The 10 Worst Books

[slayda]

Originally Posted by jmorton

I don't think you and I will be trading book choices any time soon!

I will say this for Atlas Shrugged, it was the book that finally turned me off to Ayn Rand.

Jim

Sounds like a good plan to me. Some people think that reading a book is about reading best sellers. Others think it's about great literature. Personally I just want a story that I think is entertaining and well told. Best seller & great literature be damned if I don't care for it.

And yes I know that I have weird tastes, but they're mine and I'm the one who is paying for my entertainment.

Bye y'all!

[RickV]

Originally Posted by slayda

Sounds like a good plan to me. Some people think that reading a book is about reading best sellers. Others think it's about great literature. Personally I just want a story that I think is entertaining and well told. Best seller & great literature be damned if I don't care for it.

And yes I know that I have weird tastes, but they're mine and I'm the one who is paying for my entertainment.

Bye y'all!

There ARE people that are all about the best sellers and I think they're literary snobs and quite close minded.

I'm quite picky in my selections of books. I don't pick it by the pitchman, but about the story and if possible, previous work. In the past, I've struggled to find something that intrigued me, but only recently picked up reading outside of the genre' I frequented (sci-fi, Fiction,humor) is when I things that entertained and expanded my overall view (Biographies, True Crime, Recent Events, political) sometimes a friend's taste doesn't mesh with yours. Don't take it as a personal insult, but acknowledge they have different tastes than yours.

[bakerjw]

The only book that I can say I truly disliked was "Seasons of Plenty" by Colin Greenland.
It still has an undigested bookmark in it for one of those evenings where jabbing a hot poker in my eye can't do the trick.

"Boat of a Million Years" by Poul Anderson also lies untouched. And I love most of his work too.

I liked Battlefield Earth. A bit too predictable though.

And as for HP Lovecraft. His stories pale by our standards of today, but imagine how the readers of the day would have reacted.

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by bakerjw

The only book that I can say I truly disliked was "Seasons of Plenty" by Colin Greenland.
It still has an undigested bookmark in it for one of those evenings where jabbing a hot poker in my eye can't do the trick.

Nicely phrased.

Cheers,
Marc

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by bakerjw

"Boat of a Million Years" by Poul Anderson also lies untouched. And I love most of his work too.

While I don't consider it the best of Poul's work, it's worth a read. He does a decent take on the problems of immortals in a mortal society, with more or less the same solution Heinlein used - leave the Earth and explore the stars.

And as for HP Lovecraft. His stories pale by our standards of today, but imagine how the readers of the day would have reacted.

Lovecraft also encouraged other writers to write tales set in his universe, and carried on a lively correspondence with many of them.
______
Dennis

[montealan]

Pretty much any book I had to read in high school (Scarlett Letter, Red Badge of Courage etc.) I think by subjecting students to some of these books is why we have so many alliterates out there.

[Spellbot 5000]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Lovecraft also encouraged other writers to write tales set in his universe, and carried on a lively correspondence with many of them.

Lovecraft's work is great just to see how horror writing got it's start. There's only a handful of his stories I enjoy purely for the story and characters. The rest though serve as these little tiny time-machines, to take you back to a different style of writing and plot. It's great to see all the differences in tone and style, and the choice in words to convey the story. I love too how innocent his horrors are in todays context, and to think what people of his era may have thought if they could read the horror stories of today. People used to a climax where Lovecraft reveals "but in fact the man was DEAD!", would whither reading something like King where he takes an entire chapter to describe how someones bones crack and splinter as they are forcibly pulled through a 3 inch slot.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Spellbot 5000

Lovecraft's work is great just to see how horror writing got it's start. There's only a handful of his stories I enjoy purely for the story and characters. The rest though serve as these little tiny time-machines, to take you back to a different style of writing and plot. It's great to see all the differences in tone and style, and the choice in words to convey the story. I love too how innocent his horrors are in todays context, and to think what people of his era may have thought if they could read the horror stories of today. People used to a climax where Lovecraft reveals "but in fact the man was DEAD!", would whither reading something like King where he takes an entire chapter to describe how someones bones crack and splinter as they are forcibly pulled through a 3 inch slot.

Yes, it's tame stuff by modern standards. But I think current writers might take a lesson or two. The most effective horror is the stuff that happens in our own heads. I think modern writers in several genres err by showing their hand too soon.

For example, one of my favorite grade B SF films is an oldie from the 50's called "Them". The creatures are giant mutated ants, the results of nuclear tests, but we never even see them for half of the film. We just see the destruction they cause, with scenes like the little girl in catatonic shock after the ants have destroyed the family farm and killed her parents. She sets bolt upright, wide eyed, on her stretcher as the ant's high pitched warbling noises swell in the background, then sinks slowly back into catatonia as the sound fades. The "My God, what's happening here?" anticipation makes the film.

