Really bad books you've read

[Cudzoziemiec]

I was wondering how we'd got to page 3 without Dan Brown.

Got a mention by T42 on page 1:

https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=117827.msg2571454#msg2571454

I'd never have suspected it of him. 

[rogerzilla]

T42 mentioned it on page 1...Langdon flipped back through the thread, his heart pounding...

There it was in black-and-white.  The answer he'd been searching for.  The author was a talentless hack, writing formulaic airport novels.  Langdon turned to his generic thirtysomething educated female companion - whom he would never try to shag - and smiled...

"Funny how he never takes the piss out of Islam."

[Efrogwr]

I read something by Tom Clancy. Just the one ...

[barakta]

There is only one Tom Clancy novel... They are all basically the same plot with slightly different characters which are entirely unmemorable.

[ElyDave]

I'd be more generous to Tom Clancy, of his books, the earlier ones brought something new and there are three that stand out for me.

Red Storm Rising, although the initiating event is a bit far fetched. I used to work with an ex-USAF colonel who was in charge of the pre positioned equipment and he said they were seriously scared of that scenario.

Without Remorse, no technoshit at all, this is Jack Reacher before Jack Reacher was invented, a navy seal who's girlfriend is killed by drug dealers, so he takes revenge. What more could I want as a 19 year old student at home for the summer hols

Hunt for Red October, thats his first technothriller, after that, yes the rest are variants on a theme of USA saves the world from Russia/china/Japan/arabs again.

[T42]

I was wondering how we'd got to page 3 without Dan Brown.

Got a mention by T42 on page 1:

https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=117827.msg2571454#msg2571454

I'd never have suspected it of him. 

A French friend gave it to me one Christmas without knowing what it really was.

Anyway, that's my story... 

[ScumOfTheRoad]

Talking about Tom Clancy, I still have memories of Dan Brown's Digital Fortress. A fantasy armoured C130 or B52 - I can't remember which - which can range about the world dealing death to the enemies of the USA without suffering a scratch. That tells us something about the USA psyche, and their way of waging war against extenal enemies.

Update: a search says Digital Fortress is about something else. I may be imagining this book

[ScumOfTheRoad]

The Survivalist series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Survivalist_(novel_series)

I struggled through a few of these when young. The author is clearly a gun nut, and spends huge amounts of time lovingly describing the heroes customised pistol.
I always remember Pachmyer grips, whatever the heck those are.

[ian]

There seems to be a thing with publishers who just badge crap books as YA. Can you do another two? Sure. Someone call marketing and movie rights, we've got another one.

I did another chapter of Harry Potter. It really does feel like a children's story stretched out to adult length. I mean, it's a thick book, and there are dozens of them. I hope they don't all continue like that. I think the Peter and Jane books called it day around page 12. Horses for courses, of course. I just wish they wouldn't surround me and demand that I MUST READ THEM! I have now tried. Like Christians with megaphones, they just won't leave me alone.

Jack Reacher, I read one of those. It wasn't a multi-flusher but it wasn't very exciting, mostly because Jack Reacher is a pretty dull bloke who makes doing exciting things like fighting off biker nazis with machine guns sound like he's doing the dishes. The writing is very much I did that. Then I did this. Sometimes, if he gets particularly excitable he uses an adjective or adverb. Admittedly, adverbs and adjectives are JK Rowling's entire writing repertoire. I don't mind a sparse style, as you know dear readers, I hate the over-descriptive prose but writing has to have some colour, some occasional description, simile, metaphor, those kinds of things, otherwise, it's just flat. OK, at least I understand the Jack Reacher phenomenon, they're simple books where a good guy saves the day and wanders off into the distance to do it again in the next book.

