What are 3 Terrible Fantasy or Sci-fi Books You've Read?

[J]

I don't really have specific books to contribute, since I've been firmly in the "There's no shame in shelving something as DNF. My reading time is too short to spend on books I'm not enjoying" camp since I left school. But I love how this discussion is clearly demonstrating the breadth of our collective tastes, as some of the books and authors listed here, are ones that I have much enjoyed.

[[deleted user]]

I have a 100 page rule generally, if I am not grabbed in 100 pages I toss it

I did finish Eragon even though I despised every word, was like watching a car crash in slow motion

[Libromaniac]

Wheel of time by Robert Jordan and whatever the next two verbose prices of crap were in that series.

[Meera]

Prince of Thorns was a disappointing one. There was so much hype around it, but I really couldn't connect with the main character. Same with the second Kingkiller book - I hate how Kvothe was perfect in every single way.

However, I quite recently read Touch of Power by Maria Snyder. The writing and the characters were so bad it was funny.

[[deleted user]]

I couldn't finish Wise Man's Fear. I really tried too

[Stan]

Wise Man's Fear really does suck.

[Patricia]

Wyrms
The Stand
The Elder Gods

Normally these are authors I like, but these books were bad.

[Rich]

I just gave up about 250 pages into Peter Hamilton's Reality Dysfunction. The writing isn't great, the characters so far had been mostly quite one-dimensional, and it was just way too long. If it hadn't been the first of a trilogy I might have persevered, but I couldn't commit to wasting so much time when I just wasn't enjoying any of it.

[Trike]

Rich wrote: "I just gave up about 250 pages into Peter Hamilton's Reality Dysfunction. The writing isn't great, the characters so far had been mostly quite one-dimensional, and it was just way too long. If it h..."

I felt the same way. I actually was mystified by it in a true WTF fashion. Every random idea he's ever had expressed all at once, and badly at that.

[Tyler]

If a book doesn't catch my attention, I usually don't suffer through it. I did however, not understand the classic status of

1. The Stars My Destination by Alfred Hester
2.Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (love the Universal version of the monster though, go figure)
3.

[W.H.]

I must admit, I've not read many books I have not enjoyed or not completed. However, there are two books I tried to read, got half way through and ditched.
1. Sorcery Rising by Jude Fisher
2. Otherland by Tad Williams, which was a shame because I thoroughly enjoyed his Memory, Sorrow and Thorne Series.
3.
Of course, this is probably because of my personal taste, and not a criticism of their writing.

[Nigel]

You didn't like BONESHAKER? Wow. Some of these books like TNT and FLASHBACK sound like something I want to read in a "so-bad-it's-good" type of thing. Yes, I'm a fan of MST3K

[[deleted user]]

Is it bad that when I see people disliking a book I enjoyed, I check out the books they've mentioned to see if they'd be up my alley? I adored The Book of Lost Things 'cos I really like dark-toned books and fairy tales! So--this discussion actually has some positives too!

[Meera]

Michelle wrote: "Is it bad that when I see people disliking a book I enjoyed, I check out the books they've mentioned to see if they'd be up my alley? I adored The Book of Lost Things 'cos I really like dark-toned ..."

I wouldn't say it's bad at all - it's just a personal preference! In general I find that the books I'm disappointed by are the one's that have great reviews. In the end they just fail to live up to my expectations, which is really my own fault rather than the author's.

[Allan]

At wood's Oryx and Crake is misogynist, read it and see for yourself; someone once told me I might be mistaking misanthropy as misogyny, maybe... But I'll stand by my opinion because nothing in the text empowers women and the text does its share of diminishing, belittling and degrading women. That point aside the text is still a mess with serious time framing issues.

[Evilynn]

Allan wrote: "At wood's Oryx and Crake is misogynist, read it and see for yourself; someone once told me I might be mistaking misanthropy as misogyny, maybe... But I'll stand by my opinion because nothing in the..."

I've read it multiple times, and misogynist isn't a label I'd put on it. One of the issues it deals with is child trafficking, with all the horror that entails, but that doesn't make the book itself misogynist. Maybe you have some more concrete examples of what you mean?

Not sure what you mean about the time framing issues either, the structure of the story nested, or do you mean the tech is dated?

[MrsJoseph *grouchy*]

W.H. wrote: "I must admit, I've not read many books I have not enjoyed or not completed. However, there are two books I tried to read, got half way through and ditched.
1. Sorcery Rising by Jude Fisher
2. Othe..."

OMG. I really hated Sorcery Rising. I still have a DTB copy that I use as a bookend/placeholder.

