I’m assuming that this thread’ll probably get heaved over to the IMHO soon, but…
The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice has to be some of the worst fiction ever foisted upon the literate public. Actually, everything she’s written after Interview with the Vampire has been pure drivel and it makes one have to reassess the praise and celebrity she received from that first novel.
White Palace by Glenn Savan made my hometown of St. Louis look like a cartoon of itself. I met Savan a few times (he’s the ex of a friend) and he’s an insufferable, pompous snob. The plot concerns a love affair between a young, wealthy widower and a middle-aged, white trash fast food waitress - presumably it’s semi-autobiographical. If Savan was trying to physically demonstrate that the rich are out of touch with the “lower” classes, he succeeded by reducing his “hoosier” (the slang term for white trash in St. Louis) characters as completely one-dimensional. Small wonder he turned out to be the same in real life.
I could never make it past the first 5 pages of Clan of the Cave Bear (can’t even remember the author’s name for that matter) or Frank Herbert’s Dune either. Expect I’ll get lambasted by a sci-fi fan for that last one.
Most of you already know this one, but Atlas Shrugged. What a steaming pile THAT was! I weep to think of all the trees that have given their lives to become part of the horror that is Ayn Rand’s world. This book made me want to crawl into a hole and hide from the world. It made me hate life and everything in it.
This is Guinastasia speaking to say that John Galt can bite me.
Romeo and Juliet. Yes, I said it. Yawn yawn yawn. Bleh bleh bleh. I think it’s evil to make freshmen read this-I was put off of Shakespeare until I read Macbeth.
Anastasia: the Lost Princess by James Blair Lovell. One of the worst pieces of crap I’ve ever read associated with the Romanovs. The book was flawed, poorly-researched, numorous mistakes and the author treats tin foil conspiracy theories as fact. Laughably depressing.
Speaking of Harlequins (we used to call the really bad ones, “Housewife Porn”,), my friends and I would get a bunch out of the library and read the sex parts for shits and giggles.
Hey, remember that one site-the Victorian Sex Cry Generator?
monster-first off it was Mortal Fear. Second off, it was a decent enough book.
Zoff- I have to disagree with you. I didn’t find the book too pretentious I thought it was well written (as if that isn’t a sign of doom).
Winnowill- I full heartedly agree with you on Insomnia. Let me just say that I had the book on tape and I still couldn’t get through the thing. Now that’s got to be bad.
As for my own opinion I’d have to give a nomination to a book written after a videogame. I can’t even believe I bought the freak’n thing. I forgot the author but it was a book based on Baldur’s Gate. If that doesn’t take first place in a shit hole filling contest I don’t know what does.
No competition. Far and away the worst books I’ve ever read were the Mission Earth series, by L. Ron Hubbard. They were the literary equivalent of the slime that coats the walls of sewer tunnels. They were bad on so many levels - on every level that exists, for that matter. Gah. They were awful. I’ve never wanted to remove my brain and scrub it except for the day I finished that series.
And I actually subjected myself to all 10 books, out of some perverse desire. I wanted to be able to warn people about it, and I figured I couldn’t do that fairly if I hadn’t read the whole thing.
I agree with Atlas Shrugged being one of the biggest pieces of shit ever written. Not so much because of the philosophy but the style of Ayn Rand’s writing is barely tolerable and her characters are about as far from real people as you can get.
I hate Ann Rice’s writing. I’ve tried to read a couple of her Vampire Chronicle books and I never get past the first few pages. I flip to middle parts to see if it will get better, it never does and so I return it to the library tempted to buy a copy to burn.
Other than that I generally like the fiction that I read. Even if it isn’t particularly good it usually has something I latch onto and find inspiring. Hell even Atlas Shrugged made me think of a really cool trailer for the movie version (if such a thing is ever brought into this world).
I like Ethan Frome! I’ve read it twice and enjoy it.
Real total and complete crap is Wish You Well by David Baldacci. (.here)The most formulaic, hackneyed story ever. And this is a #1 Best selling author.
I only read it because I had to. It was for school, and he came and visited our class.
I wish I could have those hours back.
David Baldacci–never write another “heartfelt” sotry. Please!
OUCH! It does hurt to see books I enjoyed listed here! I have Last Of the Mohicans in leather, that’s how much I loved it. LOL. I liked Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, but part of that was being a parent myself.