Altered Carbon. Another book that I was told I must read (this should be a sign). That was a struggle. As far as I can tell, it was a simple detective story 101 with a good futuristic premise, zipping people across the galaxy into disposable bodies. So far so good. But it was so buried in convoluted excess plot and garbled exposition it just became a slog. I'm all for sex and violence, of which there was plenty, but for once it often did seem gratuitous. I wanted to be zapped through to the ending. I did get around to watching the TV show and that was pretty much what I remembered. Strip all the crap, and it's basically an episode of Scooby-Doo.

[ElyDave]

Haven't read altered carbon, but the series on Netflix was entertaining enough to have on whilst on the turbo in the shed of dismal pain

[L CC]

I quite like the Harry Potter stories, particularly when read to me by Stephen Fry.

What I don't like is JKR's appalling use of adverbs when describing conversations.

Nobody shouts, screams, moans, whines, shrieks, mutters, whispers.

They say loudly, say in a high pitched tone, say desperately, say determinedly, say tensely, say quietly, say under their breath. Ugh.

[ian]

Haven't read altered carbon, but the series on Netflix was entertaining enough to have on whilst on the turbo in the shed of dismal pain

The TV series was better. The book meanders in such a way that it's often difficult to remember who did what, and why it might be important to know this. There's a lot of overcomplexity that doesn't seem to serve any purpose other than fill out the book and it relies a lot on coincidence to hold it together. Much of the book is dedicated to the current status of the lead character's penis. It could have been subtitled The Continuing Adventures of Takeshi Kovac's Penis.

And yeah, it's the future. It rains a lot. Everything is a bit grim. And all the women are prostitutes or need saving by men who treat them like prostitutes. Or Takeshi Kovac's penis. They're probably going to meet it anyway. And the sex scenes are cringers, he really loves his penis does Takeshi. It's a bit like your dad telling you about his sex life in detail. You really don't want to know but he won't stop.

I should be fair, for balance, there's a lot about breasts. Sometimes they have women attached to them. Don't worry, I see a certain penis in their future. Then they'll probably die violently. At least they got to enjoy the penis first.

[Mr Larrington]

Talking about Tom Clancy, I still have memories of Dan Brown's Digital Fortress. A fantasy armoured C130 or B52 - I can't remember which - which can range about the world dealing death to the enemies of the USA without suffering a scratch. That tells us something about the USA psyche, and their way of waging war against extenal enemies.

Update: a search says Digital Fortress is about something else. I may be imagining this book

You're not, but the B-52 in question was created by Dale Brown.  Whose novels are essentially lists of weapons systems loosely tied together with improbability.

[andrewc]

Haven't read altered carbon, but the series on Netflix was entertaining enough to have on whilst on the turbo in the shed of dismal pain

The TV series was better. The book meanders in such a way that it's often difficult to remember who did what, and why it might be important to know this. There's a lot of overcomplexity that doesn't seem to serve any purpose other than fill out the book and it relies a lot on coincidence to hold it together. Much of the book is dedicated to the current status of the lead character's penis. It could have been subtitled The Continuing Adventures of Takeshi Kovac's Penis.

And yeah, it's the future. It rains a lot. Everything is a bit grim. And all the women are prostitutes or need saving by men who treat them like prostitutes. Or Takeshi Kovac's penis. They're probably going to meet it anyway. And the sex scenes are cringers, he really loves his penis does Takeshi. It's a bit like your dad telling you about his sex life in detail. You really don't want to know but he won't stop.

I should be fair, for balance, there's a lot about breasts. Sometimes they have women attached to them. Don't worry, I see a certain penis in their future. Then they'll probably die violently. At least they got to enjoy the penis first.

Morgan followed up with "The Steel Remains" , which features a gay lead character, so in that one you get his descriptions of hot man love as well.     


He's off my reading list anyway as he's joined Rowling & gone full TERF, getting banned from a few social media platforms in the process.

[fd3]

Our teeth grated and her nipples went spung.

Not sure which is funnier, this or the Narwhals?

In the spirit of awful and because I was thinking about poo, I did browse the bookshelves of my wife's literary cave and recover a weighty hardback copy of Harry Potter and Philosopher's Stone.

