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Message: <blockquote data-quote="takyris" data-source="post: 1863533" data-attributes="member: 5171">I think that's overstating things a trifle, Storm Raven, and there's no need to be brusque.You're correct, however, in that a chair isn't a book.  A chair is utilitarian, while a book (not all books, but most of the books we're discussing here) is intended to be used for entertainment.  Eating vegetables or exercising might not be enjoyable, but they're also not supposed to be entertaining -- they're supposed to be good for you.  (Although I do enjoy some forms of exercise, and some forms of vegetables, that's just a happy coincidence).If you read the first hundred pages of something you purchased to entertain you and you are not being entertained, that's not good.  That doesn't mean it's a bad book in the perfect platonic sense, but for you, unless you're really into delaying gratification and just sure that the book is going to come off the hook at the end, that's a completely fine reason to stop reading.  And to say that you didn't like it.  And to say "I thought that this was bad" in the common meaning of such a statement, which is "I didn't like it".Bearing in mind that I haven't read the Covenant books, so I have no idea what context to take this in... um, no.  If an hourlong TV show has nothing to entertain me for the first fifty minutes except the prospect of the last ten, then that hourlong TV show has failed everyone except the hardcore fans.  That's lame.  Does that mean that it has to be wall-to-wall fight scenes?  No.  It doesn't have to entertain me with action.  It doesn't have to entertain me with plot.  But if it doesn't entertain me with something right out of the gate, then the author has failed.And different people are going to be entertained by different stuff. For example, I love reading the last seventy-five percent of most Connie Willis books. Her opening parts always bore the snot out of me.  A lot of people love them and say that they are immediately grabbed by the technobabble and the "thrown into it with little information" aspect -- not me.  I did get through the first one I read, because my friends spoke so highly of her, but it wasn't entertainment, it was work.  Now I know that I should just skim that stuff.  They're great books, but for me personally, those are bad openings.The possible caveat here is author cred -- I finished Connie Willis's book because of her author cred.  If Terry Pratchett or Christopher Moore has a dull first fifty, I'm going to go, "Well, if it's a clunker, it's a clunker, but I trust him," and continue.  So some authors can get famous enough and big enough to write stuff that opens badly but still holds onto its fanbase.In point of fact, you're ascribing an objective meaning to "bad" that, while completely correct in the dictionary, is somewhat silly in the context of a thread involving people sharing their opinions about books they personally didn't like.  We're all giving our opinions.  If you read my little footnote, you'll see that I mentioned as much with an asterix.  Attempting to zing me with something I said first in my own post is not exactly conducive to a friendly sharing of opinion.In the context of literary criticsm, your statement is completely true -- although "bad" is a term that becomes so arbitrary as to be useless in such a conversation.  But in the context of reading for entertainment, the only viable definition of 'bad' that I can come up with is "Did I enjoy it?  Did it entertain me?  Did it make me want to finish it?  No?  Bad book."  And that means that "Bad" and "Worst" are going to have different meanings for different people, and people might disagree about books.  Which is why we have fun, polite, mutually respectful threads like this one.</blockquote>

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