Pretty self-explanatory. Worst book I ever read was Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Required reading for an 8th grade English class. Even as a dimwitted teenager I could figure out that it was bullshit.
Fire Lance by David Mace.
http://www.amazon.com/Fire-Lance-David-Mace/dp/0441235883
A close second, Grunts or Fitzpatrick's War.
My pet school hate was Flowers for Algernon. EVERY FUCKING YEAR 6TH GRADE AND UP IT IS WAS ASSIGNED.
Roughing it in the bush by Susannah Moody. Required Can.Lit reading. Turgid, horrible.
Worst book you ever read ?
The one I'm about to write. :contract:
It's probably not the worst book I ever read, since it is I guess considered an important work (and I've read my share of objectively crappy fantasy and sci fi novels), but the book I despised reading was Tess of the D'Ubervilles. It just went on and on, and I had to force myself to read each page. :bleeding:
Catcher in the Rye.
Too many to list.
Luckily, when they were not mandatory for school reasons, I simply throw them in a corner.
Several so-called "masterpieces" I've found unreadable: Crime and Punishment;Ulysses; almost every theatre piece I've read rather than attended to the play; others I don't recall right now.
I'm crawling through War and Peace right now, if the pace doesn't change in the next 20 pages I'm ready to throw away this one too.
L.
Mein Kampf, closely followed by Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism by Lenin.
As much as I love the subject, I've found On War by Clausewitz to be nigh-on unreadable, but it could be because of bad translation work.
Quote from: Pedrito on July 06, 2011, 11:03:55 AM
Too many to list.
Luckily, when they were not mandatory for school reasons, I simply throw them in a corner.
Several so-called "masterpieces" I've found unreadable: Crime and Punishment;Ulysses; almost every theatre piece I've read rather than attended to the play; others I don't recall right now.
I'm crawling through War and Peace right now, if the pace doesn't change in the next 20 pages I'm ready to throw away this one too.
L.
Oh that reminds me. I had to read Frankenstein my senior year in high school. The book is terrible. The plot often hinges on bizarre coincidence and serendipity, though that's seemed to be common in writing at the time.
Four Blondes by Candace Bushnell
I forget its name but I also have a book about a bisexual vampire that drinks blood to get erections...<_<
Worst book finished was possibly Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks. Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule was worse but I didn't finish it.
Worst from a writer considered respectable would be Mary Shelley's The Last Man. Or Heinlein's Time Enough for Love if you want to call him respectable.
I bet Sword of Shannara is better if you haven't read Tolkien first.
Death of a Darklord, an obscure AD&D Ravenloft novel from the nineties. While the quality of AD&D novels varied (some were quite good), this one was absolutely horrible.
Le Père Goriot by Honoré de Balzac. I read 30 pages of it. I think I was only in sentence number 5.
Quote from: Drakken on July 06, 2011, 11:06:57 AM
Mein Kampf,
You have the winner right there. Worst. book. ever.
Mine would probably be Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. Just dreadfully bad in every way - boring, silly, pretentious, badly written. Worse than Jonathan Livingston Seagull. :lol:
It is about a telepathic gorilla that teaches us that civilization is bad and wrong.
While I normally finish books I've started to read I do stop reading if they are really bad. Books are more boring than movies in this regard.
Pretension seems to be a common theme when discussing bad books.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbe6zAjqOhY
Quote from: Pedrito on July 06, 2011, 11:03:55 AM
Too many to list.
Luckily, when they were not mandatory for school reasons, I simply throw them in a corner.
Several so-called "masterpieces" I've found unreadable: Crime and Punishment;Ulysses; almost every theatre piece I've read rather than attended to the play; others I don't recall right now.
I'm crawling through War and Peace right now, if the pace doesn't change in the next 20 pages I'm ready to throw away this one too.
L.
Crime and Punishment is my fave book of all time. :D
War and Peace I read once and liked but will never pick up again.
Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography -- required reading for 9th grade English....I could not get through more than 2-3 pages at a time without falling asleep...
And I'll second Tess of D'urbervilles
Quote from: Josephus on July 06, 2011, 12:19:59 PM
War and Peace I read once and liked but will never pick up again.
Agreed. Its not one of those books you come back to every few years... :D
I like Crime and Punishment. Wouldn't put it in my all time favourite categorie though.
Worst book I have read - Any of the Dune books written by the Son. But I have an odd compulsion to read them all the same.
