Yet Another Cycling Forum
Off Topic => The Pub => Arts and Entertainment => Topic started by: tiermat on 10 March, 2011, 09:19:45 am
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Ones to avoid, and why....
My first submission would be not one book, but four in a trilogy (yes I said 4, the last book was split in two as it was too big to be one paperback):
Sorrow, Memory and Thorn trilogy by Tad Williams.
$DEITY alone knows why I struggled through all 4 of these books, and I know that is endless hours of my life I will never ever get back...
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Anythign by Agatha Christie or Enid Blyton is a flying start. I've read several and regretted.
Recently, I've read Wilt On High by Tom Sharpe, which was just dull and formulaic, and The Devil Rides Out by Dennis Wheatley, which is utterly pretentious tosh and so full of holes you couldn't keep a whale in it.
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Song of Stone by Iain Banks. DIRE.
The other one which I thought was full of wank was 'C' by Tom McCarthy.
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Host by that woman who wrote the Twilight books.
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Anythign by Agatha Christie or Enid Blyton is a flying start. I've read several and regretted.
Recently, I've read Wilt On High by Tom Sharpe, which was just dull and formulaic, and The Devil Rides Out by Dennis Wheatley, which is utterly pretentious tosh and so full of holes you couldn't keep a whale in it.
Tom Sharpes stuff can seem a bit formulaic or is it simply a problem of overfamiliarity with the authors style. The problem is that you read one and think it's brilliant, then you read another and another and another and whilst individually they are great by the 5th or sixth a certan sense of ennui sets in. Terry Pratchett suffers the same distinction. To be clear I certainly wouldn't confuse T&T with hack formulaic writers like Dan Brown and Dick Francis (shudder).
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Jaws, the film, was amusing enough. Jaws, the book, was badly written in a way that shouted it only existed to sell the film rights.
I find Dickens adjectival diarrhoea unreadable.
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Host by that woman who wrote the Twilight books.
Stephenie Meyer. It was bloody awful.
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Just to give some people a flavour of the book, part of the story involves a bloke falling in love with an alien parasite who inhabits the brain of a woman who happens to have a really good pair.
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Digital Fortress by Dan Brown.
Being a techie, I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry whilst reading it but there were plot holes you could drive a truck through, not to mention the legendary (for all the wrong reasons) bits set in Seville ... airport-shop tosh of the highest order. Quite how Brown has made his fortune out of writing will forever remain a mystery to me.
I'll also add the 5th and 6th Harry Potter books - never bothered with the 7th.
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Song of Stone by Iain Banks. DIRE.
This ^^^^
Most anything by Tom Robbins.
The Everyday Uses Of Portland Cement1.
Any of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Arse Unbeliever.
The Regiment by Michael Asher. Stop making up verbs, you pretentious knobber.
The Compleat Works of Dan Brown. Research? What's that?
The Silmarillion. Just. Fuck. Off.
Exit Funtopia by Mick Farren. Mickey, bless his little cotton socks, is a mostly dreadful novelist2 at the best of times but this is ultra-sub-William Gibson cybertoss of the very worst and most derivative kind.
I dare say I can come up with more given a little time to think.
1 - The film is way better.
2 - I enjoyed the "DNA Cowboys" trilogy, but that's because it's got lots of sex and violence. In it.
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Host by that woman who wrote the Twilight books.
Stephenie Meyer. It was bloody awful.
You mean she's written worse? :o I was going to nominate Twilight as the worst book in the history of the english language (until I read it, I would otherwise have said that accolade went to the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris). Was it wise of me to refuse to read anything else written by Stephanie Meyer?
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Just to give some people a flavour of the book, part of the story involves a bloke falling in love with an alien parasite who inhabits the brain of a woman who happens to have a really good pair.
They mostly do in SF novels. Unless they are slim athletic types.
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Host by that woman who wrote the Twilight books.
Stephenie Meyer. It was bloody awful.
You mean she's written worse? :o I was going to nominate Twilight as the worst book in the history of the english language (until I read it, I would otherwise have said that accolade went to the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris). Was it wise of me to refuse to read anything else written by Stephanie Meyer?
Host is terrible, Kathy. Whereas the Twiglet books were like crack to me. :-[
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Host is much much worse. All the teenage love/angst drivel without any humour. The benevolent alien brain parasites would be almost funny if it were written as a farce.
I enjoyed reading Twilight, but that's probably because I was reading a copy that had been annotated by a teenage girl. The scrawled commentary was hilarious or made the book funny. In serious bits where the character's angst and lurve is driving them to suicidal stupidity, there would be pencil saying things like "ffs, stupid cow she should just kiss him and get on with it." complete with angry stab marks from pencil.
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Just to give some people a flavour of the book, part of the story involves a bloke falling in love with an alien parasite who inhabits the brain of a woman who happens to have a really good pair.
They mostly do in SF novels. Unless they are slim athletic types.
uhuh. Very few have squat heroines with acne.
Notable exception - Philip Reeves steampunk mortal engines series. The heroine has a disfigured face; nose and part of face sliced off by a sword when a child. I did cry when I read the last book. Great stuff.
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Dan Brown FTW! Oh, those books are crap! The way his characters can dodge bullets and leap from planes!
Agree about the Sookie novels too - I was very surprised they were so bad as the TV series is really good.
Not read Twilight. Maybe I won't bother. They are my kind of thing but have heard they are Not Great.
Most disappointing books for me were the later vampire chronicles/mayfair witches stories by Anne Rice. The major mistake was putting the two threads together. Lestat should never have met Rowan! The first few were great. Blood Canticle and Taltos are dire.
I like a trashy novel. But it has to be good trashy.
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Song of Stone by Iain Banks. DIRE.
Yes I'd forgotten about that, truely awful
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Song of Stone by Iain Banks. DIRE.
Oh yes
I'm a big IB fan, but that was dreadful. My copy was borrowed by a former boyfriend of Mrs MV's sister, who was a bit of a tit, and he never gave it back. A match made in heaven.
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Not read Twilight. Maybe I won't bother. They are my kind of thing but have heard they are Not Great.
SWMBO is trying to get me to read the Twilight books, and I'm trying like hell to avoid having to do so. Even though the film was actually Rather Good (surprisingly so, in fact)
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Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson. After the masterpiece that was Cryptonomicon, he followed with this massive piece of boring, self-indulgent verbal ditchwater. He interspersed his own characters (with unbelieveable, tenuous links to characters in previous books) with real historical characters such as Isaac Newton, but then didn't do anything with the historicaal guys others except bring them in to act as intellectual wallpaper. That would be forgiveable if he hadn't used 200 extra pages doing so, and if there'd been any plot in the first place.
I didn't bother with the rest of the Baroque cycle.
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I didn't bother with the rest of the Baroque cycle.
IMO, everything he wrote after "Snow Crash" has been a bit shit ... I tried to read "The Diamond Age" but gave up about halfway through.
Another mention for "The Silmarillion" too - I can understand why Tolkien wrote it, but that doesn't stop it from being monumentally dull. Ditto any of the "History of Middle Earth" books - flogging a dead horse raised to the nth degree.
Edit: I'm also going to mention the entire output of William Shakespeare. Now maybe this is a subconscious reaction to the fact that we had it rammed down our throats at school, but every time I've tried to read his works I've found them to be unutterably shite. There's no denying that he made a major contribution to English literature but that doesn't mean I have to enjoy it.
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(Returns from Thinks)
Did I mention the brain-buggeringly awful London Fields by Martin Amis?
(Checks)
No, I didn't. Well, I am now. IIRC I'd just finished it when Tibor Fischer gave Yellow Dog one of the most serious pastings in the history of all things evvah and serve him right no fate is too bad. If Yellow Dog was even a quarter as dreadful as London Fields then this:
Yellow Dog isn't bad as in not very good or slightly disappointing. It's not-knowing-where-to-look bad. I was reading my copy on the Tube and I was terrified someone would look over my shoulder… It's like your favourite uncle being caught in a school playground, masturbating.
is thoroughly deserved.
My Idea Of Fun ~ Will Self. Not my idea of fun. I bought it in San Francisco airport coz I wanted something to read on the flight home, but it took me about a year to finish.
Parfum ~ Patrick Süskind. TWFKAML thinks this is so good that she's given it to me for my birthday. Twice. I have no idea why. It's tosh.
Brock Yates' biography of Enzo Ferrari.
Bill Hicks: Agent Of Evolution. There may be a good biography of Bill Hicks out there, but this isn't it.
Spycatcher ~ Peter Wright. I went to a lot of time and trouble to get a mate to smuggle this into the country after a trip to New York, and then wished I hadn't bothered.
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I agree about Dan Brown. I read The Da Vinci Code and it would have been alright for aircraft filler, had my suspended disbelief not come crashing down every page due to a mundane factual error. I didn't even bother with Digital Fortress, as a techie I could tell from the blurb that I'd be able to drive a truck through the plot holes.
I didn't bother with the rest of the Baroque cycle.
IMO, everything he wrote after "Snow Crash" has been a bit shit ... I tried to read "The Diamond Age" but gave up about halfway through.
Hey, I liked Crypto! I think it was between these two books that his ego went over the edge and he started being self-indulgent, or maybe just drowned in a sea of geekiness.
Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith. A lot of people like it but that doesn't stop it being third rate. If you want soviet spy fiction, there are so many better authors to choose from. Give it a miss.
I'm also going to mention the entire output of William Shakespeare. Now maybe this is a subconscious reaction to the fact that we had it rammed down our throats at school, but every time I've tried to read his works I've found them to be unutterably shite.
That's because they're plays, not novels. They're meant to be watched rather than read!
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London Fields was awful. All I seem to recall from it was this woman who was setting herself up to be killed ???
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Good to be God by Tibor Fischer. Many years back I read and enjoyed The Thought Gang. Then I read Voyage to the end of the room, followed by The Collector Collector. I thought they were rubbish but I still went back and read Good to be God. I only finished it in the vain hope that it would improve, but it didn't. Just to prove how stupid and irrational I am I still have Don't read this book if you're stupid in the midst of the unread book pile; it's been there for some considerable time.
Maybe I should have another look at The Though Gang to see if it was actually any good or if my memory is at fault.
*spookily I was just typing this as Mr Larrington posted about Tibor Fischer above.
<pedant> P.S. Re: the title; there's no 'e' in truly </pedant>
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Under The Frog was good. The Thought Gang was OK. The Collector Collector has been stalled at page twenty for about five years and is unlikely to get much further.
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Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson. After the masterpiece that was Cryptonomicon, he followed with this massive piece of boring, self-indulgent verbal ditchwater. He interspersed his own characters (with unbelieveable, tenuous links to characters in previous books) with real historical characters such as Isaac Newton, but then didn't do anything with the historicaal guys others except bring them in to act as intellectual wallpaper. That would be forgiveable if he hadn't used 200 extra pages doing so, and if there'd been any plot in the first place.
I didn't bother with the rest of the Baroque cycle.
Even Crypto could have done with a bit of editorial oversight (I seem to remember about five pages given over to describing the flavour of breakfast cereal as a snack). And an ending would have been nice.
That said, I liked Crypto lots. And am only 200 pages from finishing the Baroque Cycle. This, I know will disappoint ending-wise. But, treated as a sort of period soap opera written by an autistic history buff, it's good for bed time reading.
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(Spycatcher ~ Peter Wright. I went to a lot of time and trouble to get a mate to smuggle this into the country after a trip to New York, and then wished I hadn't bothered.
Peter Wright's opus was best summed up by this quote from Spy Thatcher - The Collected Ravings of a Senior MI5 Officer (William Rushton)*:
'... all self-justification, and Who's a Clever Boy Then? and page after page of Practical Wireless for the Criminally Insane.'
* Spy Thatcher has several advantages over Wright's scribblings. It's a good deal funnier, it's a good deal shorter, and is probably more plausible. I commend it to the House forum. :smug:
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I disagree with Song of Stone. I thought Dead Air and The Business were far worse.
Anything by that Dan Brown. I didn't even make it past Ch 2 the writing was so dire.
Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel. Just don't, it's pure dead dogs doo.
Tries to think of name of other execrable pile of shite that was a waste of hours of my life, and fails. Thank dog for memory loss.
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Anything by Stephen King after 1985 is crap. Bloated pap with twenty chapters of character padding and one chapter of story. He should have stuck to short stories. The Bachman Books and Skeleton Crew are two very good collections of such.
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Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel.
A brilliant book, in my humble opinion, as most of her writing.
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Banks made the transition from interesting writer to conveyor belt authorship fairly rapidly, I thought. It was particularly noticeable and disappointing because his first few books were really, really good. Every now and then I succumb to hope and optimistically buy his latest release.
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Anything by Stephen King after 1985 is crap. Bloated pap with twenty chapters of character padding and one chapter of story. He should have stuck to short stories. The Bachman Books and Skeleton Crew are two very good collections of such.
As ever, Family Guy sums Stephen King up quite nicely:
YouTube
- Family guy Stephen King
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCYr_PTnyEQ)
I was going to say that I don't like any of his books because I'm not really into the whole horror/supernatural thing, although I did read "The Running Man" once (the film is better, but that's not saying much)
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(Spycatcher ~ Peter Wright. I went to a lot of time and trouble to get a mate to smuggle this into the country after a trip to New York, and then wished I hadn't bothered.
Peter Wright's opus was best summed up by this quote from Spy Thatcher - The Collected Ravings of a Senior MI5 Officer (William Rushton)
'... all self-justification, and Who's a Clever Boy Then? and page after page of Practical Wireless for the Criminally Insane.'
I read that as a recommendation.
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Anything by Stephen King after 1985 is crap. Bloated pap with twenty chapters of character padding and one chapter of story. He should have stuck to short stories. The Bachman Books and Skeleton Crew are two very good collections of such.
As ever, Family Guy sums Stephen King up quite nicely:
YouTube
- Family guy Stephen King
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCYr_PTnyEQ)
I was going to say that I don't like any of his books because I'm not really into the whole horror/supernatural thing, although I did read "The Running Man" once (the film is better, but that's not saying much)
If I have any favourites they would be The Long Walk and Ladyfingers.
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Has to be Dan Brown, doesn't it? I've only read Angels and Demons, but the characters were so utterly vapid and unsympathetic, the writing was so grotesquely sub-sub comic book, and the plot was so hopelessly preposterous that it was offensive in every way - the only way it could have been worse is if it came around to my house and left a turd in the kitchen before burning down my street. Which, coincidentally, is what would happen to Dan Brown, in a kind universe.
Someone gave me a couple of books by Maggie Furey a while back, which were tedious, formulaic fantasy fiction, and didn't have any of the North East flavour I might have expected from a Newcastle author. Fair enough, so far so whatever, but the lazy cow was too idle even to bother tidying up the plot strands in the course of the rushed ending. Whoops, I forgot about the marauding Demon King who was laying waste to the cities. Oh well.
Also Stephen King. The books make good movies/doorstops/kindling, but you wouldn't want to read one of them.
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Lovely Bones
Just dreadful
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Yep, Dan Brown has to be right up there, only worsted by 'Left Behind'. I read two chapters, and the writing was so awful I couldn't bear it. Any. More. Regardless of the content. And I threw the book across the room.
Apparently there are sixteen of these books.
If a job's worth doing it's worth doing well, as my mum used to say.
And the job wasn't worth doing, they didn't do it well, and really, they shouldn't have bothered.
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'Left Behind'. I read two chapters, and the writing was so awful I couldn't bear it. Any. More. Regardless of the content. And I threw the book across the room.
I've never read any of those. If I start, maybe you should put me on suicide watch.
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*Googles "Left Behind"*
Ah. No wonder it hasn't appeared on my radar.
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I read the thread title as "Truely Terrible Brooks thread"
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*Googles "Left Behind"*
Ah. No wonder it hasn't appeared on my radar.
Ditto.
And reading the descriptions was enough to convince me that the books should probably be shovelled into a deep, dark hole and left to die. Along with the authors.
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Christian sci-fi. Like Christian rock's pale, geeky brother.
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'Left Behind'. I read two chapters, and the writing was so awful I couldn't bear it. Any. More. Regardless of the content. And I threw the book across the room.
I've never read any of those. If I start, maybe you should put me on suicide watch.
Oh wow, just trying and failing to read the wikipedia page made me want to poke myself in the eyes with sporks.
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'Left Behind'. I read two chapters, and the writing was so awful I couldn't bear it. Any. More. Regardless of the content. And I threw the book across the room.
I've never read any of those. If I start, maybe you should put me on suicide watch.
Oh wow, just trying and failing to read the wikipedia page made me want to poke myself in the eyes with sporks.
+ 1. Am now feeling tainted. Linda am well impressed that you read two chapters :o
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Agree about the Sookie novels too - I was very surprised they were so bad as the TV series is really good.
Not read Twilight. Maybe I won't bother. They are my kind of thing but have heard they are Not Great.
The Sookie Stackhouse novels read like they are badly-written fan-fiction based on a popular show. HBO did an amazing job of reverse-engineering that popular show, and I find the books amusing to snigger at the utter Mary-Sue of a main character (and the fact that every time a new attractive male character is introduced, Sookie manages to get dumped by her current boyfriend so she can have guilt-free sex with the new bloke).
Twilight is a more accomplished work of literature. However, the premise and contents are utter drivel. It is full of teen angst without bothering to give a reason for the angst ("I met a cute boy today. He likes me; I like him; my dad approves; his family approve. Woe! Angst! Curse you, cruel fate!"). Plus, some bits are cringeworthily laughable ("I am a vampire. I sparkle in the sunlight. All my family are vampires and we're all amazingly attractive and gifted with superpowers. At night we use our superpowers to fight crime play baseball. I couldn't possibly turn you into a vampire and inflict such a harsh, suffering-filled lifestyle upon you.")
::-) :sick:
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Christian sci-fi. Like Christian rock's pale, geeky brother.
;D
Dan Brown is notable in being the most common author to be "donated"* to things like Book Crossing, and 2nd-hand book sales.
I only managed half a volume, but I reckon the L.Ron Hubbard books form the missing link between Christian sci-fi and Dan Brown.
*There must be a more suitable word here ...
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Christian sci-fi. Like Christian rock's pale, geeky brother.
;D
Dan Brown is notable in being the most common author to be "donated"* to things like Book Crossing, and 2nd-hand book sales.
I only managed half a volume, but I reckon the L.Ron Hubbard books form the missing link between Christian sci-fi and Dan Brown.
*There must be a more suitable word here ...
I'm thinking of two: "unceremoniously dumped" :)
I'm also thinking about what a Blade/Twilight crossover would be like - Wesley Snipes vs. Robert whatsisface? Hell, I'd even *pay* to see that :)
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A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, by Marina Lewycka. I just couldn't be bothered with any of the characters or the plot, which was shame becos' the bits about tractors were really interesting.
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Christian sci-fi. Like Christian rock's pale, geeky brother.
;D
Dan Brown is notable in being the most common author to be "donated"* to things like Book Crossing, and 2nd-hand book sales.
I only managed half a volume, but I reckon the L.Ron Hubbard books form the missing link between Christian sci-fi and Dan Brown.
*There must be a more suitable word here ...
I believe that the words you are looking for are "inflicted upon". :demon:
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I didn't bother with the rest of the Baroque cycle.
IMO, everything he wrote after "Snow Crash" has been a bit shit ... I tried to read "The Diamond Age" but gave up about halfway through.
IMHO, The Diamond Age was excellent, perhaps his best. Far better than the in-jokey geekfest that constituted Snow Crash. Anathem is rather good.
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I read the whole Twilight series on holiday in Halkidiki. It rained so heavily for the entire two weeks there was localised flooding and we couldn't go anywhere, so we were less fussy about entertainment than we might otherwise have been. It is utter utter utter drivel. Seriously, it's worse than Dan Brown. I found myself wishing for a cross-over chapter with Spike arriving in town and eating Bella and dusting Edward.
I really like a lot of Stephen King's stuff but his later works have been substandard. N in Just After Sunset is really creepy though.
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I didn't bother with the rest of the Baroque cycle.
IMO, everything he wrote after "Snow Crash" has been a bit shit ... I tried to read "The Diamond Age" but gave up about halfway through.
IMHO, The Diamond Age was excellent, perhaps his best. Far better than the in-jokey geekfest that constituted Snow Crash. Anathem is rather good.
I just realised that I've read Snow Crash. It annoyed the uck out of me, until I checked the publication date.
It's old. Really old. Pre-www. He was obviously aiming at a non-computer-geek audience, trying to go for the "wow computerz can be c00l" feel for people who didn't know what a modem was.
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It's old. Really old. Pre-www. He was obviously aiming at a non-computer-geek audience, trying to go for the "wow computerz can be c00l" feel for people who didn't know what a modem was.
It's more like an affectionate satire of cyberpunk (most of the cyberpunk writers had no real idea what computers did - William Gibson wrote Neuromancer on a typewriter listening to the Velvet Underground). Stephenson on the other hand is a real computer geek, which seems to have advantages and disadvantages for him as a writer.
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I find "experimental" novels truly awful. The ones where the author is attempting to subvert narrative conventions. Prime contender is JG Ballard's "The Atrocity Exhbition". And James Joyce's "Ulysses" is way, way, way, way, way over-rated. It's a pity I have hardback copy, because it means the paper isn't even fit for wiping my arse with.
(I also find so-called classics like the piffle written by Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters plain annoying, but can appreciate they are not terrible books in the true sense of the word).
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I find "experimental" novels truly awful. The ones where the author is attempting to subvert narrative conventions. Prime contender is JG Ballard's "The Atrocity Exhbition". And James Joyce's "Ulysses" is way, way, way, way, way over-rated. It's a pity I have hardback copy, because it means the paper isn't even fit for wiping my arse with.
Ulysses would be worth it even if it only consisted only of Molly Bloom's last orgasmic sentence. Anyone who can't see that this is a great piece of writing isn't quite alive to what writing can do IMHO. But if you hate it so much why do you even have a copy, let along a hardback? Perhaps you should try giving it to someone who would appreciate it? It might make just you less angry...
Just about all my favourite novels are experimental ones, and you've mentioned two of them there. If you have an aversion to these, I would advise you not to try to read anything by Italo Calvino, Georges Perec or indeed any of the great mid-century European writers. Perhaps also avoid Franz Kafka, Joseph Conrad, Nabokov and all the modernists. They messed around with form and expectations too. Oh, and Lawrence Sterne and the other writers who invented the novel as we know it. After all, the novel was in itself a challenge to existing narrative conventions of the time...
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T R U L Y
If you're going to criticise...
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I find "experimental" novels truly awful. The ones where the author is attempting to subvert narrative conventions. Prime contender is JG Ballard's "The Atrocity Exhbition". And James Joyce's "Ulysses" is way, way, way, way, way over-rated. It's a pity I have hardback copy, because it means the paper isn't even fit for wiping my arse with.
Ulysses would be worth it even if it only consisted only of Molly Bloom's last orgasmic sentence. Anyone who can't see that this is a great piece of writing isn't quite alive to what writing can do IMHO. But if you hate it so much why do you even have a copy, let along a hardback? Perhaps you should try giving it to someone who would appreciate it? It might make just you less angry...
Just about all my favourite novels are experimental ones, and you've mentioned two of them there. If you have an aversion to these, I would advise you not to try to read anything by Italo Calvino, Georges Perec or indeed any of the great mid-century European writers. Perhaps also avoid Franz Kafka, Joseph Conrad, Nabokov and all the modernists. They messed around with form and expectations too. Oh, and Lawrence Sterne and the other writers who invented the novel as we know it. After all, the novel was in itself a challenge to existing narrative conventions of the time...
I keep Joyce on my shelf to look well read. And it's a badge of honour, much like War and Peace. I had 3 attempts at reading Ulysses before I forced myself to get to the end. Intellectual curiosity and all that.
I've read Kafka, Conrad and Nabokov. At least two of those I got some enjoyment out of, from memory. I might have a read of Calvino and Perec, as I've not heard of them. Likewise Sterne.
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Calvino's Our Ancestors is accessible enow even for an untutored oaf like me.
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I've read Kafka, Conrad and Nabokov. At least two of those I got some enjoyment out of, from memory. I might have a read of Calvino and Perec, as I've not heard of them. Likewise Sterne.
Conrad? I'll grant that Nostromo's rather verbose, but Heart of Darkness is pretty accessible.
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Conrad is very lightweight in language and form. Excellent, if depressing, stories tho'.
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I find "experimental" novels truly awful. The ones where the author is attempting to subvert narrative conventions.
Well, some experimental novels are awful but some are brilliant... It seems a slightly fatuous distinction.
(I also find so-called classics like the piffle written by Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters plain annoying, but can appreciate they are not terrible books in the true sense of the word).
Why mention Austen and the Brontes in particular? And why cite only women writers when mentioning "so-called classics"? Do you feel the same about Dickens, Trollope and Thackeray? Or is it that you feel women are particularly prone to writing "piffle"?
Austen and the Brontes have very little in common, apart from being women. In both style and subject matter, Austen is nothing like the Brontes. And Austen is a brilliant writer - incredibly elegant prose, and very witty. I'm not much of a fan of the Brontes. Wouldn't call them "truly terrible", just not my thing.
DH Lawrence and Thomas Hardy are two "so-called classic" writers I've struggled to hold an interest in. They tend towards the turgid.
Dan Brown goes without saying, but since everyone else has mentioned him, I'll add my vote. Shockingly bad.
d.
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I struggle with Hardy's novels, but I do like his poems.
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A few years ago I picked up The Worst Book Ever Written at my local library. I can't remember the title unfortunately, so you can't be warned.
It was shite.
Umm, plot was, minor league criminal does stuff. Then some stuff happened. Then he did some more stuff.
It was set in Reigate and Redhill, with the names cunningly changed to Redgate and something else, to protect the innocent. And he shags another bloke, with the aid of some butter in his packed lunch, in the sandpits at Merstham.
It was shite.
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I find "experimental" novels truly awful. The ones where the author is attempting to subvert narrative conventions.
Well, some experimental novels are awful but some are brilliant... It seems a slightly fatuous distinction.
(I also find so-called classics like the piffle written by Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters plain annoying, but can appreciate they are not terrible books in the true sense of the word).
Why mention Austen and the Brontes in particular? And why cite only women writers when mentioning "so-called classics"? Do you feel the same about Dickens, Trollope and Thackeray? Or is it that you feel women are particularly prone to writing "piffle"?
Austen and the Brontes have very little in common, apart from being women. In both style and subject matter, Austen is nothing like the Brontes. And Austen is a brilliant writer - incredibly elegant prose, and very witty. I'm not much of a fan of the Brontes. Wouldn't call them "truly terrible", just not my thing.
DH Lawrence and Thomas Hardy are two "so-called classic" writers I've struggled to hold an interest in. They tend towards the turgid.
Dan Brown goes without saying, but since everyone else has mentioned him, I'll add my vote. Shockingly bad.
d.
+ 1. Austen is not only incredibly funny but she seems to understand the human condition. The Brontes vary considerably, I find that I preferred Anne's to the others. Billy, I found your comments about women writers and piffle incredibly sad, even if you do find the likes of them to be merely low-quality there are others who more than add to that genre of classic fiction, George Eliot, Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Gaskell and Flora Thompson being just a few, but all of them brilliant.
Not a big fan of DH Lawrence either. I've noticed that there is a TV adaption of 'Women in Love' on the Beeb.
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Why mention Austen and the Brontes in particular? And why cite only women writers when mentioning "so-called classics"?
Because they sprung to mind. Although your implication is clear. Why do you only cite white English speakers?
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Billy, I found your comments about women writers and piffle incredibly sad
Erm, I wasn't singling out women. And the word piffle sprung to mind because it felt apt to the period (1800s). Men from that generation were just as able in writing books I personally find tedious.
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Billy, I found your comments about women writers and piffle incredibly sad
Erm, I wasn't singling out women. Men from the same period were just as able in writing piffle. It's the general style of novels from that period I don't get on with.
(I also find so-called classics like the piffle written by Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters plain annoying, but can appreciate they are not terrible books in the true sense of the word).
There you go. Your comments were ambiguously aimed at Austen and everyone else from her genre of writing as being piffle. Those 'style of novels' embody a large canon of literature. They are not to be dismissed as piffle.
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Sorry if I've come across as a twat.
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Sorry if I've come across as a twat.
You haven't! :-*
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Maybe we need an overrated books thread...
Anyway, someone's lent me one of the Twilight books, so I'll add it to the pile, and see if it really is all that bad.
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I disagree with Song of Stone. I thought Dead Air and The Business were far worse.
The Business was great, we'll have to agree to disagree on this.
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I disagree with Song of Stone. I thought Dead Air and The Business were far worse.
The Business was great, we'll have to agree to disagree on this.
I think Song of Stone was Banks's last attempt to write anything different. After the poor reception that it got he's just been recycling old stuff. There were passages in Dead Air that had me on the edge of my seat, but most of the novel just didn't engage me, perhaps because the protagonist was such an appalling idiot. The Business was awful, Steep Approach To Garbadale worse... ;)
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I disagree with Song of Stone. I thought Dead Air and The Business were far worse.
The Business was great, we'll have to agree to disagree on this.
I enjoyed the Business as well. The Crow Road was very good.
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The Business didn't leave much of an impression on me. I can hardly remember anything that happened in it.
I enjoyed the Steep Approach to Garbadale, but it was pretty much a re-hash of themes and plots covered in the Crow Road and Whit.
I still haven't read a Song of Stone; the reviews at the time were awful. But, this thread is prompting me at least to read it, to see if it is all that bad.
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Maybe we need an overrated books thread...
Anyway, someone's lent me one of the Twilight books, so I'll add it to the pile, and see if it really is all that bad.
Trust me, it is.
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I’m going to come out and defend Dan Brown. I’m now a big fan of both film and literature cheese. Oddly, it’s all the fault of James Joyce and Finnegans Wake. It was an attempt to read that bought me to a short, sharp stop. I had read the classics, the greats, and even enjoyed the struggle through the jungles of more tortuous texts. After all, that sort of thing built character (or gave you malaria).
After all that, if you squished my head erudition would spill out of it like water from a sponge.
Until the big bump that was Finnegans Wake, which frankly is fertiliser for pseuds. At that point, well, the mind finally realised that it craved cheese. And not just any cheese, oh no: Cheese Food Product. That’s what my mind needed. That’s what all our minds need.
Now, Dan Brown. Yes, the books are stupid. I mean, really hit-on-head trauma ward stupid. But they are reassuringly so. His characters could be cut out of cardboard and glued to a skateboard and given a shove. The plots are like a blind man joining the dots. It’s so bad that it’s good. It’s transcended any real physical measure of awful. And to be fair, Dan Brown does understand pacing. Read it breathless, while trapped in an airport lounge waiting for a jet that is never going to arrive, and the joyous sensation when you finish is similar to sticking a Sherbet Fountain up each nostril and then banging your face into a desk. Your entire brain fizzes with stupidity. You try that after reading Calvino and you end up having to explain why you have liquorice stuck up both nostrils to an unamused ER nurse.
Truly awful of late? I think I mentioned Transition by Iain Banks. It was just bad. And sad, because I think he could write a good book, but he seems to intent on trying to write a ‘clever’ book, which he’s already proved he can’t do.
Sci-fi books annoy me. I should like them. My idea of fun is spaceship fisticuffs with a variety of exotic weaponry. What could be better than that. OK, semi-naked space chicks with even bigger neutron cannons. So why must they spoil it with multivolume epics that span the intergalactic gulf between dull and really dull. There can be nothing more depressing than reading several hundred pages in which nothing much happens to find the following fateful words as a tailpiece: ‘so ends Book 1 of the NachoWacho Poly-Quadrilogy.’ You fucker, you just spent several hundred page reciting the names of the characters. Go read a Dan Brown book.
Twilight. I tried, for research purposes, as I have a pet vampire. In the end I wanted them all to be attacked by a giant Satanic, killer dildo. That might have been the ending. Please.
Occasionally I meet my match. When I first got my Kindle, I was about to whizz off on a business trip, but I wanted to try it. So I surfed Amazon and downloaded some freebies. One of which was this (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Soul-Identity/dp/B000ZHD9VU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A3TVV12T0I6NSM&s=digital-text&qid=1300226888&sr=1-1). It's free, I dare you.
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There can be nothing more depressing than reading several hundred pages in which nothing much happens to find the following fateful words as a tailpiece: ‘so ends Book 1 of the NachoWacho Poly-Quadrilogy.’ You fucker, you just spent several hundred page reciting the names of the characters.
From reading the above I am surmising you have read Peter F Hamilton books and, like me, want to slap him around the face shouting "Slaughterhouse 5 was less than 200 pages you fucking hack".
Just one of his novels is about three times the size of Dune and by a curious coincidence about a third less happens in each book in his Night's Dawn trilogy than happens in Dune.
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Maybe we need an overrated books thread...
Anyway, someone's lent me one of the Twilight books, so I'll add it to the pile, and see if it really is all that bad.
Trust me, it is.
Call it morbid curiosity, then. And keeping up with those young folks.
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There can be nothing more depressing than reading several hundred pages in which nothing much happens to find the following fateful words as a tailpiece: ‘so ends Book 1 of the NachoWacho Poly-Quadrilogy.’ You fucker, you just spent several hundred page reciting the names of the characters.
From reading the above I am surmising you have read Peter F Hamilton books and, like me, want to slap him around the face shouting "Slaughterhouse 5 was less than 200 pages you fucking hack".
Just one of his novels is about three times the size of Dune and by a curious coincidence about a third less happens in each book in his Night's Dawn trilogy than happens in Dune.
Dune, now there's a book that should be on the National Curriculum, along with Dune Messiah.....place not your faith in heroes or prophets...
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There can be nothing more depressing than reading several hundred pages in which nothing much happens to find the following fateful words as a tailpiece: ‘so ends Book 1 of the NachoWacho Poly-Quadrilogy.’ You fucker, you just spent several hundred page reciting the names of the characters.
From reading the above I am surmising you have read Peter F Hamilton books and, like me, want to slap him around the face shouting "Slaughterhouse 5 was less than 200 pages you fucking hack".
Just one of his novels is about three times the size of Dune and by a curious coincidence about a third less happens in each book in his Night's Dawn trilogy than happens in Dune.
I quite liked these - but also agree with you. Try the detective series, far more compact.
Transition; I can't believe I bought it. ffs, Banks, what happened?
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+ 1. Austen is not only incredibly funny but she seems to understand the human condition. The Brontes vary considerably, I find that I preferred Anne's to the others. Billy, I found your comments about women writers and piffle incredibly sad, even if you do find the likes of them to be merely low-quality there are others who more than add to that genre of classic fiction, George Eliot, Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Gaskell and Flora Thompson being just a few, but all of them brilliant.
Think you'd probably also like Barbara Pym.
Moderator - please, this is a thread about bad literature, admittedly but "truely" is perpetuating it. A couple have tried to bring this to our attention.....
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Speaking of poor vampire books, the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice turned into pretty bad books as the series progressed. It started with a very good read in Interview with a Vampire and gradually the characters progressively died on the page as more books were published.
Quite a few series do this. As someone mentioned it, Dune is another that springs to mind. The first few books were brilliant (I was mildly obsessed by the series in high school, to the extent that I would have cinammon on everything, imagining it was "spice" :-[ ). But as it went on, it turned into a meandering, confusing shambles.
In essence, cash cows do not write good books. Actually, based on Star Wars prequel, make that good anything (curse you George Lucas *shakes fist*)
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Sorry, fixed now (not that I am a mod, just the person who started this thread so I am able to change it :) )
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Ian, you horrible get. People are looking at me strangely because I am making some very odd noises in trying to contain my laughter.
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Because they sprung to mind. Although your implication is clear.
It just struck me as odd that two such disparate examples should be selected as being representative of a class. You might as well have said something like: "I hate 20th century English novelists such as PG Wodehouse and Salman Rushdie."
It made me stop to wonder why those two in particular should spring to your mind. Am I reading too much between the lines? Maybe. I accept it's possible that I'm being over-sensitive because I'm such a big fan of Jane Austen.
Sorry if my comments seemed a bit strong.
I’m going to come out and defend Dan Brown...
Much as I enjoyed your critique, I'm afraid you haven't won me over. Plot is overrated, isn't it? (This is possibly why I don't share Mr Larrington's view of Will Self's My Idea Of Fun, or her_welshness's view of Tom McCarthy's C, both of which are right up my street.)
d.
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Much as I enjoyed your critique, I'm afraid you haven't won me over. Plot is overrated, isn't it? (This is possibly why I don't share Mr Larrington's view of Will Self's My Idea Of Fun, or her_welshness's view of Tom McCarthy's C, both of which are right up my street.)
I have enjoyed both The Butt and The Book Of Dave, but My Idea Of Fun just didn't do it for me.
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I have enjoyed both The Butt and The Book Of Dave, but My Idea Of Fun just didn't do it for me.
I thought it was hilarious. But it's a long time since I read it... What I remember about it are the Fat Controller and the Land of Children's Jokes, which I thought were brilliant ideas, and a fairly nasty scene with a dog. Maybe I should read it again.
The other thing I remember is that it's all words and no plot, but I like that kind of thing.
d.
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Anything by Colin Dexter. All the good things about the TV adaptations came from the direction, acting and rewritten script. The books are almost unreadable, incoherent drivel.
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Plus Colin Dexter is an insufferably smug git too.
d.
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Now, Dan Brown. Yes, the books are stupid. I mean, really hit-on-head trauma ward stupid. But they are reassuringly so. His characters could be cut out of cardboard and glued to a skateboard and given a shove. The plots are like a blind man joining the dots. It’s so bad that it’s good. It’s transcended any real physical measure of awful. And to be fair, Dan Brown does understand pacing. Read it breathless, while trapped in an airport lounge waiting for a jet that is never going to arrive, and the joyous sensation when you finish is similar to sticking a Sherbet Fountain up each nostril and then banging your face into a desk. Your entire brain fizzes with stupidity. You try that after reading Calvino and you end up having to explain why you have liquorice stuck up both nostrils to an unamused ER nurse.
:thumbsup:
Ahh, Dan Brown. "Dear readers, let me tell you about the Holy Grail, but in a really patronising way and I will make it really simple and slow so that you all can keep up because I am a foppish American academic and you are all a bunch of cretinous idiots. And check out my theories, see how they totally fit into the whole scheme of things and with enough fact to make it true".
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There can be nothing more depressing than reading several hundred pages in which nothing much happens to find the following fateful words as a tailpiece: ‘so ends Book 1 of the NachoWacho Poly-Quadrilogy.’
Try this:
- Read Volume One of The Gulag Archipelago
- Read Volume Two of The Gulag Archipelago
- At the end of same, discover that:
- There's a Volume Three, and
- It hasn't been published yet
That's practically an entire Christmas holibobs I'll never get back.
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I remember reading August 1914, only to find it is part of an unspecified-length series, which may well begin before that book. I also read Lenin In Zurich, which is part of the same series, but that's it. :hand: I refuse to even know if there's any more.
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There can be nothing more depressing than reading several hundred pages in which nothing much happens to find the following fateful words as a tailpiece: ‘so ends Book 1 of the NachoWacho Poly-Quadrilogy.’
Try this:
- Read Volume One of The Gulag Archipelago
- Read Volume Two of The Gulag Archipelago
- At the end of same, discover that:
- There's a Volume Three, and
- It hasn't been published yet
That's practically an entire Christmas holibobs I'll never get back.
