You finished The Faerie Queen? I am impressed. I’ve been reading a chapter or so every New Year’s Eve for years. Not even close to being finished.
See, now, I actually enjoyed Altered Carbon – not as much as Robert J. Sawyer or Larry Niven or Christopher Moore or some of my other “immediately read everything by” authors, but it was okay. A bit goofy in some places, as you said, but decent.
But the next one he wrote, Broken Angels – it was just … bizarre. The first book was a prettty interesting sci-fi detective novel, but the second book was just weird. Pretty much every reason you list for hating Altered Carbon, I list as a reason to hate Broken Angels. Weird.
Oh man, I loathe Simon Winchester. And he always writes about things that I’d be terribly interested in if it weren’t for his repetetive, brain-numbingly dull writing. I know, I know, you all loved The Professor and the Madman, different strokes, okay?
I recently finished slogging through The Iliad. See, this is why we slog! Because it was really, really great! Just…difficult to get through. I’ve been slogging through a book on the yakuza, but after a hundred pages it’s getting better.
Slog is a funny word. If you use it too much it starts to lose meaning. Slog slog slog.
Slog you, you slogging slogger. See it works. I like it, I’m going to use it more often. Slog slog slog slog…
I liked “The Faerie Queene.” I took a course dedicated to it and fell absolutely in love.
I simply don’t read books any longer if they don’t grab me in the first 30 pages. I have a list of books longer than my arm and won’t waste that time on something uninspiring.
The only exception: When I’m going to write a review and the book is laughably bad. I’ll stick with those on occasion.
The Difference Engine, Gibson and Sterling…
I heard so many great things about this book, and a few of them from people who even had tastes similar to mine. I figured that my attachement to the characters or then ending might have made it all worthwhile, like LHoD. I individually like Gibson, and Sterling consistently screws things up in minor ways*, but is almost tolerable.
The first chapter was boring, but well-written and had a high-spot or two, so I assumed it would get better and build on those. Then they dropped the character almost entirely, mentioning her once, indirectly, later on, never expanding on anything that happened. Due to multiple authors, a few characters who were supposed to be mysterious ended up getting split into entirely distinct characters, depending on who wrote the chapter. If the main characters all failed, there would be absolutely no negative consequences whatsoever. And there was an entirely gratuitous sex scene that went on for about twenty pages saying nothing but “hey, I use prostitutes whenever I can, and get laid no other way.” The ending looked like it was trying to be deep, but just made no sense whatsoever.
In fact, the entire book, after the first chapter, can be summed up as (and I really don’t think this deserves spoiler tags… Main character steals something valuable from bad guy, Deus Ex Machina to get unlimited money, main character decides to go kill bad guy because he baselessly suspects him of insulting his little sister, THEN bad guy slanders his character. Sex scene, fight scene, plot twist that removes any possibility of main character being in the right, fight scene, end.
*as in, I kinda enjoyed the book Nightfall, then I found the short story and was blown away. The two have less to do with eachother than I, Robot the book & movie.
I’ve got the latest Dark Tower book and it’s gonna be a slog like all the others. I don’t know why I feel compelled to read them. Maybe because I’ve read absolutely everything by Stephen King already.
I could never get into that book, either. Yet some just think it’s the greatest thing ever.
Nope, you’re not alone.
The last Wheel of Time main-line book. My. Fucking. God.
The man took 1000+ pages to cover about three days worth of time. Four-fifths of which had already been covered from another group’s perspective! He’s on his 11th book and he’s still introducing characters and secondary plots out of the blue.
You’ve heard the saying, “Measure twice, cut once”? For Jordan, in an ideal world, that should definitely be “Write once, edit FOUR FUCKING TIMES!” He begins every book with the epigram “The Wheel of Time turns…too fucking slowly!” Okay, that’s not a direct quote, but you get the picture…
It took me three months to get through it, reading two or three cantos a day (usually). Spenser’s really difficult to read – I find him more difficult than Chaucer despite being closer to us by two hundred years.
I can understand that, actually – I’ve always enjoyed studying Spenser more than I like actually reading him. 
It really is a fascinating poem, just a really tough read.
Do what I did – break it up. Read a third, put it down, read something else, and then go back to it. Not nearly as sloggy that way.
Why slog? Because sometimes it’s worth it … sometimes you get to the end of (what started out as) a really dry, difficult, dull, book, and at the end everything falls neatly into place, and you can see what the author was trying to do, and it makes sense and it’s good. So, if I’ve started a book, I will finish it, if it’s humanly possible for me to do it. (Which it isn’t, in a few cases - Henry James, fr’instance.)
