xkcd

by **Jumble** » Sat Oct 02, 2010 8:28 am UTC

I have the same problem with Christopher Brookmyre. I like Iain Banks' contemporary stuff and my first reaction was 'Yea! Another gritty scottish author'. After two or three books I realized that while Banks makes sure that all of his books are radically different to each other Brookmyre just prints off the same book and does a cut&paste on the characters. Basically:

Spoiler:

by **melladh** » Tue Oct 05, 2010 2:58 pm UTC

Catcher in the Rye is one of those books I didn't even manage to finish. My teacher thought I would like it, but I can't imagine why. It's so... stale. Somehow. But I'm not sure I'd call it overrated - I think I might be able to see the appeal for some people. Mind you it was ten years since I read that third of it (in spite of it being such a tiny book) so I might be forgetting how bad it really is. And, of course, it's only ever mentioned here by a select few English teachers, and one or two literary (sp?) reviewers, in comparisons to other things. I'm guessing it might be a lot worse in countries where english is native.

by **Dustin** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 1:36 am UTC

I recently got a job as a librarian, and by far the worst part is the temptation to check out the work of crappy but popular authors.

At this point the greatest kick to the balls this has given me was Sandra Brown's Seduction by Design, which probably isn't rated very highly by anyone but is without a doubt the worst book I've ever read. It's essentially a very slow piece of smut that thinks trying to be coy about it's smuttiness is romantic. Thus the male lead's cock is called his "manhood" and the female lead's vagina is called her "womanhood," it gets described over and over again how he will put his tongue in "the cave of her mouth" but nothing about penetrative sex and so on. The prose is terrible and leaden, with descriptions when the intent is clearly stated in the dialogue.

by **Jorpho** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 3:04 am UTC

Heh heh heh. Are you perhaps unfamiliar with the world of terrible erotica?

Seeking out the relevant TV Tropes articles is left as an exercise to the reader (as it should be). I thought about linking to a few choice reviews of terrible erotica instead, but they are actually quite hazardous to an inadequately-conditioned mind, on second thought.

by **Fedechiar** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 10:56 am UTC

Oh no, not TV Tropes, please! I had to study, and now I'll pass the next five hours on that damn site...Anyhow, one of the few books I actually struggled to finish was "Disgrace" by Coetzee. Those 300 pages felt more like 3000...Also, I'm surprised nobody mentioned Xenocide! I picked it up for the first time last week after re-reading the first two, and man was it bad (OK, maybe it wasn't so bad on an absolute scale, but its relative value compared to Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead is very close to 0)...

Cue angry letters from all 7 fans of Xenocide

(http://xkcd.com/304/)

by **mister k** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 10:37 am UTC

I just read Iain M Bank's Consider Phlebas... its really not very good. Its a meandering tale of no consequence about a fairly unlikable character with some content which has escaped from stories set 100 years in the past (the episode with the eaters). If I hadn't read Player of Games first I wouldn't read another book in the series...

by **Various Varieties** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 3:05 pm UTC

mister k wrote:I just read Iain M Bank's Consider Phlebas... its really not very good. Its a meandering tale of no consequence about a fairly unlikable character with some content which has escaped from stories set 100 years in the past (the episode with the eaters). If I hadn't read Player of Games first I wouldn't read another book in the series...

Consider Phlebas was the first Banks novel I read, and personally I really liked it (as I have all the other Culture novels I've read since), but maybe I'd be less impressed with it if I went back to it now having read the likes of Excession and Player of Games. Here's a good review of Consider Phlebas by someone who really disliked it, but then went on to enjoy The Player of Games and Use of Weapons (quick warning: the latter review discusses a rather big spoiler about that book).

by **mister k** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 4:00 pm UTC

Various Varieties wrote:
mister k wrote:I just read Iain M Bank's Consider Phlebas... its really not very good. Its a meandering tale of no consequence about a fairly unlikable character with some content which has escaped from stories set 100 years in the past (the episode with the eaters). If I hadn't read Player of Games first I wouldn't read another book in the series...

Consider Phlebas was the first Banks novel I read, and personally I really liked it (as I have all the other Culture novels I've read since), but maybe I'd be less impressed with it if I went back to it now having read the likes of Excession and Player of Games. Here's a good review of Consider Phlebas by someone who really disliked it, but then went on to enjoy The Player of Games and Use of Weapons (quick warning: the latter review discusses a rather big spoiler about that book).