I think this brings us back to the start of the thread.  While I accept that sequels are often worse than the original, this was "Episode 1" to a rather sub-standard first outing.  If you had not recently read the first book you will have missed some of the awfulness of the book, but also the humour of the house point system (answer two questions in class?  twenty house points.  Defeat a troll that is invading the school, five house points.  Out of bed after dark? Lose one hundred and fifty house points and get sent to the dark woods to catch something that is worse than werewolves ... oh, lets split up by the way).

[ian]

In the spirit of episodes, I did once watch the Harry Potter movie (I had the flu) and the plot (which I assume follows the book) is exactly that of Star Wars. OK, it's a fairly basic 'heroic arc' story, but it's almost a complete match.

I did once get quite drunk at Harry Potter World in Orlando though, so it's not all bad.

[Hot Flatus]

Captain Corelli's Mandolin...tried several times to read it, but stopped because boredom

[ian]

Captain Corelli's Mandolin...tried several times to read it, but stopped because boredom

I forgot this, despite having used it to conclude my meta-textual analysis of The Da Vinci Code. If anyone is in Shepherd's Bush, check the hedge out front of the house at the bottom of Frith Street, I threw a copy out of my bedroom window and it might still be there. Leave it. It's basically unexploded ordnance. Even the mighty rats of Shepherd's Bush market won't consume it.

It's a terrible, terrible book. Boring and overwrought. I googled this as the most famous quote which I think gives anyone a flavour of the rancid tome:

Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.

If people think that's the best bit, you don't want to contemplate what the worst bits are like. And Louis, I'm no seismologist, but I think you'll find that volcanoes erupt, not fucking earthquakes.

It's enough to make a man want to read The Continuing Adventures of Takeshi Kovac's Penis.

[citoyen]

Captain Corelli's Mandolin...tried several times to read it, but stopped because boredom

I forgot this...

I did wonder why you hadn't mentioned it yet. 

[citoyen]

I don't know if it was Louis de Bernieres who started it, but I recall there was a bit of a glut of books peddling that kind of patronising whimsy from the late 90s onwards.

On which note, does the panel think the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series deserve a mention in this thread? I did read the first couple before I got thoroughly bored of them, but they made so little impression on me that I can't actually recall if they're genuinely bad or just dull.

[ian]

Captain Corelli's Mandolin...tried several times to read it, but stopped because boredom

I forgot this...

I did wonder why you hadn't mentioned it yet. 

Some things I do to protect my sanity.

While Googling that quote, I discovered that it's an enormously popular reading at weddings.

[Hot Flatus]

Yukio Mishima's Confession of a Mask.

Considered a masterpiece of modern Japanese writing. Just made me want to bum myself to death.

[ian]

I don't know if it was Louis de Bernieres who started it, but I recall there was a bit of a glut of books peddling that kind of patronising whimsy from the late 90s onwards.

On which note, does the panel think the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series deserve a mention in this thread? I did read the first couple before I got thoroughly bored of them, but they made so little impression on me that I can't actually recall if they're genuinely bad or just dull.

Wasn't it around the time of Four Weddings and a Funeral, which spawned dozens of similar films and books, and adaptions of the books, until we basically floated on an ocean of our own spew? If you wanted edgy, you had to reach for Bridget Jones.

[fd3]

... the plot (which I assume follows the book) is exactly that of Star Wars.

Aren’t they all? (Other than the first wheel of time book, which rips off narnia and the lord of the rings in equal measure).

I cannot comment about Alexander’s works as I have only ever read 3&1/2 pillars of wisdom.  He does write three books a year though, so anything above mediocre would be impressive.

[citoyen]

Wasn't it around the time of Four Weddings and a Funeral, which spawned dozens of similar films and books, and adaptions of the books, until we basically floated on an ocean of our own spew? If you wanted edgy, you had to reach for Bridget Jones.

You could be on to something there.