maggots?  What if the use of maggots in this case simply overpowers your preexisting opinions, likes, and dislikes?  Why - you'd be doing the universe a disservice!  _*You have to consider the whole* *thing or your opinion is invalid. *_

* *


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## Mallus (Nov 29, 2004)

The_Universe said:
			
		

> Of course, if you _*had* _seen the piece of art in question, and had noted that the bottom right corner appeared to be a picture of festering maggot-ridden blisters, just remember that that's not enough reason not to like it. You would be an ignoramus to base your opinion on such an insignifcant fraction of the work!



At least you would have seen the entire work. Which is the crux of this issue. A better example would be someone opining about a painting that they caught a glimpse of while they quickly walked past, with one eye closed, wearing dark sunglasses....


> So what if you don't like maggots?  What if the use of maggots in this case simply overpowers your preexisting opinions, likes, and dislikes?



So now we're talking about Damien Hirst?
[/quote]



> _*You have to consider the whole* *thing or your opinion is invalid. *_



Nope. Not invalid. Just not informed.


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## Storm Raven (Nov 29, 2004)

The_Universe said:
			
		

> Of course, if you _*had* _seen the piece of art in question, and had noted that the bottom right corner appeared to be a picture of festering maggot-ridden blisters, just remember that that's not enough reason not to like it.




No, if you only looked at a tiny portion of the work (say, 95% of it was covered with a cloth when you viewed it), and based your opinion of the whole on that tiny portion, then your opinion would be uninformed, and essentially worthless.

If you looked at the whole work, and didn't like it, then your opinion is _informed_, which is an entirely different kettle of fish.


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## Elemental (Nov 29, 2004)

Mad Hatter said:
			
		

> Elemental, I would have to disagree with your assesment of Modesitt's Spellsong Cycle.  I will give you that there is an insane amount of feminism going on in the book, thus is a source of annoyance.  I would recommend that people should avoid the book like the plague if feminism in the slightest annoys them.  However, she doesn't just look at the people and destroy them.  The magical system he sets up is pretty interesting and it makes sense.  For those who haven't read the series, the magic system is based on song.  She has a ton of singing experience since she's a professor of music theory and has sung in opera and other stuff.  So in light of this her eventual growth to power with education is reasonable.  She's able to blow stuff up and generally cause havoc because she's studied using her voice way better than anyone in that world.
> 
> As for the villains, they all attack her first.  It wasn't just a whimsy thing.  The Ebrans tried to kill her first, Dumar attacks Defalk first, the lords rebel, and Rabyn invades her land.  So she isn't just going places and killin' people willy nilly.  And she isn't always good and right, she makes some horrible errors; sure it works out in the end, but she is the protagonist.  I stopped reading the series after Darksong Rising because I felt that the book series should have ended there.





If you enjoyed it, that's great--I'm not trying to rain on the parade of anyone who got enjoyment out of the books. This isn't anything more than me explaining why I didn't like it. But to address these points:

1: To say that it's a 'feminist' book and that's why it sits ill with people doesn't quite feel right with me. Having a powerful woman as the protagonist is great, but make _any_ protagonist too powerful and righteous and they just become dull. I can honestly say that would have been no different had the heroine been male. And the feminist message seemed very crude compared to say, Hobb's Liveship Traders series--"I am a woman, I am oppressed, therefore nobody can criticise what I do.". And even that feels hollow because the heroine never directly experiences the harshness of the oppression she rails against, and doesn't seem to have much of an investment in helping other women out.

2: I can buy that--but it seems rather implausible that nobody in a world where song is the prime source of magical power was ever able to train any better than her. If there's some quality of Earth people that make them naturals at it, then there's the question of why nobody's ever summoned Earth people before (it certainly didn't seem at all hard to do from the book).