Probably the 8th book in the Mission Earth decology. The whole series is pretty bad, and just gets worse as it goes forward. I've never read the 9th and 10th books, and I'm not sure how I made it thru the first 8.
Quote from: Josephus on July 06, 2011, 12:19:59 PM
Quote from: Pedrito on July 06, 2011, 11:03:55 AM
Too many to list.
Luckily, when they were not mandatory for school reasons, I simply throw them in a corner.
Several so-called "masterpieces" I've found unreadable: Crime and Punishment;Ulysses; almost every theatre piece I've read rather than attended to the play; others I don't recall right now.
I'm crawling through War and Peace right now, if the pace doesn't change in the next 20 pages I'm ready to throw away this one too.
L.
Crime and Punishment is my fave book of all time. :D
War and Peace I read once and liked but will never pick up again.
Yeah that wasn't probably the worst book i've tried to read, but I simply couldn't force myself to continue after some 200 pages.
Russian authors aren't my cup of tea it seems.
L.
Quote from: Pedrito on July 06, 2011, 01:46:20 PM
Quote from: Josephus on July 06, 2011, 12:19:59 PM
Quote from: Pedrito on July 06, 2011, 11:03:55 AM
Too many to list.
Luckily, when they were not mandatory for school reasons, I simply throw them in a corner.
Several so-called "masterpieces" I've found unreadable: Crime and Punishment;Ulysses; almost every theatre piece I've read rather than attended to the play; others I don't recall right now.
I'm crawling through War and Peace right now, if the pace doesn't change in the next 20 pages I'm ready to throw away this one too.
L.
Crime and Punishment is my fave book of all time. :D
War and Peace I read once and liked but will never pick up again.
Yeah that wasn't probably the worst book i've tried to read, but I simply couldn't force myself to continue after some 200 pages.
Russian authors aren't my cup of tea it seems.
L.
it is wordy but it's quite good actually. Some good battle scenes later on and even Nappy himself has a cameo.
Quote from: Barrister on July 06, 2011, 10:50:50 AM
It's probably not the worst book I ever read, since it is I guess considered an important work (and I've read my share of objectively crappy fantasy and sci fi novels), but the book I despised reading was Tess of the D'Ubervilles. It just went on and on, and I had to force myself to read each page. :bleeding:
Yeah, that shit was pretty terrible.
The worst book I remember reading in the last ten years or so was The Awakening. You'd think a novel about a Louisana woman breaking free of her marriage and fucking a bunch of guys would be more exciting, but you would be more than a little wrong.
Quote from: Malthus on July 06, 2011, 11:54:16 AM
Mine would probably be Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. Just dreadfully bad in every way - boring, silly, pretentious, badly written. Worse than Jonathan Livingston Seagull. :lol:
It is about a telepathic gorilla that teaches us that civilization is bad and wrong.
Are you sure this wasn't a Flash comic?
Quote from: Razgovory on July 06, 2011, 10:41:56 AM
Pretty self-explanatory.
Some Star Wars book, Crystal Star, I believe. Horrible.
Mein Kampf was boring, took me a while to read, but it was a good experience, still, as I needed material for a school work.
Quote from: The Brain on July 06, 2011, 11:59:36 AM
While I normally finish books I've started to read I do stop reading if they are really bad. Books are more boring than movies in this regard.
Same here. I don't consider books I didn't finish "read". For instance I tried to read a book called
Riddley Walker. It's written in this weird phonetic argot which really tripped me up. Never finished it.
I'm going to have to second Mein Kampf. That was a chore, at best...
I liked the ending.
I couldn't finish Mein Kampf. Rubbish from start to fi...well i was going to say finish but I wouldn't know.
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.
How French of you :D
I can see how the descriptions in the beginning can be boring, namely the house, specially when it's mandatory reading at school.
When you're over 25 it's much easier though.
I kind of like now the litterary style from that era with preterit and imperfect subjunctive (closer to other Romance languages nowadays actually).
As for Mein Kampf, it's repetitive even tedious at times but it's an historical document not litterature.
Quote from: Ed Anger on July 06, 2011, 10:44:59 AM
A close second, Grunts or Fitzpatrick's War.
You mean Grunts by Mary Gentle, or something else?
