The 10 Worst Books

[mjh215]

Originally Posted by junkml

Thank you. I was reading through the thread before I posted. I figured I'd be the first one to mention this book. The Two Towers is the reason I've never finished reading the trilogy.

To me it's not even character driven, for me it's just that it's hundreds of pages describing how they're going through the forest, and describing every trea, leaf, branch, twig, rock, etc. in the freaking forest!

I've tried reading it three times, and have never finished it.

Thank you, I had read the first denouncement of TT and was going to reply, but you described it better for me. I always said, Tolkien described the scenery so beautiful in that book, I swear he even bothered to detail an individual blade of grass at some point. Though I must admit, years later I reread the trilogy and didn't find it as long winded as I once did.

In response to another couple users comments on a long winded tale. I have to admit, Atlas Shrugged is a mediocre work of fiction, but perhaps the best ever work of personality studies ever done. Anthem and The Fountainhead were much better 'read's of fiction.

Someone mentioned American Gods, I haven't gotten around to it yet. I happen to love a few of Gaiman's works but couldn't get past Good Omens with Pratchett. I love dry and dark humour, but after a hundred or so pages into it I hadn't once caught a smirk from the text. I think the prose was parched.

From my young adult years, I have to mention Alan Dean Foster. So many people at that stage would include him on their list of must reads that I forced myself to try novel after novel. I read about 5 or 6 before settling on my opinion. I absolutely detest the books I read by him. A summary of everyone of them is this. Group of charactors have to get to a place, they are going, they are going, they are there, fin.

The Harry Potter series I felt was a great series, written for the pre-teen/teen market, and the story can easily be appreciated by adults. I wonder perhaps if several people in here became biased against it because of the hype. (Happens to the best of us)

And the Old Ones' frown upon your Lovecraft comments.

It is with respect to your opinions that I have structured my response to you. I feel it's ok to disagree on issues, Lobolover, but to engage in critical thinking on WHY people disagree is really the important issue of this thread.

Also, we're having fun here!!



Don

Hey Don, you're a poopy head. Analyze that.

-MJ

[RWood]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

junkml and DixieGal, you both seem to have had similar problems making it through The Two Towers of LOTR. It sounds to me that these dragged on too slowly for you either because of a slow pace of the plot or because of longer descriptions or both. Is that right? Could you also please say what you thought of the first book, The Fellowship of the Ring? I hope you'll forgive my curiosity. My personal experience was quite different and I'm just trying to understand people's views.

I am not a fan of LOTR. They are far from the worst I have ever read. The plot seemed to move slower than daytime television soap operas. The fill of over embellished descriptions added nothing to the books other than to let the mind wander and wonder if former US Vice President Humphery had written it. (He was know for long winded speeches that contained no substance, even by political speech criteria.)

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by mjh215

Thank you, I had read the first denouncement of TT and was going to reply, but you described it better for me. I always said, Tolkien described the scenery so beautiful in that book, I swear he even bothered to detail an individual blade of grass at some point. Though I must admit, years later I reread the trilogy and didn't find it as long winded as I once did.

In response to another couple users comments on a long winded tale. I have to admit, Atlas Shrugged is a mediocre work of fiction, but perhaps the best ever work of personality studies ever done. Anthem and The Fountainhead were much better 'read's of fiction.

Someone mentioned American Gods, I haven't gotten around to it yet. I happen to love a few of Gaiman's works but couldn't get past Good Omens with Pratchett. I love dry and dark humour, but after a hundred or so pages into it I hadn't once caught a smirk from the text. I think the prose was parched.

From my young adult years, I have to mention Alan Dean Foster. So many people at that stage would include him on their list of must reads that I forced myself to try novel after novel. I read about 5 or 6 before settling on my opinion. I absolutely detest the books I read by him. A summary of everyone of them is this. Group of charactors have to get to a place, they are going, they are going, they are there, fin.

The Harry Potter series I felt was a great series, written for the pre-teen/teen market, and the story can easily be appreciated by adults. I wonder perhaps if several people in here became biased against it because of the hype. (Happens to the best of us)

And the Old Ones' frown upon your Lovecraft comments.



Hey Don, you're a poopy head. Analyze that.

