SF Fans -- Extol Your Favorite "Bad" Book, or Author

Cafe Society
1

I just read Logan’s Run by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson for the third time (read it first as a 12-year-old in 1976, when the York/Agutter film was out, read it a second time, along with the two sequels in the mid-80s).

It is not a great novel, in fact, it is merely a string of set pieces as Logan and Jessica run from L. A, cross country – Marianas Trench, North Pole, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington D. C., Pittsburg, and eventually Florida – to Sanctuary (and what a disappointment Sanctuary was!). Competently written, and very word-colorful in places, but even as a kid I could never seriously buy Nolan’s and Johnson’s backstory of the Little War. Even then, it all seemed as crazy as a soup sandwich. As I get older, well past the age for Deep Sleep, their premise just gets dumber.

But I “love” it. A few reasons why. “Youth Culture” is even more pronounced now than 1967, when the novel was published. I can understand the Runners desire to live. This novel was the first time I had heard of Crazy Horse mountain. I’m still hoping it will be finished within my lifetime. And Ballard. . . that surprised me.

No spoliers, unless somebody really wants them, then BOX them if we do.

The '76 movie was even dumber, but Ustinov was amusing and well, Jenny Agutter was in it – what is there not to like about that.

Keep hearing about a new film, with the ages back down to 21. CGI Crazy Horse, etc. We’ll see.

Your dumb novels, and why you love 'em. . .

Sir Rhosis

Since “bad” and “dumb” are subjective, please, no three-page long treatises on why X’s choice is misguided. Thanks.

2

Bad author? Harry Turtledove. Yeah, he sucks at the craft, but I have the majority of his major series in hardback.

He’s like crack, only more expensive per serving. :frowning:

3

:smiley: Umm…

I won’t quite agree that he sucks at the craft - but certainly some of his books are better than others. And certain characters keep showing up in different series. Often.

Let’s see, Alan Dean Foster is a favorite bad author. Fun, but not very deep, I think. (Come on, the man made his first sale by accident ferchrisakes!)

I’m going to get piloried for this, but I happen to think that David Weber isn’t a great author. He’s fun, and competent, but… his characters aren’t usually all that interesting, or human. And like JohnT says about his own nominatoin, I own many of his books in hardcover.

And if I have qualms about David Weber, John Ringo strikes me as definitely a new writer. He’s been writing a series with some great aliens, but the most annoying “Mary-Sue”* main character I’ve ever met. Of course, I love his other characters and the military bollixups in his Aldenata books, but, Og, Michael O’Niel makes me roll my eyes.

*“Mary-Sue” characters are self-insertion characters, particularyly common in fan-fiction.

4

How did Foster make his first sale by accient?

Sir Rhosis

5

I’m going to quote two paragraphs from the author’s introduction to the story “Some Notes Concerning a Green Box” from Foster’s first short story collection: With Friends Like These…, Ballantine/Del Rey 1978.

I’ll grant the rewriting was deliberate, but I still stand by my statement: His first sale was by accident. :smiley:

6

Mine is L. Ron Hubbard’s Battlefield Earth. See? I win! :slight_smile: I just think it’s a pretty neat story. The book is actually much better than the movie (wouldn’t it pretty much HAVE to be?), for one thing it takes place over a couple of years, not a couple of weeks, and even though Hubbards writing style is…weird, I just like this book. I’ve read it a dozen times. However, it is the only L Ron Hubbard book that I can stomach, so it’s definitely an anomaly.

Turtledove no good? Do you mean his Sf stuff or his alternate history stuff? Because I think his alternate history stuff is usually very good. Never read his Sf stuff. YMMV

Oh, and Alan Dean Foster’s To The Vanishing Point is a fun little book. Not terribly deep, but fun. However, other than his adaptations of the Star Trek animated series, i haven’t read anything else by him, so I can’t really comment.

7

I like some of A. E. Van Vogt’s work. I once had a collection of his that I hated. Then I read a comment where he said that his stories were all dreams and follow dream logic. I reread it in that context and it suddenly made sense. Slan, for instance, is a nice little outsider fantasy.