Quote from: dps on July 06, 2011, 12:23:27 PM
Probably the 8th book in the Mission Earth decology. The whole series is pretty bad, and just gets worse as it goes forward. I've never read the 9th and 10th books, and I'm not sure how I made it thru the first 8.
The 8th book was the only one I ever read.
Quote from: ulmont on July 06, 2011, 05:10:49 PM
Quote from: Ed Anger on July 06, 2011, 10:44:59 AM
A close second, Grunts or Fitzpatrick's War.
You mean Grunts by Mary Gentle, or something else?
That is the one.
In school, a toss-up between A Separate Peace and Wuthering Heights.
On personal reading, probably David Simon's The Corner. Put it down after 18 pages.
A Separate Peace. Hands down, for books I've finished.
Ulysses, for books I've not finished.
Quote from: Malthus on July 06, 2011, 11:54:16 AM
Mine would probably be Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. Just dreadfully bad in every way - boring, silly, pretentious, badly written. Worse than Jonathan Livingston Seagull. :lol:
It is about a telepathic gorilla that teaches us that civilization is bad and wrong.
:lol: Remember how I told you guys that we used to hang out with a bunch of polyamorous people up in Massachusetts? They were
obsessed with that book. "IT CHANGED MY WERLDVUE LOL"
Polyamory? Weeping gorilla? An exploration of the fallen nature of man? I must admit that I am intrigued.
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.
Not hot. I bet it was a wang fest. :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk:
:yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk:
I'm not sure if the dudes fucked each other. They definitely fucked all the chicks and the chicks did girl-girl action.
Before anyone says "HOTT", I would say that the average weight of one of these hippies (both genders) was 350 lbs.
Quote from: Caliga on July 06, 2011, 06:56:28 PM
I'm not sure if the dudes fucked each other. They definitely fucked all the chicks and the chicks did girl-girl action.
Before anyone says "HOTT", I would say that the average weight of one of these hippies (both genders) was 350 lbs.
:yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk:
:yucky: :yucky: :yucky: :yucky: :yucky: :yucky: :yucky: :yucky: :yucky: :yucky:
:yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk: :yuk:
A Separate Peace. One of those 'classics' I had to read just because someone decided it was a classic.
A fair number of those AD&D novels could be considered suck. Some of John Ringo and his Baen brethren books, like Ghost suck.
Great book about a bad story.
Masters of Death by Richard Rhodes
Just a plain rag
Tigers are Burning by Caidin
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.
Did the book really change their lives or were they crazy before hand? It sound more like something a crazy person would read rather then a book that makes you do crazy things.
Teeth of the Tiger by Tom Clancy. Rainbow Six, with eco terrorists wanting to destroy humanity was when he really began to lose it, Teeth of the Tiger, which I bet was ghost written, was beyond shit.
An untitled autobiography of Slargos.
Quote from: katmai on July 06, 2011, 07:42:25 PM
An untitled autobiography of Slargos.
That has got to be boring.
"Wednesday, Sold a cabinet"
"Thursday sold three cabinets".
"Friday, sold no cabinets. Thought I saw Jew. It was probably his fault".
"Saturday, parents called to tell me they are ashamed of me again, like they do every Saturday".
"Sunday, saw a Muslim. Might be a Somali. Hid in the bushes for six hours till he left".
The bible. Last chapter sucked. Too trippy.
Quote from: Razgovory on July 06, 2011, 07:50:27 PM
Quote from: katmai on July 06, 2011, 07:42:25 PM
An untitled autobiography of Slargos.
That has got to be boring.
"Wednesday, Sold a cabinet"
"Thursday sold three cabinets".
"Friday, sold no cabinets. Thought I saw Jew. It was probably his fault".
"Saturday, parents called to tell me they are ashamed of me again, like they do every Saturday".
"Sunday, saw a Muslim. Might be a Somali. Hid in the bushes for six hours till he left".
:lmfao:
Quote from: Razgovory on July 06, 2011, 07:26:01 PM
Did the book really change their lives or were they crazy before hand? It sound more like something a crazy person would read rather then a book that makes you do crazy things.
I dunno... I didn't know any of them in the Before Ishmael era.
That I've finished: Olympos by Dan Simmons.
That I haven't: Vellum by some fag. I read until some character asked another what time it was, and was told "Half-past a freckle." I was like three paragraphs in.
