Writing that has made you groan

[Drastic]

Inspired by another thread. Some writing, its context and cadence and content, just tugs heartstrings. Good writing can inspire wonder, astonishment, joy, grief. Good writing is a wonderful, wonderful thing.

Then there's the other kind, on the other end of the curve. Once you move away from the good side of the fence, and skid faster than you'd expected across the hump of mediocrity, and plunge into groan-worthy hell.

I always used to think that holding one's head and groaning at a bad piece of writing was just a bit of hyperbole. And then, a couple weeks ago, I somehow found myself at a showing of the film "Jeepers Creepers" with some friends. Now, the bulk of the script resided firmly on the leeward side of mediocre mound. Spongy, slightly rancid, predictable. Then this line was uttered, in all seriousness, by a "psychic" character who wandered into the set:

"I don't know if it's a devil...or a demon!"

And I put my head in my hands and I groaned. It literally hurt me to hear that. I think one of my friends patted my shoulder and told me it would be all right and over soon.

[Trenchmouth]

Stephen King's THE REGULATORS was the biggest piece of crap I have ever read. The writing was absolutely atrocious. If a nobody submitted the same book to a publisher, it would have been thrown in the garbage after page one.

FOUR PAST MIDNIGHT had some interesting stories, but once again the writing was so incredibly bad, it made any enjoyment impossible.

Just like David Mamet, SK shows that there are projects that he really doesn't give a damn about.

[warmgun]

Beat me to Stephen King.
Everything I've read of his makes me groan.
Sorry, I just don't get the attraction. Read...oh, say Smilla's Sense of Snow for actual prose and you'll see what I mean.

[Cougarfang]

Eleven Bizarre Tales, by this something-or-other Asian guy. none of the tales were bizarre in the least. too dang predictable. now residing in the trash.

[Steve Wright]

I'm a Doctor Who fan of long standing, and I...

[deep breath]

....I bought a whole bunch of the BBC's "New Adventures" and "Missing Adventures" books when they first came out.

There. I said it. I owned up.

Film and TV tie-ins aren't often great literature. (I think this is because authors don't have much of a chance to use their own creative voice when they've got to conform to the conventions and continuity of an ongoing franchise.) Sadly, the Doctor Who tie-ins are at the bottom end of the quality scale. I think this is because the BBC books essentially took over from the old Virgin line, and when that was set up, they started by accepting unsolicited manuscripts in a sort of open competition... and all the fanfic writers came crawling out of the woodwork.

The results, in quality terms, range from "dismal" through "genuinely embarrassingly awful" to "when I win the National Lottery I am going to hire hit men to cut off this person's typing finger".

I suppose, in a weird way, the twenty volumes now cluttering up my flat are useful, as a sort of insane "how-not-to" guide to writing. Basically, if you don't write like these people, you're doing it right.

Some examples? Well, when you pick up a book, and on the title page it says "The Devil Goblins From Neptune", and it goes downhill from there... Or the one who went all literary and clever, with multiple shifting first-person viewpoints - nice trick, except his characterization is so flat you can't tell them apart. Or the one that contains (amongst many idiocies and plot howlers) the simile that's left an indelible scar on my brain; a sinister gentlemanly type stands out in a seedy Victorian dive like (I quote) "a diamond on a plate of kippers".

I could go on, but I'm beginning to have flashbacks, so I'd better stop.

[kaiju]

Clive Cussler. I grabbed an audio book of his from the library. It was the audible equivalent of watching a train wreck. Unabridged, it was 10 or 12 tapes, but could have been 2 tapes shorter if he hadn't given every mesurment in both metric and inches. His similies could gag a goat. And he has the annoying habit of including himself as a character in the books that is just too cute for words.

[CalMeacham]

How can I let a thread like this pass without bringing up the classic Fanshawe, he of the many pseudonyms, the Ed Wood, Jr. of paperbacks.

I first encountered him as Pell Torro, and his Galaxy 666 perfectly exhibits his "crack open the thesaurus and pile on the synonyms" style of padding your word count.

[RickJay]

Originally posted by kaiju
Clive Cussler. I grabbed an audio book of his from the library. It was the audible equivalent of watching a train wreck. Unabridged, it was 10 or 12 tapes, but could have been 2 tapes shorter if he hadn't given every mesurment in both metric and inches. His similies could gag a goat. And he has the annoying habit of including himself as a character in the books that is just too cute for words.

I just read my first Clive Cussler novel, Cyclops, a few weeks ago at the cottage when I had nothing to do, and it was the worst book I've ever read. Jaw-droppingly, stupefyingly bad.

[Suo Na]

Sue Grafton. Hers isn't the worst writing I've read, but it teases; she has a mildly interesting plot, and you don't want to throw the book across the room at the first page, and then all of a sudden her first-person narrator knows something she shouldn't know. Then it happens again. And again.

For example: the character claims to know nothing about clothing, yet identifies another character as wearing an Armani (or some expensive designer) suit. Was his tag sticking out? Is that how she knew?

Or: the character (Kinsey Millhone?) claims to know nothing about sailing or boats, and yet correctly identifies a type of boat and describes in detail how it's rigged.

I could forgive her (maybe, but not her editor) if I had been reading her first book. However, I was reading something in the middle of the alphabet.

[Mystery Dog]

Nobody's mentioned John Grisham yet? Inconceivable!

I listened to the audiotape version of The Firm once, and heard the absolute worst sentence I've ever come across in a work of fiction. I rewound and listened to it several times to make sure I had heard correctly and, yes, I had. I'm pretty sure I'm remembering this sentence correctly now, since its pure ineptitude seared it into my memory.

In a scene where the protagonist is talking to his wife, Grisham unleashed the following sentence: "'Yes'," she said, agreeing with him."

HUH? What could possibly have got into Grisham's mind to make him think those last three words served any purpose? How in the name of all that is holy could Grisham's editor have not cut that sentence in half?

Oh, and The Rainmaker contains the eye-rollingest deus ex machina plot device I've ever encountered. I won't give it away here, but I'm sure anyone who's read it knows what I mean.

[Ukulele Ike]

James Patterson.

I was stuck in a four-hour line at the Brooklyn DMV about ten years ago, and the only thing I had to read was his first mega-mega-bestseller...I think it was ALONG CAME A SPIDER.

Holy shit...he just swiped everything in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS that wasn't nailed down, made the protagonist African-American (and a guy who plays the blues on the grand piano, naturally, when he's not being a supersleuth), and tossed in a few children-in-jeopardy, possibly as a sop to the Mary Higgins Clark readership.

And he wrote it all REALLY, REALLY badly.

After that experience, I generally carry TWO books around with me.

[Danimal]

Originally posted by Drastic

"I don't know if it's a devil...or a demon!"


Hey, if you play Dunegeons & Dragons, it's a crucial distinction. Devils come frome the Nine Hells, demons come from the Abyss. Silver is best against devils, cold iron against demons... :D

[Fionn]

Since we're allowed to talk about movies, I have to say the entire plot and a lot of the dialogue from Left Behind. To make it worse, my mom has annoying habit of repeating lines while watching movies, so I had to listen to it in an echo chamber.

I enjoy her books but some of Patricia Cornwell's dialogue just annoys me. How many people would really say something along the lines of,"...an animal that wanted to eat fresh, raw meat." I can see a real person saying raw meat or fresh meat, but just not the two them together in normal conversation.

I dislike James Patterson's novels. It just seems annoying to have everyone in his family so perfect.

My mom reads a lot of suspense thrillers, so I've read way too many generic psycho-killer-on-the-loose books to go into detail about any one of them.

[Podkayne]

This is probably mean, and perhaps I'm breaking the Sacred Code of Essay Graders, but a paraphrase (to protect the innocent) off the front page of a paper on a space mission:

A baby must learn to crawl before walking, and the baby's first steps are shaky and uncertain.

