If I didn’t love my laptop to death, I would have thrown it across the room right after I finished watching the Omega code. I couldn’t believe how gratuitously they threw in the Deus Ex Machina at the end.
Titus Groan I didn’t throw across the room but it ook serious effort to read through. I admire how well Mervyn Peak has written the story, but its just so dark its painful to read.
The Gormenghast series is one of those books I fear to read because of the great reputation it has. The last book is of poor quality, however. I discovered this in an editorial preface in an old fantasy anthology. The editor threw book 3 across the room. She had since learned it sucked because the author was dying at the time. He barely managed a rough draft, and wasn't able to revise or edit the book.
I read a book called “Pure” (it is not listed on Amazon, perhaps it was that bad) by an author who should find another job. It was Godawful.
It was about a teenaged girl. She liked to screw older men (kind of) she liked to cut herself with a razor blade. She had a brother.
It is the worst thing I have ever read. I read on the bookjacked that the author (this is close to a quote) “dropped out of school at fifteen to write the book”
The Embedding By Ian Watson- A bunch of scientists conduct human experiments related to language. An alien ships contacts the government. The aliens are interested in language. An anthropologist studies a tribe whose sacred drug makes them…speak a strange language. It’s an ok book for about 2/3. Then the plot goes completely sideways. Imagine if Return Of The Jedi had dispensed with Vader, The Empire, the rebels, etc in the first half hour and then focused on Han repairing his ship. It isn’t that unexpected things happen. It’s that things happen to render all the important stuff irrelevant.
Frankenstein UnboundIn the original, Frankenstein won’t make a mate for his creature because he fears that they will breed a race of monsters. In this crapfest, he has the same fear. BUT, the politician from the late 21st century agrees with him. Hasn’t this man heard of DNA? Plus, the politician comes from a world where Frankenstein is fictional. He’s read the book and remembers some details. But he forgets the big moral lesson Shelly clubbed us with.
CopperHeadThe protagonist has to be the dumbest spy ever. Maxwell Smart was more competent. Fortunately, the villains are morons too.
The House on Mango Street. What a terrible, terrible book. I had to read it in eighth grade and now, three years later, they’re making me do it again…When it was assigned for the second time I let out such a shocked cry of despair that my literature teacher is now assigning me to attend Sandra Cisneros’s lecture next month and report on it for the school newspaper.
Thank you. Thank you! I absolutely despised that book. My eyes were rolled completely back to the inside of my head after I finished each paragraph. Absolute inane drivel. Could she have beaten the incest stuff into the ground any harder?
Another one I finished just this past weekend, Housekeeping was horrid, as well. I didn’t sling it against the wall, simply because I was so damn depressed after reading it I didn’t have the energy. You ever hurried to finish a book because you just wanted it to be over with? That’s what I did here.
Overly-metaphorical, page after page of how dark and gloomy the sky is, and how life in general just plain-old SUCKED for the main character. Nothing good at all ever happened, and the end just made me want to jump off the house. If anybody suicidal ever read that book, I’m sure they aren’t around now to give their thoughts.
It’s true the last book is of a different quality than the others. It’s readable, but not recommendable.
But you don’t have to read very much of the first book to get an idea whether or not to finish that volume. Try a couple chapters. The use of language is just – and I use the word advisedly – indescribable.
If Tolkien had that command of the language he would have created The Great British Novel.
I’ve never thrown an Anne Rice novel, but I’ve slammed several of them shut in disgust–Violin, Taltos, and the most recent Vampire Chronicle I got my hands on (Blood and Gold? Something like that). And I used to really like her.
Gerald’s Game, by Stephen King.
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King.
The last several Dean Koontz books I attempted.
I didn’t dislike Titan as much as Degrance seems to have, but I pretty much agree with his assessment of the book.
I’ve hurled numerous text books across the room over the years.
When you depend on the public library for most of your science fiction and fantasy, inflicting physical damge on the books isn’t really an option, but the closest I ever came was J. V. Jones’ A Cavern of Black Ice. It has a reasonably creative plot and some original characters, but this author simply has no control over the nuts and bolts issues of writing. There would be sections of twenty or thirty pages devoted to describing a single room or landscape, and ever time a character took any action, be it walking, talking, eating, or whatever, they needed at least three paragrpahs of description, probably more.
Because it had an unhappy ending or because of something in the plot/writing itself?
Sure the ending is depressing, but that’s the point. Hard to have the evils of a overwhelming tyrannical government stick in your mind if everything turns out peachy keen in the end.
Mine, I guess, would be Cervantes Don Quixote. I liked the book, but I almost didn’t finish it. When it focused on the main character, I liked it fine. But about page 300 or so, they start meeting people. People who have little do with the plot. People who all insist on telling theirentire life story, which usually has to do with a lost love or failed romance.
It was fine the first time it happened. It was tolerable the 2nd time. But by the 3rd one, I gave up for about 3 months until I finally just started scanning the text until everyone meet and left, leaving the Don and Sancho to go have their adventures.
The rest of the book was good, but that one 100 page section (out of 1000) was tough going.
(b) The Illearth War- Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever (/b)
There has rarely been a time that I could not finish a book. I love sci-fi and fantasy, and I am an avid reader. A friend reccomended these books to me. Every time I picked it up to read it it was like my brain would skip over stuff. I had to read and re-read paragraphs. I think my brain was just saying “DOES NOT COMPUTE, DOES NOT COMPUTE” over and over again. It was horribly involved and horribly detailed and horribly preachy. My brain was shutting down, so eventually I gave up in disgust.
I felt horrible because it is obvious my friend liked them, and terribly guilty because I just could not finish.
Same here. It’s been a loooong time since I tried reading those books. As far as I can remember, the reason I didn’t like them was the the main character was a complete bastard. I just wanted him to die immediately, and for the rest of the book to be blank.
The only good things in the Covenant books are the bits he’s not in.The Chapters written from the perspective of 1 of the lords I quite liked. It’s only where you have Thomas Covenants perspective that it’s terrible. I cannot abide a whining self-pitying character.
Same reason I can't stand Hornblower.The books written from another characters perspective or in the third person are all right.Its those written in the first where your privy to his internal monologue i can't abide .Whinging self-contempt every 10 pages.I really did throw across the room ** Hornblower and the Happy return **