-MJ

Ok, I'll try: It means rolling around on the floor laughing so hard my bowels hurt, and then poopy has to come out somewhere!!

About Good Omens, I actually read this when it first came out. Unfortunately, I can't recall anything about it, except that the humor was somewaht dry for me, as well. I think - and I could be wrong on this - it was the first novel by Gaiman.

I also find agreement with you on Atlas Shrugged. For me, it was one of those must-reads - along with Herman Hesse's work and Carlos Castaneda - that I devoured while in my mid-twenties. At the time, I was more fascinated by the ideas rather than the writing.

In the mid-to-late 60s I discovered Tolkien. For me, Tolkien was a natural progression from Burroughs [Edgar!], then onward to L***c***, and progressively toward what I term more "sophisticated" horror.

I've never read Foster. I know the name quite well; I've just never been compelled to read anything by him.

Don

[vivaldirules]

Originally Posted by RWood

I am not a fan of LOTR. They are far from the worst I have ever read. The plot seemed to move slower than daytime television soap operas. The fill of over embellished descriptions added nothing to the books other than to let the mind wander and wonder if former US Vice President Humphery had written it. (He was know for long winded speeches that contained no substance, even by political speech criteria.)

Ha! I loved the guy. Just wish he hadn't opened his mouth so often and for so long. Critters seemed to make their way in and out of it all the time.

I suffered as did Nate and plenty of others with the first book. It took me forever to finish it. And every time I turned the page they'd break out in song again (in elvish, of course) about something and someone you've never heard. No telling what these must have sounded like in Tolkien's head.

But I learned to skip over the singing and then the story and the characters really interested me so that by the time I made it to The Tower Towers, it all seemed to go by in a flash.

[NatCh]

I could post my entire high-school English class reading list (all four years) as books I hated: I had a knee-jerk "I hate this" reaction to everything they told us to read. I blame it on the fact that the first thing on that list was Lord of the Flies, which should never have been given to 13/14 year olds to read: they're already messed up enough at that age.

However, I wouldn't necessarily consider them all bad. In retrospect, a few of them were fairly good, I Am The Cheese comes to mind, many of them were just there (I never liked Hemingway, and still don't), and a few I'd rather gnaw off my own leg (metaphorically speaking) than read again: Member of the Wedding, A Separate Peace.

The odd thing is, I didn't hate reading, I read a lot during those years, I just resented being told what to read, apparently. Well, that plus the LOTF thing.

[astra]

Originally Posted by NatCh

I could post my entire high-school English class reading list (all four years) as books I hated: I had a knee-jerk "I hate this" reaction to everything they told us to read.

The odd thing is, I didn't hate reading, I read a lot during those years, I just resented being told what to read, apparently. Well, that plus the LOTF thing.

Ditto. That's why number 1 on my list are all Russian classics. Although I loved to read books. My dad forced me to switch off the light at 23.00 every night on week days, so I had a small torch (such as being used in coal mines) and I used it to read book under my blanket till 01.00...very rarely but it happened a few times till 05.00-06.00 in the morning when I read Consuelo and la Comtesse De Rudolstady (1843, a sequel to Consuelo - cannot find the name in English)

[Sparrow]

Has anyone read and enjoyed Mervyn Peake's 'Gormenghast' trilogy?

Every few years I get the urge to give them another try; but I always find the prose so turgid that I give up about half way through the first volume.

(The BBC TV adaptation was good though - one example of the film/TV version being better than the book, in my opinion.)

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

Has anyone read and enjoyed Mervyn Peake's 'Gormenghast' trilogy?

Every few years I get the urge to give them another try; but I always find the prose so turgid that I give up about half way through the first volume.

(The BBC TV adaptation was good though - one example of the film/TV version being better than the book, in my opinion.)

Sorry you can't get into the set, Sparrow. We seem to disagree on these books.

This is a very Dickensian trilogy, a set that is wonderfully rich with characterization and atmosphere. Ballantine Adult Fantasy reprinted these in the late 70s / early 80s.

My email address that I've had for a number of years has been cabellpeake@*******.com

Which brings me to another thread just started, the one on obscure books: I'll post over there, however, once I get my thoughts together. The Cabell refers to James Branch Cabell.