The last book I had a hard time with was Brian Aldiss’s Barefoot in the Head, in which every character is under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs, and the prose style reflects this … I wouldn’t recommend it. But I stuck with it, because I generally like Aldiss, and I was interested to know how (or if) he’d resolve the story.
(Oh, and I liked The Faerie Queene, too.)
Yep, yep. Good. I thought I was the only one until I found this place. Did the Pulitzer folks just feel sorry for the author’s mom or something? I know it’s a tired joke, but I want back the hours I wasted reading that book.
Margaret MacMillan’s *Paris 1919 *. It is about the peace conference after WWI. The woman doesn’t know the difference between an anecdote and history. Cutesy anecdotes. Sometimes told more than once.
That being said, the topic was interesting enough in and of itself to slog through–but think more like later Michener than Tuchman.
When I was 12 I read the Hobbit - - then started on Lord Of The Rings - - reading a bit every night - - for whatever reason I stopped reading it every night ( maybe there was something good on TV ) - - and it got to a point where – I’d gone too far in to start again - - and I’d left it too long to just pick up where I left off…
last year ( now 24… actually for my 24th birthday - - and admitedly after seeing the first two films… ) I got Lord Of The Rings - and read it through - - I still found a LOT of Fellowship a slog - - but having seen The Two Towers, I knew it would be worth it - - so I slogged - - and wanted to make sure I’d read Return Of The King before the film came out ( which I did - - it took me about 5 months to read ) - - also I read the Hobbit again just before…
I slogged through a book by a guy called Matthew Thomas ( I think that was his name ) it was quite Douglas Adamsesque - - about Nostradamus and the end of the world - - can’t remember it’s title - - but I found that quite a slog…
I just re-read the Dirk Gently novels… and I found The Long Dark Teatime of The Soul quite a slog … but finished it…
Stephen King fans MUST read the Dark Tower series (whats the word for a seven book collection - - Adam’s may have called it a trilogy still… ) - - I’m half way through the seventh… but I started at the 4th - - then slogged through The Gunslinger - - the others were all pretty non-slogworthy - - except the last (6th) Song For Susannah - - maybe the first part of The Dark Tower should have been put in there and that story condensed slightly…
oh yeah - - I abandoned - Stephen Hawkins A Brief History Of Time about half way through… it’s hard to read with that really loud wooshing sound carrying on all the time
Finally finished the book last night. I remained disappointed till the end. It is basically a character study full of characters I didn’t want to study. As I mentioned in the OP, I am a big Michael Flynn fan and I think he deserves more recognition but not for this book. I hate to wish this on someone but I hope someone else reads it so they can tell me if it was me and not the book.
He sets the book in the same near future universe as his Lodestar series but this is a bit more into the future. This is a stand alone book and the other books are not needed to understand the plot. Its set in a very realistic future. There is no faster than light travel. The solar system is vast and empty between the planets. The laws of physics can be harsh and unforgiving. A setting I would normally enjoy. I’ll put the brief synopsis in spoilers in case someone would like to read it
The River of Stars is a cargo ship making the transit to Jupiter. It used to be a luxury ship with solar sails but was converted to another fictional propulsion system. The sails are still onboard. The captain dies of an illness in the first few pages. His death starts a downward spiral that ends in the wreck mentioned in the title. The captain purposely found broken and dysfunctional people for his crew. At the end of the book you realize he picked these people because their strengths and weaknesses complimented each other. The captain was the glue that held them together and without him the flaws became more pronounced. The engines fail when they are about to start breaking for Jupiter. As the repairs begin the crew starts making mistake after mistake while time is running out. I won’t bore with details, it takes about 500 pages. At the end the ship is holed by asteroids (small ones of course), they can’t break in time for Jupiter, several crewmen escape in the ship’s cutter, the computer pulls a HAL, and the rest of the crew dies on the ship. The last couple of chapters were OK but there was only one character that I had any empathy for. At the end the point is made about the crew and their flaws when the ship’s AI is asked to compute the reason for the wreck and it says it was the captain. He was the one who brought everyone onboard to screw things up.
I have a feeling I won’t get any responses from anyone who read this book. If you did please let me know what you thought of it.
Ah, someone hit the super bargain rack at the bookstore. The Blue Nowhere was just worthless, and at Borders here it’s something like 80% off. Small wonder. I finished it since it paced pretty well, but it was vapid and I had the ending nailed pretty early on.
I have been trying to read Stansfield Turner’s “Secrecy and Democracy” for almost two years, but I’m beginning to think it will never end. Dry is an understatement.
Also trying is John Shelby Spong’s “Why Christianity Must Change Or Die.” Apparently I just don’t care enough why this is to get in more than 50 pages.