# Lamest. Book. Ever. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 4, 2005, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lamest-book-ever/329439 "2005-11-04T06:10:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Silentgoldfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@Silentgoldfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silentgoldfish)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lamest-book-ever/329439/21 "2005-11-05T16:46:20Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Oh yeah? Well, what do you call [this](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0345314255/qid=1131128952/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-3940261-6501610?v=glance&s=books&n=507846), then? Oooh, low blow! šŸ™‚ ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lamest-book-ever/329439/22 "2005-11-06T00:46:38Z")
Iā€™d have to say _Turn of the Screw_. What the fuck was going on? ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lamest-book-ever/329439/23 "2005-11-06T04:30:53Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > The problem is that the people who read movie novelizations want them to match the movie, and donā€™t like changes. Thatā€™s one reason why they did a novelization of **Total Recall**": the original story was much different from the movie, and people read novelizations to duplicate the movie experience (in addition, it wasnā€™t novel length). > > Itā€™s so expected that when they rerelased ā€œ\*\*Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?ā€, \*\* they had a little disclaimer that it was a book and was different from **Blade Runner** and that movies often made such changes. For me itā€™s the opposite. In my naive youth, I always assumed the book would have much more detail than the movie and might even be quite different from the movie, but nevertheless worth reading. The first time I picked up a movie novelization that was basically just a transcript of the movie, I was disgusted. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lamest-book-ever/329439/24 "2005-11-06T04:35:13Z")
Wouldnā€™t it be a wonderful irony if the guy who writes these novelizations of movies based on books was actually a talented writer and turned out world-class proseā€¦ ---
**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:** [November 6, 2005, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lamest-book-ever/329439/25 "2005-11-06T04:39:08Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Oh yeah? Well, what do you call [this](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0345314255/qid=1131128952/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-3940261-6501610?v=glance&s=books&n=507846), then? šŸ˜ƒ **Beautiful**! In terms of the worst novelization, [Iā€™m partial to this commentary](http://www.partiallyclips.com/index.php?id=1303). Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lamest-book-ever/329439/26 "2005-11-06T05:35:51Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Oh yeah? Well, what do you call [this](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0345314255/qid=1131128952/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-3940261-6501610?v=glance&s=books&n=507846), then? You know whatā€™s scarier than that? That people actually bought the sequels. But not me. ---
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lamest-book-ever/329439/27 "2005-11-06T08:12:26Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > ā€œDude! These Lord of the Rings novelizations are all messed up! Thereā€™s all kinds of stuff in here that wasnā€™t in the movies. And itā€™s all flowery and old-timey and crap!ā€ ā€¦Uh, didnā€™t the novels come first??? šŸ˜• ---
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lamest-book-ever/329439/28 "2005-11-06T08:14:13Z")
> [@Jinx](#): > > ā€¦Uh, didnā€™t the novels come first??? šŸ˜• Judging by the OP, I took the topic to be limited to the the original novels only. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lamest-book-ever/329439/29 "2005-11-06T08:28:37Z")
I saw the movie based on Toni Morrisonā€™s \*Beloved \* and enjoyed the performances, if nothing else. A friend told me the book was much better. When I finally read the book for an English class, I had to force myself to finish it. At least with the movie I didnā€™t have to suffer through Morrisonā€™s annoying, pretentious prose style and almost unintelligible flashbacks. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lamest-book-ever/329439/30 "2005-11-06T16:33:48Z")
> [@davenportavenger](#): > > Not a novelization, but I think the worst book Iā€™ve read this year has been John Brunnerā€™s Children of the Thunder. Brunner wrote some pretty awesome books, but man, that one was terrible. No attempt at characterization, the most obvious red herring everā€¦ I think itā€™s put me off Brunner, which is a shame because I havenā€™t even read Stand on Zanzibar yet, and that book is supposed to be wonderful. I guess he was senile when he wrote it or something; it was one of his last books. Please, please read Stand up on Zanzibar. You have to realise that Brunner started off the early part of his career being paid to write pulpy sci-fi by the book. He managed to get a pretty decent income by writing a 200 page novel every six months but with barely any of the craft you see in his later works. However, even then, he managed to churn out some amazing works. However, the work he did early in his career is **nothing** like his later works that made him famous. It was only later in his career that he was financially independant enough and had gained enough of a reputation to engage in some deeper and less time restricted works. His ā€œDystopia triadā€ of ā€œThe Sheep Look Upā€, ā€œStand Up on Zanzibarā€ and ā€œThe Shockwave Riderā€ are, IMHO, some of the most prescient and far looking books of speculative fiction that Iā€™ve had the pleasure of reading. And his largely ignored ā€œThe Great Steamboat Raceā€ written just a few years before he died showed his mastery of human portrayal extended well past his sci-fi roots. Sorry, Iā€™m just a completely unashamed Brunner devotee and I would sorely hate for someone to pass off on the oppurtunity to explore his work purely due to the hack work he was forced to do to make a living. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lamest-book-ever/329439/31 "2005-11-06T16:35:27Z")
Uh, did I say every 6 months? That man published an astounding 27 novels in a six year period. :o ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2005, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lamest-book-ever/329439/32 "2005-11-06T16:43:31Z")
Has there been a novelization of Hitch Hikerā€™s Guide to the Galaxy yet? :dubious: ---
**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:** [November 7, 2005, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lamest-book-ever/329439/33 "2005-11-07T13:08:06Z")
> [@](#): > > Wouldnā€™t it be a wonderful irony if the guy who writes these novelizations of movies based on books was actually a talented writer and turned out world-class proseā€¦ Iā€™m gonna get bopped for this, but the king of novelizations, Alan Dean Foster, actually wrote some pretty decent science fiction of his own. Read his Flinx novels ( **The Tar-Aiym Krang** and the rest of the series) As weā€™ve noted in a long-past thread, there have been pretty decent novelizations, too. Orson Scott Cardā€™s **The Abyss** novelization was highly praised by James Cameron, who actually used portions of it in fleshing out his characters while they were filming. **2001** enjoyed a somewhat similar relationship to the film, the novel and film influencing each other. he novelization of the Sherlock Holmes movie **a Study in error** was by ā€œEllery Queenā€. The novel of **Forbidden Planet** is as unusual as the movie itself, which it diverges from in a not-stupid way. Asimobvā€™s novel of **Fantastic Voyage** similarly diverged from the film (at Asimovā€™s insistence), and is, IIRC, still in print. ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lamest-book-ever/329439/34 "2005-11-07T15:15:13Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Asimobvā€™s novel of **Fantastic Voyage** similarly diverged from the film (at Asimovā€™s insistence), and is, IIRC, still in print. And, lest we forget, the inconsistencies in the novelization bothered Asimov so much that, years later, he wrote _Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain_, a story with totally different characters that only retained the ā€œshrinking/injectionā€ premise. So here we have an original work, inspired by the novelization of a movie, by the same author. The music goes round and roundā€¦ ---
**Author:** ![biscuithead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f14d63/32.png) [@biscuithead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/biscuithead)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lamest-book-ever/329439/35 "2005-11-07T15:26:29Z")
> [@fiddlesticks](#): > > I was going to say that you were wrong, the correct answer is _The Celestine Prophecy_ (beating _The DaVinci Code_ by a hair). But thinking about it more, yeah, thatā€™s pretty damn lame. I had so many people tell me I HAD to read the Celestine Prophecy - it was EXACTLY the type of book I would just LOVE. With such endorsement I decided to make it one of my free choices through Book of the Month club. Ugh - what a waste of a freebie. It was so badly written I literally laughed out loud at times and didnā€™t even make it a third of the way through the book before giving up on it. Iā€™m not commenting on the point of the book - whatever that might have beenā€¦I just simply couldnā€™t endure the bad writing long enough to find out what the point was. Now I friends telling you HAVE to read the DaVinci Code! That I would just LOVE it. Letā€™s just say that based on my prior experience Iā€™m not interested. Is it really only ā€˜a hairā€™ better than Celestine Prophecy? If so I know to save myself the energy of tracking down a copy. As so far as Frankenstein goes - the original is great! But considering it has become so twisted in current pop culture so that ā€˜Frankensteinā€™ is the monsterā€¦is it really so surprising there are a multitude of hack jobs out there? It really has become more than just what it was intended. The substance of which has greatly decreased with itā€™s popularityā€¦if that makes sense. ---
**Author:** ![js\_africanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2005, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lamest-book-ever/329439/36 "2005-11-07T18:04:16Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Oh yeah? Well, what do you call [this](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0345314255/qid=1131128952/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-3940261-6501610?v=glance&s=books&n=507846), then? What the hell is that?! > [@davenportavenger](#): > > What is funny is that TPTB offered Phil Dick a lot of money to write a novelization of the movie. He turned it down, which is good, because man that would have been confusing. But that probably would have been a good novelization because it would have written by PKD himself. No way! I would have been like hiring Vonnegut to write a paper on Vonnegut! šŸ†’ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lamest-book-ever/329439.md?page=1)