[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Eidolon909 * Rucker, Rudy, Peter L. Wilson, and Robert A. Wilson - Semiotext(e) (SF)
(a collection of “radical” sf published by the Semiotext(e) postmodernist journal.)/QUOTE]
Hey, a good friend of mine was in Semiotext(e) SF. We were in a writers’ group together. If you thought his story (not the penis one) was strange, you should have read the experiments he brought in to critique.
And Semiotext(e) SF averages five stars on Amazon.
On the other hand, so does Rotwang : or, The delirious precision of dreams, by Tim Hildebrand. (“Tim has captured what we love best about drugs in text.” Ah, so that was the problem.)
I reviewed books for about twenty years and I remember this one as the worst clunker I was ever forced to read all the way through, short though it is. All I could salvage from the experience was trying to come up with lines damaging enough to put off anyone else from ever reading it. The only one I remember was that it had “prose as flat as a souffle on a neutron star.”
But I do remember the day I took a look at a Mission:Earth volume at a bookstore, read through a page, laughed hysterically and never touched it again. Or the Lionel Fanthorpe opus Negative Minus, which was read aloud almost in its entirety in the corridors of a World SF Convention because you could open it at any point and find horrors so wonderful that they had to be shared.
Shadow Puppets by Orson Scott Card. Ugh. I don’t even know if I want to read the next book, whenever it comes out (Shadow of Death–is it called; ah who the hell cares, it’ll probably be crap).
I’ll second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh that. Haven’t gotten around to the eighth book yet.
I actually was reading the series so y’all wouldn’t have to.
The first seven books could easily have been cut down to a trilogy simply by eliminating the stuff from the second book on that was reiterating at great length things that had happened in the previous books, apparently for those of you who tuned in late.
The series, aside from being anti-Catholic, along with anti every single non-Christian religion, is racist (token black characters appear in the middle of one book, only to die in the middle of the next) and sexist (female characters come in three varieties- submissive wives who never do anything actually heroic, and women who attempt to be heroic, but are incompetent to perform the tasks they are assigned, due to general airheadedness, and airheaded whiners. The only female characters who are not complete airheads are the submissive wife types- apparently, an intelligent woman is smart enough to stay home, cook, do laundry, obey her husband and generally stay out of the way and let the men be heroic.)
I’ll definitely third Sphere - although I don’t remember Congo well enough. Sphere also has the annoying cheat ending - “And then they all woke up.” Grrrr.
Almost everything from Piers Anthony, but in particular the Bio of a Space Tyrant books.
Also, a mystery called “A Wolf at the Door” by somebody Campbell that was just…awful.
Any of the zillion books by Barbara Cartland. I think she was Princess Diana’s step-grandmother. Helpless maiden, swashbuckling hero, happy ending. I call them “you silly goose” books because that cliche is so typical of the genre.
Speaking of Piers Anthony, Ghost should not only be considered in any discussion of the worst book ever, but indeed there is a good chance it may well be in the running for the worst thing ever.
The Dancers of Arun by somebody whose name I do not remember. It’s very bad late 70s/early 80s fantasy. It’s about these gypsy-ish people who wander this fantasy planet and the main character is rescued from a life of drudgery by his brother years after the war that killed both their parents and left the mc with only one arm. (I think his name was Justin or something of that ilk.) Oh, and the mc is a complete and utter virgin, because he only had one arm and all the castle maids mocked him. He develops a humongous crush on his older brother, who then gratifies him with . . . his first sexual experience. It had all these . . . pseudo-Arthurian, sixties commune, epitome of fantasy overtones that matched like violet and hunter orange. 'Twasn’t pretty. I believe there are sequels.
Son of Rosemary by Ira Levin was absolutely PAINFUL to read. I hated every moment of that book, and when I was finished with it, I promptly donated it to my local used bookstore. The most disappointing part was that Rosemary’s Baby (both book and movie) were pretty good. What the hell happened.
I’ll second SON OF ROSEMARY (which also has the same plot twist as DEVIL’S ADVOCATE [“it was all a dream… or was it?”] released that same year) and I’m glad to hear somebody else disliked TO THE LIGHTHOUSE- I was afraid I just didn’t get it.
Good Authors who’ve dropped the ball:
Douglas Coupland= I loved GENERATION X and liked some of his other works, but GIRLFRIEND IN A COMA & MISS WYOMING were just lifeless and not even worth full price for the paperback. (There’s a rumor that he’s gay and that this is why anything he writes about a girlfriend comes across as phony, but even if that’s true there are gay authors who write very convincing straight characters and vice versa.)
John Grisham- never exactly the reincarnation of Twain, but his first few books were decent until they got so formulaic (little Southern lawyer takes on unbeatable foe, gets beaten up somewhere along the way, but ultimately wins) that the only mystery is who’s going to star in the movie.
Crichton- “a major piece of technology gets loose and causes havoc” can only be written so many times, be it androids, time machines, dinosaurs, or (most recently) nanobots.
Michael Moore- this one might get flamed, but while I agree Moore is often funny and I agree with him on some issues, his books are no more logical or coherent than Ann Coulter’s and in some ways they’re just as vicious and libelous.
Several of the plays of Edward Albee, if all compiled into a single book, could appear on this list. (He’s done some good stuff as well, but when he’s bad he stinks.)
I thought Timeline was a fun and fluffy read! But what’s really bad is the book I’m reading right now - The Family by Mario Puzo. How on earth can a writer make the Borgia family the most boring, insipid, flat characters I have ever had the misfortune to read about? I’m almost done with the book - I kept hoping it would pick up and get interesting, but it reads like someone’s history paper with a little dash of soap opera. Yeechh!!
Ah Come on now… Pandora was just boring and tedious whereas Armand had enough pedophila in it to make my skin rip itself from my bones and fling itself into the corner. Icky icky icky…
I see that none of you have read either Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom or Slow Waltz on Cedar Bend by that hack who wrote The Bridges of Madison County.
Do yourselves a favor. Keep it that way.
[sub]…where’s that dang vomiting smiley when you need it?..[/sub]
Another one for “Great Writers Who Dropped the Ball”: Heinlein’s Beyond This Horizon. Utterly pointless plot…I kept waiting for something to resolve. Never happened. My overall impression, two years later, is a lot of nothing punctuated by a party of some kind.
And this from someone who liked Number of the Beast…