# The moment you realized that a book sucks. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 25, 2006, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realized-that-a-book-sucks/365917 "2006-07-25T03:01:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Will\_Repair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a698b9/32.png) [@Will\_Repair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Will_Repair)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2006, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realized-that-a-book-sucks/365917/61 "2006-07-27T21:42:43Z")
_Jinn_, horror and suspense set in WWII. When the hero could hear the hiss of a cigarette thown into the water is stayed. But when GIs walking through the jungle cracking open coconuts on the trunks of trees I quit. [QUOTE=Mirror Image egamI rorriM] Whatever the first Thomas Covenant book was. [/QUOTE] I didn’t make it past the chapter with the rape. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2006, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realized-that-a-book-sucks/365917/62 "2006-07-27T22:59:04Z")
**Misnomer** : Okay, you _were_ arguing what I thought you were arguing. Fair enough. Perhaps it would’ve been more believable if the killer had upped the stakes substantially, like “go to the cops: I’ll kill your parents” vs. “don’t go to the cops: I’ll kill six randomly chosen elementary school students” or something like that. ---
**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:** [July 27, 2006, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realized-that-a-book-sucks/365917/63 "2006-07-27T23:06:16Z")
[QUOTE=Leaper] Perhaps it would’ve been more believable if the killer had upped the stakes substantially [/QUOTE] No. You continue to miss my point, but I’m not sure how else to try to explain it. I fear we might have to agree to disagree. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Delly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Delly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Delly)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realized-that-a-book-sucks/365917/64 "2006-07-28T00:17:55Z")
Another mention for Jemima J - because shes carrying a Louis Vuitton makeup case shes changed from economy to first class on her flight. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realized-that-a-book-sucks/365917/65 "2006-07-28T00:22:15Z")
[QUOTE=Lord Ashtar] For a while I was on a Dean Koontz kick. I had read _The Bad Place_, _Watchers_, and _Whispers_ and picked up another one called _The Mask_ because I was going to go sit and wait to testify in court later that day and figured a new book would help make the time go more quickly. I don’t remember anything about it, just that a little less than half way through I realized I’d rather sit and stare at the wall like Puddy than read any more of that tripe. I later learned that Koontz is a real hit-or-miss author. Seems he’ll write a good book and then write three or four real pieces of crap. I guess I had just gotten lucky with the first books of his I had read. [/QUOTE] Yeah, and with those three books you listed, you probably read his two best titles. At least of those that he wrote up to 1991-92 or so… I kind of got tired of him after that. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realized-that-a-book-sucks/365917/66 "2006-07-28T01:15:03Z")
[QUOTE=Mirror Image egamI rorriM] Whatever the first Thomas Covenant book was. Covenant rapes a girl, and the reader is supposed to forgive him. [/QUOTE] _Lord Foul’s Bane_. And the reader is absolutely not meant to forgive him. It would violate the purpose of the entire series, which is to write a high fantasy novel featuring a character with absolutely no heroic qualities. It’s like _Lord of the Rings_ told from Gollum’s point of view. And Thomas Covenant was just a run-up to Angus Thermopyle in _The Gap Cycle_. ---
**Author:** ![DiggitCamara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@DiggitCamara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiggitCamara)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realized-that-a-book-sucks/365917/67 "2006-07-28T01:44:25Z")
I picked up some supposed Tom Clancy book in an airport. Not having read anything of his, I thought “hey, maybe it IS entertaining”. However I must have picked up some random strange edition, which was in some way associated with a video game that bears his name. The story is supposedly about the sudden rise of China to super-world-powerdom. This pits them against the United States (in the Pacific Ocean). However, the whole narration depicts the life on an atomic submarine during that war. It was INCREDIBLY repetitive, with the captain of the boat constantly checking for sounds in the ocean, filling and emptying the ballast tanks, etc. etc. I read it in horrid fascination, and couldn’t stop reading it, disbelieving every page. And honestly wondered how such crap could possibly be printed by ANY self-respecting printer. ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realized-that-a-book-sucks/365917/68 "2006-07-28T01:55:31Z")
