SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Hate to be all specific here :), but there are a few score books from my youth - all trashy paperback scifi and fantasy from the 50-early 80s - that collectively qualify as the worst ever. There were just endless shelves at my uncle's house of books upon books all with cover artists trying (and failing) to copy Frazetta and tons of no name authors trying like hell to be the next Howard or Moorcock.

I'll be damned if I can remember the author(s), but there was a series of books featuring Richard Blade, a time and dimension hopping James Bond meets Conan the Barabrian type. Impossibly smart, built like Adonis and wielding the power of Ultimate Manhood, he could solve any problem, beat any foe and screw silly any woman with the desire to jump in the sack with him (and there was never a shortage of those!).

Silly me... a few seconds and I could have found you links and such to make your eyeballs bleed...

Ice Dragon

I think I remember reading somewhere that Jeffery Lord was a hous ename used by many authors who worked on the series...

My god it gets better, I just learned the 1st book The Bronze Axe debuted on my birthday - the original birthday that is.... coincidence?

Man, I hope so!

For me, the worst science fiction book has to be Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy. I don't get his 'sense of humor'. I didn't finish the book because I felt the more I was reading it, the more it was killing my brain cells and I don't have any to spare so... :P

Thank your for reawakening this thread - I didn't even know about it until now.

One of my votes would have to go to Space Viking.

G.G., just so you know, you're not alone. :)

Just trrrrrrrrrrrrble. I picked this up on a whim around 22 years ago. Had I known she was a romance author moonlighting as a fantasy author (or vice versa?) I wouldn't have let it defile my eyes. This is a book where tropes go to DIE!

Cheryl wrote: "G.G., just so you know, you're not alone. :)"

Phew! I was afraid I'd be crucified for saying that.

Worst sci-fi book of this year (if you can call it sci-fi, or a book for how poorly written it is) has to be, hands down, .

The book is complete trash. Worst villain ever. Everyone is super cool and smart, and the science is vaguely described. And when it is, it's already impossible. Like regular human beings going through earth's atmosphere at 100k miles an hour. No joke. That shit would rip them apart. But, I digress.

If you want a good laugh, give it a read. It's complete crap.

Al, I'm pretty sure you were being facetious by calling it "Bored of the Rings", but did you know there really was a book by that name? It was a Harvard Lampoon spoof, and I remember it being pretty funny. My favorite line, quoted from memory so it could be wrong: "'These truly are dark times,' said the wizard, and a shadow seemed to pass over his face. 'I would say more, but a shadow seems to have passed over my face.'"

In the current age of internet publishing it is hard for me to say. I have downloaded some five star steaming piles of c*** from Amazon. No book that has seen a real editor can rival the horrors of the Superhero Fiction genre (unfortunately my favorite) dregs. I also think there is a difference between poorly crafted and just plain bad.

P.S. If Gemmell, Brooks, and Donaldson are your rock bottom, take out the electronic pick-ax and start digging. There is a lot worse out there. I have stared into the abyss of self published science fiction on Amazon, and it stared back.

I did not like Dhalgren by Samuel Delaney. I got half way through and gave up. I later read that Harlan Ellison hated it too and threw it against the wall so I felt better about the fact I wasn't alone.

I'd not even bother mentioning spa's efforts here. Imo, the interesting question would be: "What traditionally published books by known authors do you think are horrible? Bonus points if the book is loved and/or revered by other critics and/or readers."

I couldn't get past the first 100 pages of Dune. I felt like I was in a Monty Python scene where everyone shouts "get on with it!" I hate the more popular, mind-numbing tripe of Twilight, Divergent, and Hunger Games (the HG movies improve on the books, which is rare). I think the very worst SF I've ever read is by S.L. Viehl. She takes an intriguing idea in her Star Doc series and turns it into porn (erotica is her preferred genre, no surprise). Worst editing I've ever seen--characters who die in one chapter show up in the next.

Hah! I didn't know what Twilight was and my Mom (should have red flagged right there) told me about 'this great new vampire book!' I always finish...always. I'd rather chug a warm Shafer six pack while listening to 'Don't Worry Be Happy' on an endless loop before reading Twilight again.

To each their own is my general mode operandi. But then Twilight happened. That book and I are mortal enemies.

Terry Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule. I read a signed copy and decided to donate it after a lengthy debate with myself on whether I should really let people read this accursed book....but then I think of the trees.