I basically agree with that former review, although I rather think its too generous with its discussion of the theme. While that theme is sort of present, most of the book is some not very tense action scenes and clunky descriptive prose (as mentioned in the review). I really enjoyed Player of Games, and have Use of Weapons out from the library, so will persevere.

by **Aiwendil42** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 10:29 pm UTC

Also, I'm surprised nobody mentioned Xenocide! I picked it up for the first time last week after re-reading the first two, and man was it bad (OK, maybe it wasn't so bad on an absolute scale, but its relative value compared to Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead is very close to 0)...

Indeed. Of course, Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead are hard to live up to - but still, Xenocide was terrible. Although actually I think Children of the Mind may have been worse.

by **Jorpho** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 4:44 am UTC

I rather preferred both of them to Speaker of the Dead, actually, possibly because OSC put a whacking huge spoiler in his own introduction for that one. Of course, the whole "edge nations" rant in Children of the Mind was totally unnecessary, but then that got outdone by the the "hooray for heterosexuality" rant in Shadow Puppets.

But we already have several threads about the Ender books.
viewtopic.php?f=24&t=39265

by **garren101** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 10:21 pm UTC

Pixel wrote:
lamaros wrote:Is it possible for the Bible to be overrated? It's like saying... there's no comparison I can think of that would come close.

Now, not liking the Bible as a religious document or as something interesting to read.. but golly it is nowhere near overrated.

It is a collection of fantastical takes of how the world works, tales that were formerly the oral tradition of a couple of wandering tribes in the middle east. Said tales were written down, and edited together. Later a whole other set of stories, of some guy who told everyone to be nice, and got killed for his trouble was tacked onto the original set of tales. Over the years this collection of tales has been edited, re-written, and otherwise mucked with so that much of the original is missing or highly modified to fit the political agenda of whomever was in charge at the time.

The randomly edited collection of tales, and it's bonus section of Jesus, the first coming has been used as the basis of one of the biggest religions on the planet. And said religion has used this book as the basis for wars, genocide, torture, repression, theft, etc. for thousands of years.

Some of the followers of this edited bunch of tales use it to justify their hate, their superiority, and regularly use it to rationalize repressive or even cruel behaviour to people who happen to not think of their collection of tales as more important than some other collection of tales, or just don't think it all that important.

The people who happen to like this edited bunch of tales in fact don't even follow the basic set of rules laid down in it, and instead cherry pick from the book completely unrelated passages to justify their behaviour, while ignoring anything inconvinent to said behaviour.

All that over a bunch of stories, most of them with terrible plots, painfully one-dimensional characters, and which often beat their readers over the head with their moral lesson (some of which are either irrelevant or even destructive in modern society).

So yeah, I'd call the bible massively overrated.

P.S. I'm an apathetic agnostic and don't know that any religion, including the atheists, is the "right" one. And despite what the above rant might make it seem like, I have nothing personal against christians. I have something personal against the people of every religion who use their religion as an excuse for reprehensible behaviour.

Clearly you don't understand anything about Christianity, or it's theology. You have only compiled your narrow view on it based on the poor representation of extremists. Why don't you just come out and say that all Muslims are terrorists, and all jews are money-grubbing cheap-skates while you're at it.

by **LaserGuy** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 8:09 pm UTC

Romeo and Juilet.

It's reputation in popular culture is fairly undeserved. It's not one of Shakespeare's best works by a long shot, and I honestly believe anyone who claims that it is the greatest love story ever or any such nonsense has probably never read it.

by **McCaber** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 8:18 pm UTC

LaserGuy wrote:Romeo and Juilet.

It's reputation in popular culture is fairly undeserved. It's not one of Shakespeare's best works by a long shot, and I honestly believe anyone who claims that it is the greatest love story ever or any such nonsense has probably never read it.

Not to mention that it's just Pyramus and Thisbe IN VENICE.

by **Jorpho** » Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:17 am UTC

I was hoping Romeo and Juliet would come up again, so I could link to this truly inspired retelling.

Also remember that the Baz Luhrmann version had DiCaprio when he was still in his so-dreamy phase.

by **Triangle_Man** » Sat Feb 19, 2011 9:36 am UTC

Jorpho wrote:I was hoping Romeo and Juliet would come up again, so I could link to this truly inspired retelling.

Also remember that the Baz Luhrmann version had DiCaprio when he was still in his so-dreamy phase.

That was actually physically painful to read. I didn't even bother trying to get too far into it, it hurt that bad.

by **Jorpho** » Sat Feb 19, 2011 1:31 pm UTC

Triangle_Man wrote:
Jorpho wrote:I was hoping Romeo and Juliet would come up again, so I could link to this truly inspired retelling.Also remember that the Baz Luhrmann version had DiCaprio when he was still in his so-dreamy phase.
That was actually physically painful to read. I didn't even bother trying to get too far into it, it hurt that bad.

o rly? The troll logs on MSPA are at least as bad on a regular basis.

by **Jesse** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 12:40 am UTC

bro i am such an excellent wingman
that if you were to duct tape one of me to each arm
you would ACTUALLY BE ABLE TO FLY
AND I WOULD GET YOU LAID IN MIDAIR

I am stealing this line for everything I do in the future.

by **ConMan** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 12:06 am UTC

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever.

