Truly Terrible Books thread

[Mr Larrington]

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

[tiermat]

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....

[citoyen]

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.

[Wascally Weasel]

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.

[Karla]

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. 

[itsbruce]

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.

[hulver]

This book 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.

[her_welshness]

This book 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.

  My eyes feel tainted, bloody tainted.

[pcolbeck]

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.

[clarion]

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...

[mrcharly-YHT]

100 pages in . . . let me guess, is that the Tom Bombardil bit?

[her_welshness]

100 pages in . . . let me guess, is that the Tom Bombardil bit?

It gets a wee bit trippy 

[spesh]

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.  

[mattc]

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.  

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. )

[clarion]

I enjoyed listening to Hordes of the Things (IIRC)...

[Tail End Charlie]

If you think LOTR was bad, try Catcher in the Rye, everyone raves about it, but I just don't get it.

[ian]

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.

[Mr Larrington]

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?

[geraldc]

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.

[clarion]

I add CS Lewis to my first comments concerning Mss Blyton & Christie.

[pcolbeck]

Tolkein though Narnia was a bit crap and he was C.S Lewis's best mate

[citoyen]

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.

[Mr Larrington]

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

[pcolbeck]

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

[Mr Larrington]

Two words.

Hemingway
Ernest