Okay, can we say "trite"? Where have I heard the space program compared to a baby learning to walk before? Oh, yeah, in the last eight hundred papers I graded for this class. Not to mention that guy, Louis Armstrong or whatever his name was.

Anyway, it continues:

With the help of hand rails and parents, the baby learns to walk confidently.

Hand rails? Hand rails?

If that puzzling reference to home-safety equipment wasn't distracting enough, the author continues to use the hand-rails analogy.

*sigh* Only twenty-six more papers to go. At least these young wordwrights are paying me for the privilege of having their work read. :D

[AWB]

"Number of the Beast" by Heinlein. Pure crap!

I obviously picked the wrong book of his to read first. Because he starts pulling characters and plots from his other novels in a sort of random manner, not to mention "The Wizard of Oz" characters. Really!

It started out good, but started degenerating after a few chapters. And what really threw me in reading it: the protagonist's flying car's computer is named Gay, and his command to her to escape via an instantaneous 1000 mile teleport is "bounce". So when he wanted her to take them 3000 miles away quickly, he shouted, "Gay bounce! Gay bounce! Gay bounce!"

All I could think of whenever he said that was like of flamboyant marchers in a Gay Pride parade. :D:D

[Legomancer]

First, any time anyone says the equivalent of "It's my gift....and my curse" I groan.

Second, if you are beginning your essay with a literary quote, dictionary definition, or the phrase, "Since time began..." your grade should be a maximum of C.

Third, I once read an awful SF book called something like 'Psychodrome'. It was this thing where there was this show/sport where celebrities would fight battles and stuff and the viewers would experience alongside them using VR and cyberspace and whatever. Anyway, our hero wins a contest to be on the show and then has fantastic adventures.

It was the worst piece of insertion fiction I've ever read. The protagonist was the coolest guy in the whole world and did everything great. There's a beautiful woman on the show that everyone lusts after and she comes into his room naked, wanting sex. When he turns her down because he doesn't love her, it just makes her want him all the more.

It was awful, awful cack.

Fourth, I'll second those Doctor Who books someone mentioned. The few I've read were not awe-inspiring.

[moodtobestewed]

E. Annie Proulx's books The Shipping News and Postcards were both great reads, two of my favorite books in fact, but then she unleashed Accordion Crimes upon us. God, what an awful book!

But nothing beats Pel Torro's Galaxy 666 in the groaner department. It's inconceivable that something so bad ever got published.

[Trenchmouth]

The more I think about FOUR PAST MIDNIGHT, the more I hate it. The most memorable line in it for me was:

"She looked at him like he had just shit diamonds out of a platinum asshole."

There you are, ladies and gentlemen. The highest paid writer in the world.

[moodtobestewed]

BTW, if any of you actually enjoy bad books, you should check out Book Happy, the magazine devoted to bad, strange and obscure books:

http://www.book-happy.com

There are some excepts from Galaxy 666 on the site, if you dare...

[Fretful Porpentine]

Second, if you are beginning your essay with a literary quote, dictionary definition, or the phrase, "Since time began..." your grade should be a maximum of C.
One of my colleagues claims to have come across a student essay that began, "Since the dawn of time, the Japanese have been looked upon by their neighbors as a genetically gentle and peaceful race."

That one is wrong on so many levels it's hard to know where to begin.

The best I've seen is the Infamous Cloning Essay. The young lady who wrote this one turned in a draft with the memorable line, "When God created Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, he meant for them to reproduce naturally as a man and woman should and not to clone themselves." I suggested, in the most polite and PC way I could, that she might want to rethink this argument. So she turned in her final copy...

"The human race today is not perfect. We have not reached the height of our development. Why does our society want to make clones of people when millions of years of development still exist? Take a look at the people living in medieval times. Imagine if that generation had cloned itself. Our lives today would be without the comforts of modern day living we experience ..."

That's when I decided to stop commenting on drafts. I liked it better with Adam and Eve.

[Futile Gesture]

Samuel R. Delany's Triton. How to write long sentences of meandering complexities, a dozen (With entire sentences randomly interrupting said sentences within brackets of such length that you've forgotten what the original sentence was about by the time you get back to it.) sub clauses and multiple quotes from different characters arranged in such a way you can't tell who is saying what, orphaned phrases tagged on the end that don't seem to belong there.

Oh, and everything by Ian Rankin. Cliché piled on cliché topped by a trite cherry.

[Syzygy]

Originally posted by Fretful Porpentine
[quote]"The human race today is not perfect. We have not reached the height of our development. Why does our society want to make clones of people when millions of years of development still exist? Take a look at the people living in medieval times. Imagine if that generation had cloned itself. Our lives today would be without the comforts of modern day living we experience ..."

<Heels of hands against temples> Make it stop! Make it sto-op!



For the record, I rather enjoyed Four Past Midnight. 3/4 of it, anyway. Or 5/8. So is that Two and a Half Past Midnight? :D

Maybe Stephen King has produced some frighteningly horrible lines, but Tommyknockers and Needful Things remain my two favorite horror novels. So there.

[Lodrain]

I read some book in the seventh grade, called the Sea (something; I forget the rest of the title). It ripped off from Tom Clancy (another overrated writer) so many times that it made me wretch. It was about... guess what? A renegade submarine that is nearly completely silent, and therefore, very dangerous. The writer used every plot crutch possible. The Two Submarines in Tense Staring Contest crutch. The Nifty Equipment to Please the Gun Nuts crutch. He even added the Mandatory Sex Scene crutch to spice things up a bit. Deus ex machina? Yep, I think there was, but I stopped reading after page 200-something.

He even said, on the cover, 'written in the style of Tom Clancy'...

[ReservoirDog]

One of the quality control officers at my company wrote this e-mail today. Things in parenthesis have been altered to preserve anonymity.


"Hi All, To quote Paul Simmon's song, One mans ceiling is another mans floor. Quality and work ethic I think go hand in hand. Overall, (we) preform at a level with a great success rate. Our errors, are boldly notice, our mistakes could be catastrophic, and all that we do everyday, is connected to the bottom line, we strive to hit every month. To preform perfectly all the time, I'm not sure is possible, but establishing checkpoints, a standard for all to live by, that is constant, up-datable, and excepted by all, arms everyone with the tools needed to complete there tasks successfully. We all are working on the individual parts that will make up the whole. We also have to listen to our (coworkers), when they throw up a red flag. Listening with respect will fuel the strength needed to reach our goal. Once this criteria is established, success should be assured. Sometimes a logical thought for one, can be a very distant thought to another. Our new "common sense" checklist will close the distant between different thought processes. I also think a checklist by department attached to a overall closure agreement between departments before anything is made live, will negate our anxiety we all are feeling now about past, present and future work. (someone)has prepared an extensive list that the art department feels responsible for, above the normal checks and balances we try to do successfully everyday. We await the acceptance of our contribution to the overall scheme."

I mean... wow. Sweet Jesus, this is a quality control officer?

[Limerick]

Originally posted by Syzygy
Originally posted by Fretful Porpentine
[quote]"The human race today is not perfect. We have not reached the height of our development. Why does our society want to make clones of people when millions of years of development still exist? Take a look at the people living in medieval times. Imagine if that generation had cloned itself. Our lives today would be without the comforts of modern day living we experience ..."

<Heels of hands against temples> Make it stop! Make it sto-op!


<wiping tears of slightly hysterical laughter from face>

Man, I may have to try that argument on my advisor next time she tells me I should be cloning more than twice a week. I will point out that it would be wrong to stunt the development of today's primitive sheep.