The law of trilogies states that all public libraries will stock either vol 1 & 2, or vol 2 & 3 of any trilogy.
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A further law of series states that the author will cark it before completion - Stieg Larsson being the canonical example. If Doug Nye croaks before the fourth and final volume of his history of BRM is completed I will be seriously annoyed - his co-conspirator Tony Rudd died just after the publication of vol. 3.
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There can be nothing more depressing than reading several hundred pages in which nothing much happens to find the following fateful words as a tailpiece: ‘so ends Book 1 of the NachoWacho Poly-Quadrilogy.’
Try this:
- Read Volume One of The Gulag Archipelago
- Read Volume Two of The Gulag Archipelago
- At the end of same, discover that:
- There's a Volume Three, and
- It hasn't been published yet
That's practically an entire Christmas holibobs I'll never get back.
The law of trilogies states that all public libraries will stock either vol 1 & 2, or vol 2 & 3 of any trilogy.
Not quite. I bought Vols 1&3 of the Lord of the Rings from Derby City Libraries. They may have kept hold of just Vol 2 to annoy.
I waited till I could get a Vol 2 from the same edition before I started reading it. I never did.
Oxfam in Hebden Bridge got Vols 1 & 3 of Lord of the Rings.
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Christian sci-fi. Like Christian rock's pale, geeky brother.
Oh, oh, yes! "Out of the Silent Planet" by C.S. Lewis. I don't know if the rest of the trilogy are so astoundingly, mind-numbingly awful and dull because the first one made ne too suicidal ever to want to find out.
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Try The Sparrow and Children of God by Mary Doria Russell. Brilliant but gut-wrenching.
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Christian sci-fi. Like Christian rock's pale, geeky brother.
Oh, oh, yes! "Out of the Silent Planet" by C.S. Lewis. I don't know if the rest of the trilogy are so astoundingly, mind-numbingly awful and dull because the first one made ne too suicidal ever to want to find out.
Have never come across that one before ??? I suppose people have already mentioned Hubbard's Sc-fi. :sick:
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Christian sci-fi. Like Christian rock's pale, geeky brother.
Oh, oh, yes! "Out of the Silent Planet" by C.S. Lewis. I don't know if the rest of the trilogy are so astoundingly, mind-numbingly awful and dull because the first one made ne too suicidal ever to want to find out.
Have never come across that one before ??? I suppose people have already mentioned Hubbard's Sc-fi. :sick:
I have to shamefully admit to having read and enjoyed Battlefield Earth. I'm not a scientologist.
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Try The Sparrow and Children of God by Mary Doria Russell. Brilliant but gut-wrenching.
I enjoyed them, or I did once TWFKAML had been obliged to buy me a second copy of The Sparrow after she'd lent my original - a birthday present - to someone who then lent it to someone else who then lost it before I'd even had a chance to read the bloody thing >:(
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Try The Sparrow and Children of God by Mary Doria Russell. Brilliant but gut-wrenching.
I enjoyed them, or I did once TWFKAML had been obliged to buy me a second copy of The Sparrow after she'd lent my original - a birthday present - to someone who then lent it to someone else who then lost it before I'd even had a chance to read the bloody thing >:(
OT, the former Mrs T did the same thing to me, but with a rare copy of Dinosaur Jnr's "Keep The Glove".
Pleased I was not....
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Christian sci-fi. Like Christian rock's pale, geeky brother.
Oh, oh, yes! "Out of the Silent Planet" by C.S. Lewis. I don't know if the rest of the trilogy are so astoundingly, mind-numbingly awful and dull because the first one made ne too suicidal ever to want to find out.
My aunt once bought me the trilogy for a Christmas present. I never even completed the first one.
I quite liked the Narnia books when I was very young, but I looked at them again a few years ago out of nostalgia and found them unreadable.
d.
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Christian sci-fi. Like Christian rock's pale, geeky brother.
Oh, oh, yes! "Out of the Silent Planet" by C.S. Lewis. I don't know if the rest of the trilogy are so astoundingly, mind-numbingly awful and dull because the first one made ne too suicidal ever to want to find out.
My aunt once bought me the trilogy for a Christmas present. I never even completed the first one.
I quite liked the Narnia books when I was very young, but I looked at them again a few years ago out of nostalgia and found them unreadable.
d.
Oh, I don’t know – I think they are still pretty good* for the most part, with the exception of ‘The Last Battle’ which I thought was incredibly bad and odd when reading as a child, now I just think it’s terribly, terribly wrong. Lewis wasn’t very nice to Susan’s character who is going to hell for liking lipstick and boys.
*By which I mean an enjoyable re-read, there is a lot you could pick Lewis up for (pick your ism, there are plenty to choose from) but it doesn’t stop them being for the most part still fun to re-read as an adult – the thing that really jars for me is the clumsy mish-mash of mythology, most apparent when Father Christmas turns up in ‘The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe’.
I'm less sure how enjoyable they would be as a fresh read for adults who hadn't read the books as children.
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My aunt once bought me the trilogy for a Christmas present. I never even completed the first one.
I quite liked the Narnia books when I was very young, but I looked at them again a few years ago out of nostalgia and found them unreadable.
d.
Oh, I don’t know – I think they are still pretty good* for the most part, with the exception of ‘The Last Battle’ which I thought was incredibly bad and odd when reading as a child, now I just think it’s terribly, terribly wrong. Lewis wasn’t very nice to Susan’s character who is going to hell for liking lipstick and boys.
To be fair to Lewis, the books remained strictly silent on Susan's fate. At the end of The Last Battle she was still alive and kicking on earth, not having been in the train crash with the rest of them. At a guess she had another 60 years of life and for all we know, the loss of all her siblings may have been just what she needed to provoke a crisis of conscience and a return to faith.
As for the cosmic trilogy, they do get better than Out of TheSilent Planet, just not much better. If you didn't like Silent Planet, don't perservere.
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Ah, for the record, I wasn't disparaging all Christian sf; the raising of the topic just reminded me of a book I hated so much that the recollection had me mentally hopping up and down on one foot.
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This book (http://twitpic.com/4a27d5) might win a prize for either the Most Awesome or Most Awful book ever written.
I didn't dare read it, I didn't know if I could handle it.
A mash up of Star Trek TNG and X-Men?
... even the combined forces of the crew of Starfleet and the X-Men may be unable to prevent an inferno of death and destruction
Wow.
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This book (http://twitpic.com/4a27d5) might win a prize for either the Most Awesome or Most Awful book ever written.
I didn't dare read it, I didn't know if I could handle it.
A mash up of Star Trek TNG and X-Men?
... even the combined forces of the crew of Starfleet and the X-Men may be unable to prevent an inferno of death and destruction
Wow.
:o My eyes feel tainted, bloody tainted.
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Not quite. I bought Vols 1&3 of the Lord of the Rings from Derby City Libraries. They may have kept hold of just Vol 2 to annoy.
I waited till I could get a Vol 2 from the same edition before I started reading it. I never did.
Oxfam in Hebden Bridge got Vols 1 & 3 of Lord of the Rings.
You should give it a go. LOTR is very good, it's not the best book ever written but it almost certainly is the best fantasy novel with elves and orcs etc in it. You have to forget about all the imitations that gave been written since then. I don't like fantasy novels but LOTR is great. Not that keen on the films though.
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I've read The Hobbit, but I got about 100 pages into LotR before I was bored stupid and wanting to dig up Tolkein just to beat him over the head for everything he'd blatantly stolen from William Morris...
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100 pages in . . . let me guess, is that the Tom Bombardil bit?
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100 pages in . . . let me guess, is that the Tom Bombardil bit?
It gets a wee bit trippy :)
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Not quite. I bought Vols 1&3 of the Lord of the Rings from Derby City Libraries. They may have kept hold of just Vol 2 to annoy.
I waited till I could get a Vol 2 from the same edition before I started reading it. I never did.
Oxfam in Hebden Bridge got Vols 1 & 3 of Lord of the Rings.
