Whats the worst you've ever read? Scifi/Fanstasy

[Tinker Gnome]

That's what you think. Ask them who they were with last night

I found one of them in my brother's room today...How could they betray me?

 

[Chimera]

In reading bits of the conversation between Storm Raven and others I am reminded of an experience I had back in 1988.

I was in a bar with some friends. I ended up talking to a man with a very pretentious name - certainly not the one he was born with. I no longer remember the name, only that fact about it. It was getting close to the election, which was between George Bush Sr and (I believe) Michael Dukakis. Mr. Pretentious spent the better part of two hours harranging me and anyone who would listen on the subject. (One of those people whose words only come out in Sneer and Contempt.)

A bit later the subject turned to Art. He asked me about a certain famous piece that had been in the news. I said it was crap, that I didn't consider it to be Art. (again, I don't remember the piece) Mr. Pretentious asks me how long I'd studied Art. I tell him that I haven't studied Art at all, but I know what I like and don't like.

Mr. Pretentious then launches into a harrangue about how, if I haven't studied Art, if I don't know the History of Art, then I am not entitled to have an opinion about Art!

Gazing carefully off into the distance, I asked him how long he had studied Political Science. "Why, not at all! Why would I study that?" was basically his horrified response.

"Then you are not entitled to have an opinion about this election, are you?"

And I walked off, leaving his jaw hanging down to the floor.

 

[Elemental]

L.E Modesitt Jr's Spellsong series. I read a good review of the first book, and make a point of trying some author I've never heard of every now and then, so I picked it up.


It's the standard fantasy plot--an Earthwoman gets magically transported to fantasyland, and finds that a talent she has (singing) gives her magical power. That's not too bad, and the mechanics of how spellsongs work are moderately interesting.

But after a couple of hundred mildly interesting pages, her powers become utterly, ludicruously insanely over-powerful. She can burn people up just by looking at them funny. She's levelling canyons and destroying enemy armies by the thousand. She's immolating enemies from hundreds of miles away. I skimmed over the second book to see if it got any better--it didn't, there's a scene where an enemy protects himself by hiding in an airtight chamber in a tower, so she just flattens the tower. Elsewhere, an assassin nearly gets her, so she immediately then makes herself completely immune to the tactic he used ever working on her again.

This could have worked if she had an equaly powerful enemy or (in the vein of the Thomas Covenant series), the story had dwelt on the consequences and responsibilites inherant in such power. But neither is there, and the author keeps beating it into the heads of the readers that she is always good and right, bringing Earth values to a backward world, so there's no personal drama there. It reads like the author was so enamoured of having a 'strong woman' main character that he forgot to give her any other character facets.

She spends the whole book crashing round like a bad Elminister lookalike, destroying stuff and having the least developed relationships with one of her henchmen ever. She figures out that the ruler of the land is plotting to kill her, so incinerates him. She civilises the fantasyland, then realises that there's a Generic Evil Kingdom (who never actually do anything worse than the heroine on screen, so we just have the word of the author for how bad they are) that hasn't been dealt with, so she destroys it. These incidents are described with only marginally more drama in the books.

I think there's some sort of pseudo-feminist moral in there, as the protagonist keeps complaining about how men hate and fear her. Of course, this doesn't stop her from exacting sadistic punishments and mindjobs on other female characters who stand in her way. And despite being given eternal youth about halfway through the first book, she's incessantly fretting about her figure. I'd mention the other characters, only there are none.

I've read books I didn't like, but those were the only ones where I want the time spent reading them back.

 

[Storm Raven]

A bit later the subject turned to Art. He asked me about a certain famous piece that had been in the news. I said it was crap, that I didn't consider it to be Art. (again, I don't remember the piece) Mr. Pretentious asks me how long I'd studied Art. I tell him that I haven't studied Art at all, but I know what I like and don't like.

Mr. Pretentious then launches into a harrangue about how, if I haven't studied Art, if I don't know the History of Art, then I am not entitled to have an opinion about Art!

Sorry, your analogy doesn't hold water. In order to be similar, you would have had to not seen the works of art in question, and yet still declared they were crap. It isn't a question of study, but a question of experience. If you had not even seen the art in question, do you think your opinion on the work would have been of any value to anyone?

If not, why do you think the opinion of anyone who has not actually read through a book is actually worth something with regards to that book?

 

[The_Universe]

Back on topic (though the image of Worf slicing through legions of lawyers with a batleth is a pleasant one...)

I remember Modessit's First Recluse Book being incredibly hard to read... AND boring. I believe there was a part where the protaganist made a chair and then BAM chaos attacked order! ZING! ZOINKS! BURN! DWOP!

Man... the sound effects text was annoying... BOOM.

I'll second that. I picked up the first Recluse book on a lark, and forced myself through it only because I had nothing else to read.

Some interesting concepts (in the end) that were very poorly executed. VERY poorly.

 

[Mad Hatter]

Elemental, I would have to disagree with your assesment of Modesitt's Spellsong Cycle. I will give you that there is an insane amount of feminism going on in the book, thus is a source of annoyance. I would recommend that people should avoid the book like the plague if feminism in the slightest annoys them. However, she doesn't just look at the people and destroy them. The magical system he sets up is pretty interesting and it makes sense. For those who haven't read the series, the magic system is based on song. She has a ton of singing experience since she's a professor of music theory and has sung in opera and other stuff. So in light of this her eventual growth to power with education is reasonable. She's able to blow stuff up and generally cause havoc because she's studied using her voice way better than anyone in that world.

As for the villains, they all attack her first. It wasn't just a whimsy thing. The Ebrans tried to kill her first, Dumar attacks Defalk first, the lords rebel, and Rabyn invades her land. So she isn't just going places and killin' people willy nilly. And she isn't always good and right, she makes some horrible errors; sure it works out in the end, but she is the protagonist. I stopped reading the series after Darksong Rising because I felt that the book series should have ended there.

