Clive Cussler is way below other authors, even these two.
I picked up a Clive Cussler novel, because hey, who doesn’t want an escapist adventure story? I got disgusted at the writing, threw it down the basement stairs, then the next day thought “C’mon, you can put up with some pisspoor writing to be able to mentally hang out on a boat in the Caribbean…”
Made it through two more pages, then… down the basement stairs with it. Repeat a few more times with other Cussler books…
There are many non-fiction books I’ve thought seemed interesting, and that I just couldn’t get through. Though usually not due to bad writing, just lack of interest. The exception being A Random Walk Through Fractal Dimensions a book my wife had picked up used 15-20 years ago and that we started reading but gave up on when realizing neither “random walk” or “fractal dimensions” are meant to be taken mathematically literally and that a misleading title wasn’t the author’s only sins as a writer.
I remember very little of the one I read, but I described it to people afterward as being a book for people who find James Bond to be too darn realistic.
Good one!
I wonder how people’s tolerance for bad writing in books compares to their tolerance for bad writing on screen. I think some may have higher standards for what they view, perhaps even unconsciously, as a higher art form. I think I might be more tolerant of fun but trashy print because I can skim through the cheesy dialogue faster. But it’s hard to make an objective comparison.
There’s something to be said for sucking so bad that you inspire someone else to give the world something so good as Twain’s essay on Cooper.
He was popular when the choices were him and Walter Scott middle ages romances. What was the matter with those people?!
Funny that you mention Stephen King in this context, as he’s one of the authors who I’ve sworn off of due to poor writing. The only book of his I’ve read is Skeleton Crew, a collection of short stories. After getting through the first few, I grabbed a highlighter and started highlighting all the painfully obvious repetitions throughout the rest of the book. (King has certain stock phrases he likes to use again and again, both within and across stories.) It didn’t make me enjoy the book any better but it was cathartic.
I remember I did something similar with the Avatar Trilogy by Richard Awlinson—actually a pen name for two different writers. (I think I read this and the King book on the same holiday.)
Back then I was only 15 or 16. Today, if the writing in some book I’m reading for recreational purposes annoys me, then I’ll just stop reading it. I did this most recently with George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. I had seen the first couple seasons of Game of Thrones and so decided to give the source material a try. I have no doubt that Martin can come up with excellent plots and characters, but his way of putting these into words I found too simplistic for my tastes.
Ditto. Ten pages sounds about right. Maybe twelve. At the point I realized it was just Foucault’s Pendulum for people with no attention span, I put it away.
I also tried to read Fifty Shades of Grey because it was “the thing” at the time and I was curious what had grabbed everyone’s eyeballs. I think I made it through four or five pages.
I know not every writer can be Ursula Le Guin, but I still have some standards.
Not to mention that he threw away most of the wonder of the first three books in this one. I chalked it up to old age and a guaranteed paycheck.
I’m judging books in a contest. Some are great, but one I tossed after a page full of self-contradictions, bad word choices, and woo.
I understand what agents go through with their slushpile much better now.
Write about what you know.
I couldn’t finish the first episode of the TV show “Suits” because of how little the writers knew about the legal profession. It was like they asked a 13 year old boy what do lawyers do? “Oh they know the laws right! Imagine if someone knew the whole law book, word for word, they would be the best lawyer ever!”. Everything they could get wrong, they got wrong. It’s like they didn’t even try.
It’s mostly because these are the work of Gentry Lee. Clarke was barely involved beyond rubber stamping a vague premise. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s never read the finished books.
I had the same reaction, except that I thought it was Holy Blood, Holy Grail for people with no attention span. Didn’t Brown plagiarize pretty much the entire plot from that book?
I downloaded a few books a while back, and I discovered rather quickly why it was a freebie site. For the most part, I couldn’t get past the first chapter. Either it was poor composition or idiotic premise or just plain bad! I’m pretty sure it was a self-published site. I deleted the bookmark and never looked back.
More recently, I struggled thru a book that was recommended by a friend. I managed to read the entire thing, always hoping it would get better. Maybe it just wasn’t my kind of story, but it was painful, and it never did get better. I tried, but I still can’t think of anything I liked about it.
My daughter is passionate about books discussing the time around the Holocaust–both fiction and non-fiction.
One year for Christmas she gave me a book that was particularly important to her. I sat down a few times to start reading what I expected to be a very good book about a tragic topic.
The story was told in some artsy voice, as if things were narrating the story, and the book was clearly trying to be too cool for the room. Even though it was a gift from my daughter, I only made it through the first chapter (in hope that that was just setting the scene and the book would take a normal tone in chapter 2…it didn’t)
A more sinister kind of bad writing is when there are plot holes and deus ex machina showing up all over the place–by the time those reveal themselves, I have invested enough time that it is frustrating to have to abandon the book.
ETA: I forgot another category of bad book: the book that the author who is your friend or acquaintance gave you, usually self-published. You know you have to read it because you will be asked about it, but it’s a painful slog.
I currently have two of those sitting on my nightstand: one from a guy in my church organization, and one from work.