I actually kind of envy those of you who get to grade essays--there's at least a little entertainment value there. Try grading exams for an animal sciences class. It's funny the first few times somebody tries to tell you a typical chicken wieghs thirty pounds. But after a while, you start to regret being a part of the human race.

[Thudlow Boink]

Taken (out of context) from a quote generously provided by ReservoirDog:
We also have to listen to our (coworkers), when they throw up
I think that says it all...

[amarinth]

Originally posted by Suo Na
Sue Grafton. Hers isn't the worst writing I've read, but it teases; she has a mildly interesting plot, and you don't want to throw the book across the room at the first page, and then all of a sudden her first-person narrator knows something she shouldn't know. Then it happens again. And again. I forgave it all until book N.
Where the character claimed to only use Hellman's Mayonaisse. No other mayo would do.

Which might be all well and good if it weren't for the fact that there's no such thing as Hellman's on the west coast (where the character has lived all her life).
That was the straw that broke the camel's back.

(Plus constantly referring to character's friend who (at the height and weight given by Grafton) would have been a size 6 as fat. That pissed me off to no end.)

[Steve Wright]

Besides the Doctor Who books, I've also read a couple of Dennis Wheatleys.

("Gosh, Steve, you do read a lot of rubbish." Yeah. You got a problem with that?)

The Haunting of Toby Jugg is one that sticks in the memory for all the wrong reasons. (I paid 5p for it at a church jumble sale - took it home, read it, decided I'd been robbed.) Sensitive aristocratic young hero is helpless in the clutches of evil Jewish Communist black magicians (think about that one, but not too hard), who are trying either to corrupt him with Vile Sensual Pleasures, or to drive him mad by frightening him with an enormous conjured spider demon.

The book has many points of interest for connoisseurs of bad writing - for example, the scene where the chief Jewish Communist black magician explains how an underling, who has failed to seduce Our Hero, has been shipped back to Russia for punishment disguised as a crate of bananas. However, it's the giant spider that does it for me. I'm quite an arachnophobe, and have been known to scream like a little girl at quite ordinary spiders - but even I, who can barely look at the things, know that spiders are arachnids, not insects, and have eight legs, not six.

[Badtz Maru]

The novelization of 'Total Recall' by Piers Anthony was unusually horrible. Unusual despite the fact that (A) novelizations almost always suck and (B) stuff by Piers Anthony almost always sucks.

I TRIED to read a biography of Tokugawa Ieyasu (I believe it was titled 'The Maker of Modern Japan' or something similar) and could not get past the constant grammatical mistakes. I'd say a good 2/3 of the sentences I read were either badly put-together run-on sentences or sentence fragments. I can get past bad grammar alone, but there were many points where I could not figure out what the author was trying to say because of them.

[Badtz Maru]

Oh yeah, another good one is 'The Legacy of Heorot' by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Steven Barnes. Now, I'm a big fan of Larry Niven, and like everything I've read by Pournelle, but this book had some horrible writing in it. One example I can think of is a point where the omniscient third-person narration describes something as (and I'm not getting this exactly right) 'an orgy of murder' and then later on the same page one of the characters describes it with the EXACT SAME PHRASE. Now, this may have been partially due to having multiple authors working on the project, but this should have been caught in early proofreadings.

[Freudian Slit]

Originally posted by Ukulele Ike
James Patterson....

Holy shit...he just swiped everything in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS that wasn't nailed down, made the protagonist African-American (and a guy who plays the blues on the grand piano, naturally, when he's not being a supersleuth), and tossed in a few children-in-jeopardy, possibly as a sop to the Mary Higgins Clark readership.

Yes!! I read, and finished because I just felt I had to see what exactly went down, Kiss the Girls. And here I was thinking that this book would be ultra-disturbing. Everyone who saw me reading it said it was wonderful, etc...even my fave English teacher, whose fave books include A Tale of Two Cities, loved Along Came A Spider. :( :( :(

Ahh. I HATED that main character, he was so goddamned self-righteous. I utterly detested all these self-assured, self-confident women that get kidnapped. It was way too good vs. evil for me. The serial killers were cartoonishly bad. It was as if Patterson was making an oversimplified Thomas Harris novel, only in Harris's novels, the serial killers are at least identifiable with. Here, I just wanted them all to die, die, die. Even though I was sure they would all come out all right in the end. The only thing disturbing was how saccharine sweet it was all- do the right thing and all that crap. Icky, icky stuff.

[Fear Itself]

Anything by Dean Koontz. The women are always conveniently sterile, obviating the need for birth control, and the protagonists are always independently wealthy, so working for a living never gets in the way of the "plot". The monster is always a big mutant dog-headed thing with lots of teeth. And he gets obsessed with a word like "preternatural", and repeats it on every other page.

[dlb]

Amanda Cross. Her "we are so witty, so sophisticated, and we pity those poor people who live across the Hudson" drek makes me want to hurl. "Those rednecks out West actually think we want to come and take their property." Right.

It is to puke.

[stolichnaya]

I just read Murder in the Smithsonian by Margaret Truman. That's right, Harry's daughter. Don't blame me, it was on the back of the toilet in my SO's house. Don't blame her, she lives in DC, where apparently Ms. Truman is loved and respected.

This book was terribly wonderful. The names, oh dear sweet Jesus the names. The moth-eaten stock characters. The "insights" into the labrynthine, time-wasting social structure of our nation's capital seen through the eyes of a child of priveledge who was obviously kept as far from the true workings of the town as possible.

Alas,
It is to puke. --dlb

[Curdog]

John Opdyke. Yuck.

[CrankyAsAnOldMan]

I agree on Dean Koontz and James Patterson. For extreme pain, try to read his latest "romance" book, Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas. Lord did I groan.

After enjoying Lonesome Dove, I have tried to read other Larry McMurtry books. Good lord. I wanted to drop to my knees and scream and beg for some character development and plot. Which is almost like groaning, right?

[Blacksheepsmith]

Dean Koontz's _Phantoms_ was the most awful book I ever read. I finished it on the Chicago El, got off at my stop, and threw the copy onto the rails.

And I'd agree that the prose in _The Firm_ is monumentally bad. I remember that "'Yes,' she said, agreeing with him" sentence and how it made me retch.

There was also a sentence along the lines of "Sitting there at the table, he felt exactly as he would feel as if he was the dinner fork sitting there on the table at that moment."

I, too, wondered whether anyone actually sat down and edited that book. And if they had, what were they sitting on--a spike?

But I also graded freshmen English 15 papers for three years. Don't talk to me about bad until you've encountered a student plagiarizing another student who got an F.

[DAVEW0071]

I worked for about four years for an imprint in the Children's Books Division of a major publisher. This was in the early 90s, before the children's book industry hit a major meltdown, and it still held onto the somewhat antiquated but nonetheless charming tradition of accepting unsolicited manuscripts (known in the industry as "slush"). We read them, too, and actually found one or two submissions worth publishing.

But the bulk of them were unreadable. If they weren't trite, overused themes tackled with no imagination, they were hackneyed rhymes (why do people think every picture book has to rhyme?) or talking animal stories. The editorial assistant at another imprint told me whenever one of the slush submitters called re: their manuscript, she automatically asked, "Oh, is that the one about the Spunky Squirrel?" Usually, the caller answered, "Why, yes, it is," pleased that it had made such a big impression :rolleyes:.

Maybe this thread was devoted to actual published dreck, but since I've seen a couple of teachers talk about student essays, I thought I'd add my two cents about slush submitted to children's book publishers. Dismal stuff.

[RealityChuck]

Grendel Briarton, of course:

"That's just the furry with the syringe on top."
"A gritty pearl is Michael L.L.D."
"I'm just a Holmes pun philosopher."