[Michelle]

Rich wrote: "I just gave up about 250 pages into Peter Hamilton's Reality Dysfunction. The writing isn't great, the characters so far had been mostly quite one-dimensional, and it was just way too long. If it h..."

i recently gave up about that far into his "pandora's star". geez, now that was an awful slog through the 80s miami vice version of the future.

[Betty]

Randolph wrote: "The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad is the worst alternate history book ever written."
I admit I had to put down "Iron Dream" for a couple of days before finishing, because the content is kind of morbid, but as a satire of pulp sci-fi and space opera, it's brilliant. The writing style is deliberately bad, but that was also true of some pulp writers.

[Trike]

Michelle wrote: "Is it bad that when I see people disliking a book I enjoyed, I check out the books they've mentioned to see if they'd be up my alley?"

Not at all. For some of these I'm nodding my head, because these are some really bad books. But then when Tyler throws out Frankenstein, I'm like, "Whaaat? The grandaddy of the sci-fi genre and a terrific book to boot?" But it's all down to taste. Some people like vanilla ice cream, some like chocolate.

Mmm, ice cream....

[Gary]

#1: Friday by Heinlein. This is not just an aesthetically bad book (Heinlein's writing is remedial and flat) but a morally reprehensible one. It's logically flawed, intellectually stunted and simply boring with a capital Shut Up Already! It took me a month to get over the reading experience.

#2: Naked in Death by Nora Roberts writing as J. D. Robb. Nominally science fiction, but clearly written by someone who has very little understanding of either science OR fiction.... Horrible plot, characters spawned of a juvenile fantasy daydream, writing level: 11th grade or so.

#3: Lord Foul's Bane. Lots of folks have mentioned this one, so I'll only say I've read it twice. Once back when it came out, and I remember not hating it. I read it again a couple of years ago and it was like sandpaper on my frontal lobe.

[Michelle]

Gary wrote: " I read it again a couple of years ago and it was like sandpaper on my frontal lobe. "

Gary, that's what we call "the suck fairy" visiting your books. there's plenty of things that i remembered loving tons when i was younger that i've since been informed that revisiting as an adult will result in crashing disappointment (e.g., "stranger in a strange land", all of pern...)

[John]

Let's see, my three would be

#1 I don't remember much about this book, but I do remember a fairly extended section involving what I would describe as warrior dominatrixes. Really?

#2 This one was just a mess. It was all over the map and I just couldn't get into it. It seemed like every time I found a part I was interested in, the author veered off onto some other irrelevant point instead.

#3 The other two I read years ago, this was more recent and I've come to the point where I'm more willing to just give up on a book, so I didn't finish this one. I was getting a bit tired of the repetitiveness (now let's go kill the next guy on our list) it was the needlessly graphic and vulgar sex scene that pushed me over the edge. Life is too short.

[Jim]

Trike wrote: "Not at all. For some of these I'm nodding my head, because these are some really bad books. But then when Tyler throws out Frankenstein, I'm like, "Whaaat? The grandaddy of the sci-fi genre and a terrific book to boot?" But it's all down to taste. Some people like vanilla ice cream, some like chocolate.

Mmm, ice cream.... ..."

Yes, the Frankenstein throw-out rather shocked me as well. I wonder if it is that people have problems with the literary style of a book written more than a century ago.

[Mark]

John wrote: "Let's see, my three would be

#1 I don't remember much about this book, but I do remember a fairly extended section involving what I would describe as warrior ..."

Agree about the terry goodkind but the other two do get better and are great reads.

[Greg]

Michelle wrote: "Gary wrote: " I read it again a couple of years ago and it was like sandpaper on my frontal lobe. "

Gary, that's what we call "the suck fairy" visiting your books. there's plenty of things that i..."

I agree on Goodkind. I needlessly suffered through books 3 and 4 when I really should have stopped at book 2.

I also agree on Abercrombie. I was getting tired of him by book 3 and haven't gone back to check out any of his newer titles.

[Lara Amber]

Oh my hate pile is Doctor Who: The Coming of the Terraphiles and Watchmen.

I think that GoodReads IS the place for honest reviews and threads like this don't bother me as long as people don't turn it into arguing about the titles "you LIKED that book, obviously you have NO taste." Other readers and the authors (and authors friends and family) need to grow a thicker skin if they can't take negative feedback.

I recently had someone come across my review of The Portrait of a Lady and just go off telling me my review was offensive (not sure how) and was coming across so hurt feeling that my internal dialogue was "Henry James is dead, he's not going to sleep with you for white-knighting him" before I deleted the response.

[Trike]

Jim wrote: "Yes, the Frankenstein throw-out rather shocked me as well. I wonder if it is that people have problems with the literary style of a book written more than a century ago."