Worst crap I have dragged myself though would be, some of the later books in the Assiti Shards(the 163X books) by Eric Flint, it started off great...then fell off.

Emerald Sea by John Ringo...again really cool premise then this book was a huge pile of nothing and creepy, but not to where it was comedy gold yet.

Alvin Maker series by OSC...probably the first book of his that absolutly turned me off.

4th Eragon book...literally everything was wrong with this, the Eragon series wasn't good and was very dervivative but at least Roran was interesting to read about and it was okay. Then in book 4 Paloni tries to subvert tropes but not really and it ends in a horrible mess leading to one of the worst endings I have ever read in a not so good series.

Quantum Thief which is one of the most prime examples of showing too much and telling too little. I guess my problem was it didn't explain anything that was going on the tech for me, but felt it was necessary to describe many mundane things in great detail. Still I thought there would be a good plot underneath I dug figured out what was going on in the world and was just left with a medicore plot for my effort.

Sword Art Online books 3-4...the Fairy Dance arc 1) it's not good, 2) his character development or apperently lack there of makes no sense. Basically a huge point behind the Underworld arc is him getting over the shit that happened in SAO.

Fairy Dance feels like and is the terrible sequel after a good original before the author knew what he was going to do with the series. It probably wouldn't be on the list if it wasn't for the fact that Fairy Dance ruins some of the events from later in the series and makes you go wait that makes no sense, and the series is better as a whole if you just never read these books.

Steve wrote: "In the current age of internet publishing it is hard for me to say. I have downloaded some five star steaming piles of c*** from Amazon. No book that has seen a real editor can rival the horrors ..."

read http://parahumans.wordpress.com/table...

Starts good becomes fantastic as the plot spins up and the writing gets better.

Sterling wrote: "I couldn't get past the first 100 pages of Dune. I felt like I was in a Monty Python scene where everyone shouts "get on with it!" I hate the more popular, mind-numbing tripe of Twilight, Divergent..."

I also despise Divergent. I like the Hunger Games but Divergent had so much wrong with it...

Sparrowlicious wrote: "You could probably say that what saves the book is the assumption that the author wrote it at 15, but actually he finished it at 19 which doesn't excuse why it still reads like the stuff 15 year olds post on the internet."

Try Flawless Ruins. The lady who wrote it was also 15, but a much better writer. She also has a spy novel she wrote when she was 13.

Aaron wrote: "read http://parahumans.wordpress.com/table...

Starts good becomes fantastic as the plot spins up and the writing gets better. "

thanks for that link. Kind of slow going in the beginning, so I skimmed it. The action is darn good, but the constant internal dialogue interrupts the flow too much. It was a good real-world example of what I need to trim in my own writing, though (not that my beta readers haven't told me already : )). i'm not into superheroes, but i did like the "down to earth" realism of the heroine.

side note: I hate that white text on a black background--makes my eyes go bonkers.

Yeah, I have trouble with Spinrad, too, Randolph.

I don't think I've ever found anything worse than L. Ron Hubbard's "Battleship Earth." Hugely long, and I had to quit two thirds of the way through. Life is too short, and there is too much good fiction out there, to wait for something to get good.

I've read some stinker's in my 40+ years of looking at the written word, but the real standout's have been The Hunger Games, probably one of the worst edited books ever, and the last book of L. Ron Hubbard's Mission Earth series. I put in all that time grinding through 10 books of repetitiveness for at completely sucky disappointing ending.

I despised Hunger Games, too, but for unoriginality.

I remember reading Stephen R. Donaldson's The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever. I found his writing tedious, and then he had the protagonist RAPE a woman. I couldn't abide it any longer after that. I also won't read anything by Orson Scott Card. I understand the "separate the artist from the art" argument, but I will not support a bigot who actively campaigns to suppress the human rights of others. Finally, I enjoyed the Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton - until the novels devolved into lite porn with mostly threadbare plots.

That too Cheryl. Had to read all three anyway because I was committed and had to see what all the fuss was about. Still don't know.

Cheryl wrote: "I despised Hunger Games, too, but for unoriginality."

2manyhounds wrote: "I've read some stinker's in my 40+ years of looking at the written word, but the real standout's have been The Hunger Games, probably one of the worst edited books ever, and the last book of L. Ron..."

Steve wrote: "Al, I'm pretty sure you were being facetious by calling it "Bored of the Rings", but did you know there really was a book by that name? It was a Harvard Lampoon spoof, and I remember it being prett..."