I’d have to say “Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas” was the most recent horrible book I attempted to read.
I read a Dean Koontz movel a few years back that seemed really bad. It’s the only one of his I’ve read but I got the distinct impression he’d already written 25 just like it and was tired of trying. Can’t recall the title, and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter.
The Fourth K - Mario Puzo. Stupid from beginning to end.
Silas Marner - George Elliot. So dull it hurt to pick it up. Teachers who assign it should be removed from the job.
Puerta Villarta Squeeze - Robert James Waller. So bad I had to imagine it was a straight-to-video film to get through it. A friend loaned it to me after she read a Discworld book I loaned her. So I felt I owed it to her to finish it. The scary thing is it’s tied for her favorite book with The Remains of The Day.
Ones I quit:
Interview With The Vampire and The Witching Hour - Anne Rice. I never felt the urge to burn a book until I tried to read these. Is she really that deluded to think this is good or even serious writing?
Bio Of A Space Tyrant Vol. 1 (whatever the title is) - Piers Anthony.
Rape and misogyny…in space…oh joy.
The Witching Hour was probably the only Rice book I actually LIKED. I liked the going back in time parts, the whole history of the Mayfair family. Unfortunately, later on the whole thing about Lasher and the weird race of people who can only live on breast milk was just too bizarre for words. What the hell has this woman been smoking?
Usually, I try to avoid books that I think I won’t like. Not too hard–I find a friend with similar tastes and ask their opinion.
The only book that I have ever seriously thought of burning is Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier. I don’t like Civil War-era novels much as a general rule and the content was just too much.
My 10th grade English teacher assigned the class that one for summer reading. I have to wonder if she actually read the book before she assigned it or just looked at the awards listed. It was entirely inappropriate for a class of high school sophomores.
Are you talking about his fiction? As far as I know the basis of the religion has nothing to do with his sci-fi novels but with Dianetics and assorted other books he wrote that detail the (supposed) path to mental health and IIRC detail how we all came to Earth from a race of aliens or something. Hmm, come to think of it that does sound like sci-fi, but they believe it.
Chesapeake by James Michener. I read it for a book report in 10th grade, and hatedhatedhated it. The last sentence of my report was something like, “This book is too long, and life is too short to read it.”
Well, as it has been said Mission to Earth sucks. Not only does it suck but it also blows, at the same time! In my whole life I have never even heard of so much drivel put togeter in a book.
Robin Cook also had one that I think was called abduction or something like it that was pure garbage. Inspired by nice feelings but still garbage.
Dean Koontz’s From the Corner of the Eye is amazingly, incredibly bad.
Anne Rice’s vampire chronicles are bearable until The Bodysnatcher or whatever the name of the one about the guy that steals bodies is. And The Witching Hour wasn’t completly without its positive points. The rest is shit. Pompous, longwinded, self-conscious shit.
Heinlen’s final novels were bad.
Philip K. Dick’s VALIS is so bad it made me depressed.
And you people that criticized Fitzgerald and Moby Dick are crazy:D .
Aha! That’s who it was! I can’t remember the name of the book, but after struggling through about 400 pages and not understanding anything that was going on, I thought I had **finally ** figured it out till I got to about page 475, 20 pages to go, when I realized I still didn’t get it. I put it down, never finished it, and never looked back.
Titan by Stephen Baxter. About the attempt by a group of misfits to use all of our shuttles (and the Saturn Vs presently being used as lawn ornaments) to reach the Saturn system. For some reason.
The people left on Earth don’t see any point to the expedition so they don’t bother shipping the extra supplies. So everybody dies. Not that I liked any of them to begin with. But then two of them get resurrected. Don’t know why or how.
Oh, and about three quarters of the way through the book we learn that the Chinese developed their own space program for the express purpose of dropping an Alvarez-type impactor onto Earth. They do this, and everybody on Earth dies (including bacteria, apparently since the only examples of Earth-life the Titanians can find in the Far Future are the aforementioned dead astronauts who they clone or something which includes their memories). Sorry, but he couldn’t even make the complete extinction of the biosphere interesting, nor didhe even hint that the Chinese might have had a motive for doing it. Except for being inscrutable, or something.
Sorry for being so long-winded, but this book stuck in my craw.
Oh, and Moby Dick is one of the five best books I have ever read.