I just had a "holy crap" moment: Frankenstein was first published in 1818. Coming up on two centuries old. Deluge of movie adaptations... begin.

[Gary]

Michelle wrote: "Gary, that's what we call "the suck fairy" visiting your books. there's plenty of things that i remembered loving tons when i was younger that i've since been informed that revisiting as an adult will result in crashing disappointment (e.g., "stranger in a strange land", all of pern...)"

Nostalgia can be a cruel mistress.

More often than not, I have a pleasant experience rereading something I enjoyed in childhood or, at least, when I was younger. It's not the same, of course, but I can pick up certain books and I notice MORE about them to like. Zelazy, Herbert, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien (of course...) and folks like that can have any number of readings in my experience.

Even books that aren't all that good in retrospect can be positive to reread. Personally, I haven't minded rereading the Pern novels, even though I recognize that they aren't actually great literature, just because they remind me so much of that child-like sense of wonder I got at the prospect of having a dragon as a telepathic best friend when I was twelve or thirteen.

Lord Foul's Bane, however, was a real chore. I wonder now if my first reading of it didn't have something to do with the fact that it was formative. That is, it was one of the first stories I remember reading that took a "real world" person and magically transported him into a fantasy world. That's an amazingly tired cliche, of course, but I was young enough that it wasn't over-used in my squishy, unformed brain.

Remembering back, I don't recall actually enjoying it the first time. I didn't hate it, but I felt a sense of accomplishment for having gotten through it. I wonder now if that sense of accomplishment wasn't my under-developed sense of relief that I was done washing over me....

[Laura]

Despite being nearly universally beloved, The Mists of Avalon and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell just didn't do it for me.

However, I know that those are both well-written books that I just didn't connect with, for whatever reason. I read about a million Star Trek and Star Wars books in my teens and some of those would certainly qualify as just legitimately terrible books.

[MrsJoseph *grouchy*]

Laura wrote: "Despite being nearly universally beloved, The Mists of Avalon and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell just didn't do it for me.

However, I know that those are both well-written books that I just didn'..."

I enjoyed book 1 Mists. The rest? pffffft

[Evilynn]

Gary wrote: Lord Foul's Bane, however, was a real chore. I wonder now if my first reading of it didn't have something to do with the fact that it was formative. That is, it was one of the first stories I remember reading that took a "real world" person and magically transported him into a fantasy world. That's an amazingly tired cliche, of course, but I was young enough that it wasn't over-used in my squishy, unformed brain."

I think that might be what made me like them as a kid. I didn't particularly like Thomas Covenant as a character, but it was probably the first fantasy I read with an unlikeable protagonist/anti hero. I haven't dared re-read them, because I don't think I could overlook the Stephenson-sims as easily as an adult (basically, everything of his I read I like less and less, and I don't think it's that he necessarily got worse as an author...).

[Greg]

Stephen Donaldson is a great writer. Maybe the Thomas Covenant novels were one of his first attempts.

We shouldn't disparage him for trying; that's more than most people do.

Still, it's pretty clear a lot of people didn't like those novels. Maybe he was just warming up for his sci-fi series.

[Evilynn]

Greg wrote: "Stephen Donaldson is a great writer. Maybe the Thomas Covenant novels were one of his first attempts.

We shouldn't disparage him for trying; that's more than most people do.

Still, it's pretty..."

I've read the Gap books too. I don't think it's the quality of the writing people have a problem with, with TC I think it's simply that TC is unlikeable. Half are put off by (view spoiler)[the rape (hide spoiler)] and the other half by TC being emo.

My biggest problem with the Gap books was that he seems awfully one note with the (view spoiler)[rape-as-female-character-development (hide spoiler)] trope, which happens to be one of my least favourite (and it's rife in SSF literature in general, so it's certainly not just Donaldson).

[Allan]

Those who've read Goodkind know his stated purpose in writing is to convert readers to Objectivism!

[Bittman]

Allan wrote: "Those who've read Goodkind know his stated purpose in writing is to convert readers to Objectivism!"

I have read most all of his books. What's objectivism?

[MrsJoseph *grouchy*]

Greg wrote: "Stephen Donaldson is a great writer. Maybe the Thomas Covenant novels were one of his first attempts.

We shouldn't disparage him for trying; that's more than most people do.

Still, it's pretty..."

I disagree. I don't hand out trophies for attendance.

I'll never applaud someone for writing a whiny bitchy rapist character.

