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Worst book you ever read?

Started by Razgovory, July 06, 2011, 10:41:56 AM

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Razgovory

Quote from: Ideologue on July 07, 2011, 07:37:11 AM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on July 07, 2011, 05:16:12 AM
I can't believe all you Tom Clancy suckers.  I learned to stop reading him back in the '80s, after Red Storm Stupid.

I think I've read exactly one Tom Clancy book.  My reaction was that he sure did know a lot about military hardware.  But so did Fred T. Jane, and no one considers him a great novelist.

I read exactly one Tom Clancy book, which by coincidence was Red Storm Submarine.  Clancy talked a lot about military hardware, I'm not sure if he actually knew what he was talking about.  I found much of the book implausible.  The Soviets reason for war was silly, as were their plans.  The war conveniently didn't have any nuclear warfare, lasts only a few weeks, and the Russians eventually decide to give in.  Bleh.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

Ideologue

Quote from: Caliga on July 06, 2011, 06:53:33 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on July 06, 2011, 06:44:36 PM
Polyamory?  Weeping gorilla?  An exploration of the fallen nature of man?  I must admit that I am intrigued.
I know I've told this story like 10 times, but this little group got together via a message board similar to Languish (no, I don't know the URL) and either the board was about Ishmael or it was some literary board and the novel constantly came up or some shit.

Anyway, some of the people in the group weren't so batshit, but a faction of it was so cuckoo that they became polyamorous and moved to a hippie commune up in Maine.

I've probably had the same reaction each time.  I am growing: predictable. :(
Kinemalogue
Current reviews: The 'Burbs (9/10); Gremlins 2: The New Batch (9/10); John Wick: Chapter 2 (9/10); A Cure For Wellness (4/10)

Malthus

Quote from: Ideologue on July 07, 2011, 09:21:04 AM
Quote from: Caliga on July 06, 2011, 06:53:33 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on July 06, 2011, 06:44:36 PM
Polyamory?  Weeping gorilla?  An exploration of the fallen nature of man?  I must admit that I am intrigued.
I know I've told this story like 10 times, but this little group got together via a message board similar to Languish (no, I don't know the URL) and either the board was about Ishmael or it was some literary board and the novel constantly came up or some shit.

Anyway, some of the people in the group weren't so batshit, but a faction of it was so cuckoo that they became polyamorous and moved to a hippie commune up in Maine.

I've probably had the same reaction each time.  I am growing: predictable. :(

What would be predictable, would be if we found this board and spamed it with fan-fic featuring polyamorous telepathic gorillas being violently repressed by evil lesbian Nazi racoons representing the horrors of civilization.  :P

Problem is, it would not be recognized as parody. In fact, Ishmael cannot be parodied.  :lol:
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane—Marcus Aurelius

Agelastus

"Bear and the Dragon" is so bad because it basically has exactly the same plot as his preceding two novels - it's identikit writing and thus the last book of his that I have read. It's a long way from being the worst book I've read though...I'm sure I've blanked out worse from my childhood (I know I've read some pretty dire "Star Trek" books as a teen, for example.)
"Come grow old with me
The Best is yet to be
The last of life for which the first was made."

MadImmortalMan

Tom Clancy wrote a couple good books early on. Then he deteriorated.
"Stability is destabilizing." --Hyman Minsky

"Complacency can be a self-denying prophecy."
"We have nothing to fear but lack of fear itself." --Larry Summers

grumbler

Quote from: MadImmortalMan on July 07, 2011, 11:38:18 AM
Tom Clancy wrote a couple good books early on. Then he deteriorated.
I think maybe he wrote one good book before "deteriorating" depending on how you look at Red Storm Rising.  RSR didn't have any actual characters, but wasn't supposed to - it was supposed to be pretty much pure action.  It works on that level, I think.

Everything after that was crap by any standards.
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

Ed Anger

RSR needed more Iceland rape scenes.
Stay Alive...Let the Man Drive

Barrister

I enjoyed Red Storm Rising for what it was. :)
Posts here are my own private opinions.  I do not speak for my employer.

The Brain

Quote from: Barrister on July 07, 2011, 04:35:28 PM
I enjoyed Red Storm Rising for what it was. :)

Was your copy soft and absorbant?
Women want me. Men want to be with me.

Malthus

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane—Marcus Aurelius

AnchorClanker

Quote from: Grey Fox on July 06, 2011, 11:48:03 AM
Le Père Goriot by Honoré de Balzac. I read 30 pages of it. I think I was only in sentence number 5.

:(
The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.  - Reinhold Niebuhr

Caliga

I liked blowing up Krivaks and Boris Chilikins in the Red Storm Rising game for the Commodore 64.
0 Ed Anger Disapproval Points

Grey Fox

Quote from: AnchorClanker on July 07, 2011, 05:13:26 PM
Quote from: Grey Fox on July 06, 2011, 11:48:03 AM
Le Père Goriot by Honoré de Balzac. I read 30 pages of it. I think I was only in sentence number 5.

:(

It sucks. Naturalism & Realism are stupid movement. They are the reality TV & Sun journalism of the 1800s.
Colonel Caliga is Awesome.

Josephus

Quote from: Grey Fox on July 07, 2011, 08:34:24 PM
Quote from: AnchorClanker on July 07, 2011, 05:13:26 PM
Quote from: Grey Fox on July 06, 2011, 11:48:03 AM
Le Père Goriot by Honoré de Balzac. I read 30 pages of it. I think I was only in sentence number 5.

:(

It sucks. Naturalism & Realism are stupid movement. They are the reality TV & Sun journalism of the 1800s.

Oh yeah, that reminds me.

In American Lit we read a bunch of crap, but Thoreau's book was pretty turgid. The one about grass or something.  I don't remember.
Civis Romanus Sum<br /><br />"My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world." Jack Layton 1950-2011

CountDeMoney

Quote from: Josephus on July 07, 2011, 09:51:27 PM
but Thoreau's book was pretty turgid. The one about grass or something.  I don't remember.

:lol: