# Tell us about the worst books by your favorite authors. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 17, 2020, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-the-worst-books-by-your-favorite-authors/848079 "2020-02-17T16:54:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-the-worst-books-by-your-favorite-authors/848079/21 "2020-02-17T21:09:44Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Just because I liked it doesn’t mean everybody else must. Feel free to mock it. I conceded in the OP that it is a very flawed novel, although I think many of the faults are intentional jokes. It is just an odd place to start with R.A. Heinlein’s works because some of the later characters are from his previous works, like you should know the past before you read the future. It has been many years since I read it, it is still on the shelf. I will keep it for the novelty. I have read a substantial amount of his works and you can see the progress in both style and his developing history. He tries to bring it all together in Number of the Beast and wrap it up as some kind of ‘fantasy creates reality’, but it doesn’t work. I was and still am a big fan of his. I blame this book on his advancing age or possibly medical marijuana. Oh yeah, I forgot Farnham’s Freehold, a much bigger piece of dreck. ---
**Author:** ![Dark\_Sponge](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dark_sponge/32/121_2.png) [@Dark\_Sponge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dark_Sponge)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-the-worst-books-by-your-favorite-authors/848079/22 "2020-02-17T21:12:51Z")
> [@Infovore](#): > > This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but I consider the _Dark Tower_ series to be some of Stephen King’s worst work. > > I read it, but it took me three false starts to get through the first book (finally had to listen to it on audiobook to manage). The middle books weren’t bad, but the last two or three were self-indulgent crap… I agree for the most part. The beginning of the first book was one of his first attempts at a novel. He finished it later but didn’t do a full rewrite and it shows. I still like the concept of the first book and remember being shocked at the twist in the middle. I enjoyed the middle books. The last few seemed rushed as I think he realized he might die before finishing what he wanted to be his magnum opus. Inserting himself into the story was terrible. I really wish he would have skipped that. I know some people liked it but I couldn’t stand Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. I’ve still not finished it. ---
**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:** [February 17, 2020, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-the-worst-books-by-your-favorite-authors/848079/23 "2020-02-17T21:47:09Z")
I don’t like to pile on when there’s not much point, but I have to agree with all the people listing Heinlein’s _The Number of the Beast_. Part of the reason is that just about everything else Heinlein wrote – even his “bad” stuff – was pretty good. NOTB was the very first Heinlein I read when it was Brand New, and I was really looking forward to it. To be given this meandering piece of fluff with its pages upon pages of arguing about Rules of Order and the like, followed by downright wish-fulfillment was just too much. I was grateful that his later books were much better than this. By the way, I was just at Boskone 2020, and found that Arc Manor books is releasing an alternative text version of NOTB entitled **The Pursuit of the Pankera** this year. They gave out copies of “A Side by Side Comparison of two Chapters between _The Pursuit of the Pantera_ and _The NUmber of the Beast_, the two sister parallel novels”. Having read this, I have now been bored by two different versions of the text. Completists will want the book, but I’m not sure if anyone else will really like it. For something besides NOTB, let me not recommend Frederick Forsyth’s **The Phantom of Manhattan** , his sequel to Gaston Leroux’s _Phantom of the Opera_. I’ve been a fan of Forsyth since _The Day of the Jackal_, and have read all his books (except the nonfiction _The Biafra Story_), many of them multiple times. But he should have stayed away from this book. It’s not his subject matter, or his time period, or his milieu, and it’s simply awful. ---
**Author:** ![Isosleepy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/isosleepy/32/479_2.png) [@Isosleepy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isosleepy)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-the-worst-books-by-your-favorite-authors/848079/24 "2020-02-17T21:49:13Z")
Neill Stephenson’s Fall; or, Dodge in Hell. His books can get a little slow at times, and he can’t write an ending for shit. But all his other books I enjoyed reading and loved to have read. This one I put down not quite halfway in, and won’t pick it up again. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-the-worst-books-by-your-favorite-authors/848079/25 "2020-02-17T21:55:43Z")
Terry Pratchett’s Dark Side of the Sun is just dull as hell. He’s not at his best when he writes without humour. I loved Douglas Adams’ two Dirk Gently books, though, and am surprised that anyone who liked the Hitchhiker’s Guide could think they were really bad. ---
**Author:** ![Doyle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doyle/32/439_2.png) [@Doyle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doyle)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-the-worst-books-by-your-favorite-authors/848079/26 "2020-02-17T21:58:22Z")
Larry McMurtry’s _Texasville_ was awful. This was the sequel to The Las Picture Show. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-the-worst-books-by-your-favorite-authors/848079/27 "2020-02-17T22:09:10Z")
Arthur C. Clarke’s sequels to _Rendezvous with Rama_ progress from poor to execrable as they go on. It’s worth noting that Gentry Lee is mostly responsible for them, and Clarke’s name was mostly just on them for sales. ---
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-the-worst-books-by-your-favorite-authors/848079/28 "2020-02-17T22:55:06Z")