[Brittany Leigh]

1. Pathfinder
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey
3. Fahrenheit 451
Okay, I know that 2001, and Fahrenheit are classics, but I've had to read them for school, and for some reason that just ruins them for me. Pathfinder, well, I don't know if I was having an off week, or what, but I just hated it.
I'm seeing a lot of hate on Terry Goodkind. I personally, adored all his books. I read them in High School and loved them, but to each his own, I guess.

[RB]

Fantasy:
The Sookie Stackhouse Series. Why God, why did I have to torture myself and read TEN books of this stupid series? I gotta be a masochist in order to put myself through that!!! LOL One day I just said to myself: "Bollocks! The TV-show is MUCH better!"

Fantasy: I also pretty much hated The Name of the Wind, it wants really badly (no pun intended!) to be epic but it was one of the most self-absorbed and boring tales I have ever read.

Haven't yet come across a Sci-Fi title that I didn't like (at least I can't think of it right now), but I'm sure it will happen eventually! I've read many disappointments though, which in a way can be bad enough too; such as: Dune, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, The Forever War). To say that I hated them would be a big exaggeration, but they definitely didn't live up to my expectations!

[MrsJoseph *grouchy*]

Rita wrote: "Fantasy: I also pretty much hated The Name of the Wind, it wants really badly (no pun intended!) to be epic but it was one of the most self-absorbed and boring tales I have ever read. "

I hated The Name of the Wind, too. *shudder* All my friends love it but I thought it mostly sucked ass. I never finished it.

[Kevis]

1. Shadow Moon
2. Black Trillium
3. Cormyr

Somewhere in the universe there's a heaven for people who went through hell to finish reading these three books. Not just the worst fantasy books I've read, but easily the worst books period. I still don't know how I managed to finish them.

[Greg]

Kevis wrote: "1. Shadow Moon
2. Black Trillium
3. Cormyr

I rather liked Cormyr, although I read it when I was 15, which might explain it.

I do remember the first few chapters being a bit dull, but that scene when the prince, who everyone thought was a coward, rides out to slay the dragon, well, I was rather impressionable.

[Jenelle]

Rita wrote: "Fantasy:
The Sookie Stackhouse Series. Why God, why did I have to torture myself and read TEN books of this stupid series? I gotta be a masochist in order to put myself through that!!! LOL One day ..."

Huh, I really liked Name of the Wind.

[Kevis]

Greg wrote: "Kevis wrote: "1. Shadow Moon
2. Black Trillium
3. Cormyr

I rather liked Cormyr, although I read it when I was 15, which might explain it.

I do remember the first few chapters being a bit dull, ..."

What makes Cormyr sink to the bottom of my list is that it has a split personality. The parts of the book that deals with the History of Cormyr is actually interesting and keeps you turning pages. But that's exactly the problem. The other half of the book that focuses on the story line of the poisoned king and the wizard Vangerdahast is absolutely dreadful. Trying to get through the crap to get to the gold really took its toll. My eyes hurt now just thinking of it.

[Jenelle]

I'll second Eragon... I was highly disappointed. Though I've been told the series "got better." Haven't mustered the desire to read them, though.

Recently read Prince of Bryanae and only made it 3/4 of the way through before... yes, actually throwing it away. It started out kinda promising, but then descended into the depths of absolutely horrible.

[RB]

Jenelle wrote: "Rita wrote: "Fantasy:
The Sookie Stackhouse Series. Why God, why did I have to torture myself and read TEN books of this stupid series? I gotta be a masochist in order to put myself through that!!!..."

I'm glad you enjoyed it, c an't understand why though! :)

[RB]

MrsJoseph wrote: "Rita wrote: "Fantasy: I also pretty much hated The Name of the Wind, it wants really badly (no pun intended!) to be epic but it was one of the most self-absorbed and boring tales I have ever read. ..."

Sister!!!! ;-)

I actually did finish it. This book had so much praise that I just had to, I kept hoping that I was going to encounter the chapter that would turn me around, but it never happened. Oh the suffering...!

[Jim]

It's interesting. Some books do seem to be accepted reasonably widely as bad, but other writers seem to be 'Marmite' in that you either love them or hate them. Stephen Donaldson seems to fall into this category.

[[deleted user]]

I think Thomas Covenant is the most complex character in the Fantasy genre. It's not required to approve his actions or like him as a person, but to believe that a man under those circumstances could do what he does. That's were Donaldson nailed it. This is why some readers have a strong negative reaction towards him.

[MrsJoseph *grouchy*]

Greg wrote: "I think Thomas Covenant is the most complex character in the Fantasy genre. It's not required to approve his actions or like him as a person, but to believe that a man under those circumstances co..."

See, that's where the differences come in. I don't think the character acted realistically at all. I would be worried for my safety at every waking moment if I believed that all men RAPE when confused.

Seriously.