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

[Brakkart]

Pick a Gor book. Any of them. Ick.

Definately can agree with you on that one with regards to the dialog, page after page of He said, she said, he said, she said.

Can't agree though with regards to the world that is detailed in them, which is very rich and interesting. Norman would be better off writing sourcebooks or travel guides to his world, not novels.

And who mentioned Rose Este's Greyhawk novels? I mean even in a thread about worst novels we've read there are some standards that should be adhered to right? Those are just too awful to mention.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I couldn't get more than 1 or 2 chapters into the Paul Kidd Greyhawk books. He's the guy responsible for the Justicar books, right? Bad. Really bad.

*blink*

Wow. Talk about differences in taste. I thought Kidd's books were some of the best D&D-related novels I've ever read--and I've read multiple dozens of them. No, they aren't high art, but they're a lot of fun, and very enjoyable reads.

Really enjoyed most of Eddings' stuff as well; despite the fact that he's a very poor plotter, I find his writing fun to read.

I will, however, agree with everything people have said about Thomas Covenant and Rose Estes. *shudder*

I've enjoyed the first few chapters of Wizards First Rule, but it's slipping fast. I've reached the first few chapters that focus on the villains, rather than the heroes, and they're just awfully written. These aren't villains, they're cartoons. :\

 

[Hypersmurf]

Grunts! by Mary Gentle.

Grunts! is a bad book, with a few fabulously quotable lines

Freedom & Necessity[/i], by Steven Brust & Emma Bull. I liked the Jhereg books, and I heard good things about Emma Bull, so a collaboration should be okay, right? Wrong. Writing a book as a series of letters, postbills, and other such stuff is a poor choice.

I adore Freedom and Necessity. It's one I've reread a few times.

-Hyp.

 

[Deaths_Fist]

I couldn't stand <i>The Catcher in the Rye</i>. Why do they teach this crap in school?

 

[Fast Learner]

You just weren't sufficiently disaffected.

 

[Yuan-Ti]

Going back nearly 2 decades... Dennis McKiernan wrote a trilogy about these little people who go on a quest to save their world from an evil overlord who lives in a volcano and sends out bands of orcish creatures to conquer the world. Along the way they form a fellowship with heroes from other races in the world, including elves and dwarves and, IIRC, travel beneath a mountain in an ancient dwarven city, now controlled by orcish creatures, and so on ad nauseam... I think what really struck me as interesting about the series was how, at the end of the trilogy (I couldn't not finish books back then) these little people, having saved the world, return home to their village and have to defeat some thugs who have taken over in their absence. Gee, I don't think there could have been a more original ending ever invented for a fantasy series.

As a reviewer at Amazon said of this series: "It starts of in the land of the small, quiet people and the quest is for the bad sorcerer/overlord to be overthrown forever. The hero from the small, quiet people will have as his companions an uncrowned king of men, a warrior-elf, and a mighty dwarf. They will be forced to travel through an ancient dwarven kingdom under a mountain range that has become the haunt of the demonic creature....the final battle is not so much a forlorn hope as it is a diversion..."
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...f=sr_1_3/102-2301772-9303367?v=glance&s=books

 

[Pozatronic]

... "warm, buttery air" in the first paragraph made me skip to the next story. (shudder)

It's not the heat, it's the butter.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Going back nearly 2 decades... Dennis McKiernan wrote a trilogy...[/url]

The Iron Tower, I think it was called.

Not only was it utterly unoriginal, it was bad. The writing, the characters, the 0.087% of the plot that wasn't Tolkien's, were all utter crap.

And yet, McKiernan is reportedly fanatical about refusing to let anyone use his material for RPGs or anything else. As if he had anything original, or of the slightest quality, to protect...

 

[Pozatronic]

The Iron Tower, I think it was called.

Not only was it utterly unoriginal, it was bad. The writing, the characters, the 0.087% of the plot that wasn't Tolkien's, were all utter crap.

And yet, McKiernan is reportedly fanatical about refusing to let anyone use his material for RPGs or anything else. As if he had anything original, or of the slightest quality, to protect...

Yeah. Before I realized that he sucked so hard, I got one of his paperbacks at a used book store. It was part one of a two parter. The story is this...some dwarves want to go back to the Moria rip off (whatever he called it) and kill all the orcs and goblins and whatnot inside and make it safe for dwarves again. In the opening of the book he even say's he wanted this to be a continuation to LotR, but that he couldn't get the license to do it, so he had to make up a back story...Do you see what I'm saying here...He admits to ripping off Tolkien. Balls of Steel I tell you.

 

[Wombat]

My goodness there are so many to choose from...

Firebrand by MZ Bradley has a special place in my heart as the first book I ever hurled violently across a room, and that was by page 12, but since I never finished reading it, it would be difficult to say what the full impact (other than on the other chair) would have been like.

Beggars in Spain -- highly recommended, absolutely atrocious and utterly unbelievable. I disliked the characters, the plot was well beyond contrived, and the world made no sense whatsoever.

Lord Foul's Bane -- many people have commented so far about Thomas Covenant himself (one of the single most pointlessly vile characters in all of creation), but on top of this The Land itself was so insipid and boring that I was willing to let Lord Foul have it and bad luck on him for having to digest it.

...how many others...

Nah, that's more than good enough.