# Books with WTF?! endings? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 5, 2017, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199 "2017-06-05T18:25:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/21 "2017-06-05T22:18:40Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > WHAT??? That’s the best part. Yeah but Revelations doesnt match the rest of the NT :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/22 "2017-06-05T22:28:08Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Not sure if they’re WTF endings, but these books have a climax or twist on about the very last page: > > **The Devil’s Alternative** by Frederick Forsythe I don’t remember the twist coming that late. There was time to discuss the consequences and so forth. I’d call it a final turn of the screw more than a surprise twist. (It was foreshadowed and alluded to as well, unless I am misrecalling the book.) Forsythe’s short stories almost all have O. Henry endings. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/23 "2017-06-05T23:46:00Z")
I just finished Joe Haldeman’s _Work Done for Hire_, in which a fiction writer and his girlfriend go on the lam in near-future America after some shadowy conspiracy keeps sending a high-tech rifle to the writer (a former Army sniper), trying to pressure him into killing some VIP to be named later. Turns out a sleazy Hollywood producer was just trying to turn the writer into the unwitting star of a reality TV show. This producer and his mooks, mind you, can track the writer just about anywhere in the country, know everything about him and seem to be everywhere at once. In the last few pages the mooks turn on the producer and take him captive, and the writer is able to track down his by-then-kidnapped-by-the-mooks girlfriend and free her from an isolated seaside cabin in Maine, just as a SWAT team comes to the rescue. WTF indeed. > [@Sunny\_Daze](#): > > **The Stand** - another Stephen King book. I really enjoy the book, but the ending is extremely WTF. I periodically re-read it and just stop before the last bit. It was WTF, kind of, but I thought the Christian/spiritual dimensions of the book earlier alluded to sort of set the stage. By no means King’s worst-ended book. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/24 "2017-06-06T02:42:17Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I don’t remember the twist coming that late. There was time to discuss the consequences and so forth. I’d call it a final turn of the screw more than a surprise twist. (It was foreshadowed and alluded to as well, unless I am misrecalling the book.) > > Forsythe’s short stories almost all have O. Henry endings. No, the twist I’m referring to is the one on the last two pages. It’s not foreshadowed, as far as I can recall. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/25 "2017-06-06T02:53:54Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > **Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow** (or Sense of Snow, depending on your translation) > > Starts off as a detective story, turns into a sci-fi novel about 2/3 of the way through. I suppose the X-files might be supposed to prepare us for this kind of thing, but I found it deeply weird to be in the middle of investigating a straightforward murder, only to butt up against an alien spacecraft all of a sudden. It’s like Peter Hoeg woke up one morning in the middle of writing it thinking - you know what? I’m bored with this story, lets just start another one … from wherever I happen to find myself. I wrote a column on Cryolite, the mineral that they were mining in that place at the end of _Smilla_ It’s a mineral with the very same refractive index as water, so if you have clear cryolite and put it in water, it disappears. The problem is, nobody has clear cryolite anymore. The clear stuff occurred in bulk only one place in nature – in one mine in Ivigtut, Greenland. But the stuff is essential to the production of aluminum – it’s an aluminum flux, in the presence of which the aluminum oxide melts at a much lower temperature. During the second World War, the US basically went in with the British and took possession of the mine, which was a strategic material. Germany had taken Denmark, after all, and they were afraid they’d try to claim the cryolite mine in Greenland, without which there’d be no aluminum for the war. Now that the mine is played out, they use artificially made cryolite, but it’s black and gray and ugly. It doesn’t disappear in water. What does this have to do with Smilla’s Sense of Snow? Well, besides the reality of cryolite mines, there’s the danger. It turns out that Cryolite is low-level poisonous (one of its other uses, incredibly, was as insecticide), and the effects could be chronic. Cryolite workers were afflicted with it. So there was, indeed, something hidden in those mines. Not prehistoric worms, but insidiously poisonous minerals. > **[Cryolite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryolite)** > > Cryolite (Na3AlF6, sodium