SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

So, we've all come across some bad books in our time.

Books with horrible pacing, plotholes big enough to fly a jumbo jet through, and characters so wooden and flat they make cardboard cutouts seem human. Books that you just can't be bothered to finish. You know, the usual type of bad books.

But have you ever come across a book so bad, so horrendous, so stupid it burns?

What was it and did you ever finish it?

And if you did finish it, did you then recommend it to someone else just to spread the pain?

Curious minds want to know...

Well, I really disliked In Watermelon Sugar so much that I had to have a full blown hissy-fit in my living room upon finishing. My boyfriend thought it (the fit) was hilarious.

I did finish the book, but only because so many people seem to love it and it was not too long (although it felt like the longest experience in my life!!). I was really hoping something would happen at the end to change my whole view of the book. Nope.

I would suggest it to others if they inquired, only because I think it is a love-it-or-hate-it book. Other people love it, so maybe someone I suggest it to might.

"Death is a place where the sun shines a different colour every day and where people travel to the length of their dreams. Rejecting the violence and hate of the old gang at the Forgotten Works, they lead gentle lives in watermelon sugar. Brautigan expresses the mood of a new generation."

...wut?

I'm sorely, sorely tempted to read this book now.

The Twilight Saga?

I haven't even attempted to read that and I never will. Just hearing bits of the book being read by someone else was enough to make me barf. She has single handedly destroyed the vampire mythos.

The Twilight Saga isn't quite as bad as they're made out to be. They're pretty fluffy, a fun light read, IMHO. Book four gets a little silly in parts, though, I suppose.

I haven't read the twilight books, but i have seen the first movie, and i'm wondering. Why is a vampire a doctor? how can he stay in hospital with all that blood all the time? it's against all conceptions of how vampires are.

And a 108 year old guy that goes to high school? that is just plain ridiculuos.

I hated The Time Traveler's Wife. It had some of the worst 1st person POV writing that I have ever seen, and it completely grated on my nerves. I actually thought the story/premise could have been great, but I really felt nothing for the characters. I never finished it. I stopped reading it after I threw the book at the wall.

Breaking Dawn was terrible on so many levels. I enjoyed the rest of the series, so hating BD was a surprise.

The Host was also kind of bad, especially the ending. She foreshadowed the ending so obviously throughout the entire book. Then tried to make you think it wasn't going to happen, and then, oh golly gee, it did. On the flipside for that book I really enjoyed the survival aspect of that book, so I didn't hate the entire book.

Hands down The Lovely Bones. There is a review that contains spoilers that expresses how I feel about the book. The first paragraph starts "One book, two rapes. How's that for a bargain. I almost said three rapes, but then I remembered that I was a consenting adult and did indeed willingly part with my ten bucks or whatever, and so my wallet wasn't really raped. Though after finishing the book, it kinda feels like it was."

Oh man, I loved 'The Lovely Bones.'

Interview with the Vampire - the neon purple of the prose made me feel physically sick. never finished it.

O-Zone. It is so weird; Paul Theroux can usually write, but when he tries to do SF if is so painfully awful you get the feeling that he's just switched his brain off.

One that springs to mind is The Color of Magic, the first of the Discworld series. I think I might have enjoyed it at say 12 or so. Although truly good books are readable at any age, and this wasn't very readable. Perhaps the series gets better from there...?

I also really hated Stranger in a Strange Land. Alas, the book hasn't aged well, and that seems like a pretty consistent impression based on other reviews.

I never finished Red Mars or Pandora's Star either. Both were quite well written but spent a lot of time and pages going absolutely nowhere or taking forever to get to the damn point, without really giving me anything in return, even a vague feeling that my mind was being provoked in some way.

I'm happy to say I've been on a good reading streak for a while though :)

Samantha wrote: "Oh man, I loved 'The Lovely Bones.'"

I actually did like it until the scene between the friends. I nearly threw the book out after that. I had to force myself to finish.

*Shudder*

I have also been tempted to throw and across the room, but that was because I really enjoyed them until they suddenly creeped me out with crazy misogynistic destruction of their major female characters. . .

I would have to say The Iron Dragon's Daughter. It has been a long time and I have thankfully managed to forget many of the details. I do remember, however, that I forced myself to finish this travesty in hopes that by the end there would be a point to the entire mess.

After I read the last page, I screamed in frustration and anger and promptly threw it out a handily open second story window.

Damn. So much suckitude listed so far. So many books to avoid :P

Guess I should add one: The Once and Future King. This book just dragged so much for so long it felt as though time had simply stopped. It started out so well, and had such promise being an Arthurian tale, but then it just went to crap. Dull crap at that.

Heh, funny topic. Yesterday I sorted my books by rating to see what the ones I really hated were. The only one that springs to mind is The Captain's Witch, so I guess I'll have to re-sort and see what the others were.