[QUOTE=Mirror Image egamI rorriM] Whatever the first Thomas Covenant book was. Covenant rapes a girl, and the reader is supposed to forgive him. Um, no. The depiction of leprosy was also ignorant and repugnant, and there was also a clan of women who were spiritually in tune with a herd of horses or something stupid like that. [/QUOTE] Your objection to the book would be more convincing had you not tossed off that last, inaccurate, sentence in an apparent attempt to make the book seem worse. Also worth noting that the magical horses show up long after the rape scene, have nothing to do with the rape scene (in that book, at least), and are in the book specifically to draw attention to play against the expected “hero aided by magical horses” trope of the genre. [QUOTE=Miller] _Lord Foul’s Bane_. And the reader is absolutely not meant to forgive him. It would violate the purpose of the entire series, which is to write a high fantasy novel featuring a character with absolutely no heroic qualities. It’s like _Lord of the Rings_ told from Gollum’s point of view. [/QUOTE] That’s not quite what Donaldson was trying – or at least, that’s not _all_ that he was trying. He wrote the book to turn all the standard, Tolkeinish tropes on their head; it’s sort of an anti-fantasy book dressed up in fantasy clothing. Except he wasn’t a very good writer, yet, with _Lord Foul’s Bane_. But close enough. My own personal favorite came upon reading this passage, from an L5R gaming fiction book: [QUOTE=Wind of War, by Jess Lebow] Warm wind shuffled through the rice paddies. Spring had come to Rokugan, and fifteen samurai on horseback had come to the villages. One carried the flag of Bayushi Zuto, their warlord, their daimyo. The soft red and black silks fluttered slightly against the pole. The horses plodded across the flooded rice field, taking care to step on solid ground. Trees to the north, east, and south defined the square edges of the farmers’ land, and the neat rows of dead, defrosting vegetation looked like poorly groomed tufts of hair in between long furrows of dark brown water. Moving across the field was like walking across a soft, wet head [/QUOTE] Masochist that I am, I kept reading the entire book, even though the protagonist’s sword was more active than the main character. And, no, not because the main character was _doing_ something with his sword – it was just prone to paragraphs-long magical displays of no apparent purpose. Gaming fiction is bad, generally, but this made Rose Estes and Gary Gygax read well in comparison. ---
**Author:** ![Poysyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Poysyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poysyn)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realized-that-a-book-sucks/365917/69 "2006-07-28T02:02:25Z")
[QUOTE=DiggitCamara] I picked up some supposed Tom Clancy book in an airport. Not having read anything of his, I thought “hey, maybe it IS entertaining”. However I must have picked up some random strange edition, which was in some way associated with a video game that bears his name. The story is supposedly about the sudden rise of China to super-world-powerdom. This pits them against the United States (in the Pacific Ocean). However, the whole narration depicts the life on an atomic submarine during that war. It was INCREDIBLY repetitive, with the captain of the boat constantly checking for sounds in the ocean, filling and emptying the ballast tanks, etc. etc. I read it in horrid fascination, and couldn’t stop reading it, disbelieving every page. And honestly wondered how such crap could possibly be printed by ANY self-respecting printer. [/QUOTE] Reminds me of the first time I attempted to read a spy novel. I got to the end and _still didn’t know_ who the spy was, the worst thing was, I didn’t care. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realized-that-a-book-sucks/365917/70 "2006-07-28T02:14:31Z")
[QUOTE=DiggitCamara] I picked up some supposed Tom Clancy book in an airport. Not having read anything of his, I thought “hey, maybe it IS entertaining”. However I must have picked up some random strange edition, which was in some way associated with a video game that bears his name. The story is supposedly about the sudden rise of China to super-world-powerdom. This pits them against the United States (in the Pacific Ocean). However, the whole narration depicts the life on an atomic submarine during that war. It was INCREDIBLY repetitive, with the captain of the boat constantly checking for sounds in the ocean, filling and emptying the ballast tanks, etc. etc. I read it in horrid fascination, and couldn’t stop reading it, disbelieving every page. And honestly wondered how such crap could possibly be printed by ANY self-respecting printer. [/QUOTE] That would be **SSN** , and it is based on a submarine simulator program, only it has less of a plot than the game. ---