Clive Cussler is one of my Guilty Pleasures. I “read” his books mostly on audio during my morning commute (it seems all of his books since about 2000 are available on audiodisk, and several of the earlier ones are, too) If Cussler doesn’t make you go “Oh, come ON ! I can’t believe you’d do that!” at least once in the course of his book, then he hasn’t done his job. On top of which, Cussler is a practitioner of what I call “weapons porn” – he virtually obsesses over his descriptions of military hardware to a painful degree. Some of his plots are pretty clearly excuses to find a use for some recent bit of hardware, or some obscure esoteric bit of historic weapon weirdness. I think some of this bled over into obsession with railroad and early aviation hardware, and that’s the reason he came up with his Isaac Bell series.
Ludicrous as his plots are, and as obscenely lucky as his heroes are, Cussler and his many collaborators nevertheless appear able to push a verb against a noun with more skill than, say, a Dan Brown. I’ve pretty much given up on Brown. There are plenty of pieces on the internet complaining about Brown’s writing ( here are a couple – Dan Brown is a very bad writer | The Week
Dan Brown’s 20 worst sentences | Molivam42's Weblog) , but I haven’t seen as many complaining about Cussler’s .
Douglas Preston and Lincoln Childs, taken either together or separately, fall into the same class as Cussler and his collaborators – wonderfully outrageous plots, ridiculously overcompetent and quirky heroes, but decent writing on a technical level. Another Guilty Commuter Pleasure. I can enjoy their work, provided I turn off my internal critical voice. But I can’t turn off my internal critical voice for Dan Brown’s sloppier writing. I suppose that’s my limit – i don’t like annoyingly bad writing. If I can read or listen without getting bored or starting to complain, then it’s okay, even if, considered objectively, the book is terrible.
There’s a whole other level of Bad Writing that I enjoy – the “so bad it’s good” school of things you want to treat in an MST3 style. “The Eye of Argon” (which actually has been given the MST3K treatment), or the writing of Lionel Fanthorpe under his many pseudonyms. Or James Nelson Coleman’s books (written, appropriately, while he was in prison for multiple burglaries), or some of Don Pendleton’s books. I maintain a file of bad writing from these authors that are perfect for reading aloud while trying not to break up laughing. But in these cases, the work is at least entertainingly bad. The real sin is to be boring.
King is an author I often think of in terms of “needs a good editor.” He’s used 500+ pages to write what would have been several decent 250pp books.
I swore off Grisham - not only b/c of the bad writing, but b/c it seemed his lawyer-protagonists always seems to rely on extra-legal solutions.
Funny, my wife and I are both lawyers, and we both greatly enjoyed Suits. Boston Legal too. And The Good Wife. Not sure any of them had anything to do with the actual practice of law. Not sure legal accuracy was required for them to be enjoyable. You woulda preferred more scenes of lawyers reading and writing endlessly? 
OK, fun value, I get it. Boston Legal was comedy though so that’s a bit different, I liked that too. Suits was meant to be drama right? For me, they just pulled me out of the story too violently and too often for me to keep going.
“You write up this and I’ll show you how to file a patent application.” (That’s what they said)
No. What? You can’t. There are lawyers who’ve been training to just file patent applications for five years and are still terrible at it. You can’t teach it to a person in one night. You can’t even do it yourself in one night. And you can’t get a decision the next day. And you can’t have a client with a good invention that you have never met before come and just verbally explain it to you and you walk away without notes… it’s just nonsense.
I haven’t read “Holy Blood, Holy Grail”, but I believe Brown got the central mystery from them, not the plot. I don’t think HBHG really has a “plot” as it’s supposed to be non-fiction, which is why they lost their copyright lawsuit against Brown.
I dunno. Pretty hard not to laugh at Louis. Or many aspects - from the get go of the guy dumping the pot during the “interview.” After an outrageous start like that, either you were willing to suspend A TON of disbelief, or not.
The single thing I thought most unbelievable was Donna’s rise to - whatever she was - managing partner? But I found several of the characters/acotrs engaging, and many of the situations engaging. Especially when compared to much of what else is out there. But different tastes…
We’ve discussed this before - WHAT entertainment accurately reflects ANYONE’S profession? Having practiced law for 35+ years - the LAST thing I want to watch for enjoyment is someone accurately representing the practice of law.
Next thing, you’ll be telling me that most cops DON’T shoot and get shot at on a daily basis?
I am with you there. lol
Comedian Paula Poundstone’s podcast, Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone, usually features a “book club” segment. She and comedian Adam Felber and their two producers read and discuss several chapters of a selected book in each episode.
The most recent book was by Ruth Rendell, selected on the basis of a glowing blurb by Stephen King.
“Every aspect of Ruth Rendell’s dark art is splendidly showcased in Dark Corners. One can’t say she saved the best for last, because a great many books by Ms. Rendell and her alter ego Barbara Vine are so splendid, but it’s among the best. You won’t put it down. I loved it.” – Stephen King
Before they had gotten very far into it, all four were complaining about how bad the writing was and wondering why in the world King had recommended it.
I haven’t read anything by Rendell, but since no one here had mentioned her, I thought I might as well.