Twilight. Yes, I do think it was that bad, but that may have to do with the context I first encountered it in. My neighborhood bookstore was donating a portion of its sales for the weekend to a local high school, and the school's librarian had put together a display of books she would like for the collection. This was before Twilight was really huge, and I thought, Hmm, that looks like it comes from my usual genre stomping grounds; I'll give it a look.

So I did, and gah. The scene that cranked my disgust up to 11 was the one where Edward breaks into Bella's house and watches her sleep, and it's presented as romantic and sexy. No, just no. I did finish it. I still remember the last line and the insipidness makes me want to kick myself in the face.

Mutiny: The True Events That Inspired The Hunt For Red October. Cool subject, right? Only it relied on Wikipedia as a main source. I couldn't keep going.

Skinny Bitch: A No-Nonsense, Tough-Love Guide for Savvy Girls Who Want to Stop Eating Crap and Start Looking Fabulous!. Pro-vegan proselytizing disguised as a diet book. Recommends fasting. I read the whole thing so my fuming could be fully informed.

Poincare's Prize. Columbus's crew didn't think the earth was flat and weren't afraid of sailing off the edge. If this throwaway background comment is wrong, what else is wrong that I might not detect so easily? I didn't actually finish this one.

The Restless Sleep: Inside New York City's Cold Case Squad - I don't actually remember deciding not to read this, but apparently the style was stupid.

How Football Explains America - mostly style without substance, and there were several instances of reign/rein and there/their confusion. (Not to be confused with How Football Explains the World, which was actually pretty decent.)

Most of Patricia Cornwell's later Kay Scarpetta books. Exactly where you think the decline starts and the unrealism gets to be too much varies.

The Risen Empire - I've bounced off every Scott Westerfeld novel that I've tried to read. Admittedly, we're only talking two books. But the characters in both irritated me.

Arrows of the Sun - Don't remember exactly why I disliked this so much, but I remember that the main character fit the "lazy royal brat" mold.

Bone Song - I remember wanting to like this. According to my review, I hated the ending, but I don't remember what it was.

Cool Names for Babies - someone left this by the self-checkout machine at the library and I couldn't help being curious. (I'm interested in the history of naming practices.) All I'm going to say is that the more you try to find a supposedly cool name for your baby, the less likely it is to be anything other than dumb. Yes I am a judgmental traditionalist in this regard.

Forgot to mention - I have a "could not finish" shelf for the things I for whatever reason couldn't make it through. And then I thought of some more.

I made it through Foreigner but with difficulty. The setting and concept are pretty cool but the protagonist is so irritating. I think I may be the only person who feels this way.

The Kevin Anderson/Brian Herbert sequels in the Dune universe. I can admit that Herbert père may have been planning to go in that direction, but his successors handle the universe with a distinct lack of the originator's panache.

I read The Once and Future King and felt like it was merely okay. If I'd read it when I was much younger I might have fallen in love with it, but it just didn't click.

The Twilight Series set a new low in vampire fiction. Absolute rubbish. Skinny Bitch was also awful-hostile and angry. And there are so many paperback romances that are brain melting in their godawfulness, I can't list them all.

I loved the later Scarpetta novels myself - although I felt the strength of them was in the character development rather than the plot. She really put a lot into each character and their interactions are much more complex than in 90% of popular mainstream fiction.

Nikki wrote: "Forgot to mention - I have a "could not finish" shelf for the things I for whatever reason couldn't make it through. And then I thought of some more.

I made it through Foreigner but ..."

Nikki, could have not agreed with you more than not on the first two points. Foreigner, is just one of those book like that. I tired to read it over and over again, but I still could not really get into. The newer Dune novel I think is really not needed could have done without, but the Legend of Dune trilogy, that was really cool. I felt the newest one, Winds of Dune was done to make some money. Money is a big factor in writing these books. These so called gap in the books, could have done without it.

To me the Once and Future King is a book that tales time to read. The Sword in the Stone is cool because it was written as a children's book. Well worth it to read, the definitive and only book to me on the King rthur legend. Hey it beats and is better than reading Old English. Who really wants to do that for really? Come on be honest!

Nikki wrote: "I made it through Foreigner but with difficulty. The setting and concept are pretty cool but the protagonist is so irritating. I think I may be the only person who feels this way."

You aren't. I actually made it through Foreigner all right (reading in one sitting helps) but then through the entire first half of the second book (Invader? Damn one-word titles. . .) I was really, really annoyed. . . but all the cool linguistics and mathematics stuff was so interesting that I put up with him. He was better in book three (I think that was Inheritor?) but then the book ended so abruptly (and with such an easy resolution!) that I got irritated again and haven't picked up the next book. . .

There's actually a list here on Goodreads called "Books I Regret Reading".

Here's the link: http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/17...