And of course, Isaac Asimov:

"A niche in time saves Stein."
"Give my big hearts to Maude, Ray
Remember me to Harold's choir."

Plus one from A. Bertram Chandler:

"It's raining Datsun cogs!"

Ah, the feghoot! ;)

[NutMagnet]

Everything by Mary Higgins Clark. What a hack.

[tavalla]

I think I can trump you all (well, with the possible exception of papers to be graded, slush to be read and The Grisham Sentence).

The Celestine Prophecy.

:retch:

[JessEnigma]

Aside from my own writing (I'm working on a story right now and thinking about throwing it all out because the tone changed suddenly from vaguely dark to all glurgy) and the papers my classmates make me proofread all the time, I would have to say a book that my dad's boss wrote. It just seems so much like a really bad murder mystery / romance novel. Interesting enough, I guess, but it reads like an English paper that tries too hard.

Usually, though, I can ignore the writing if the plotline is good enough.


jessica

[Caracticus Potts]

"Soul of the Fire" by Terry Goodkind. A big thick book which will have you ripping your eyes out with soup spoons just to end the agony.

[Manda JO]

Oh, oh, student essays!

Essay openers from a sweet girl who likes horses:

"Black people are differnet than white people, but aht dosen't mean you should treat them badly . . ."

From the same girl, in a thank you to a NY relief worker:

"I hope that God has comforted you through all this. If you are not a Christian, I hope this experience has helped bring you to the light." (I queitly disposed of the letter)

Essay opener from one of my Dumbbutts:

This is my essay. Well, what is this essay going to be about? Not about the book like my last essay. Nope, this essay is going to be . . .

[Fretful Porpentine]

And one more from the latest crop of drafts:

"The Bible is the best source for history because most of the people who read it will believe it."

Ow.

[Caracticus Potts]

Originally posted by Fretful Porpentine
And one more from the latest crop of drafts:

"The Bible is the best source for history because most of the people who read it will believe it."

Ah. So along those lines, the National Enquirer would be the best source for news. ;)

[Stoid]

I will never forget how completely stunned I was when I finally picked up a book by Robin Cook and read it. Page aafter page, chapter after chapter, unquestionably the worst, most amateurish, puerile tripe I have ever seen professionally published in 43 years of life. That Cook was published once is a profound mystery to me, that he (?) is a million-seller leaves me dazed and sorrowful.

Of course, one cannot have a thread such as this without mentioning the horrifically bad "Celestine Prophecy" Oh my lord! Help me...

stoid

[Mr. Blue Sky]

Always on the lookout for new sci-fi, I picked up the novel Starplex by Robert J. Sawyer. The plot revolving around artificial wormholes that mysteriously open up, the station that monitors them, and the odd assortment of aliens (including humans) who run it (sort of like Deep Space Nine, but with worse writing). In describing one of the alien lifeforms, Mr. Sawyer gives us the following:

"Jag could watch them simultaneously, one with his vertically stacked left pair of eyes, the other with his vertically stacked right pair. Like humans, Waldahuldin had two-sided brains, but each of their hemispheres could process a separate stereoscopic image."

I stopped reading the book and put it in the box headed for the Goodwill. Maybe someone else can handle this crap, not me.

Did I mention the dolphins on the bridge who help run the ship?

[Miller]

I used to read a lot of media tie-in books, especially Star Wars. Then I read Shadows of the Empire. Boy, howdy was that ever a bad book. At least twice in the novel, Luke proposes a far-fetched, crazy-sounding idea that just might be the rebels only hope of survival. Leia is so stunned by his wild, dangerous scheme that she "looked at Luke as if he had just turned into a big spider." Which, I assume, means she screamed and tried to kill him with a blaster.

Also, if anyone who's read the book can tell me what a "v-step" is and how such a manuever helps one win a lightsaber duel, I'll send them a choclate covered wookie.

In the interests of completeness and self-promotion, I also offer this link (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=82437)

[Kaje]

Anybody ever seen the movie Doubletake w/ the 7up commercial guy in it? My bros rented it over the summer and I sat down to watch it... Good lord... I normally hate reading film critics bash a movie, but this one was horrible. I've seen plenty of bad movies before, but I seriously think I (computer science major for chrissake) could have written a better script in about 2 hours.

I'll spare you the details, just heed my warning... very much bad.

man... it sucks writing about bad writing.. you catch yourself paying way too much attention to the nuances of english grammar/whatnot.

[Ooner]

The worst line of dialogue ever to be spoken in any movie is from Volcano. At the end, when everyone is covered in ash, a little boy looks around and says:

"They all look the same"

*Ooner pukes all over the place*

Each time I've seen that movie, I keep expecting it to be a joke. I just wait, and there's no punchline. That's actually serious dialogue. I don't really demand all movies have smart writing, but be at least a little bit subtle!

Even worse, I have a sociology professor who told the class how much she LOVES that movie, especially that line. I was barely able to restrain myself from causing a scene.

As far as books go, I'll second the Dean Koontz mentions. I read a bunch of his books a few years ago because they were silly easy reads, and couldn't help but notice they are all action, but absolutely NO real substance whatsoever.

[jmonster]

The Eye of Argon (http://www.pale.org/personal/eye.html)

Your brain will start severing your optic nerves about 2 paragraphs in, just to get away from the pain.

[Miller]

Originally posted by jmonster
The Eye of Argon (http://www.pale.org/personal/eye.html)

Your brain will start severing your optic nerves about 2 paragraphs in, just to get away from the pain.

Wow, someone's mom just bought them a thesaurus!

[Kyla]

Two pages and not one single person has mentioned Message in a Bottle, by Nicholas Sparks? And I know it isn't because none of you ever read trash, as this thread proves.

When I was living in Israel, I was desperate for English books. They're very expensive new, and only occasionally did I ever find anything I wanted to spend my money on in the used shops. But my roommate's aunt sometimes lent her books, and I would borrow them. I would read anything, which was how I found myself reading several (repetetive) Danielle Steel and Belva Plain books. But for bad writing, nothing comes close to Message in a Bottle. The story itself was obviously contrived in a way to be as romantic as possible, but was not too terrible. But an eighth grader could have written in better. One of Fretful's students could have written in better. It was unbelieveably bad. I told my roommate that it was the worst book I had ever read, and she shrugged, deciding to make her own decision. I think she gave up after a few pages, when she slammed the book down and said, "This is terrible! I can't believe this book got published!"

[AuntiePam]

Another Koontz basher checking in here. I'd tried to read him several times but always gave up after just a few pages. Way too many metaphors and similes -- felt like I was reading junior high lit assignments. ;)

Then a friend loaned me his newest, "From the Corner of His Eye". Again, I almost gave up very early in the book. In a scene where a solicitous husband is in the kitchen with his very pregnant wife, Koontz says he's "loitering in her vicinity." Huh? Is this a loving husband or a vagrant?

I finished the book (Koontz does some pop culture satire that's kinda fun) but I doubt I'll ever read another.

Another example of atrocious writing is the first paragraph of Brian Lumley's Necroscope. I just now read it again -- didn't want to bitch if the bad first impression was due to my own frame of mind. Nope. It's still bad. I read a little further -- it doesn't get any better. It's not technically bad -- just incredibly boring.

[Morgyn]

Originally posted by jmonster
The Eye of Argon (http://www.pale.org/personal/eye.html)

Your brain will start severing your optic nerves about 2 paragraphs in, just to get away from the pain.
Damn. You beat me to it. Did you know that contests are sometimes held at science fiction conventions to see who can read the furthest without dissolving into laughter?

I've always loved the phrase "many-fauceted scarlet emerald". (Yes, that's what the guy actually wrote.)