I read that in my teens and loved it (even though I was/am a big LOTR fan, and it seemed wrong somehow to enjoy it so much). It had some good lines.

2manyhounds wrote: "That too Cheryl. Had to read all three anyway because I was committed and had to see what all the fuss was about. Still don't know."

so, then what was is about Hunger Games that makes it so popular? Can we simply put it down to marketing?

Alex wrote: "2manyhounds wrote: "That too Cheryl. Had to read all three anyway because I was committed and had to see what all the fuss was about. Still don't know."


so, then what was is about Hunger Games that makes it so popular? Can we simply put it down to marketing? ..."

That .... and, for a lot of teenaged readers, this is the first time they've read a book with a plot like Hunger Games.

It's like when my older son, as a young teenager, read a young adult book where the plot twist was: the villain was *gasp* the hero's parent! I read that book too and the plot twist was neon light visible early in the book; however, since it was the first time my son had read a book with that twist it took him by surprise, and he thought it was cool and unexpected.

Have you guys heard of phrase in biology stating that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"? The basic idea is that in some limited way, the development of an organism repeats the evolution of that organism. For example, egg->tadpole->frog VERY ROUGHLY repeats single-cell-organism->fish->amphibian.

So here's a parallel idea: a person's reading history recapitulates a genre's maturation over time. Some early science fiction seems pretty naive by the standards of later SF, but to a young mind first exposed to it, it is new and amazing.

This is actually pretty neat: The old stuff has a new life as each new generation of readers discovers it, and if the readers persist in the genre, they will find more sophisticated (though not necessarily newer) material to feed their growing intellect.

Works out for everyone!

Terez wrote: "I remember reading Stephen R. Donaldson's The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever. I found his writing tedious, and then he had the protagonist RAPE a woman. I couldn't abid..."

That's a common theme with Donaldson. In The Gap Into Conflict: The Real Story the antagonist kidnaps, repeatedly rapes, and impregnates the female character. I think it's some twisted fantasy he has. Those are the only two series of his I've read, but I found it creepy as well.

Regarding The Hunger Games, I read it at the behest of my wife who is a casual "science fiction" reader. The first book was fun. The second book was just the first book retold. The third book was bad. Popularity is a funny thing. Now I'm just jaded and laugh whenever I see or hear of a female protagonist running around with a bow in her hand.

And then there's The Host, another book my wife asked me to read (she's a teacher and reads lots of YA books). I couldn't make it to page 100 (my limit before giving up), and threw the book in a corner in disgust. Just another Stephenie Meyer book that seems born of some weird teenage fantasy she has as a fully grown woman. And it's just BAD in every way possible: writing, dialogue, characterization, plot, themes, science, TREES WERE KILLED printing it!

Terez wrote: "I remember reading Stephen R. Donaldson's The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever. I found his writing tedious, and then he had the protagonist RAPE a woman. I couldn't abid..."

I think The Anita Blake series was better when it was strictly horror. Ironically, I think the most interesting character is the one she hasn't slept with. Edward was my favorite character from the beginning.

Deedee wrote: "That .... and, for a lot of teenaged readers, this is the first time they've read a book with a plot like Hunger Games."

so, then it was a really, radically "new" idea to teenagers (because they hadn't seen "Running Man," right?--excepting that its world wasn't as complex as Hunger Games (from what I recall).

Martin wrote: "The old stuff has a new life as each new generation of readers discovers it, and if the readers persist in the genre, they will find more sophisticated (though not necessarily newer) material to feed their growing intellect."

Extending that concept, I had a funny idea: the publishers should make sure they recycle the "classics" for YA, so that YA can truly grow into more sophisticated stories.

I had an even funnier idea: I should write for YA because it's a new market every five or ten years. I could recycle my soon-to-be-written stories.

Ruth wrote: "I think The Anita Blake series was better when it was strictly horror. Ironically, I think the most interesting character is the one she hasn't slept with. Edward was my favorite character from the beginning. "

I agree with you 100% about Edward! In fact, I wouldn't mind him getting a spin-off series.

Neal wrote: "That's a common theme with Donaldson. In The Gap Into Conflict: The Real Story the antagonist kidnaps, repeatedly rapes, and impregnates the female character. I think it's some twisted fantasy he has. Those are the only two series of his I've read, but I found it creepy as well."
Wow, I wasn't aware rape committed by his protagonists and antagonists is a recurring theme in his other works. That IS creepy - and it astounds me his novels are held in such high regard.