Quote from: Josephus on July 06, 2011, 01:58:03 PM
Quote from: Pedrito on July 06, 2011, 01:46:20 PM
Quote from: Josephus on July 06, 2011, 12:19:59 PM
Quote from: Pedrito on July 06, 2011, 11:03:55 AM
Too many to list.
Luckily, when they were not mandatory for school reasons, I simply throw them in a corner.
Several so-called "masterpieces" I've found unreadable: Crime and Punishment;Ulysses; almost every theatre piece I've read rather than attended to the play; others I don't recall right now.
I'm crawling through War and Peace right now, if the pace doesn't change in the next 20 pages I'm ready to throw away this one too.
L.
Crime and Punishment is my fave book of all time. :D
War and Peace I read once and liked but will never pick up again.
Yeah that wasn't probably the worst book i've tried to read, but I simply couldn't force myself to continue after some 200 pages.
Russian authors aren't my cup of tea it seems.
L.
it is wordy but it's quite good actually. Some good battle scenes later on and even Nappy himself has a cameo.
Yeah I've still never finished it, but W&P did contain some good stuff.
Quote from: Caliga on July 06, 2011, 06:56:28 PM
I'm not sure if the dudes fucked each other. They definitely fucked all the chicks and the chicks did girl-girl action.
Before anyone says "HOTT", I would say that the average weight of one of these hippies (both genders) was 350 lbs.
:(
Quote from: RazThat has got to be boring.
"Wednesday, Sold a cabinet"
"Thursday sold three cabinets".
"Friday, sold no cabinets. Thought I saw Jew. It was probably his fault".
"Saturday, parents called to tell me they are ashamed of me again, like they do every Saturday".
"Sunday, saw a Muslim. Might be a Somali. Hid in the bushes for six hours till he left".
:lol:
Quote from: KlevesThat I haven't: Vellum by some fag. I read until some character asked another what time it was, and was told "Half-past a freckle." I was like three paragraphs in.
Also :lol:
Quote from: PedritoRussian authors aren't my cup of tea it seems.
One time I read "The Undergound Man." It is fucking unbearable until about halfway through, when it starts resembling something someone who wasn't Kevin Spacey from Seven might have written.
Quote from: Ideologue on July 06, 2011, 08:51:40 PM
Quote from: PedritoRussian authors aren't my cup of tea it seems.
One time I read "The Undergound Man." It is fucking unbearable until about halfway through, when it starts resembling something someone who wasn't Kevin Spacey from Seven might have written.
Try wading through
The Gulag Archipelago. And I mean wading. It's that fucking thick, like Stalinist quicksand.
Quote from: HVC on July 06, 2011, 07:50:33 PM
The bible. Last chapter sucked. Too trippy.
What about Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy? Ugh!
Quote from: Kleves on July 06, 2011, 08:43:21 PM
That I haven't: Vellum by some fag. I read until some character asked another what time it was, and was told "Half-past a freckle." I was like three paragraphs in.
I've heard people use that line IRL.
Quarter past a mole.
I hated
The Scarlet Letter. It's hard to see why it's such a classic when it's a bad book.
I also disliked
Oliver Twist because of it's annoying protagonist and other reason long forgotten. I did like
Great Expectations, so it's not just me hating Dickens.
Quote from: Darth Wagtaros on July 06, 2011, 07:29:14 PM
Teeth of the Tiger by Tom Clancy. Rainbow Six, with eco terrorists wanting to destroy humanity was when he really began to lose it, Teeth of the Tiger, which I bet was ghost written, was beyond shit.
I stopped at
Bear and the Dragon. I have an autographed copy, and it's in mint condition - only read once!
Quote from: Razgovory on July 06, 2011, 07:50:27 PM
Quote from: katmai on July 06, 2011, 07:42:25 PM
An untitled autobiography of Slargos.
That has got to be boring.
"Wednesday, Sold a cabinet"
"Thursday sold three cabinets".
"Friday, sold no cabinets. Thought I saw Jew. It was probably his fault".
"Saturday, parents called to tell me they are ashamed of me again, like they do every Saturday".
"Sunday, saw a Muslim. Might be a Somali. Hid in the bushes for six hours till he left".
^_^
The bible.
1633: The Canon Law.
Catch 22.
All of the above I've tried to read but could never get far in.