[Gomez]

Vote: James Pattison

[Torgo]

Dennis Lehane

Boy, does he write badly. Shit spews forth from his keyboard like an elderly man's spastic colon. In case you don't know who he is, Lehane writes "crime fiction" from the point of view of someone who has never actually read crime fiction, or fiction, or books of any kind but has only heard of them. Worse of all his main characters ring false and hollow, fraudulent. You read Ellroy or MacDonald and you see those characters before you as they spill off the page. Lehane's creations have you rolling your eyes and slowly becoming more and more angry at this fraud with a capital F (I can think of a few more F-words to describe Lehane). Working-class private dicks, who also happen to be hipsters, who talk like graduate students, interacting with vile underworld scum whilst making precious pop-culture reference riffs about Peckinpah and the like....GRRRRRRRR. A writer who should read how real writers write and spend less time at his local Blockbuster outlet. FUCK HIM.

[stolichnaya]

Boy, does he write badly. Shit spews forth from his keyboard like an elderly man's spastic colon. In case you don't know who he is, Lehane writes "crime fiction" from the point of view of someone who has never actually read crime fiction, or fiction, or books of any kind but has only heard of them.

I think you're going a little far here. Lehane has obviously never heard of books.

[AuntiePam]

Torgo - no kidding! Thanks -- you saved me some bucks. Some folks in a couple of my book groups have been raving about this guy. If his characters are half as phony as you describe, I don't think I'd like him either.

[Torgo]

Originally posted by AuntiePam
Torgo - no kidding! Thanks -- you saved me some bucks. Some folks in a couple of my book groups have been raving about this guy. If his characters are half as phony as you describe, I don't think I'd like him either.

Happy to help anyone dodge the dreaded Lehane bullet. I forgot to mention the only thing that makes his writing worse is that he's so damn successful at it.

[deepbluesea]

My mother reads a lot of mysteries. Or I should say, she allows her eyes to rest on them - she somehow manages to read these books without ever allowing any of the content into her brain. Which makes her recommendations a bit - unreliable. I have become something of a mini-specialist in Bad Mystery Writing as a result.

Patterson is bad, yes, Grisham is bad, certainly, but you people are missing one of the worst cases of Bestseller Badness of all time: Lillian Jackson Braun. Her books are miracles. They have no plot, no characters, no style, no writing, and two cats, and they sell (well, sold - don't know if they're still popular) like mad. My LO and I tortured ourselves all the way through one of LJB's books - I think it was The Cat Who Jumped Up and Down and Begged to Be Put Out of His Misery - and it was one of the most heinous reading experiences of my life. And I say this as someone who used to have to read freshman psychology students' essays.

In the Less Well Known Category of Profound Awfulness, I give you Harry Stephen Keeler (http://xavier.xu.edu/~polt/keeler/read.html). He is so bad he's good. A quote, taken from that link (for obvious reasons, it's hard to get your hands on a Keeler): For it must be remembered that at the time I knew quite nothing, naturally, concerning Milo Payne, the mysterious Cockney-talking Englishman with the checkered long-beaked Sherlockholmsian cap; nor of the latter's "Barr-Bag" which was as like my own bag as one Milwaukee wienerwurst is like another; nor of Legga, the Human Spider, with her four legs and her six arms; nor of Ichabod Chang, ex-convict, and son of Dong Chang; nor of the elusive poetess, Abigail Sprigge; nor of the Great Simon, with his 2163 pearl buttons; nor of--in short, I then knew quite nothing about anything or anybody involved in the affair of which I had now become a part, unless perchance it were my Nemesis, Sophie Kratzenschneiderwümpel--or Suing Sophie.It doesn't get more awful than that, folks, and he was published.

[tavalla]

Originally posted by Morgyn
Originally posted by jmonster
The Eye of Argon (http://www.pale.org/personal/eye.html)


Did you know that contests are sometimes held at science fiction conventions to see who can read the furthest without dissolving into laughter?

Ah, but reading without laughing is only the Lower Level of Argon Mastery. The Exalted Level is to be able to read it while sucking helium without laughing.

If you go here (http://brie.bmsc.washington.edu/people/merritt/books/Eye_of_Argon.html) you'll find a full MST3K treatment.

[Lucifer12]

Without a doubt, the worst book I've read in many a moon had to be 'Hannibal', by Thomas Harris. What a piece of garbage! And coming from an author that we all know can do so much better-it's truly sad. I skipped many, many pages of that book.

It's obvious Harris wrote this book either as a contractual obligation or strictly to hang a movie sequel on, or both. It feels like a screenplay, not a novel. And the characters seem to be totally different people who just have happen to have the same names as his previous characters.

It stinks!

[robertliguori]

Once, I wrote a half-page sentance that was perfectly correct, grammatically speaking. The teacher wouldn't accept it, though.

[Greywolf73]

I add my vote to the Dean Koontz/James Patterson category.

Dean Koontz makes my teeth hurt.

I am currently slogging through "The Rift" by Walter J. Williams.
I am 145 pages in and I still don't give a flying feck about any of the so-called "main characters". These characters are so dull and jaw-droppingly sterotypical it just amazes me that this book made it to print.
Throw in some completely gratuitious and not very interesting sex scenes and some mind-numbing earthquake facts and statistics every few pages, and I'm ready to throw this book in the trash.
Goodwill is too good for the likes of it.
Bleech.

[Deadly Nightlight]

Originally posted by warmgun
. Read...oh, say Smilla's Sense of Snow for actual prose and you'll see what I mean.

It was an awesome movie though :D

[Fred]

You guys have Koontz characters all wrong!

I got the recurring characters nailed down:

The Man: Ex-military, or ex-cop (Dark Rivers of the Heart). Or ex-Delta Force (Watchers).

The Woman: Traumatic childhood, but slowly recovering into a strong self-assured woman. (Demon Seed, Lightening, Whispers, I could go on and on and on)

The Villain: He's repeated the villain from Whispers, his first, many, many, many times (That One With The Guy and The Kid Going Across The Country Pursued By A Madman, The One With The Private Detectives And The Guy That Could Teleport, Face of Fear, and so on). Quick description: 6 foot 3, weight lifters build, eats like a horse, blonde, blue eyes, crazy, rapist.

The Sex Scene: Koontz doesn't write random sex scenes. Everyone who has sex in a Koontz novel is deeply in love. A "feeling of two beings becoming one" is often discovered, because of the deepness of the connection. See every Koontz book ever.

The Super-Intelligent Dog: See Watchers, Fear Nothing (And it's sequel), That One With The Technologically Enhanced Town, etc. Koontz is, apparently, a dog lover.

The Geek Corrupted By Power: Night Terror and The Aforementioned Technologically Enhanced Town, especially.


I've read them all folks. And for some reason, I love 'em. *shrug* What can I say? I know it's the same book over and over again. The titles all run together, unfortunately. But dammit, it's a book I like!

[benson]

I can't remember the name of the book, but the first two lines made me groan out loud. I knew from that point that it was going to be a baaaaaaaad book. I was right.

"Murder and cooking don't mix. Unfortunately I learned this while hosting a TV cooking show".

I swear I didn't make that up. Worst opening sentences EVER.

[Askia]

Mmwhah ha ha ha ha HAH!

FINE submissions, all. Many OBVIOUS and GENERAL examples of prose gone sour. Yet none of you have delved into that most atrocious slime-ball of Meritless Potification that lies, like a reeking beached whale, in the literary sub-genre of Famous People Who Write Illustrated Children's Books For No Damn Good Reason.

I give you: former ex-President Jimmy Carter and daughter Amy's straight-off-the-presses-and-bound-for-the-remaindered-booksellers' -- "The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer."

GAH. (http://www.randomhouse.com/crown/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=0812927311)

I'm paraphrasing, but I believe the FIRST line goes: "There once was a brave little crippled boy named Jeremy who loved his mother very much..."