3: Yes, they do, but the defeats felt way, way too easy. In Lord of the Rings, the Nazgul are imposing because they have massive power, possibly more than even the greatest of the heroes. In the second Thomas Covenant series, the two heroes can squash most of the opposition they face easily, but the drama comes from the internal corruption that they face from using their powers and their own inner demons. There seemed to be no conflict (not combat), because nothing was anywhere near a serious threat to Anna, and that resulted in a lack of drama. Less seriously, there's no face to represent the forces she's fighting against, which leads to problems like the Generic Evil Kingdom of the first book staying generic, because we never have a villain who represents it's bad traits.


Of course, I've only read the first one, and speed-read the second. If you think these problems are removed later on in the series, I'll get one of them from the library and give it another chance.


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## The Grumpy Celt (Nov 29, 2004)

_Who Framed Roger Rabbit._

I was and am a big fan of the movie. When the movie first came out I bought the nove it is based on, operating under the theory the book is better than the flick. I was wrong. It was awful. The only book I have ever burned.


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## Mad Hatter (Nov 30, 2004)

Modesitt does explain why few people had the training.  Generally the world is illiterate.  You do have the educated, but most people can't read.  And the fact that if you train a student and that student decides to turn on you...well the consequences would be painful.  And besides, to be any kind of good, you have to compose, sing, and direct players.  This is hard, especially if most sorcerors horde their knowledge like a dragon hordes his treasure   




			
				Elemental said:
			
		

> Of course, I've only read the first one, and speed-read the second. If you think these problems are removed later on in the series, I'll get one of them from the library and give it another chance.




Nope.  If the first one annoyed you and the the second one essentially annoyed you, then the third won't be entertaining to you either.


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## Capellan (Nov 30, 2004)

I don't know if I would say it is the "worst" I've ever read, but Lawhead's _Song of Albion_ series was pretty darn dire.


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## drnuncheon (Nov 30, 2004)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> No, if you only looked at a tiny portion of the work (say, 95% of it was covered with a cloth when you viewed it), and based your opinion of the whole on that tiny portion, then your opinion would be uninformed, and essentially worthless.




So remember, in order to avoid long, pointless pedantry in the future, always say "I didn't like the part of the book that I read".  That way your opinion is perfectly informed.

J


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## tec-9-7 (Nov 30, 2004)

mhacdebhandia said:
			
		

> Robert Jordan's _Wheel of Time_ series - I haven't actually completed even a chapter of one of his novels, for the simplest of reasons: I don't read writers who can't write in good, atmospheric English, and I've rarely encountered a more widely-read and less-capable writer of prose than Jordan.
> 
> Even Tolkien, whose raw skills as a writer of English I frequently disparage, is more palatable than Jordan.



You know, I've read a few of Jordan's WoT novels, and I was struck by his...  _peculiar_ treatment of female characters.  Then I read the leaf and learned he was a Citidel graduate and all became clear...


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## tec-9-7 (Nov 30, 2004)

Barendd Nobeard said:
			
		

> Maybe Herbert's second Dune book (*Dune Messiah*?).  I still don't believe it was written by the same person who wrote *Dune*.



Ok, it's comforting to know that someone else shares this opinion of mine.  It's like Herbert wrote the definitive sci-fi masterpiece, then completely missed the point of what he wrote for the next three books...  Dune Messiah?  *sticks finger down throat*  Children of Dune?  *sticks finger down throat*  God-Emporer of Dune?  Let me sum up the plot:  Duncan Idaho ghola #32475967 decides that the God-Emporer's time is done and decides to try to kill him - God-Emporer looks at him and says "Oh Duncan, I just _knew_ you'd try something like this..."  *squashes Idaho ghola flat*  *picks up phone and orders Duncan Idaho ghola #32475968...*  *sticks finger down throat*


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## tec-9-7 (Nov 30, 2004)

RangerWickett said:
			
		

> I swear, I will never write a trilogy.



At this point where heptilogies, octilogies, and dodecahilogies are the rule rather than the exceptions, I'd almost welcome a trilogy.  Almost.


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## Onos T'oolan (Dec 1, 2004)

Bah!! Trilogies are too short! I think the best strategy is to write one book, and then stretch it out indefinitely into a "series".