**Author:** ![Waenara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/50afbb/32.png) [@Waenara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waenara)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realized-that-a-book-sucks/365917/71 "2006-07-28T02:29:52Z")
[QUOTE=DiggitCamara] I picked up some supposed Tom Clancy book in an airport. Not having read anything of his, I thought “hey, maybe it IS entertaining”. However I must have picked up some random strange edition, which was in some way associated with a video game that bears his name. The story is supposedly about the sudden rise of China to super-world-powerdom. This pits them against the United States (in the Pacific Ocean). However, the whole narration depicts the life on an atomic submarine during that war. It was INCREDIBLY repetitive, with the captain of the boat constantly checking for sounds in the ocean, filling and emptying the ballast tanks, etc. etc. I read it in horrid fascination, and couldn’t stop reading it, disbelieving every page. And honestly wondered how such crap could possibly be printed by ANY self-respecting printer. [/QUOTE] _on preview, **DrFidelius** beat me to it, but oh well_ I also had the misfortune of reading that book - it’s titled _SSN_. AFAIK, it isn’t just associated with a video game, it actually seems to be a running description of everything that happens in a (extremely crappy and boring) video game. The submarine gets supplies at the submarine tender ship. They go on patrol and sight a few ships. They go back and get supplies. They go out and sink a ship or submarine. They go back and get supplies. They go out and sink _two_ ships and/or submarines. They go back and get supplies. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. And I actually _like_ some of Tom Clancy’s books, but only the Jack Ryan/John Clark books up until _Rainbow Six_ (_The Bear and The Dragon_ was so stupid I think my IQ dropped reading it, and I didn’t even attempt _The Teeth of the Tiger_ after I heard the premise). Tom Clancy’s spin-off series books that aren’t actually written by him, but are created solely to enlarge the piles of money he sleeps on, also appear to be crap. (The _Op-Centre_, _Netforce_, and _Power Plays_ series). ---
**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realized-that-a-book-sucks/365917/72 "2006-07-28T02:51:35Z")
For a time years ago when it was a new idea, I posted some reviews on a website of mine. The only two books to earn negative points were _The Fires of Coventry_ by Rich Shelley, and _Standing Wave_ by Howard V. Hendrix (both sci-fi books). The first had a theme of ‘fire’, with the cover describing a fantastic weapon involving fire or the sun or something, but which never showed up. Instead, a heavily armed space force takes over a planet and goes around burning individual buildings, fields, dogs, etc. for no reason. The rest of the book was filled with the various stories of new characters fighting, and being alternately killed/triumphant, which was hard to get in to since nobody lasted more than a chapter. The second I recommend if you want to hurt your brain: > [@Myself](#): > > The premise of this book is… I dunno! Some comet from space seems to be loosly connected to strangly flying stealth mountains and rays from outer space that briefly bring the world to a higher intellectual plane. Well, bring me there too so I can see what the deal is. > > “…the upshot of of crypto-behaviourist ideas … at least in academic circles, was a generalized denial of the actuality of individual consciousness” > > You are treated to phrases like this, along with latin quotes, insane haikus, and strange e-mail messages at least once every two pages, usually more frequently. My personal opinion is that Hendrix is trying to make himself look smart, though IMHO, he just isn’t using that English degree. Perhaps he listened to his english teacher too hard when she kept talking about “deeper meaning”; bring an excavation team with you on this ride. Oh, and **Misnomer** ’s right - that book sucked. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realized-that-a-book-sucks/365917/73 "2006-07-28T02:54:42Z")
Oh right, the third time someone had their house burned down, fought someone and then was never seen again, and when I read “generalized denial of the actuality of individual consciousness”, I knew those books had to go. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realized-that-a-book-sucks/365917/74 "2006-07-28T03:22:47Z")
[QUOTE=Misnomer] No. You continue to miss my point, but I’m not sure how else to try to explain it. I fear we might have to agree to disagree. 😉 [/QUOTE] No, I get you. That’s why I had the victims for “going to the cops” be the hero’s parents. Threatening someone close to him/her would up the emotional bond and make the hero more likely to be _understandably_ reluctant about risking the lives of someone he knows and cares about. ---
**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:** [July 28, 2006, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realized-that-a-book-sucks/365917/75 "2006-07-28T04:04:35Z")
[QUOTE=Leaper] No, I get you. That’s why I had the victims for “going to the cops” be the hero’s parents. Threatening someone close to him/her would up the emotional bond and make the hero more likely to be _understandably_ reluctant about risking the lives of someone he knows and cares about. [/QUOTE] NO. For what feels like the millionth time, _you are not getting my point_. I have admitted that the problem is my inability to explain sufficiently, and have offered to agree to disagree. Why can’t you do that? Why repeatedly insist that you really _do_ know what I mean, despite my assurances to the contrary? It’s just a book, one that you haven’t even read, and my opinion is that it sucked. Why isn’t that the end of it? You’re actually starting to get on my nerves now, so I’m not going to engage any more on this subject. But rest assured, you do _not_ “get” me. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realized-that-a-book-sucks/365917/76 "2006-07-28T04:14:46Z")