Makes you wanna bitch-slap some sense into Jimmy, eh?

Uh... gotta go. Secret Service van just pulled up. MAN, people have NO sense of humor this close to 9.11.

[Windwalker]

Originally posted by Mystery Dog
Nobody's mentioned John Grisham yet? Inconceivable!

I listened to the audiotape version of The Firm once, and heard the absolute worst sentence I've ever come across in a work of fiction. I rewound and listened to it several times to make sure I had heard correctly and, yes, I had. I'm pretty sure I'm remembering this sentence correctly now, since its pure ineptitude seared it into my memory.

In a scene where the protagonist is talking to his wife, Grisham unleashed the following sentence: "'Yes'," she said, agreeing with him."

HUH? What could possibly have got into Grisham's mind to make him think those last three words served any purpose? How in the name of all that is holy could Grisham's editor have not cut that sentence in half?

Oh, and The Rainmaker contains the eye-rollingest deus ex machina plot device I've ever encountered. I won't give it away here, but I'm sure anyone who's read it knows what I mean.

I'm curious... If you found the first Grisham book you read/heard so awful, why did you read another one?

BTW, what's a deus ex machina? Is that the argument of God acting in strange ways? Or God not acting at all? Or...

- Wind

[Windwalker]

Oh, I forgot to give my vote!

It is hard, but I'm going to go with The Temptation of Elminster, which is in the Forgotten Realms world, if any of you have heard of it. Elminster is the big bad Gandalf-like figure in this world, and Ed Greenwood's series chronicles his rise to power. If only Ed could write! I've never seen anyone depict great swords and sorcery battles so badly. Elminster just acted as if he were invincible, and gosh darn, who wouldn't be with a goddess there to save or ressurect your sorry behind every time you act like a bumbling idiot :) Of course, Elminster and the goddess are the only characters that endure, as the book just cuts from one adventure to another without end, with all of the miscellaneous characters being stereotypes of this D&D inspired world. Not even developed stereotypical characters, for they all disappear within a chapter or two. And Elminster is just about the most boring character in the world, and the somewhat provacative title belies the fact that Elminster and temptation did not even enter the same room together...

Most books I've read have had a decent aspect to them. Badly written books usually have halfway interesting plots and/or action. This book had neither. Bad characters, bad prose, flatly serialized story, no emotional involvement at all.

It was not even bad enough to be entertainingly bad, like some of the examples you folks have mentioned. The Firm by John Grisham is a masterpiece compared to this book...

- Wind

[Kn*ckers]

I absolutely must provide a link to one of my favorite places on the whole web, here:

http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/

(sorry, I don't know how to do the clever linking-without-entering-the-address thing)

The Bulwer Lytton Fiction contest is an opportunity to write as horribly as possible, and the results are always a riot. This site also includes a "Sticks and Stones" section for mockery of published work - a lot like this thread. It's well worth a peek.

The Bulwer-Lytton site also links to the singularly repugnant, but very amusing, Eye of Argon, mentioned above.

[smiling bandit]

"Jag could watch them simultaneously, one with his vertically stacked left pair of eyes, the other with his vertically stacked right pair. Like humans, Waldahuldin had two-sided brains, but each of their hemispheres could process a separate stereoscopic image."

I... don't get it? What's bad about this piece of prose?

And who DARES suggest thet the mighty Peirs Anthony writes ANYTHING bad, EVER?!?! You shall pay , HERETIC!

[Jabba]

Originally posted by Kn*ckers
I absolutely must provide a link to one of my favorite places on the whole web, here:

http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/

(sorry, I don't know how to do the clever linking-without-entering-the-address thing)

The Bulwer Lytton Fiction contest is an opportunity to write as horribly as possible, and the results are always a riot. This site also includes a "Sticks and Stones" section for mockery of published work - a lot like this thread. It's well worth a peek.

The Bulwer-Lytton site also links to the singularly repugnant, but very amusing, Eye of Argon, mentioned above.
The Sticks and Stones section is wonderful. It begins with a splendidly inept sentence from Danielle Steele's Star:
She wore a dress the same color as her eyes her father brought her from San Francisco.
and also includes the majestic
East or West, it matters not where--the story may, doubtless, indicate something of the latitude and longitude as it proceeds--in the city of Mishaumok, lived Henderson Gartney, Esq., one of those American gentlemen of whom, if she were ever canonized, Martha of Bethany must be the patron saint--if again, feminine celestials, sainthood once achieved through the weary experience of earth, don't know better than to assume such charge of wayward man--born, as they are, seemingly, to the life-destiny of being ever 'careful and troubled about many things.
from Adeline Dutton Whitney's Faith Gartney's Girlhood.

[Myron Van Horowitzski]

This shouldn't surprise anyone, but I submit William Shatner's Tek series.

To be fair, I only read the first couple chapters of the first book.

On the other hand, you don't have to eat the whole apple to know it's rotten.

[CMC]

One of my colleagues claims to have come across a student essay that began, "Since the dawn of time, the Japanese have been looked upon by their neighbors as a genetically gentle and peaceful race."

Oh my... I had a friend in college who did a whole series of paintings on the "use" of Korean women during the war.

[Alto]

I see DAVEW0071

[Alto]

I see DAVEW0071 beat me to the children's book slush pile, but I assure you some imprints (mine for instance) still accept and read slush. We get together, order a pizza, and read them aloud to each other. It gives a truly frightening picture of the literacy of the nation, more appalling in a way than even college essays, because these are all manuscripts from people who consider themselves writers. (And many are librarians and teachers.) One of my favorites:

The hare is bare
and that's unfair.
Prepare to share
your underwear.

Another recent gem gave a vivid depiction of what a banana feels like as its skin is peeled off. It was enough to turn anyone into a flesh-eater.

[Mystery Dog]

Originally posted by Windwalker
I'm curious... If you found the first Grisham book you read/heard so awful, why did you read another one?



Well, the first one I read was actually The Pelican Brief, whic wasn't all that bad. Not laugh-out-loud-and-wonder-how-this-got-past-the-editors bad, anyway. Then I listened to the audiobook of The Firm, which was bad, but could have been an aberration. Then I read The Rainmaker, which was ended up being flung across the room with great force and convinced me that any flaws in Grisham's other writing were no aberration.

[Kn*ckers]

Originally posted by Alto
One of my favorites:

The hare is bare
and that's unfair.
Prepare to share
your underwear.


You didn't like it? That was some of my best work!

Kn(please, PLEASE don't take this post seriously)ckers

P.S : You forgot verse 2:

The deer is here
so never fear
If you are queer
come have a beer.

[Giselle]

Anything by Lois Duncan. Gaaah. She wrote one book. Then recycled the same freaking plot multiple times and made money off it.

*throws things*

[Cardinal]

Anyone notice how EVERY book from Tom Clancy has to have about three scenes in which the "good" characters give a speech about all the hard work they put in defending the country for ungrateful liberals? I mean, my brother's an army lieutenant, and I think Clancy's pounded it into the ground decades ago.

Also, if you read that "Bear and the Dragon" book of his, count how many times someone uses the phrase, "John Chinaman." Simply unbelievable. Why wouldn't his editor tell him to cut it out? Is he really that much of a 500 lb. gorilla?

If you guys think Grisham is bad, you haven't been trying to read the pulp novels from the grocery store written by the people who aren't million-selling authors. Just incomprehensible junk. I've pretty much quit reading fiction, because it's so routinely bad. Maybe I just need better recommendations.

What can cause awkward moments is having friends show you their writing. This very sweet girl showed me her writing about her trip to Africa, and I think she thought that using similies made her "descriptive" and a good writer. I had to sort of white lie.