Wizards first rule series. The first book was kinda okayish för a commuting read. I just had to read the rest of them, in the end just to see where the fuck he was going with it. :yuk:
i guess i sorta hate 1984, but more because of how it tends to influence some in certain ways
I greatly disliked Wuthering Heights :mad:
Quote from: Barrister on July 06, 2011, 10:50:50 AM
It's probably not the worst book I ever read, since it is I guess considered an important work (and I've read my share of objectively crappy fantasy and sci fi novels), but the book I despised reading was Tess of the D'Ubervilles. It just went on and on, and I had to force myself to read each page. :bleeding:
I can empathise.
I loathed that book. I also loathed some of the books that were required reading for quantitative analysis, but they weren't bad, just boring.
I guess the worst book would be one that I managed to finish. "The Holy Blood & The Holy Grail" is rather horrible with all the "shocking" revelations. But it's probably not the worst. Most likely Alex Scarrow's "A Thousand Suns" is the worst book I actually finished.
Thomas Hardy is very difficult. He can be such a miserable bore, but OTOH he is a superb chronicler of the lives of "ordinary" folk of that period :hmm:
I usually feel very satisfied after reading a Hardy book..............but don't rush to get the next one :D
As with all such things, I tend to block them from my mind in order to make the hurt go away so I always have trouble naming them.
After brief consideration (and peering at some entries here), I will have to go with:
Time Enough for Love
Mein Kampf
The Bible
I only very rarely have to force myself through litterature, even when it is atrocious, but some texts simply defy my best efforts.
Quote from: Darth Wagtaros on July 06, 2011, 07:29:14 PM
Teeth of the Tiger by Tom Clancy. Rainbow Six, with eco terrorists wanting to destroy humanity was when he really began to lose it, Teeth of the Tiger, which I bet was ghost written, was beyond shit.
Holy shit :lol:
From wiki's plot summary: Brian is unsure of the morality of carrying out preemptive assassinations, even against terrorists. This changes when cells of Islamic fundamentalists cross the U.S.-Mexico border armed with MAC-10 sub-machine guns and attack several suburban malls.
Gold.
This one: http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-Holy-Roman-Empire/dp/1413754732/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&qid=1310029669&sr=8-13 (http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-Holy-Roman-Empire/dp/1413754732/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&qid=1310029669&sr=8-13)
Bear adn the Dragon was shit too. but Teeth of the Tiger was beyond crap.
Quote from: Zoupa on July 07, 2011, 02:56:51 AM
Quote from: Darth Wagtaros on July 06, 2011, 07:29:14 PM
Teeth of the Tiger by Tom Clancy. Rainbow Six, with eco terrorists wanting to destroy humanity was when he really began to lose it, Teeth of the Tiger, which I bet was ghost written, was beyond shit.
Holy shit :lol:
From wiki's plot summary: Brian is unsure of the morality of carrying out preemptive assassinations, even against terrorists. This changes when cells of Islamic fundamentalists cross the U.S.-Mexico border armed with MAC-10 sub-machine guns and attack several suburban malls.
Gold.
Yeah. The build up through out the book was "the American heartland will at last experience war!!!!!1111". Turns out a bunch of tools with sub machine guns go to shoot up a couple of GAPs. The hardworking and moral Americans are already heavily armed and super brave mange to shoot all of them within seconds of the terrarists opening fire. Anti-climactic would be an understatement.
I can't believe all you Tom Clancy suckers. I learned to stop reading him back in the '80s, after Red Storm Stupid.
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.
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.
If the book convinces some of these types to voluntarily remove themselves from society, I guess it isn't
all bad ...
Ah, who am I kidding. It is indeed total crap. :D
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.
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. :(
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:
"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.)
Tom Clancy wrote a couple good books early on. Then he deteriorated.
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.
RSR needed more Iceland rape scenes.
I enjoyed Red Storm Rising for what it was. :)
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?
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.
:(
I liked blowing up Krivaks and Boris Chilikins in the Red Storm Rising game for the Commodore 64.
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.
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.
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:
I actually liked Whitman. He also looked like Gandalf.
Last World War by... some dude.
Worst alien invasion book ever.
It was clearly written acomodating future movie deals.
Aliens look like humans, instead of spaceships they have teleportals, alien planet in ruins, half the books happens in the woods with first contact between a reserve marine unit doing their yearly training and an alien scout team out of the teleport.
The thread lacks Dan Brown hate. The one about computer hacking was rather inept.