Apparently not, if my revision doesn’t change things at all. Or else you don’t like your parents. 😉 Oh well. It was turning into a hijack anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Mirror\_Image\_egamI\_rorriM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e56c9b/32.png) [@Mirror\_Image\_egamI\_rorriM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mirror_Image_egamI_rorriM)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realized-that-a-book-sucks/365917/77 "2006-07-28T04:43:32Z")
[QUOTE=Lightray] Your objection to the book would be more convincing had you not tossed off that last, inaccurate, sentence in an apparent attempt to make the book seem worse. Also worth noting that the magical horses show up long after the rape scene, have nothing to do with the rape scene (in that book, at least), and are in the book specifically to draw attention to play against the expected “hero aided by magical horses” trope of the genre. That’s not quite what Donaldson was trying – or at least, that’s not _all_ that he was trying. He wrote the book to turn all the standard, Tolkeinish tropes on their head; it’s sort of an anti-fantasy book dressed up in fantasy clothing. Except he wasn’t a very good writer, yet, with _Lord Foul’s Bane_. [/QUOTE] What was innacurate about that sentence? There was a clan of women with magical horses, right? They wore ropes in their hair, if I’m not mistaken, and I never said they had anything to do with the rape. The rape pissed me off, but I just thought the whole female-only tribe with a magical connection to horses was dumb. Kind of a cross between Amazons and Ayla from “The Valley of Horses.” Anyway, any book that makes me hate the main character by not giving him any redeeming qualities to the point that I don’t care if he redeems himself like crazy later is a sucky book. Bonus suck points for portraying leprosy like he did, too. And for using “Kevin” as a hero’s name. Although, to Donaldson’s credit, I did think the “clingum” or whatever it was (the sticky stuff Covenant used to hide the ring on his chest with) sounded like a really useful and interesting item. ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realized-that-a-book-sucks/365917/78 "2006-07-28T13:35:57Z")
[QUOTE=Mirror Image egamI rorriM] What was innacurate about that sentence? There was a clan of women with magical horses, right? They wore ropes in their hair, if I’m not mistaken, and I never said they had anything to do with the rape. The rape pissed me off, but I just thought the whole female-only tribe with a magical connection to horses was dumb. Kind of a cross between Amazons and Ayla from “The Valley of Horses.” [/QUOTE] No. There was no “clan of women” with the magical horses. There _were_ magical horses. There _was_ a group of people with them. They _were not_ all women. The major character from that group who was in _Lord Foul’s Bane_ was, in fact, a woman. Other characters from that group were men. They were not at all like the Amazons nor Ayla from “The Valley of Horses” – you’ve just projected that onto the book yourself. None of the subcultures of the Land were particularly matriarchal or feminist, and none of them were really too patriarchal, either (because Donaldson was playing up that they were _fantasy_ cultures, and so, egalitarian). Your inaccuracies in recounting one part of the book have great bearing on how your interpretation of another part of the book (i.e., the rape) is perceived by others. ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realized-that-a-book-sucks/365917/79 "2006-07-28T13:49:19Z")
[QUOTE=Miller] _Lord Foul’s Bane_. And the reader is absolutely not meant to forgive him. It would violate the purpose of the entire series, which is to write a high fantasy novel featuring a character with absolutely no heroic qualities. It’s like _Lord of the Rings_ told from Gollum’s point of view. And Thomas Covenant was just a run-up to Angus Thermopyle in _The Gap Cycle_. [/QUOTE] Ah! The Gap Cycle - I barely made it through two books and decided I had wasted enough of my time. ---
**Author:** ![InappropriateHumor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/eb8c5e/32.png) [@InappropriateHumor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InappropriateHumor)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2006, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realized-that-a-book-sucks/365917/80 "2006-07-31T19:51:00Z")
At the risk of revealing my plebeian tastes, _The Sun Also Rises_ had me seriously considering gouging out the parts of my brain that retained traces of this literary sleeping draught. I did, however, manage to plow through to the very end in the hope that it would have a point. If it had one, it completely escaped me. I must have succeeded in repressing memories of it, since I don’t recall much now. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realized-that-a-book-sucks/365917.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realized-that-a-book-sucks/365917.md?page=5)