The phrase that has stuck in my mind for years from some Clancy wannabe is, "The ship bucked under their feet like a lover coming back for more." I didn't buy the book because of that one line.

As for relief from this kind of thing, I nominate P.J. O'Rourke, who is sort of the no-B.S. guru of writing.

[Ranchoth]

Originally posted by Alto
Another recent gem gave a vivid depiction of what a banana feels like as its skin is peeled off. It was enough to turn anyone into a flesh-eater.

It's blasphemy to say this, but I'd actually like to see that one.

[The Stafford Cripps]

Wow! This 2 page thread is a year old and no-one's mentioned the sheer brainless cliched crap that is the heavily edited writing of the imprisoned Jeffrey Archer!?!

Now, Archer is regularly lampooned by what are seen by some as the trendy chattering classes. They sneer about his writing and storytelling abilities, his charity work and so much else that one might think there is a large element of snobbery and envy involved. Maybe there is, but when you actually read his books, you find that every criticism of them is thoroughly deserved. The stories are predictable and cliched and the writing, even after it has been thoroughly revised by Archer's editors, is full of factual, grammatical and logical mistakes.

I haven't seen any of his books for a few years, so I'm going by memory, but some things that come to mind:

In "Kane and Abel" a peasant boy finds an abandoned baby. He takes it home and when his mother sees them he looks at her and silently presents her the baby. I can't imagine such a scene ever really happening without any dialogue. To add to the fake pathos, I think the baby conveniently remains uncrying. I'm sure Archer must have been thinking of some crappy B-movie melodrama when he wrote this.
Later in the book, Kane is badly injured in WW2; he doesn't fully regain conscioussness for weeks. In the space of 2 pages, about 6 paragraphs end with the sentence "He slept". You don't think you could actually hate a 2 word sentence but you do.

In "As the Crow Flies" the hero walks from Whitechapel to The Old Kent Road in London, buys a market barrow and walks it back, as if the two places are only half a mile or so apart. Later the hero goes to London University for some reason; he hops across to the Strand (again just a few minutes' walk) and a policeman points him on his way; again the unnatural lack of dialogue.

In all of his books that I've read, the hero finally becomes "a man" when he has some defining sexual encounter with an older more experienced woman, perhaps a headmaster's wife or a prostitute who doesn't accept payment.

The book "First Among Equals" supposedly gives the reader a feel of life at the centre of the British political establishment. One scene involves a Scottish MP raising the case of the dubious conviction of a constituent for armed robbery or something. Conveniently for the book, the appeal is heard in the Old Bailey, and the defence is led by one of the other main characters, an MP who is an English QC. Now, in fact, this could never happen. All Scottish criminal appeals are heard in Edinburgh and go no further (except sometimes to the ECHR in Strasbourg but that's irrelevant here). How the hell Archer, who himself had been an MP, could have failed to know this or have it pointed out to him boggles the mind.

These aren't very good examples, but take my word for it; if you are a connoisseur of bad writing and you haven't yet sampled the delights of Archer's books, then a rich casket awaits you. (Don't get mixed up with the less well known thriller writer, Geoffrey Archer.)

[pesch]

Originally posted by deepbluesea
Patterson is bad, yes, Grisham is bad, certainly, but you people are missing one of the worst cases of Bestseller Badness of all time: Lillian Jackson Braun.

I can top that.

Lillian Jackson Braun, read by DICK VAN PATTEN!

Even now, I can clearly hear his voice, calling KO-KO! YUM-YUM!

The horror . . . the horror . . .

[vivalostwages]

Originally posted by jmonster
The Eye of Argon (http://www.pale.org/personal/eye.html)

Your brain will start severing your optic nerves about 2 paragraphs in, just to get away from the pain.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I never even made it to the second paragraph. I burst out laughing before the end of the first one!
:D

[vivalostwages]

Okay, I can't say that I've actually read the writing, but the covers on these books are a real turn-off....

http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/neoreality.html

[emulsified]

(With regard to Tom Clancy...)
Why wouldn't his editor tell him to cut it out? Is he really that much of a 500 lb. gorilla?
I think he threatens to bean them with copies of his 500 lb. books if they protest.

I have to add to the Clancy hatred list for his usage of non-existent words. Tom, perq is not a word, no matter how much you want it to be. The correct spelling is perk even though it is short for perquisite. Live with it.

Likewise, the word IS NOT pshrink, it's shrink, even if you think it would be cool to spell it that way since it refers to a psychiatrist. I know silent p's are neat, but you aren't allowed to stick them in anywhere you want, even if you are a pmillionaire.

Also, if a character is a medical doctor, does every other character have to refer to them as a "doc"? This one is minor, but it is grating.

Finally (and only finally because I'm out of steam, not because Mr. Clancy is out of offenses), would it kill you to refrain from switching scenes abruptly and then going on for several paragraphs--sometimes pages--without identifying who is thinking/talking/speaking or where they might be? Despite what you think, this is not cute, it's annoying. A tip to Clancy readers out there... Skip ahead a few paragraphs to find a character or place name then start reading again. Trust me, it helps.

The sad thing is that I'm such a geek for his techy weapon and military descriptions that I am doomed to suffer through his awful prose to cull them out. Consider me a masochist.

[stolichnaya]

Re: Clancy
Also, if a character is a medical doctor, does every other character have to refer to them as a "doc"?

Also also, if a character is British, must he constantly pepper his speech with britishisms? It's like I'll forget the guy's british if he doesn't say chap or lad every sentence.

Another useful shorthand is that insane people speak in italics, and hispanics must say at least one Spanish word per sentence, and be hot-blooded.

I too am a slave to the plots and the ideas, which are great. But I also occasionally laugh out loud at the prose and "characterization".

[Stoid]

You can randomly select any Robin Cook book and randomly select any page, read it, and I guarantee you will groan out loud.

[Corixidae]

Robert Jordan.

I've tried, several times, to get into the Wheel of Time series. I actually managed to complete the first book but I've been stuck on the first 100 pages of the second book for nearly a year, and there are... what, nine books in that series now? 10?

[triglycerides]

Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb.

A complete waste of my time and money, after the first 150 pages I threw it out because she was trying to make it on of those charachter based novels meets romance meets adventure and not succeeding well at any of it. For the first time in my life I wished that a writer would focus less on characterization and more on the action. Every time she introduced a charachter she wasted 10-15 pages about thier past, inner lives, and motivations-badly. It was like she was writing it just so it could be mentioned on Oprah. I am never reading anything by her again.

[Voyager]

Originally posted by CalMeacham
How can I let a thread like this pass without bringing up the classic Fanshawe, he of the many pseudonyms, the Ed Wood, Jr. of paperbacks.

I first encountered him as Pell Torro, and his Galaxy 666 perfectly exhibits his "crack open the thesaurus and pile on the synonyms" style of padding your word count.

Second (or third) this one. It's Pel Torro, btw. I read this in high school, 34 years ago, and always remembered it. I just reread it, and it's worse and more funny than I remembered. Fanthorpe wrote by placing tape recorders around his house, and strolling around dictating his books. He wrote two per weekend. I'm sure he never looked at them again.

Another bad book is the Anne Rice Sleeping Beauty book. How anyone can make erotica so unerotic is beyond me. I know it is a series, but I never got past the first one.

[SolGrundy]

Well, although it's already been mentioned, I have to bring up Shadows of the Empire by Steve Perry. In his defense, the book had to have been written quickly, and was one of the worst-possible cases of a completely marketing-driven novel, and I'm sure that when Journey broke up he took it hard, but still... here's a line from a page I picked at random:
Describing Lando from Leia's point of view
He smiled. He was a handsome man - tall, dark-skinned, a thin mustache above those shiny white teeth - and he knew it, too.
Sure; so many times I go around completely oblivious to the fact that I have a mustache. (Yes, I realize the punctuation makes the difference there, but that's how it reads.)

