Books You Couldn't Get Through

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by lebod

Just last week I finished Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon, and that was a battle. About half way of the book it just got so boring. I must have had in on my desk for more than a month! My girlfriend kept teasing me about how slow a reader I am, since I could only bare reading a chapter every now and then.

Originally Posted by orlok

Never read bare. It only leads to other things...

Once upon a barren moor
There dwelt a bear, also a boar.
The bear could not bear the boar.
The boar thought the bear a bore.
At last the bear could bear no more
Of that boar that bored him on the moor,
And so one morn he bored the boar--
That boar will bore the bear no more.

[xg4bx]

Originally Posted by tecweston

Dune was a book I couldn't get through. I tried reading it ten years ago, though, so it might be time for another attempt.

i had tried reading it when i was younger and absolutely hated it. its definitely a book i needed to go into with more patience than i had at the time.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by wvcherrybomb

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

I wish I had given up on that. I read it because my then GF liked it so much. It was a nasty horrible horrible book. As soon as it got to the time travel, it got worse. The story was just so bad and the characters so like cardboard cutouts.

[JSWolf]

Last book I had to give up on was Startide Rising by David Brin. It's the 2nd book in the Uplift series. The 1st book was pretty good. But the 2nd was just boring. The dolphins were just terrible characters.

[hard-boiled pat]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Last book I had to give up on was Startide Rising by David Brin. It's the 2nd book in the Uplift series. The 1st book was pretty good. But the 2nd was just boring. The dolphins were just terrible characters.

hahaha i forgot about that one.... i picked it up because i liked The Postman but i felt the same way about it that you did.

[aecardenas]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Last book I had to give up on was Startide Rising by David Brin. It's the 2nd book in the Uplift series. The 1st book was pretty good. But the 2nd was just boring. The dolphins were just terrible characters.

It's so funny you mentioned this, because I remember browsing a bookstore and seeing the Uplift Series and reading the backs of the books to get a better sense of what it was about and I thought the concept was rather good and I was almost going to buy into the series...until I saw the dolphins on the cover.

Dolphins. I mean seriously?? I don't care how good a book is...I refuse to read a book that has dolphins as characters. I don't care how smart they are...I just can't do it.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by aecardenas

It's so funny you mentioned this, because I remember browsing a bookstore and seeing the Uplift Series and reading the backs of the books to get a better sense of what it was about and I thought the concept was rather good and I was almost going to buy into the series...until I saw the dolphins on the cover.

Dolphins. I mean seriously?? I don't care how good a book is...I refuse to read a book that has dolphins as characters. I don't care how smart they are...I just can't do it.

In this case, they didn't work. In fact they worked very poorly.

[DrNefario]

I think Startide Rising was the first Brin I read, and I absolutely loved it. Weird how these things work out.

[everklear]

It's rare that I give up on a book completely. There have been a few.

When I was a teen, I gave up on "God Emperor of Dune" after thoroughly enjoying the first books in the series. I re-read the entire series as an adult, maybe ten years ago and found it much more readable. I think the deeper themes went right over my head as a teen and so the much less action oriented (on the surface) nature of "God Emperor" was too dull.

A recent one that I really wish I had given up on was Todd McAffrey's "Dragon Harper". That was just brutal: childish plot, thin characters, and a writing style I couldn't stomach. I could go on and on about how bad that book is. I don't think I'm ever likely to pick up another Todd McAffrey effort. It's a shame (to me) because I so loved Anne's Dragonriders and Harper Hall books when I was young.

The thing that this thread highlights for me is how different people's tastes are. I really enjoyed a lot of the books being dismissed here (Dark Tower, Lord of the Rings, Pillars of the Earth, etc.)

Another one that I put down and have never gone back to (but I still aspire to reading one day) is "Gödel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter. I felt like I was incapable of understanding what he was saying, but that I really should be able to get there if I thought deeply enough.