Quote from: Norgy on July 08, 2011, 02:38:35 AM
The thread lacks Dan Brown hate. The one about computer hacking was rather inept.
I've never read any Dan Brown books. The idea that CERN could produce enough antimatter to make a bomb without using the GDP of Europe to do it was enough to keep me away.
Quote from: Barrister on July 07, 2011, 04:35:28 PM
I enjoyed Red Storm Rising for what it was. :)
The keyboard overlay was a charming reminder of a gaming era now long past.
:wub:
Quote from: Norgy on July 08, 2011, 02:38:35 AM
The thread lacks Dan Brown hate. The one about computer hacking was rather inept.
People kept badgering me to read the first one (Angels & Demons?), which had some statement saying all places and works of art described were based on fact or something along those lines.
About ten pages in there were enough errors to safely put the book out of its misery. Apart from being wrong all the time, he's a pretty inept writer, too.
First place, however, goes to Erich von Daniken. Read one of his books when I was a kid, never heard of him and didn't know any better.
It destroyed my belief that books were wise per se. :(
Quote from: Maladict on July 08, 2011, 06:52:48 AM
First place, however, goes to Erich von Daniken. Read one of his books when I was a kid, never heard of him and didn't know any better.
It destroyed my belief that books were wise per se. :(
I just saw him on some incredibly lame program tonight. :lol:
Quote from: Maladict on July 08, 2011, 06:52:48 AM
People kept badgering me to read the first one (Angels & Demons?)
The Da Vinci Code.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on July 08, 2011, 07:04:38 AM
Quote from: Maladict on July 08, 2011, 06:52:48 AM
People kept badgering me to read the first one (Angels & Demons?)
The Da Vinci Code.
No first one is A&D.
I read The Da Vinci Code. It was alright, I could see it in an overrated books thread but not a worst books thread. It wasn't good enough to make me seek out another.
The worst book I read must've been Twilight. Someone female recommended it to me before the movie hype knowing I like vampire stories. Hundreds of pages describing how good looking that main guy is. I sat it through waiting for a story to begin, only there was none but for the last 50 or so pages.
Another really bad vampire story (based on the WoD stuff) was Eternal Hearts. At least that one had pornogoric elements.
Quote from: syk on July 08, 2011, 08:03:46 AM
The worst book I read must've been Twilight. Someone female recommended it to me before the movie hype knowing I like vampire stories. Hundreds of pages describing how good looking that main guy is. I sat it through waiting for a story to begin, only there was none but for the last 50 or so pages.
Another really bad vampire story (based on the WoD stuff) was Eternal Hearts. At least that one had pornogoric elements.
The movies, particularly the first, are pretty hilarious.
I am curse... with shiny-ness!
Quote from: Ideologue on July 08, 2011, 08:22:14 AM
Quote from: syk on July 08, 2011, 08:03:46 AM
The worst book I read must've been Twilight. Someone female recommended it to me before the movie hype knowing I like vampire stories. Hundreds of pages describing how good looking that main guy is. I sat it through waiting for a story to begin, only there was none but for the last 50 or so pages.
Another really bad vampire story (based on the WoD stuff) was Eternal Hearts. At least that one had pornogoric elements.
The movies, particularly the first, are pretty hilarious.
I wanted to go to the theater and beat off in the corner to all the tweens in the audience.
Quote from: Ed Anger on July 08, 2011, 08:56:54 AM
Quote from: Ideologue on July 08, 2011, 08:22:14 AM
Quote from: syk on July 08, 2011, 08:03:46 AM
The worst book I read must've been Twilight. Someone female recommended it to me before the movie hype knowing I like vampire stories. Hundreds of pages describing how good looking that main guy is. I sat it through waiting for a story to begin, only there was none but for the last 50 or so pages.
Another really bad vampire story (based on the WoD stuff) was Eternal Hearts. At least that one had pornogoric elements.
The movies, particularly the first, are pretty hilarious.
I wanted to go to the theater and beat off in the corner to all the tweens in the audience.
is that how you met the wife? :D
Seriously, stop stalking me. It is getting disturbing.
Quote from: Ed Anger on July 08, 2011, 09:02:16 AM
Seriously, stop stalking me. It is getting disturbing.
Now you're just being mean :( :P
Quote from: Norgy on July 08, 2011, 02:38:35 AM
The thread lacks Dan Brown hate. The one about computer hacking was rather inept.