But that's nothing compared to this:
from page 63
He's crazy, Leia thought.
"He's crazy," she said.


And that's still in the opening; they still haven't gotten to the part where a helpless Leia finds herself entranced by the charms of the pheremone-spewing leader of a ruthless crime syndicate!

[Eliahna]

* Ahem *

Danielle Steele, anyone?

Perhaps Barbara Taylor Bradford?

Or maybe Colin Forbes?

Two pages, and no mention of this "delightful" trio. Shame, shame, shame.

[Alto]

Well, Ranchoth, since you asked:

First page: smiling banana (the illustrations do enhance the whole; you'll have to imagine them)

Bananas are just a fruit. They don't have feelings, do they?

Second page: banana being peeled. face like "The Scream" and the word "peeeeeeeeeeeeeel" next to it.


"God Almighty Living Hell,
My skin is ripping me
Like swords being Twisted in My Eyes...
Boiling Hell oil!!!.........AAAUUUGH!!


Last page: smiling banana half peeled.

"Just kidding, I'm just a banana,
peel the rest of me,
and have a bite!!"


Imagine reading that to your kid before snack time.

[stolichnaya]

Eat your heart out Clancy!

[tetsusaru]

I picked up one of the Harry Potter books in a store, and began to flip through it curiously. until my eye lit on the following sentence: "`Open!`, he hissed." I put it back on the shelf, and have never read a further word she has written.

[JohnGalt]

Except for the opening sentence, Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged".

Does anyone read all the way through chapter (mumble) with the speech about Objectivism without taking a nap? It's supposed to be a broadcast, but there are no reactions from any listeners, no breaks for a breath, no way to insert yourself into the story.

I was tempted to read it out loud to see how long this broadcast would take, but I took another nap instead.

[ivylass]

Very funny user name, John Galt, considering the subject of your post.

No, I skipped the broadcast. I think it was something like 40 pages, and I had been getting her philosophy all through the story and I didn't need the rehash.

Although it was too long, I did like Atlas Shrugged.

[Gorgon Heap]

I will again bump this thread because I don't want to start my own.

Yes, the Elmisnster books are aweful, but right now I have to go with Anne Rice, too.

I was loaned Memnoch the Devil by a friend the other day, and I have to say I really hope all of her books are'nt like this. Unfortunately, I think they are.

Incredible, that she should make this trash so respected and popular.

I have made it to page 300 in a 430-page book and I still have to idea what the hell the actual point is.

There have been two occasions where a single character talks for for than 40 pages without a break, and the first one had absolutely nothing to do with the plot.

The characters, whom you actually like in the film Interview with the Vampire, are childish simpletons and whiny, effeminate poofters.

And her writing style ... [shiver]

Seemingly every paragraph she uses single words to stress the importance of what is going on. No. Significance. Yes. Significance is the word I'm looking for.

I really don't want to finish this book. It's terribly uninteresting and I really want to smack all the characters.

I've seen the movie Queen of the Damned, and I have to say as awful as it is, it must be better than the book if it is written anything like this.

[Merejane]

I agree with those whose nominated The Celestine Prophecy. I read it for a book club that I belonged to long ago. Because I was reading it for this club, I felt obligated to finish it. I felt sorry for my poor husband, who had to listen to outbursts such as, "Oh my God, listen to this! [I would quote a particularly awful passage.] I can't believe how bad this is!! How much worse can it get?!!" And then, it did get worse.

Anyway, I enjoy Kenneth Moyle's website, Why I Hate The Celestine Prophecy (http://kenneth.moyle.com/cp/).

[Jeff Wilder]

For bad writing that is referred to as "classic literature" I nominate "The Last Of The Mohicans". In fact, nearly all of James Fennimore Cooper's work does not deserve its classic status. I found his frontier stories to be extremely dull, lacking in substance and not very entertaining: plus I would venture as far as to wonder whether or not any of his devoted followers have read him recently. The only real reason for any of his work to exist is the hilarious essay that Mark Twain wrote bashing it entitled "The Literary Offenses Of James Fennimore Cooper".

As far as Stephen King goes, I would say that he is hit-or-miss when it comes to writing. When he hits (as in The Shining and Misery) he delivers an entertaining read. When he misses (as in Cujo and Christine) the results are nothing pleasant.

Out of current fiction writers that I enjoy reading, some definite out of the mainstream ones that I like include Michael Chabon and Carl Hiaasen and James Ellroy. And there is also Jonathan Franzen.

[JohnT]

Originally posted by Mr. Blue Sky
Always on the lookout for new sci-fi, I picked up the novel Starplex by Robert J. Sawyer.

Just for the record, I would like to say that this is the most un-Sawyer like of his books. It is as if he tried to write a space opera, realized he couldn't really do it, but had to finish in order to fulfill a contractual obligation. He actually writes rather touching (for science fiction, anyway) novels about people who are seriously ill who also are grappling with Big Issues. Try Calculating God - if you don't like that, then you really don't like Robert Sawyer. But please, don't judge him on the book that is most unlike anything he has ever written.

One author that hasn't been mentioned is Harry Turtledove. There is a man who has perfected the ability of turning a 150 page novel(la) into a 450 page monstrosity by repeating the same ideas and thoughts over and over and over again. My God, if I ever read some schlub think/say some variant of "but the Big Boys* don't bother to tell us Little People** anything" again, I'll probably scream.

* Typically military or political bigwigs
** Typically foot soldiers

But, damn it all, I can't stop buying and reading his books - in hardback even!! ( :o ) I curse him even while I'm encouraging him. Don't you hate it when that happens?

[Bryan Ekers]

I feel compelled to throw in God-Awful Fan Fiction (http://go.to/godawful), which isn't professional but agonizing nonetheless.

[Miss Creant]

I've got a book and a movie

Spawn when the mentor (?) puts his hand on Spawn's shoulder, and says "you have much to learn my son", I groaned out loud and put my head on my knees. My friend patted my shoulder and told me the movie was almost over, but it was too late.


Saucer by Stephen Coonts (audio)
Mr. Cynical and I purchased this piece of tripe while on a spur of the moment LONG road trip. I cannot believe we listened to the entire thing. Actually, I'm not sure we did. At any rate, the guy reading the book was inconsistant with his accents, English becoming American, women becoming men...he was just BAD
You know you have made a poor purchasing decision when you hear "He had the strength of ten men" and it's not part of a joke.

[gex gex]

[/i]originally posted by tetsusaru[/i]
I picked up one of the Harry Potter books in a store, and began to flip through it curiously. until my eye lit on the following sentence: "`Open!`, he hissed." I put it back on the shelf, and have never read a further word she has written.

:rolleyes:

You seem to love making this criticism; you've posted it at least once before. I'm sure it was explained last time, but here goes: within the context of the novel, it makes perfect sense. He is speaking in "the language of snakes," and hence, his hissing is a "translation". It does does not refer to the way he is meant to have pronounced the word in English.

[TwungTister]

Jean M. Auel.
Her stories are an excuse for an anthropology lecture - and her concepts of "science" are crap! It's counterintuitive and even lacks internal logic.

I read "The Pigeon." Young-adult murder story, pretty good so far. But he kept on saying the character had a wild look on his face, when you are inside the character writing from his p.o.v.

[ivylass]

I remember some Michael Korda book, it wasn't Queenie but something else. Some sweet young thing was hooking up with an elderly billionaire and he invited her to his house for lunch.

While sipping tomato soup, he asked about her work. She replied, "Oh, it's very varied."

When writing jolts you out of the story, all you can do is shut the book and get rid of it as quickly as possible, leaving no traces or clues.