hexafluoroaluminate) is an uncommon mineral identified with the once-large deposit at Ivittuut on the west coast of Greenland, mined commercially until 1987. > It is used in the reduction ("smelting") of aluminium, in pest control, and as a dye. > Cryolite was first described in 1798 by Danish veterinarian and physician Peder Christian Abildgaard (1740–1801); it was obtained from a deposit of it in Ivigtut (old spelling) and nearby Arsuk Fjord, Southwest Greenland. The nam... > [@](#): > > /CHRONIC FLUORINE POISONING OCCURS AMONG MINERS OF CRYOLITE/ LOSS OF WEIGHT, ANOREXIA, ANEMIA, WASTING … AND DENTAL DEFECTS ARE AMONG COMMON FINDINGS IN CHRONIC FLUORINE POISONING. THERE MAY BE AN EOSINOPHILIA, AND IMPAIRMENT OF GROWTH IN YOUNG WORKERS. SYMPTOMS OF INTOXICATION INCLUDE GASTRIC, INTESTINAL, CIRCULATORY, RESP AND NERVOUS COMPLAINTS AND SKIN RASHES. > [Sax, N.I. Dangerous Properties of Industrial Materials. 6th ed. New York, NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1984. 1427] **PEER REVIEWED** > ABOUT HALF OF … CRYOLITE WORKERS COMPLAINED OF LACK OF APPETITE, SHORTNESS OF BREATH; A SMALLER PROPORTION MENTIONED CONSTIPATION, LOCALIZED PAIN IN REGION OF LIVER AND OTHER SYMPTOMS. … A SLIGHT DEGREE OF FLUOROSIS WAS FOUND IN /CRYOLITE/ WORKERS EXPOSED FOR 2-2.5 YEARS WHILE MORE DEFINITE SIGNS WERE FOUND IN THOSE EXPOSED NEARLY 5 YEARS, AND SIGNS OF MODERATE FLUOROSIS APPEARED IN THOSE WITH MORE THAN 11 YEARS OF EXPOSURE. > [Patty, F. (ed.). Industrial Hygiene and Toxicology: Volume II: Toxicology. 2nd ed. New York: Interscience Publishers, 1963. 841] **PEER REVIEWED** > A study of the health effects of occupational exposure to cryolite was conducted. The study group consisted of 101 males, 21 to 67 years old, employed in the Danish cryolite production industry. They completed a questionnaire to obtain information on respiratory and other work related symptoms, smoking habits, and length of employment. The amount of exposure was determined from the length of time employed in cryolite production. Spirometric testing was performed. Chest x-rays were offered to five subjects who had been employed in cryolite production for 312 to 516 months. Smokers had significantly lower 1 second forced expiratory volumes than nonsmokers or exsmokers. The forced epiratory volume in 1 sec was not significantly correlated with exposure. No radiographic abnormalities were detected. Asthma, chronic bronchitis mucosal membrane and skin irritation, and nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea were frequently reported by the subjects. The frequency of gastrointestinal symptoms was highest in workers with the longest exposures. The overall frequency of gastrointestinal symptoms, 33.7%, was significantly higher than that observed in a random sample of the male Danish population, 3.8%. Chronic bronchitis was significantly associated with smoking, but not exposure. /Results suggest/ that exposure to cryolite does not seem to impair lung function. Cryolite exposure does not seem to contribute to chronic bronchitis to the extent that it could statisticlly compete with the effect of smoking. Cryolite workers have a high prevalence of gastrointestinal symptoms. [https://www.fluoridealert.org/wp-content/pesticides/cryolite.toxnet.hsdb.htm](https://www.fluoridealert.org/wp-content/pesticides/cryolite.toxnet.hsdb.htm) If the weirdly science-fictiony aspects of the book bother you, think of it as an allegory for the hazards of industrial pollution on workers. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/26 "2017-06-06T02:55:45Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Relatively hack-y SF author David Weber wrote a book, **Out of the Dark** , that starts with a straight military SF invasion of earth by aliens. They have more advanced technology, but we humans (by which he mainly means the US of A) have guts and patriotism and stuff. So we fight hard against them, but we’re getting overwhelmed. It’s all straight SF. No fantasy. No woo. > > And then we are saved by… > > Dracula > > It’s actually kind of glorious in its own ridiculously goofy way. Oh, god. I’d heard good things about Weber, so this is the novel I picked up to give him a try. Other than the ordnance porn that made up like 2/3 of the book (“The missile was long, and sleek, and hard. 2.58 kilograms of high-grade military C3 nestled in its red tip” only more so), your spoiler is the main thing I remember. Except that there were several chapters early on set in Romania, and there’s only one reason why a jackass like Weber would set chapters in Romania, so it wasn’t completely out of the blue, it was more like, “Oh god, he’s not really going to do that, is he?” then later, “He did that! I can’t believe he did that!” So bad. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/27 "2017-06-06T02:58:13Z")