Don

[CCDMan]

Whatever the 10 latest books Oprah has recommended.

LOL! Oh so true.

[CCDMan]

6. Battlefield Earth (Lunatic Ron Hubbard)

BTW, the movie version also qualifies for the worst 10 movies ever made list!

[DixieGal]

Hi VivRules,

(Sorry for not responding sooner.)

LOTR 1 & 3

I love them. I was a teenager when I first read the series, and the idea of hobbits and other magical creatures was a revelation to me that there could be fairy tales for adults. When I got older and the aforementioned lit degree had a course in fantasy fiction, I learned that Tolkien, like Geoffrey of Monmouth* 700 yrs earlier, had been trying to concoct a mythical heroic past for a butally beaten post-WWII Britain. When I re-read the series for the class, comparing it to greek and roman mythology, I got a whole new and fascinating reading from Book 1. Then when the movies came out, I read it again just for fun.

* Geoffrey of Monmouth sort of "invented" King Arthur in the 13th century. Geoff was a scribe in the Norman court in England, serving under an occupying ruling class that still regarded the Britons as 2nd class citizens.Geoff scraped together fragments of history and legend and wrote a "true" history of England, including a heroic King Arthur. Many experts believe the purpose of his book was to try to create a heroic mythology in order to revive a sense of national identity among the Britons.

DixieGal, the Career Secretary
And they said a lit degree would be worthless... Oh wait, it was!

[junkml]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

junkml and DixieGal, you both seem to have had similar problems making it through The Two Towers of LOTR. It sounds to me that these dragged on too slowly for you either because of a slow pace of the plot or because of longer descriptions or both. Is that right? Could you also please say what you thought of the first book, The Fellowship of the Ring? I hope you'll forgive my curiosity. My personal experience was quite different and I'm just trying to understand people's views.

Honestly I can't separate books one and two of that trilogy in my head anymore. I just know I've tried reading the trilogy three times and I always get about halfway through the second book, put it down, and never pick it up again. And yes, I guess you could say the plot is slow (to me it's non-existant), and the describing of every tree, every leaf on every tree, every piece of ground beneath every tree, every rock on every piece of ground under every tree, etc. just gets annoying!

I've had other people tell me before that they just flip ahead ten pages at a time when they hit these sections, so they can read the book. I can't bring myself to do that. If I feel like I have to start skipping whole sections of a book, it's not worth my time to read.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by junkml

I've had other people tell me before that they just flip ahead ten pages at a time when they hit these sections, so they can read the book. I can't bring myself to do that. If I feel like I have to start skipping whole sections of a book, it's not worth my time to read.

You know, alot of people rank on "best sellers" in this forum. About how they aren't very deep etc. But, books by patterson, grishim, clancy, and yes JK Rowling are page turners, almost every word advances the story or the characters.

For example, in goodkinds Sword of Truth books at the end of the last one Richard gives a speach that seems to go on about 20 pages which rehashes alot of the preachy and philisopical stuff that ran through the whole series. This is the kind of stuff that looses most readers. We are all used to the web, email, im, instant gratification.

Anyway... nuff said.

BOb

[TallMomof2]

Back in the 80's I loved Tom Clancy's books. When Hunt for the Red October came out it was literally required reading at work. I was a first year engineer working on submarine design. I can still remember the excitement created by this book. The earlier Clancy books were appealing because of the engineering detail (not always correct but that was the fun part, picking out the mistakes). Nowadays, I can't really read any of his books without falling asleep.

LOTR, I've always felt that the TT was the slowest of the trilogy and loved how Peter Jackson divided up the movies as opposed to the pbooks. I've read the trilogy 4 or 5 times in the past 30 years and it's about time to reread them. Fellowship has some slow parts in the first third of the book but I'm always swept away by Tolkien's descriptions that bring all aspects of his world alive.

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by CCDMan

BTW, the movie version also qualifies for the worst 10 movies ever made list!

I'm not sure it qualifies as a movie for me.

Understand, when I first read the book in the early '80s, the paperback copy I had said "Soon to be a major motion picture!" on the front cover. I waited for the movie for years. I wanted to like the movie, I really, really did. I wanted to like it so badly that the desire lasted the whole first hour of the film before I finally could admit to myself that it really, really stank.