Or as I tend to refer to it, the trilogy of books in which the main character hates himself, hates the situation he's landed in, and doesn't even seem to believe that any of it is real. And when he finally faces the great evil, he claims that trying to destroy it would just make it come back and so he just traps it. Except that there were two more trilogies so that obviously worked really well. I somehow managed to torture myself through the first trilogy under the impression that it must have some kind of redeeming qualities (otherwise why would they have let him write more of it?) but in the end I've decided the most appropriate reaction to the series is "Unclean! Unclean!"

by **bigglesworth** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 5:49 am UTC

Oh man, yes. I couldn't get past the first chapter of the first book.

by **El Spark** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 5:14 pm UTC

Same here. And I've tried, on several occasions.

by **emceng** » Mon Mar 14, 2011 2:40 pm UTC

ConMan wrote:The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever.

Or as I tend to refer to it, the trilogy of books in which the main character hates himself, hates the situation he's landed in, and doesn't even seem to believe that any of it is real. And when he finally faces the great evil, he claims that trying to destroy it would just make it come back and so he just traps it. Except that there were two more trilogies so that obviously worked really well. I somehow managed to torture myself through the first trilogy under the impression that it must have some kind of redeeming qualities (otherwise why would they have let him write more of it?) but in the end I've decided the most appropriate reaction to the series is "Unclean! Unclean!"

I don't know if I would consider it overrated. I agree that they are not good books. For some crazy reason I decided to buy the second series after reading the first...I still am not sure why. I just like buying books - as demonstrated by the 6 I bought on Saturday, probably 3 of which I will ever even open.

by **torgos** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 10:36 pm UTC

Narsil wrote:Except for Count of Monte Cristo.
In all seriousness, I would call it the best novel ever written.

What I remember about the Count of Monte Cristo was thinking about how many of the chapters seemed to only exist because Dumas was being paid by the chapter.

And great, now I'm hungry and need to go to the food forum.

by **torgos** » Wed Mar 16, 2011 10:40 pm UTC

I generally dislike Hemingway; other than the Old Man and the Sea, all of his novels that I've read pretty much felt like the same novel.

by **ConMan** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 4:33 am UTC

The Hunchback of Notre Dame was not bad, and the story was quite interesting. But every second chapter, Hugo seemed to feel it was necessary to write an essay complaining about the lack of conservation of heritage buildings in Paris.

by **Chuff** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 3:02 am UTC

torgos wrote:I generally dislike Hemingway; other than the Old Man and the Sea, all of his novels that I've read pretty much felt like the same novel.

In that they're drinking diaries? Yeah.

by **Jorpho** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 4:13 am UTC

Ernest Hemmingway as a Yelper

I decided it was high time to finally read Wicked after seeing that nifty animatic that made the rounds a while ago. I made it a quarter of the way through before I had to return it to the library, and while I'll give it a chance to redeem itself still, so far it's just been... ugh. It is the worst kind of vapid pretentiousness. There is much, much better unpublished fan fiction out there somewhere, I'm sure.

by **emceng** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 2:41 pm UTC

Wicked was terrible. The Broadway show is good, but the book itself is wretched.

by **Zohar** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 3:18 pm UTC

I LOVED the show when I watched it in London. Then I read the book and I really disliked it. Very boring, mostly...

by **pseudoidiot** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 3:25 pm UTC

I really enjoyed the book, myself, but if you thought it was boring, I definitely don't recommend Maguire's other books. I enjoyed them well enough, but I felt like they were a lot more difficult to get into.

by **mister k** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 3:28 pm UTC

yeah, Wicked the book (have yet to see the musical) has some enjoyable parts- mostly Elphaba being a revolutionary in the city, but the ending shudders to its inevitable conclusion in a tediously slow fashion. Its also heavily depressing, and surprisingly unfunny, considering the way it was marketed.

by **Jorpho** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:52 am UTC

mister k wrote:considering the way it was marketed.

Indeed, I guess the success of the book can be chalked up to an excellent marketing job. At least I don't have to worry that maybe I'm not getting the joke, evidently.