You should give it a go. LOTR is very good, it's not the best book ever written but it almost certainly is the best fantasy novel with elves and orcs etc in it. You have to forget about all the imitations that gave been written since then. I don't like fantasy novels but LOTR is great. Not that keen on the films though.
The artistic licences taken with the plot (most of which seem to involve the Elves) could be grounds for complaint, but to be honest, a film that is a visual recreation of the trilogy, scene for scene, would be interminably long.
100 pages in . . . let me guess, is that the Tom Bombardil bit?
It gets a wee bit trippy :)
The best thing about the Fellowship Of The Ring film was the absence of Tom Bombadil.
A movie version of the Harvard Lampoon's Bored Of The Rings might be good for a laugh though, Tim Benzedrine is Bombadil reimagined as a tripped-out hippy who's dropped one tab too many. :demon:
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A movie version of the Harvard Lampoon's Bored Of The Rings might be good for a laugh though, Tim Benzedrine is Bombadil reimagined as a tripped-out hippy who's dropped one tab too many. :demon:
I'd forgotten all about that ...
I spent a year reading Hobbit + LofTR and finished off with Bored of The Rings for dessert (i read some other stuff in between!); almost made it all worthwhile.
Anyone who has slogged through LofTRI-III should treat themselves to BofTR. Come to think of it, anyone who gave up after 100 pages should too.
(I rather wish they'd hacked even more stuff out of the films, which are otherwise cracking cinema. As well as the (already YACF-panned) triple pointless endings, the whole section with the Ents and Saruman seems really pointless when you're watching it on film. )
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I enjoyed listening to Hordes of the Things (IIRC)...
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If you think LOTR was bad, try Catcher in the Rye, everyone raves about it, but I just don't get it.
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If you think LOTR was bad, try Catcher in the Rye, everyone raves about it, but I just don't get it.
All you need to know about Catcher in Rye is that should you see anyone approaching with a glazed expression and copy clutched tightly in their sweaty hands, it's best to run away, because you may be next.
I could tell you why, but then you would definitely be next, followed by me. Sssssh.
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I remain firmly in Philip Pullman's camp when it comes to the Chronicles of Bleeding Narnia. The literary equivalent of Marmite.
One day I will get round to reading The Wossname In The Rye, purely in order to see what the fuss is all about. If it was that good They'd have made us read it at skool, wouldn't They?
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I've come to realise Dan Brown is a genius.
He was an English teacher who decided that he could write blockbuster novels better than the ones out there.
They certainly are page turners, and everyone who reads and criticised his books, must have bought at least one of them in order to read and slag them off. I'd be happy for the whole world to call me an talentless writer provided they all give me some money first.
Where he is scary, is that he actually believes the crap that fills them with.
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I add CS Lewis to my first comments concerning Mss Blyton & Christie.
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Tolkein though Narnia was a bit crap and he was C.S Lewis's best mate :)
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He was an English teacher who decided that he could write blockbuster novels better than the ones out there.
No, he's like John Grisham, who realised he could make more money writing blockbuster action stories than doing his day job. His success is testament to his graft and his eye for an opportunity rather than any literary talent. Fair play to him. Wish I could pull it off but I'm too lazy. I know I'm a better writer than him.
They certainly are page turners, and everyone who reads and criticised his books, must have bought at least one of them in order to read and slag them off.
I tried to read The Da Vinci Code but I couldn't bear more than a few pages of the sub-Janet & John prose. I'll just have to take it on trust that it got better as it went on.
d.
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I tried to read The Da Vinci Code but I couldn't bear more than a few pages of the sub-Janet & John prose. I'll just have to take it on trust that it got better as it went on.
It didn't. My excuses are:
- No-one had told me quite how terrible it was, and
- A two-day training course requiring travelling to Reading and back
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The prose doesn't have to be good if you have a good story to tell 1
Or you can have great prose and a crap story 2
The best books are where you get a good story and good prose.
1: See J.K Rowling
2: This is called literary fiction
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Two words.
Hemingway
Ernest (http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_extracts/article4915359.ece)
;D
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I tried to read The Da Vinci Code but I couldn't bear more than a few pages of the sub-Janet & John prose. I'll just have to take it on trust that it got better as it went on.
For you (and for me) it's torture. For a significant number of people, it's about as complex reading as they can manage, for various reasons including poor literacy, bad education or just low intellect.
There are bad writers and there are bad readers. And, to be fair, those who enjoy turning their brain off while reading as relaxation and actively seek material which will not re-activate the brain muscles.
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Probably posted this before, but never mind. Once, when utterly bored (I was, after all, dwelling in Luton at the time) I picked up, from my local library, the bookofdafilm of "Empire Strikes Back"
See Spot run.
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Two words.
Hemingway
Ernest (http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_extracts/article4915359.ece)
I see The Times is as up to the minute as ever. Seriously, that is about sixth-form level...
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The major opinion forming newspaper in the UK is The Sun. No really it is. It's read everwhere, left everwhere and therefore re-read more often by many more people than any other newspaper.
I got told this on day one of my job in a busy Press Office (yes, I was fucking busy between the wars*)
The Sun is written to pitch to the average UK adult** reading age to maximise readership. That would be nine years old. Scary isn't it?
*Copyright Skint Video
** I'll caveat that I have heard that (and contradictory ages) quoted endlessly without real supporting evidence, reality is though that they punch low and hit the target.
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Two words.
Hemingway
Ernest (http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_extracts/article4915359.ece)
I see The Times is as up to the minute as ever. Seriously, that is about sixth-form level...
Dates from the early seventies; IIRC it was originally written for "Punch" after someone had posited that every great author has at least one children's book in them. Also included were Shakepeare's Five Go Off To Elsinore and Dostoyevsky's The Gollies Karamazov.
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Tolkein though Narnia was a bit crap and he was C.S Lewis's best mate :)
The Narnia books are great to a 10 - 14 year old. I loved them.
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Christian sci-fi. Like Christian rock's pale, geeky brother.
Oh, oh, yes! "Out of the Silent Planet" by C.S. Lewis. I don't know if the rest of the trilogy are so astoundingly, mind-numbingly awful and dull because the first one made ne too suicidal ever to want to find out.
My aunt once bought me the trilogy for a Christmas present. I never even completed the first one.
I quite liked the Narnia books when I was very young, but I looked at them again a few years ago out of nostalgia and found them unreadable.
d.
Oh, I don’t know – I think they are still pretty good* for the most part, with the exception of ‘The Last Battle’ which I thought was incredibly bad and odd when reading as a child, now I just think it’s terribly, terribly wrong. Lewis wasn’t very nice to Susan’s character who is going to hell for liking lipstick and boys.
*By which I mean an enjoyable re-read, there is a lot you could pick Lewis up for (pick your ism, there are plenty to choose from) but it doesn’t stop them being for the most part still fun to re-read as an adult – the thing that really jars for me is the clumsy mish-mash of mythology, most apparent when Father Christmas turns up in ‘The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe’.
I'm less sure how enjoyable they would be as a fresh read for adults who hadn't read the books as children.
Much like citoyen, I had a flick through them one time I was visiting my parents, and had a similar reaction. I rather suspect that an adult who hadn't read any of the Narnia books as a child started reading one, they probably wouldn't finish.
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Tolkein though Narnia was a bit crap and he was C.S Lewis's best mate :)
The Narnia books are great to a 10 - 14 year old. I loved them.
I loved them when I was a kid. More like 8 - 11 years old though. It's adults rating them as great that amazes me.
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I've found something worse than Dan Brown.
I decency read the Twelfth Imam by Joel C Rosenberg. It is offensive, malevolent religious claptrap. It's also appallingly written, with characters who possess less substance than a fart in a wind tunnel, and the amount of research and political background make Tom Clancy appear reasonable, and sophisticated. I suppose the front cover praise from Rush Limbaugh should have given me a hint, but I was half asleep and just wanted a bit of easy escapism so it took a while for the clues to penetrate.
More worryingly, Tiermat sent me this on an SD card. To Iran. Is he trying to get me detained by the authorities? At least I talked him out of sending me some Salman Rushdie ;)
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More worryingly, Tiermat sent me this on an SD card. To Iran. Is he trying to get me detained by the authorities? At least I talked him out of sending me some Salman Rushdie ;)
I think the Itanians would be happy for you to be sent some of Salman Rushdie - and they'll tell you which bits.
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Glad to be of service Dean.
I'll chalk that one up to "random selection" ;)
Hope some of the others are better.....
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Anythign by Agatha Christie or Enid Blyton is a flying start. I've read several and regretted.
I know that lots of Blyton is appallingly racist and sexist by today's standards, but she wrote exciting stories which kept children turning the pages. The Famous Five were way better than the Secret Seven though.
Just to give some people a flavour of the book, part of the story involves a bloke falling in love with an alien parasite who inhabits the brain of a woman who happens to have a really good pair.
That sounds intellectual. :D
Most disappointing books for me were the later vampire chronicles/mayfair witches stories by Anne Rice. The major mistake was putting the two threads together. Lestat should never have met Rowan! The first few were great. Blood Canticle and Taltos are dire.
I like a trashy novel. But it has to be good trashy.
Speaking of poor vampire books, the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice turned into pretty bad books as the series progressed. It started with a very good read in Interview with a Vampire and gradually the characters progressively died on the page as more books were published.
Yes, I liked Interview with the Vampire and the first one of the Mayfair Witches set, the name of which escapes me, but the second in each set were worse, and by the third they were dreadful.
I quite like a trashy book too, but there's good trash and bad trash.
Lovely Bones
Just dreadful
I love The Lovely Bones, although there are a couple of scenes which make me cringe. I like her other stuff too - Lucky and The Almost Moon.
My aunt once bought me the trilogy for a Christmas present. I never even completed the first one.
I quite liked the Narnia books when I was very young, but I looked at them again a few years ago out of nostalgia and found them unreadable.
I only had The Magician's Nephew (the drawings of Uncle Andrew looked like Rod Hull) and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe when I was a kid. So I bought the rest of them as an adult. Like the Blyton books, they're a bit dodgy by today's standards, and the moralising is painful, but I think they work quite well as a set and as individual books. They have the things kids often want to read - adventure away from the parents, and good beating evil.
I find it very difficult to only read one or two from a full set. Even if I hate the books I want to know what happens, which is one of the reasons I finished the Twilight set and the only reason I bothered with the Dark Tower set after Wizard and Glass.
If you think LOTR was bad, try Catcher in the Rye, everyone raves about it, but I just don't get it.
I like LotR. Catcher in the Rye I never understood what the fuss was about. I thought the main character was a pretentious self-indulgent arsehole and I ran out of patience with him very quickly.
Similarly, although I didn't dislike The Secret History by Donna Tartt, in fact I liked it and re-read it every so often, there isn't a single likeable character in the book. They're all vile.
Probably posted this before, but never mind. Once, when utterly bored (I was, after all, dwelling in Luton at the time) I picked up, from my local library, the bookofdafilm of "Empire Strikes Back"
See Spot run.
I used to get that out of the library when I was a teenager just to look at the film stills in the middle. Just the Han Solo ones.
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Glad to be of service Dean.
I'll chalk that one up to "random selection" ;)
Hope some of the others are better.....
They couldn't be worse ;)
Yes, they do seem to be much better, thanks. I quite enjoyed the Tom Clancy when I was feeling a bit ill, though they got more preposterous as they went on. And longer, with page after page crammed with weapons specificationzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
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I got into trouble over the Narnia Chronicles at school!
We were reading the Lion Witch and Wardrobe in class and I was enjoying it, but was frustrated when we had the Summer Holidays and wanted to know what had happened..
My grandparents bought me the set for my birthday and I had read the lot by the time we went back to School. So the rest of the year as we worked through them I was now bored as I knew what happened and the rest of the plots.
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I hated the Narnia stories. When I was teaching, I wouldn't read them to my class.
I once bumped into a chap in a pub some 10 to 15 years after I last taught him. Let's say that he never set the world alight academically.
In our conversation, he asked "D'you remember readin' us the 'Obbit? I've just finished readin' the Lord of the Rings."
Edit: I wouldn't read a class "Black Beauty" either. I remember having that read to us when I was about 8 or 9. I hated it. I don't ever remember finding any story so utterly, excruciatingly tedious.
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Anything by Stephanie Meyer. I did make it through the first Twilight book. Then the sun went down and that was it. SWMBO has them all and I have not read them (and I am a voracious reader given the chance)
I liked the Baroque trilogy. Well paced in the style of a russian historical novel. Some interesting stuff which might be a bit "I'm a smartipants" and so on.
I don't get shakespeare. Austen I can take or leave but it is notmy thing..
Dan Brown - the Mission Impossible of action novels. Turn your improbability filter off, don't think, just sit back and enjoy the next couple of hours (till the plane lands).
Gabriel Garcia Marquez. That would be the only other author whose book I have failed to finish. Did he run out of full stops so have to make everything into three page long sentences?
Enid Blyton was great as a 7 year old.
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Fangland by John Marks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fangland). Significantly worse than Dan Brown, and that's saying something.
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I've come to realise Dan Brown is a genius.
He was an English teacher who decided that he could write make a lot more money from the royalties of blockbuster novels better than the ones out there than he could from being a teacher.
Fixed... :demon:
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Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow was crap. I still don't know what happened at the end. Maybe that's the point, but it was much too deep for me.
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I've tried a couple of Devla Murphy's books & just can't see them thru' to the end:in fact a couple of chapters is enough for me.
ymmv
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Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow was crap. I still don't know what happened at the end. Maybe that's the point, but it was much too deep for me.
I thought it was OK, but I did get the feeling that a lot was lost in translation.
d.
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It just fizzled out for me. I don't mind books where some effort is required, but it felt like Hoeg just gave up one long Friday afternoon and thought "sod it, that'll do!".
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Gabriel Garcia Marquez. That would be the only other author whose book I have failed to finish. Did he run out of full stops so have to make everything into three page long sentences?
I was expecting him to be great, expecially as I'm a big fan of the 'magic realism' of Louis de Bernieres.
Utter twaddle. By the end of the book I was just willing all the characters to hurry up and just die!
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Oh, I love Louis de Bernieres.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2000/oct/05/guardianweekly.guardianweekly11
Lol.
d.
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But on the evidence of The Book Of Kings, he could not write "Bum" on a wall
Genius :thumbsup:
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It is in some ways reminiscent of the late, and quite definitely great, Tony Miles' review of "Samurai Chess: Mastering the Martial Art of the Mind (http://www.chess.co.uk/kingpin/Kingpin/book_reviews.htm#Samurai)".
Wonderful.
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FAIL! :facepalm:
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It's a cracking good read Clarion;but why have you referred to it the Terrible Books thread? ???
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It's a cracking good read Clarion;but why have you referred to it the Terrible Books thread? ???
Because he's a terrible reader?
Bah Boom :D
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It's a cracking good read Clarion;but why have you referred to it the Terrible Books thread? ???
Cause I clicked the wrong thing :-[
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You need a ride in the Midlands to get sorted ;)
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Maybe we need an overrated books thread...
Anyway, someone's lent me one of the Twilight books, so I'll add it to the pile, and see if it really is all that bad.
Have you read it yet Deano?
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Actually, no. It's somewhere in all the boxes in me mam's attic. I should probably find it and give it back to Vic, really.
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I've tried a couple of Devla Murphy's books & just can't see them thru' to the end:in fact a couple of chapters is enough for me.
ymmv
I seem to remember enjoying Cameroon With Egbert...
There's something I read that was free on Kindle when I first got one, that seemed like a three-year-old's attempt to write something like a novelisation of Lock, Stock... It's the only thing I've ever removed from my device because it made me shudder whenever I saw it in the virtual library, so I can't remember its name. That's the only book that's come close to the aforementioned Battlefield Earth for sheer awfulness.
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Actually, no. It's somewhere in all the boxes in me mam's attic. I should probably find it and give it back to Vic, really.
Have you read Twiglet yet Deano?