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Let's see whether I can come up with 10 books I really did not like:
Area 7 by Matthew Reilly: Really awfully bad. I do not know another author using italics to emphasize the enormous coolness of the bloody whole story. I am sure the characters could not think without moving their lips.
S M Stirling's Emberverse II series. (The Sunrise Lands et al.) Endless walking/running and eating. Plus some talking about the benefits of frugal life. The author surely is paid by line. According to Wikipedia the series is now planned for 6 novels! Stirling has gone from guilty-pleasure-SF to boring-as-hell-fantasy.
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. It is not a bad book at all, however I wish I had not read it. Some of the brutality stayed much too long with me. For quite some time after finishing my thoughts accidentally stumbled there and I had to force myself to think about something else.
Dragons of Autumn Twilight (Dragonlance: Chronicles) by Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman: Shortlived was my joy upon finding a cheap omnibus edition of a a trilogy with dragons. What a generic poorly constructed bore.
McCaffrey's Dragonrider books (I have "only" read original and Harper Hall trilogies.) I had great expectations for this one (acclaimed classic fantasy! Dragons!), the idea for the general setup of the world is great, but somehow the novels were pretty forgettable, neither a mighty thrilling story nor much more than paper cut characters.
The Stars' Tennis Balls by Stephen Fry: A Count of Monte Cristo remix. I guess it mainly hurt so much because the Dumas original (actually I have only read the German translation, I cannot read French) is intelligent, the revenge there is very elaborate and complicated, while this one seemed to be driven by choices like "Should I first kick him in the balls and then break his finger or the other way round."
Chronicles of The Black Company by Glen Cook: I cannot remember another book that defeated me that early, I think I barely got to page 30. (While we are at it: I really wonder why I bought and read multiple volumes of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series.)
Something by Tom Holt, I think it was My Hero: I had already seen the major theme (bookworld characters in real world and vice versa) executed so much better by Jasper Fforde.
I could mention some stuff I had to read at school (e.g. Peter Camenzind or Catcher in the Rye) which mainly gets points because I was supposed to like it. (Nobody is surprised that not all must-reads are enjoyable, but not enjoying something I was supposed to like is kind of memorable.) However I think it is not fair to add them here, without having re-read them later. I will keep the list at 8 entries for the time being.
cu andreas
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