It's been a while, but as I recall, most of Lovecraft's stuff happens off stage. You know something terrible is occurring, but you don't know what, and your mind fills in the blanks. I contrast unfavorably that with the modern "splatterpunk" school of horror, which wants to get right to the vivid blood and gore.

There's a difference between horror and nausea, and I think some folks have lost sight of it.

Incidentally, a chap named Daniel Saroff has nice Mobipocket versions of complete H.P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith collections posted on Memoware. If I can track him down, I'm going to invite him to repost them here.
______
Dennis

[The Alternative]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

Hi Everyone! These are my opinions, so please love me for my differences as well as my sames. Here goes:


4. Battlefield Earth 1 & 2 - For all of the reasons stated by others, and also because it is the only set of books I ever read that made me angry twice: First for wasting so much time reading the first book, and then secondly, for making me angry again by fooling myself that surely the second book must be better. It wasn't. But at least I learned that it's OK not to finish a book.

You may have to explain this entry. Battlefield Earth 2? There is no such animal that I am aware of and no listing on Fantastic Fiction or any other book listings that I could find. Perhaps you have this confused with another series of two books? If not, I'd love to know the title of the second book.

John Travolta has express interest in a second movie but I've never heard of a sequel to this book.

[JSWolf]

Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey is a book I found dreadful. I started reading it not long ago and found that the plot just sat there and stagnated at best. The characters were dull and had no life of their own. All it was was a bunch of wealthy people playing silly party type parlor games. I got into it about 12-14 chapters and had to stop for I was dreading each new word.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by The Alternative

You may have to explain this entry. Battlefield Earth 2? There is no such animal that I am aware of and no listing on Fantastic Fiction or any other book listings that I could find. Perhaps you have this confused with another series of two books? If not, I'd love to know the title of the second book.

The original Battlefield: Earth was a fairly thick volume. It's possible DixiGal has a two book re-package I'm not aware of.

The other possibility is that she's conflating it with the ten volume "Mission: Earth" series.

John Travolta has express interest in a second movie but I've never heard of a sequel to this book.

John Travolta will have lots of luck getting financing to make a sequel. The original was a notable bomb that was largely laughed out of the theaters, and badly damaged Travolta's career. Prior to it, he was a bankable star. Afterward, producers thought hard before casting him, and his output has been uneven at best.
______
Dennis

[JSWolf]

Battlefield Earth was horrible and way too long. It should have ended 1/2 way into it and yet it kept going on and on and on.

An ex-GF had me read the Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. It was horribly written romance with some time travel back in time to Scotland. It was dreadful and unless you like really bad romance novels, stay away.

[Over]

Originally Posted by Spellbot 5000

Lovecraft's work is great just to see how horror writing got it's start. There's only a handful of his stories I enjoy purely for the story and characters. The rest though serve as these little tiny time-machines, to take you back to a different style of writing and plot. It's great to see all the differences in tone and style, and the choice in words to convey the story. I love too how innocent his horrors are in todays context, and to think what people of his era may have thought if they could read the horror stories of today. People used to a climax where Lovecraft reveals "but in fact the man was DEAD!", would whither reading something like King where he takes an entire chapter to describe how someones bones crack and splinter as they are forcibly pulled through a 3 inch slot.

Oh... Horror should be an art. Lovecraft's stories and today's horror stories are like comparing erotica and porn. Sure porn is more explicit, but erotica can be so much more engaging, sensual.

There's nothing that we fear more than the unknown. The invisible. What we can't control. Loevcraft played more with that ideia. He hightens our senses to the point that "revealing a DEAD" can be a great climax, compared to the disgusting and numbing gore.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

The book was "Dahlgren." I know I can not get those painfully wasted hours I spent reading that "book" back again ... but oh, how I wish I could.

OTOH, I read and liked Dhalgren. I viewed it as an exploration of what happened when the usual constraints of civilization are removed. One character comments that in that situation, you become "...what you are." In his case, it was homosexuality no longer repressed, with a leather fetish tossed in.

There are also strong suggestions that the protagonist isn't sane, and not a reliable witness.
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

The thing is .... a few years later, I picked up a book, I "think" it was called, "Titan" or something like that. Read it ... loved it ... turns out it was by the same author.

Samuel R. Delany. Brilliant (if uneven) writer, and a nice guy.

The book you're thinking of was _Triton_, set on the moon of Saturn with that name. Technology has reached the point where you can change sex on an outpatient basis, and the protagonist does so in response to a failed love affair. I'd love to see a separate collection of the Notes Towards the Modular Calculus scattered through the book.

_Titan_ was a novel by John Varley, and part of a series including _Demon_ and _Wizard_. The original hardcover publication was illustrated, and I knew the illustrator and several of the folks who served as models.
______
Dennis