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## Dungeonmaster P (Dec 1, 2004)

Anything including "Shanarra" in the title.


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## Liolel (Dec 1, 2004)

I've found that in most cases if I look at what an author has wrote, and all he/she has wrote is one long series (say 4+ books) then it isn't a very good author. Of course there are exceptions, but there are always exceptions.


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## Acid_crash (Dec 2, 2004)

Liolel said:
			
		

> I've found that in most cases if I look at what an author has wrote, and all he/she has wrote is one long series (say 4+ books) then it isn't a very good author. Of course there are exceptions, but there are always exceptions.




Well, as long as they keep selling, they must be doing something right.  Heck, even Steven King, who usually keeps his books to one book, finally finished writing the Dark Tower, which is 7 books.


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## Liolel (Dec 2, 2004)

Acid_crash said:
			
		

> Well, as long as they keep selling, they must be doing something right. Heck, even Steven King, who usually keeps his books to one book, finally finished writing the Dark Tower, which is 7 books.



 Yes they must be doing something right to keep selling yet that doesn't necessarally make then good books as this thread could attest as many as the disliked books have sold very wel.


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## John Q. Mayhem (Dec 5, 2004)

tec-9-7 said:
			
		

> You know, I've read a few of Jordan's WoT novels, and I was struck by his...  _peculiar_ treatment of female characters.




When I read the WoT books, I saw the cover blurb about "Stronger female characters than Tolkien." I thought, "Surely not! Stronger than Luthien defying the most powerful being in existence _in his own palace_? Stronger than Eowyn (admittedly with Merry) slaying the lord and general of Sauron's armies? That reviewer must have been smoking giant hatfuls of crack." 

Then I read the books and _every single female_ is a beotch who looks down on and insults men, then hops in the sack with the first one who can stand up to them (with the exception being a transvestite). Made me angry.


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## Ralts Bloodthorne (Dec 11, 2004)

I got a little hard up for reading material at one point, and found a stack of books in a cardboard box. I rummaged through it, and found a series of around 6 or 7 books (I can't remember how many) and I eagerly jammed them into my backpack and hustled out to the vehicle.

Now, I read quickly, so paperbacks get devoured rather rapidly.

It was the *WORST* series ever. Full of whining, snivelling and crying.

I don't want to be a leper!

It was an accident, but you should feel sorry for me, because _I'm a leper!_

Blech.

Unfortunately, I read the series as far as I could. I kind of quit when it started off with him being sacrificed and then saying: "I'll get some kind of wound to match it, it won't do any good, and nobody will believe me because _I'm a leper!_"

Even the deus ex machina was crappy.

You can guess the series.

Another one was full of interesting lands, but then it got weird. Then it got boring. The female characters were manipulative shrews who started whining about destiny as soon as things got bad. Then comes an invasion that wasn't even hinted at and makes no sense.

I quit at book Nine.

Even if sparks and copulation faeries flew out of the 10th book when you read it, and all of the promises in my email came true if I finished the 10th book, I wouldn't be interested.

I hope he (the hero) fell into the tainted magic pool and drowned, the collar clapping army took over the world, and the females learned that there's a difference between strength and arrogance.

The only one I liked was the one with the dice in his mind.

Another series I read, and grew rapidly bored with after the first one, featured big worms, lots of sand, big heads, big ego's, and read like each book was written by a different high school student with ADHD.

Thankfully, I read them about 20 years ago, so I was able to blank it away with a Hustler subscription. It the only one where I thought it would be impossible to build a crappier movie than the book, but yet they still did it.

Oh, and let's not forget the series starring the whiney outcast elf, full of angst and self doubt, with his retarded friend, his short friend, his female friend, and his magical item friend.

The first 3 books were OK, he had confidence and the build of a hero.

Then the books just degenerated into page after page of complaining, nobody ever stayed dead, and the opponents were stolen from the short bus.

Can you guess? Here's a hint: The second set of three printed were a prelude to the first three, and the series defines a D&D race to this day.


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