 

[The_Universe]

In reading bits of the conversation between Storm Raven and others I am reminded of an experience I had back in 1988.

I was in a bar with some friends. I ended up talking to a man with a very pretentious name - certainly not the one he was born with. I no longer remember the name, only that fact about it. It was getting close to the election, which was between George Bush Sr and (I believe) Michael Dukakis. Mr. Pretentious spent the better part of two hours harranging me and anyone who would listen on the subject. (One of those people whose words only come out in Sneer and Contempt.)

A bit later the subject turned to Art. He asked me about a certain famous piece that had been in the news. I said it was crap, that I didn't consider it to be Art. (again, I don't remember the piece) Mr. Pretentious asks me how long I'd studied Art. I tell him that I haven't studied Art at all, but I know what I like and don't like.

Mr. Pretentious then launches into a harrangue about how, if I haven't studied Art, if I don't know the History of Art, then I am not entitled to have an opinion about Art!

Gazing carefully off into the distance, I asked him how long he had studied Political Science. "Why, not at all! Why would I study that?" was basically his horrified response.

"Then you are not entitled to have an opinion about this election, are you?"

And I walked off, leaving his jaw hanging down to the floor.

Of course, if you had seen the piece of art in question, and had noted that the bottom right corner appeared to be a picture of festering maggot-ridden blisters, just remember that that's not enough reason not to like it. You would be an ignoramus to base your opinion on such an insignifcant fraction of the work! So what if you don't like maggots? What if the use of maggots in this case simply overpowers your preexisting opinions, likes, and dislikes? Why - you'd be doing the universe a disservice! You have to consider the whole thing or your opinion is invalid.

 

[Mallus]

Of course, if you had seen the piece of art in question, and had noted that the bottom right corner appeared to be a picture of festering maggot-ridden blisters, just remember that that's not enough reason not to like it. You would be an ignoramus to base your opinion on such an insignifcant fraction of the work!

At least you would have seen the entire work. Which is the crux of this issue. A better example would be someone opining about a painting that they caught a glimpse of while they quickly walked past, with one eye closed, wearing dark sunglasses....

So what if you don't like maggots? What if the use of maggots in this case simply overpowers your preexisting opinions, likes, and dislikes?

So now we're talking about Damien Hirst?
[/quote]

You have to consider the whole thing or your opinion is invalid.

Nope. Not invalid. Just not informed.

 

[Storm Raven]

Of course, if you had seen the piece of art in question, and had noted that the bottom right corner appeared to be a picture of festering maggot-ridden blisters, just remember that that's not enough reason not to like it.

No, if you only looked at a tiny portion of the work (say, 95% of it was covered with a cloth when you viewed it), and based your opinion of the whole on that tiny portion, then your opinion would be uninformed, and essentially worthless.

If you looked at the whole work, and didn't like it, then your opinion is informed, which is an entirely different kettle of fish.

 

[Elemental]

Elemental, I would have to disagree with your assesment of Modesitt's Spellsong Cycle. I will give you that there is an insane amount of feminism going on in the book, thus is a source of annoyance. I would recommend that people should avoid the book like the plague if feminism in the slightest annoys them. However, she doesn't just look at the people and destroy them. The magical system he sets up is pretty interesting and it makes sense. For those who haven't read the series, the magic system is based on song. She has a ton of singing experience since she's a professor of music theory and has sung in opera and other stuff. So in light of this her eventual growth to power with education is reasonable. She's able to blow stuff up and generally cause havoc because she's studied using her voice way better than anyone in that world.

As for the villains, they all attack her first. It wasn't just a whimsy thing. The Ebrans tried to kill her first, Dumar attacks Defalk first, the lords rebel, and Rabyn invades her land. So she isn't just going places and killin' people willy nilly. And she isn't always good and right, she makes some horrible errors; sure it works out in the end, but she is the protagonist. I stopped reading the series after Darksong Rising because I felt that the book series should have ended there.

If you enjoyed it, that's great--I'm not trying to rain on the parade of anyone who got enjoyment out of the books. This isn't anything more than me explaining why I didn't like it. But to address these points:

1: To say that it's a 'feminist' book and that's why it sits ill with people doesn't quite feel right with me. Having a powerful woman as the protagonist is great, but make any protagonist too powerful and righteous and they just become dull. I can honestly say that would have been no different had the heroine been male. And the feminist message seemed very crude compared to say, Hobb's Liveship Traders series--"I am a woman, I am oppressed, therefore nobody can criticise what I do.". And even that feels hollow because the heroine never directly experiences the harshness of the oppression she rails against, and doesn't seem to have much of an investment in helping other women out.

2: I can buy that--but it seems rather implausible that nobody in a world where song is the prime source of magical power was ever able to train any better than her. If there's some quality of Earth people that make them naturals at it, then there's the question of why nobody's ever summoned Earth people before (it certainly didn't seem at all hard to do from the book).

3: Yes, they do, but the defeats felt way, way too easy. In Lord of the Rings, the Nazgul are imposing because they have massive power, possibly more than even the greatest of the heroes. In the second Thomas Covenant series, the two heroes can squash most of the opposition they face easily, but the drama comes from the internal corruption that they face from using their powers and their own inner demons. There seemed to be no conflict (not combat), because nothing was anywhere near a serious threat to Anna, and that resulted in a lack of drama. Less seriously, there's no face to represent the forces she's fighting against, which leads to problems like the Generic Evil Kingdom of the first book staying generic, because we never have a villain who represents it's bad traits.


Of course, I've only read the first one, and speed-read the second. If you think these problems are removed later on in the series, I'll get one of them from the library and give it another chance.