These are the books for which I voted:
1) A Baroque Fable by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
- caused me sheer agony when I read this. It's a whimsical, musical thing that comes across as cutesy and sweet. Seems like you're reading somebody's description of a lousy play. Avoid at all costs.

2) City Of The Iron Fish by Simon Ings
- I remember hating it, but can't remember anything else. Must have successfully repressed the memory. I know it caused me nothing but misery. I finished the whole stupid book hoping that there would be something to redeem it. Waste of time.

3) Shadow Hunter by Will Baker
- similar to the one above, I can't actually recall all the details as to why this book was dreadful and dire. I just remember wondering how anything this lousy could actually be published, which I thought repeatedly while I read this dud.

There are a few others I voted for, but only these top few had no redeeming qualities whatsoever, so that's all I'll list here in this discussion.

King Rat (Clavell). Just didn't like it. Loved the other books in his Eastern series.

Anything in particular you didn't like about it?

stranger in a strange land- was stupid when I read it in college, and is ridiculous now, a long time later. Sex was what made this strained plot run????? Boy,how boring.

Good Omens

Ive taken a lot of heat for this one in my other Good Reads group but I thought this one was so bad I couldnt finish it.

Brad wrote: "Good Omens

Ive taken a lot of heat for this one in my other Good Reads group but I thought this one was so bad I couldnt finish it."

That's extremely unusual. That's one of my favorite books of all time. To each their own, I guess. Have you read any of the Discworld novels? Because I'd understand it more if Pratchett's style is just not to your taste.

Brad wrote: "Good Omens

Ive taken a lot of heat for this one in my other Good Reads group but I thought this one was so bad I couldnt finish it."

Did you remember to read it with a British accent?

I really disliked The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. It was one of the most boring books I've ever read. Certainly the most boring one about vampires.

Another one I like to warn people away from is Wraith by Phaedra Weldon. I actually liked the general storyline of this book, but it was written in first-person narration, and the protagonist is SO annoying and immature.

I disliked the first Sookie Stackhouse book for similar reasons - I found Sookie vapid and annoying, and couldn't get past her annoying narration.

I'm sure there are other books I hated, but those are the first ones that popped into my head.

Dittos on The Historian, and The Twilight Saga. Oh, and anything by Anne Rice, who I tried desperately to like because I like tales about Vampires.

I am currently hating on The Book of Air and Shadows which is a rambling piece of poop.

I take refuge in Science Fiction. If only I had stayed true to my first love, I wouldn't have faced these terrible trials ...

Interesting topic!

Of the books I actually finished, I would rate as hate:
Gardens of the Moon and Tigana -- both overtly misogynist.

In Gardens of the Moon, every single female is cowardly, deceitful, untrustworthy, sneaky, and (oftentimes) evil. It's the sort of book I'd imagine a guy to write who had just been dumped by his girlfriend.

Meanwhile, in Tigana, the main female character is completely self-sacrificing, because she loves the evil guy. He killed all of her family, deprived her of children, and chucks her for a cute young thing -- but she still LOVES him, and has no regrets for her actions. I read this with an online book group, so I counted the pages --- 20% of the novel is spent with this one character and her self-destructive love. The other female characters are also individuals willing to sacrifice themselves for the guys around them, although not to the extent of the main gal.

The Historian was way too long for the story. When the mystery is resolved towards the end, I was left with the response : really? that's it??? 500 pages and the answer is xxxxxxxx? If I'd known that I wouldn't have bothered!!

I also greatly dislike Robert Heinlein's books -- Friday starts off with a female character who enjoys being gang-raped. Not sure what happens afterwards because I tossed the book then. Heinlein's other books are equally mysoginist.

And then, moving from the outrageous to the banal, I wound up tossing The Myth Hunters halfway through because the story was silly and I did not care about what happened to his stick-figure characters.

Deedee - that was pretty much my response to the Historian, too. It was so absurd, I couldn't believe it. I kept expecting there to be some extra twist - but, nope. That was it.

I'm totally fascinated by the love/hate difference in everyone's brain! in other words, I totally loved 'the iron dragon's daughter', other than the disappointingly soft ending.

I read heinlein in high school and thoroughly adored 'stranger', but have been informed by people I trust about such things that re-reading it as an adult will make me more than a little enraged. Lazarus long's incest porn-tacular was more than enough, anyway.

bashing 'twilight' is pretty much shooting fish in a barrel, but to be honest, the first one is tons of fun. silly and fluffy, but very compellingly written (I devoured the first doorstop in a day). the 4th one, though? threw right across the room. spoilerama: the "vegetarian" vampire bonks the virgin teen unconscious, then later has to chomp their spawn out of her belly. WTF?!?

I almost forgot about The Historian's badness. Actually, it's was beautifully written, but it was just too long and the ending was so stupid.