The most outrageous example of this that I have ever personally encountered was Michael Crichton’s “Sphere”. EVERY.SINGLE.PERSON I’ve ever known who read it has said, “What was with that ending?!?!?!?” Publishing deadline, most likely. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/28 "2017-06-06T03:41:24Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > It was from an earlier less cynical and paranoid time. It was sex bit it wasnt sexualized. They were bonding. Considering all the human on human brutality in It, that incident is way doen my list of horrifying. Au contraire, sir. A young girl being an eager cum dumpster for a group of buds is a hard wired, deeply beloved fantasy/wank material for millions of men, and Stephen King just egged them on with his repulsive pandering to a sick fantasy. It shows a deep, basic disrespect for women and contributes to rape culture. If they wanted to BOND so badly in the book, why didn’t they just all suck each other off? I believe they wanted to, but King stuck the girl in there to take the taint of ‘gay’ off. She was just a receptacle for the males’ “bonding”. Should have used a watermelon! … But anyway, I stopped reading his idiotic doorstops after “It” and was not at ALL surprised to learn he was just churning out coke-fueled blather for his raving fans. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/29 "2017-06-06T07:42:48Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > Au contraire, sir. A young girl being an eager cum dumpster for a group of buds is a hard wired, deeply beloved fantasy/wank material for millions of men, and Stephen King just egged them on with his repulsive pandering to a sick fantasy. It shows a deep, basic disrespect for women and contributes to rape culture. If they wanted to BOND so badly in the book, why didn’t they just all suck each other off? I believe they wanted to, but King stuck the girl in there to take the taint of ‘gay’ off. She was just a receptacle for the males’ “bonding”. Should have used a watermelon! … But anyway, I stopped reading his idiotic doorstops after “It” and was not at ALL surprised to learn he was just churning out coke-fueled blather for his raving fans. I disagree that this is a fantasy for many men at all. Why he put it in i do not know. But she was the hero of that piece. A theme of the kids adventure is that the danger forced them to grow up. Perhaps King meant the act to be a Rubicon between childhood and adulthood. I, for one, never viewed it as sexualized. It was kids. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/30 "2017-06-06T08:05:58Z")
May I also add that none of the boys involved were sexualized in the novel; they were all damaged in one way or another. They were brutalized by the dominant males. I dont necessarily agree with your pov but am still open to furthet persuasion. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/31 "2017-06-06T13:16:29Z")
Joanne Fluke’s latest Hannah Swensen mystery The Banana Cream Pie murder has a totally WTF ending? The protagonist’s husband of one month intentionally disappears with no warning. Just runs off. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/32 "2017-06-06T15:08:56Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > The most outrageous example of this that I have ever personally encountered was Michael Crichton’s “Sphere”. EVERY.SINGLE.PERSON I’ve ever known who read it has said, “What was with that ending?!?!?!?” > > Publishing deadline, most likely. :smack: I disagree. I loved the ending. It’s been a couple of decades since I read it, but if I recall correctly: Entering the sphere gave the individual the power to conjure up physically anything they imagine, even if they consciously didn’t know they were doing it. As the three explorers were being lifted back to the surface, they come to the conclusion that no one should have that kind of power, so they should all agree to forget or will away the power. So they do this, except one of the explorers has a smirk on his face after the other two lose the power…meaning he didn’t follow through with the plan. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/33 "2017-06-06T15:13:54Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > I disagree. I loved the ending. It’s been a couple of decades since I read it, but if I recall correctly: > > Entering the sphere gave the individual the power to conjure up physically anything they imagine, even if they consciously didn’t know they were doing it. As the three explorers were being lifted back to the surface, they come to the conclusion that no one should have that kind of power, so they should all agree to forget or will away the power. So they do this, except one of the explorers has a smirk on his face after the other two lose the power…meaning he didn’t follow through with the plan. I haven’t read it for years, either (I regarded it as one of the first signs of Crichton’s decline), but I think it was more - The three survivors more or less just wished it all away, and the ship on the seabed and its contents were destroyed to keep them out of anyone else’s hands. I don’t remember the smirky part, but you could be right. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/34 "2017-06-06T15:22:17Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > I disagree that this is a fantasy for many men at all. Why he put it in i do not know. But she was the hero of that piece. A theme of the kids adventure is that the danger forced them to grow up. Perhaps King meant the act to be a Rubicon between childhood and adulthood. > > I, for one, never viewed it as sexualized. It was kids. I didn’t see it as misogynistic or horrifying at all, just dumb. She was the heroine of the novel so I think it was almost a more maternal fantasy kind of thing, her showing them that she cared, but really, still very stupid. Let’s call it unimaginative. And it totally shattered my suspension of disbelief, which I’m quite good at doing with fantasy elements as long as the characters are behaving in a realistic way. King’s job was to figure out a way to express that bonding or ‘‘coming of age’’ while still maintaining the structural integrity of the characters he created, and he failed. King, in general, is not a misogynistic writer. On the contrary, I think a lot of his works are very empowering for women. _Gerald’s Game_ is one of my favorites. He writes a lot of compelling female characters. ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/35 "2017-06-06T16:19:22Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > _ **Going after Cacciato.** _ Yes, but weirdly perfect in a metaphorical wtf kind of way. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/36 "2017-06-06T17:04:13Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > No, the twist I’m referring to is the one on the last two pages. It’s not foreshadowed, as far as I can recall. \ \ \ Oh. That ending. I’m not sure it’s as WTF as a final twist completely in character for Forsythe. Good one, though. See the ending of his short story “No Comebacks” for one even less telegraphed. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/37 "2017-06-06T17:12:18Z")
> [@koeeoaddi](#): > > Yes, but weirdly perfect in a metaphorical wtf kind of way. Especially since the whole book is (as one reader put it elsewhere) “a glorious mind-fuck.” 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/38 "2017-06-06T17:27:22Z")
Anna Quindlen’s [_Every Last One_](https://smile.amazon.com/Every-Last-One-Anna-Quindlen-ebook/dp/B0036S4BNK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1496769318&sr=8-1&keywords=every+last+one) I deeply resented the way she ended this book. I felt completely manipulated. If you’re interested, go to the link above and read the amazon reviews. There are also helpful comments at [Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7468160-every-last-one). Many people recommend it. I absolutely do not. Typical American family, issues, troubles, yaddayaddayadda… In the mother’s words: > [@](#): > > Laundry is my life, and meals, and school meetings and games and recitals. > > Every day, with few variations—snow, minor illness, the failure of the paper to arrive, a lost backpack, a sleepover that’s left us one, or two, or sometimes even three kids shy of the usual full set—every day is like this. Average. Ordinary. Shit happens. Life goes on. But the ending! Grrr. [spoiler]The family had befriended and taken in a troubled boy over a period of years. At the end of the book he murders every family member in each one’s bed and attempts to murder the mother, too. That’s the meaning of the title “every last one.” I felt kicked in the gut, and to no good purpose. Some reviewers said they saw the red flags. Even so, the shocking ending was over the top. [/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/39 "2017-06-06T17:28:31Z")
David Brin’s _Earth_ ends with… A microscopic black hole, orbiting inside the Earth, creates “circuitry” into which a dying Nobel Laureate pours her memories and becomes Gaia. Not out of left field as some of theae, but a definite WTF? for me… ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199/40 "2017-06-06T17:30:30Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I didn’t see it as misogynistic or horrifying at all, just dumb. She was the heroine of the novel so I think it was almost a more maternal fantasy kind of thing, her showing them that she cared, but really, still very stupid. Let’s call it unimaginative. And it totally shattered my suspension of disbelief, which I’m quite good at doing with fantasy elements as long as the characters are behaving in a realistic way. King’s job was to figure out a way to express that bonding or ‘‘coming of age’’ while still maintaining the structural integrity of the characters he created, and he failed. > > King, in general, is not a misogynistic writer. On the contrary, I think a lot of his works are very empowering for women. _Gerald’s Game_ is one of my favorites. He writes a lot of compelling female characters. Ok…well said. Ignorance fought. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-with-wtf-endings/788199.md?page=3)