8

I’m another Turtledove lover who thinks he should slow down and concentrate a bit more on what he’s doing.

That said, he’s making hay while the sun shines. If people are buying based on his name then well…why not get as much out there as possible.

I’m a big fan of the ‘Incarnations of Immortality’ series by, God Help Me, Piers Anthony.

9

Just about anything by F M Busby, especially his Rissa Kerguelen Saga.

10

Anything by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch, or by either of them individually. I’ll swear that they have a computer program which simply generates the plots of their books at random, but damn are they fun to read.

11

Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars/Barsoom series.

The guy had one plot. I mean it …he had only one plot! Carter’s (or the protagonist’s) woman gets kidnapped, Carter gives chase.

But he had such fun describing Barsoom, that you just wanna join right in. :slight_smile:

If I didn’t have such a fat gut, I’d love to live on Barsoom! :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :cool: :cool:

12

Well, if you consider him to be bad, then I’ll second him.

I’ve never read any of the Pip/Flinx novels, but I’ve enjoyed quite a few of his other works. Several of them could make decent TV movies.

13

Would John Saul count? If not, how about Dean Koontz then? They’re not necessarily my favorites per se, but I wouldn’t dream of passing up almost any chance to read a horror novel.

And Saul is paint-by-the-numbers predictable. Very badly so. Koontz is entirely too impressed with himself and writes something like a new book every 4 days. With nary much change in plot. All IMHO of course, if there’s any devout fans out there reading. :wink: Please, no curses, demonic dolls or wraiths sent my way.

Thank you.

14

Yeah, any author, book or genre is fine. I shouldn’t have restricted it.

IF A MOD SEES THIS, REMOVE “SF FANS --” FROM THE TITLE, PLEASE.

Sir Rhosis

15

Sir Rhosis, I’m so very sorry! I somehow did that mental blindness thing over the “SF” part and didn’t notice it until the notification ended up in my email. I’m apparently all over the brain fart today.

Mea culpa. :frowning:

16

No, no, no, don’t sweat it, faithfool. Post as you wish, please. Hopefully, the title will be changed, or folks will see my note and post any genre they choose.

Sir Rhosis

17

Piers Anthony is my favorite ‘bad’ author. His books are a fantastic way to waste hours in bulk. If the average piece of liturature were a challenging crossword puzzle, his books would be word search puzzles. Tasty junk food for the brain.

18

Larry Niven.
His aliens are fantastic. Amazing. Truly alien .
His humans though… STUPID. REALLY STUPID. I mean, not a single person in any one of his books appears to ever plan more than 14 seconds in advance.
He has all these protagonists that are over 100 years old, but if I acted that dumb I would be dead before I made it to work tomorrow morning.
Still though, AMAZING freaking aliens. Neat worlds. And respectably hard sci-fi, which I think is probably why the characters are so shallow.

19

Threads about “bad” SF authors come up with somne regularity on this Board. I have o admit that I’m surprised by this one, though.

Normaly the winner for “best” bad author is Fanhorpe, who wrote a huge amount of appallingly bad SF under a variety of pseudonyms. There’s an entire website devoted o his stuff, an t is amusingly but appallingly bad.

Then there’s Jim Theiss and The Eye of Argon. See this site: http://public.logica.com/~stepneys/sf/argon.htm

I defy you to read the story aloud without cracking up. An Theiss wasn’t trying to be funny.
Some other favorites of mine – Don Pendleton’s excruciatingly bad Cataclysm. A book called The Null-Frequency Impulser that I’ve forgotten the autho of. Damned near everything publkished by Laser Books back in the 1970s.

But the choices you folks have given – Foster, Turtledove, Burroughs, Niven!Sorry, guys. Even with all theit flaws, and at their worst, they’re light years better than the general run, and specfically a lot of others I could name. Like Michael Crichton.

20

The R.L. Fanthorpe Fan Page has moved here:

http://www.peltorro.com/
“Pel Torro” is one of his many pseudonyms, and the one under which he wrote his masterpiece, Galaxy 666, a book of which half seems to be literal copies of sections of Roget’s [BThesaurus**.