I dunno man. I read Da Vinci Code, and I found it to be a perfectly serviceable pageturner. And I had actually read Holy Blood, Holy Grail in the 90s, long before Da Vinci Code was written.
It wasn't good enough for me to seek out any other Dan Brown book, but I have certainly read much, much worse.
I'm with those who vote Dan Brown as merely inadequate, not horrific.
Von Daniken was fun, as was Velikovski.
The book that I most recently really strugggled to finish was Pratchett's The Monstrous Regiment, but I can't say it was an awful book because it wasn't written for adults (I read it because my niece told me to and she expected a discussion about it when I visited). Before that was probably Anansi Boys. Gaimen when he is that self-indulgent is pretty intolerable, IMO.
Books I have hated the most:
Shantaram, Gregory Williams. Autobigraphic novel. Loved by million of semi-literate hippies and chin scratching students. Cardboard cut out characters, self-obsessed cunt of an outhor and writing like this:
QuoteThe hole in my life that a father should've filled was a prairie of longing. In the loneliest hours of those hunted years, I wandered there, as hungry for a father's love as a cellblock full of sentenced men in the last hour of New Year's Eve.
I see people reading this on the train all the time and I want to slap them.
The War of Wars by Robert Harvey; Really looked forward to this as I'd wanted a single volume history of the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars for ages. It was so bad I decided to boycott the publisher. Full of factual errors and contradictions (Pitt is a great orator on one page but on the ver next page succeeded despite his lack of any oratorical skills). Typos. Jesus. Imagine Timmy writing a 900 page book and you've got it. And really biased (towards the Brits). It's history NOTW style!
Quote from: grumbler on July 08, 2011, 11:02:53 AM
The book that I most recently really strugggled to finish was Pratchett's The Monstrous Regiment, but I can't say it was an awful book because it wasn't written for adults (I read it because my niece told me to and she expected a discussion about it when I visited).
I feel sorry for you; Monstrous Regiment is just about Terry Pratchett's least enjoyable book.
It was, however, written for adults (allegedly), since Pratchett has a separate line of books specifically written for children. Do the publishers lump them together in the USA?
Quote from: Gups on July 08, 2011, 11:19:55 AM
The War of Wars by Robert Harvey; Really looked forward to this as I'd wanted a single volume history of the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars for ages. It was so bad I decided to boycott the publisher. Full of factual errors and contradictions (Pitt is a great orator on one page but on the ver next page succeeded despite his lack of any oratorical skills). Typos. Jesus. Imagine Timmy writing a 900 page book and you've got it. And really biased (towards the Brits). It's history NOTW style!
Thanks for the warning; I've been thinking of picking that book up myself.
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.
:yuk: :bleeding:
The
keske generation has spoken...
Quote from: Grey Fox on July 08, 2011, 07:12:07 AM
No first one is A&D.
Brown published a novel before
Angels & Demons, which along with
The Da Vinci Code are run-of-the-mill-read-when-you're-bored novels that are certainly passable (as has been noted).
Digital Fortress is about computers, hacking and a virus. It has very few redeeming qualities and is not worth the bother.
After carefully looking through my Bookshelf Of Shame (stuff bought on impulse, sale, when drunk or when utterly bored), I found a few gems.
Joseph P. Farrell's
Reich Of The Black Sun is fairly horrible. I also noticed two Turtledove novels.
The SS Brotherhood Of The Bell by Farrell is there too, although I have never read it.
The most over-rated book I ever suffered through has got to be the fucker Paulo Coelho's
The Alchymist. I think it's why I developed man boobs.
Right. I forgot about DF.
I liked DVC & the Lost Symbols. Pedestrian book are still good book. These days I enjoy books about farm life in pre-industrial time. Not everything needs to be enlighted.
A Dance With Dragons.
Well, I haven't read yet of course, but I will, and then I'll hate it!!!!!!
Quote from: Agelastus on July 08, 2011, 11:41:49 AM
I feel sorry for you; Monstrous Regiment is just about Terry Pratchett's least enjoyable book.
It was, however, written for adults (allegedly), since Pratchett has a separate line of books specifically written for children. Do the publishers lump them together in the USA?
I don't know about that. I remember reading the first book of short stories about Discworld, and moderately enjoying that, but TMR is the only other Pratchett I have read. The distinction you note may, indeed, exist, and I just don't know it.