Another book that was really awful was Dracula the Un-Dead by Dacre Stoker. You can read my review for my reasons why it was so awful. The number one reason was that it made me laugh and it wasn't supposed to be funny.

I also have to agree with Suzanne about Stranger in a Strange Land. I even tried two readings, 20 some-odd years apart because I thought I had missed something. It wasn't any better the second time. Definitely doesn't age well. I almost gave up on Heinlein, but decided to try The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress when it was on sale for $4.95 on Audible because I heard it was a better example of his work. It turned out to be equally awful, but without the sex. No more Heinlein for me.

I wouldn't say I "hated" it per se... But I was very disappointed with Gardens of the Moon. I wanted so badly to love it, but it just didn't appeal to me at all. I kept pushing through it because everyone said it got better by the end.. But I felt no connection to the characters, no curiosity about the plot.. Overall it was a big bag of disappointment. It felt like a chore to read it.. I hate when reading feels like a chore :P

Dawn's hatin' on my book!

*hates on Chris's book*

Damn straight I am!!! ;)

Well, we agree on just about everything else. So I guess I have to give you slack on GotM.

Lara Amber wrote: "Brad wrote: "Good Omens

Ive taken a lot of heat for this one in my other Good Reads group but I thought this one was so bad I couldnt finish it."

Did you remember to read it with a B..."

It was the kind of book that was not working for me. Had to give the book away at the end.

The Road
The Historian
Black House
Insomnia
Cold Mountain
Lasher

There's so many more. It's too depressing to think about all the time I've wasted on Bad Books.

I sorted my shelves by rating, and found a few more:

I really disliked Magyk by Angie Sage. Now, I'm a fan of YA and juvenille literature, in general, but I found this book so patronizing and annoyingly written.

Also The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue. It wasn't at all what I expected it to be, and I found it really boring.

Jackie wrote: "The Road
The Historian
Black House
Insomnia
Cold Mountain
Lasher

There's so many more. It's too depressing to t..."

I had completely blocked my memory of The Road.

I know that this is becoming familiar from me, but man, I loved 'The Road.' :P

Pretty bleak but something about it grabbed me.

I liked The Road too. I don't recall if it was well written or not (I read it like 4 years ago now), but the story gripped me.

Not that this is sci-fi, but I had to read the Scarlet Letter in 11th grade...I just hated it and I hated my teacher for making me read it.

There's been a few surprises for me so far in this thread.

I've heard nothing but praise for Gardens of the Moon, Tigana and The Road(not to mention everything else by Cormac McCarthy).

I think I even have them on my TBR list.

Here's two more from me that I didn't like at all, but apparently most people do:

Perdido Street Station: I was bored. I didn't care about any of the characters. The idea was cool, but it just didn't grab me at all.

Neuromancer: I didn't like bladerunner on film, reading some weird version of it wasn't any better.

The Fifth Sorceress: I've never read a book that contained more cliches than this one. Also the plot was boring, the chracters one-dimensional and the prose bad.

Naked Empire: There are not many things more boring than having the main character proseletize.

Dexter in the Dark: I hate it when the author switches genres in the middle of a series.

The Hero of Ages: Liked the first two books in the series, but didn't like the last because the author switched focus from the main characters in the earlier books and ended the story with a Deus ex machina.

Deedee wrote: "I also greatly dislike Robert Heinlein's books -- Friday starts off with a female character who enjoys being gang-raped. Not sure what happens afterwards because I tossed the book then. Heinlein's other books are equally mysoginist."

While I agree in general about Heinlein's overall badness, I must say that your complaint about Friday is incorrect. It is quite clear in the text that she was acting as if she enjoyed the rape sequence as a pretense, so that she could ultimately defeat the bad guys. Which she did. I would say Friday is one of the few good books he ever wrote, although it takes a back seat to The Door Into Summer and Double Star. The worst by far is Farnham's Freehold.

Betelgeuze wrote: "The Fifth Sorceress: I've never read a book that contained more cliches than this one. Also the plot was boring, the chracters one-dimensional and the prose bad.

[book:Naked Empire|4..."

I guess you are not pro-war? That was what Naked Empire was all about. Terry was trying to let everyone know how he felt about the current war situation, that is one thing I agree with him. The way he let it out through Richard's speech gives me a way to express to others why war is needed.

For those of you who despite the later Heinlein works, his "juveniles" have much to offer adults; are better written and date prior to the 1960's, when he started writing kinky sex.

I urge you to try an early Heinlein juvenile--Red PlanetStarman Jonesor Farmer in the Sky

Kevin wrote: "I guess you are not pro-war? That was what Naked Empire was all about."

When a book is 'about' something that requires even greater skill on the part of the author to not let it degenerate into mere proselytizing. If you can tell that a book 'has a point' or is 'about' something, then by definition it's a bad book.