Worst Book

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by hard-boiled pat

i have problems reading books by female authors... their characters seem to have too many problems with their feelings... so i may be biased against their books.

Pretty sweeping statement IMO. I am not big on characters languishing on with long internal dialects, but I do not feel that this is the sole domain of female writers. lots of male writers have characaters who seem to snivel on forever, James Lee Burke is one who comes to mind. I have read some books by James Patterson and his gang that seemed a bit to frou frou for my tastes as well..

To balance it out, Agatha Christie and Margerie Allingham don't go in for a lot of long winded angst.

Even Harlen Coben's Myron Bolitar can get caught up in a sea of self doubt and maudlin second guesses until he finally gives in and lets Win save the day. Still at least Coben doesn't use a female psuedonym when he feels like getting all mushy.

Helen

[hard-boiled pat]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Pretty sweeping statement IMO. I am not big on characters languishing on with long internal dialects, but I do not feel that this is the sole domain of female writers. lots of male writers have characaters who seem to snivel on forever, James Lee Burke is one who comes to mind. I have read some books by James Patterson and his gang that seemed a bit to frou frou for my tastes as well..

To balance it out, Agatha Christie and Margerie Allingham don't go in for a lot of long winded angst.

Even Harlen Coben's Myron Bolitar can get caught up in a sea of self doubt and maudlin second guesses until he finally gives in and lets Win save the day. Still at least Coben doesn't use a female psuedonym when he feels like getting all mushy.

Helen

totally agree about burke and coben. patterson is a huge hump IMO.

[hard-boiled pat]

any harlan coben book = find someone whos missing

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by hard-boiled pat

totally agree about burke and coben. patterson is a huge hump IMO.

But.. but... my 87 year old mother loves James Patterson and she won't stop reading his books no matter what I say.

And casting about there areen't that many hard boiled crime writers who are obviously female. The few who exist have mainly female protaganists who are often at least slightly emotional every second Tuesday. I am fine with that but freely admit that most of my hard boiled favorite authors are male. I even read the extremely wooden Stuart Woods on occasion.

If you are feeling exceptionally adventurous one of these days, I would like to suggest S J Rozan's Bill Smith/Lydia Chin series. Maybe a bit on the light weight side for you, but I quite like them. (female author)

Helen

[Jozawun]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Ok, LeGuin is not awful. Dreadful would be a better word and she should be outstanding in a field instead of writing the dreck she writes.

Well, there may be other people who consider Le Guin to be "dreadful", but I suspect you're on your Pat Malone, cobber.

Le Guin has received 5 Hugo awards and 6 Nebula awards, and was awarded the Gandalf Grand Master award in 1979 and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Grand Master Award in 2003. She received 19 Locus Awards for her fiction, more than any other author. The World Fantasy Awards presented her with Lifetime Achievement in 1995. She won the 1973 National Book Award in category Children's Books.

Le Guin was the Professional Guest of Honor at the 1975 World Science Fiction Convention. She received the Library of Congress Living Legends award in the "Writers and Artists" category for her significant contributions to America's cultural heritage. The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association gave her a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001. In 2004, Le Guin received the Association for Library Service to Children's May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award and the Margaret Edwards Award. She was honored by The Washington Center for the Book for her distinguished body of work with the Maxine Cushing Gray Fellowship for Writers in 2006.

Le Guin was one of three finalists for the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

In 2002, Le Guin received the PEN/Malamud Award for "excellence in a body of short fiction."

[tompe]

Well, Le Guin probably do not work if you read the books to fast which is probably what JSWolf does. Simple adventures are more suited for that kind of reading.

[JSWolf]

Not all award winning books are good.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by tompe

Well, Le Guin probably do not work if you read the books to fast which is probably what JSWolf does. Simple adventures are more suited for that kind of reading.

I just don't like the way she writes.

And remember that there have been others (on MR) that have not liked what LeGuin has written other then the Earthsea series.

[hard-boiled pat]

JSW taking major heat!

[Jozawun]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I just don't like the way she writes.

And remember that there have been others (on MR) that have not liked what LeGuin has written other then the Earthsea series.

That's your subjective opinion, and you are, of course, quite entitled to it.
But it's not legitimate to then say that because you, subjectively, don't like her work, it must follow, objectively, that it is awful or dreadful.
It's the same as saying that what you believe must be true, simply because you believe it.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Jozawun

That's your subjective opinion, and you are, of course, quite entitled to it.
But it's not legitimate to then say that because you, subjectively, don't like her work, it must follow, objectively, that it is awful or dreadful.
It's the same as saying that what you believe must be true, simply because you believe it.

Exactly. And also, I have read books that I do not like but that I realize are very good books anyway. They are just not according to my taste.

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by Jozawun

But it's not legitimate to then say that because you, subjectively, don't like her work, it must follow, objectively, that it is awful or dreadful.

I've only been here since January, and even I know that's JSWolf's MO.

To be honest, I'm not much of a fan of Le Guin either, so far, but I've barely read anything of hers. I'm supposed to be reading The Dispossessed right now, as part of my Hugo readthrough, but the idea didn't fill me with enthusiasm, so I started something else instead.

[Kindoll]

I picked up White Crow by Mary Gentle at a charity shop but I could not get into it.
It ticked all the boxes for me when I read the back too.

Originally Posted by hard-boiled pat

any harlan coben book = find someone whos missing

This. So repetitive.

[GA Russell]

It recently came to my mind what the worst book I have ever read was.

When I was in high school, and later shortly after college, I enjoyed reading The Saint short stories and novels by Leslie Charteris.

I was very curious to read the first one, which was a novel from 1928 called Meet the Tiger!, but it was long out of print.

It was republished in the US in 1980, and I snapped it up. The writing was just awful. I remember wondering why any publisher would put it out.

http://www.amazon.com/Saint-Meets-Ti...Meet+the+Tiger
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Saint-Meets-...5413749&sr=1-3

[Jozawun]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

It recently came to my mind what the worst book I have ever read was.

When I was in high school, and later shortly after college, I enjoyed reading The Saint short stories and novels by Leslie Charteris.

I was very curious to read the first one, which was a novel from 1928 called Meet the Tiger!, but it was long out of print.

It was republished in the US in 1980, and I snapped it up. The writing was just awful. I remember wondering why any publisher would put it out.

http://www.amazon.com/Saint-Meets-Ti...Meet+the+Tiger
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Saint-Meets-...5413749&sr=1-3

Ditto virtually all of the above.; and the next 2 or 3 were nearly as bad.
But they did get much better after that.