I’ve read a fair numberl of John Grisham books, and I generally finish what I start, but I couldn’t get even halfway through _[**Gray Mountain**](https://www.amazon.com/Gray-Mountain-Novel-John-Grisham/dp/0345543254/)_. Preachy twaddle. YES WE GET IT STRIP-MINING IS BAD. Bleh. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-the-worst-books-by-your-favorite-authors/848079/29 "2020-02-17T23:06:12Z")
Alistair MacLean started off well _(HMS Ulysses_, _The Guns of Navarone_, _Where Eagles Dare_, _Ice Station Zebra_, etc.), but his later works are dreck. By the time he got to _Athabasca_ or _Seawitch_, he was apparently deep in the throes of alcoholism and just didn’t care anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-the-worst-books-by-your-favorite-authors/848079/30 "2020-02-17T23:20:26Z")
I wasn’t able to finish _Stranger in a Strange Land_, either, but enough people love it that I’m willing to entertain the notion that it’s not bad, just not for my tastes. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-the-worst-books-by-your-favorite-authors/848079/31 "2020-02-17T23:53:15Z")
_The Road to Little Dribbling_ made me wonder if Bill Bryson had lost his magic. It’s just a reboot of his much better _Notes from a Small Island._, and not a very good one. I know we Bryson fans like his withering scorn, but here the bitching just got tiresome. Okay, we get it, modern celebrities and litterbugs suck. Fine, you don’t like transportation systems. You can afford a goddamn car by now, can’t you? I’m so relieved his new book _The Body_ has him back on point. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-the-worst-books-by-your-favorite-authors/848079/32 "2020-02-18T00:00:18Z")
Nobody’s mentioned Michael Crichton’s “Sphere”? WHAT WAS WITH THAT ENDING? If “Cujo” wasn’t the last Stephen King book I read, it was close enough. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-the-worst-books-by-your-favorite-authors/848079/33 "2020-02-18T00:46:49Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > _Farnham’s Freehold_ was bad, but you could at least see what he was trying to do with it, and what he was trying to do was hard enough that it’s not particularly surprising that he failed. I have never finished FF, but I wasn’t sure whether that was because of the format. I never had a copy until after I lost my site, and the narrator of the audiobook was so irritating I couldn’t stand to listen. The same thing was true of “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress,” but I knew that one before I was blind and thus could distinguish between narrator & authorial incompetence. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-the-worst-books-by-your-favorite-authors/848079/34 "2020-02-18T01:07:15Z")
While I wouldn’t call **Ira Levin** a _favorite_ author of mine, nobody could deny that **A Kiss Before Dying** And **Rosemary’s Baby** are classic thrillers. **The Stepford Wives** and **The Boys from Brazil** are only a few steps lower. Then he came out with **Son of Rosemary.** Not only abysmal, but it reached back in time and ruined **Rosemary’ Baby** for me. _Shun it._ ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-the-worst-books-by-your-favorite-authors/848079/35 "2020-02-18T01:22:59Z")
Brandon Sanderson may be my favorite author, but his followups to Steelheart were not great. Steelheart is a really good superhero book, but both sequels disappointed. \*\*Firefight and Calamity \*\*were overlong and very slow moving. > [@silenus](#): > > Terry Pratchett’s _Unseen Academicals_ is total tripe. I ranked Faust(Eric) as his worst book. Equal Rites was bad, too. ---
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-the-worst-books-by-your-favorite-authors/848079/36 "2020-02-18T01:23:11Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Terry Pratchett’s _Unseen Academicals_ is total tripe. You see, I like _Unseen Academicals_ - **Posh** and **Becks** as **Romeo and Juliette** , what’s not to like. I don’t like _Monstrous Regiment_ much, and have only read it once. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-the-worst-books-by-your-favorite-authors/848079/37 "2020-02-18T01:27:52Z")
[quote=“nearwildheaven, post:32, topic:848079”] Nobody’s mentioned Michael Crichton’s “Sphere”? WHAT WAS WITH THAT ENDING? I don’t feel a need to spoiler box a book that old. I liked Sphere and I liked that in the end, they gave up their powers…except for the woman who clearly held on to her powers and is now kind of all powerful over everyone. Kind of an evil ending, but I didn’t mind. The movie was terrible, though. Yikes. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-the-worst-books-by-your-favorite-authors/848079/38 "2020-02-18T01:36:37Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I wasn’t able to finish _Stranger in a Strange Land_, either, but enough people love it that I’m willing to entertain the notion that it’s not bad, just not for my tastes. I’m glad I read it, although that was quite a read for a 6th grader (age 12 or so) quite a change from the juveniles I read as a child. I like that I know the pop culture references from Stranger but I also learned that I dont enjoy adult Heinlein and never had much of an urge to return. My dad was a heavy sci reader and I think he gave me good advice to not use it as a book report. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-the-worst-books-by-your-favorite-authors/848079/39 "2020-02-18T02:43:01Z")
I personally think that Pratchett’s worst is _Moving Pictures_. It should have been fertile ground for his type of story, but never took off. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-the-worst-books-by-your-favorite-authors/848079/40 "2020-02-18T02:51:34Z")
Nobody should ever judge Heinlein based on _Stranger_. Like I said, I didn’t like it either, but I do like most of Heinlein’s adult works. Oh, and I’ll agree with _Unseen Academicals_ as Pratchett’s worst work. _Monstrous Regiment_ was only bad if you were expecting it to be comedy just because it’s Discworld-- It’s mostly not, but I thought he did serious pretty well, too. It’s not his best work, but it’s OK. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-the-worst-books-by-your-favorite-authors/848079.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-the-worst-books-by-your-favorite-authors/848079.md?page=3)