"But how can total crap be made into a musical?" is the obvious question. But maybe not.

by **k.p.b** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 1:53 am UTC

I didn't read the entire thread, but I saw no mention of The Pearl, by John Steinbeck. Granted, I read it in middle school, so I might not have the best recollection, but I remember it being very boring and somewhat vague. I thoroughly enjoyed the other Steinbeck books that I've read, but I hated The Pearl. That, and Oliver Twist. Dickens

by **Jahoclave** » Thu Mar 31, 2011 6:00 am UTC

Agnes of Sorrento by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Awful doesn't even begin to describe it. Also, The Marble Faun by Nathaniel Hawthorne might qualify as the worst thing he's ever written.

by **Metaphysician** » Sat Apr 23, 2011 12:16 am UTC

"The Soprano Sorceress" L.E. Modesitt Jr.

So bad I got about 1/3 through it and threw the book across the room in rage, a waste of money. I haven't spoken to the person that recommended him since. What a wretched author. I've picked up other books of his in the store just to see if it was anomalous and every one I've looked at reads like a first draft.

The Shannara series by Terry Brooks was pretty bad too. I actually read the whole first book of that, hated it, moved on. Can't really say why, it just didn't grab me.

by **Gregarious Raconteur** » Wed Jun 01, 2011 1:43 am UTC

Steve Alten - particularly his "meg" series.

For whatever reason, the administration at the high school I attended seemed to be obsessed with this guy.

Not only were these pulp novels required reading, we had to read them aloud, as a class, one chapter per day throughout the whole freaking school year.

The plot is basically jaws, with a sixty foot prehistoric shark that somehow lived on in the Marianas Trench and swam to the surface. The protagonist is somewhat of a gary stu, and an uncomfortably large amount of time in the novels are devoted to describing - in detail - the bodily functions of the book's characters, including the shark.

by **sbarr** » Wed Jan 11, 2012 4:49 pm UTC

Haven't seen this posted yet, The Grapes of Wrath. I don't mind symbolism and usually won't let it ruin a story, but somewhere around the turtle passage I got disgusted. It's like, "I get it already, you don't need to keep beating me in the head with this metaphor!"

by **podbaydoor** » Wed Jan 11, 2012 10:43 pm UTC

Jahoclave wrote:Agnes of Sorrento by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Awful doesn't even begin to describe it. Also, The Marble Faun by Nathaniel Hawthorne might qualify as the worst thing he's ever written.

Is that the one where a bunch of romantics wander around Europe and fuck around? I think I remember wondering what the hell the point was. Maybe. Other than that...it didn't make much of an impression. (Clearly.)

by **Adam H** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 6:26 pm UTC

Ignoring all of the many books that are completely outside of my preferred genre (I disliked Grapes of Wrath as well, but that's not particularly noteworthy for me), I'll go with the Sword of Truth series. I loooove LOTR, Wheel of Time, Ender's Game (and all 10 or so oft-criticized sequels), Song of Ice and Fire, other lesser known sci-fi/fantasy/fiction books. Sword of Truth was recommended by a friend who said it was better than Wheel of Time and on par with Song of Ice and Fire, so I went ahead and BOUGHT ALL 14 of them (I like to reread, so all my favorite books are bought). Horrible, horrible, horrible decision. I can't stand the books. The first was OK, the rest were just bad - I only read them because I bought them and figured I might as well give them a chance. Apparently I'm a masochist. Lessons learned: 1) don't spend significant money on books that might suck. 2) There's no accounting for taste.

by **miedvied** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 6:50 pm UTC

william wrote:
Bakemaster wrote:
Amnesiasoft wrote:1984. That book was just ridiculous. And anyone who was scared of a future like that obviously didn't take note of the fact that the people were only opressing themselves. The proles basically got to do whatever they wanted, and they made up 85% of the population (If I remember the book correctly)

You do realize you gon' get stabbed for that opinion, right? There's no way to say this that is not condescending, but maybe you should read it again when you're no longer a teenager.

1984 is incredibly irrelevant, honestly. It reached the peak of its relevance in the 50s.

Also, the only people I know who have said anything good about the Scarlet Letter are teachers, and I think they've been brainwashed.

You know that bit about how they would daily edit the newspapers/history, and no meaningful constant historical record would survive?

You know that bit about how people went flocking to the Kindle, whose core features include the ability to automatically "update" your books (including deleting them), as they did with... 1984?

Know that bit where newspapers freely edit their online articles without leaving notice of the content that existed before those edits? Those online articles whose readership vastly outstrips their physical readership?

Know that bit where people are constantly expanding the powers of government and social networking in tandem, such that we are rapidly approaching life in the panopticon?

COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT.

by **miedvied** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 7:11 pm UTC

Worst book ever, "The outstretched shadow," by Mercedes Lackey. I'm a bibliophile; this was the first time in my entire life (and the last, so far) that I ever threw a book in the garbage. I threw this one out and dumped crap atop it. I'm just pasting my Amazon review below, so I don't have to revisit my own bile:

While I grant there were no obvious flaws with her prose beyond its lack of originality, I can not express deeply enough my dissatisfaction with this book.

Allow me to state clearly that I am not a 'high-fantasy fan'. I'm a lover of all literature - spanning everything from Robert E. Howard's original pulp fantasy (that was eventually corrupted by
Tolkien lackeys like Lackey), to Kerouac, Maugham, Lovecraft, Kundera, et al. Therefore, while I have no particular hatred for the genre, if you are the sort that eagerly browses the fantasy shelves at your local bookstore and gladly buy up the various offerings by Lackey and her look-alikes, my opinions will be useless to you. You have, after all, found what you enjoy; I commend you.

If you are a generally avid reader that occasionally dips their toes into fantasy literature, or someone whose definitions of fantasy tend more towards the Gene Wolfe end of the pool, then you probably are seeking an opinion of the book that will guide you on whether or not to purchase it. As such, I will say that the positive reviews you find here are written by the former group of readers. (For Pete's sake, they describe cliches as the book's selling point!)

Let us forgive Lackey's lack of originality for a moment: understand that she is one of those authors that has never tried to escape that vile child of Tolkien and Dungeons and Dragons that pervades much fantasy literature today. If you know that you do not like this, stop reading now, and move onto your next book. If you are luke-warm on that genre, let us move on from there.

Her main character is presented with all the depth of water pooling in a navel. He is young, brattish, and sort-of seeks his father's affection (except he doesn't; it's rather passive aggressive). This is not poor dramatic fodder, save for how terribly it is executed. His youth and brattishness is never utilized in dramatic fashion as, for some reason, this young man knows better than every adult around him, including those on the ruling council. Let us be clear: it is not just that he *thinks* he knows better (that would be fine characterization). He *does* know better, every time. A great deal of the book reads like the wish fullfilment of a teenage boy (is that the primary audience?).

Even her "magic system" falls peril to this: the father is obviously using the "boring", "formulaic" sort of magic. The son/main character, however, is so very special that he is chosen by a magic book to learn the "better" "wild" magic. Everyone is taught that this wild magic is evil and bad and destroys society; the main character thinks it's good. Therefore, everyone else is immediately and completely wrong; and also, part of an evil conspiracy. Everyone in the world who thinks this wild chaos/wild teenager stuff is "good" is a white-hat, objectively proven so by the author. Everyone who thinks ritual and order is good is a black-hat, proven so by the author. After this is established, it turns out that ritual magic even relies on harvesting the soul-stuff of the population. Because, if we weren't sure if we ought to side with the brat of a main character yet, his father / the ruling council / those boring old adults are sucking the souls of the city populace for their own welfare.

Sigh. In the hands of a good author, that might have been used as a social commentary, in the vein of the original myths of aristocracy-as-vampires coming from the general feeling that they "fed off" the peasants. In the hands of Lackey, however, it's merely there to bludgeon the audience into making sure they side with the White Hat instead of the Black Hat.

The boy's relationship with his father is worse. If the father oppressed the child for what he truly felt was his own good, we could see some dramatic tension in the boy's resultant emotional distance and magical/political opposition to the man. However, the father apparently hates him. He does not even hate the boy in three-dimensions: it is without any apparent remorse that he, according to legal dictates, sends out various forces to kill his son (his teenage rebellion was what earned the death sentence). And the boy, as I recall, is not even all that upset or surprised by his father's reaction. Any possible drama to be mined from that vein is never found. What more needs to be said? The protagonist is the ideal wish fullfilment avatar of a teenage boy.

The remainder of the characters are written in the same two dimensions, wearing their white hats and black hats in the face of the oncoming evil army (the evil army is obligatory in all Tolkien-clones, after all).

The plot is essentially linear and obvious. As to one of the previous reviewers that said the linear and foreseeable plot is a *good* thing in a writer... No, child, No. It is one thing if the writer is following epic archetypes and so, to some extent, we know the brushstrokes the story is following. Many great writers use particular well-known story elements; if one is writing an epic in the Greek heroic fashion, there should be a concern with glory over death, and a character's importance should be commensurate with his looks and physical ability. However, a good writer would or could turn any of these elements on their head, and whether they did or didn't, these are /elements/ - they're not the entire damned book, plot included! (Note: this book is not based on Greek epics, I was just using that as an example).

It's quite another issue to write *the exact same book* that's being published by *every* other bland, formulaic fantasy writer in the market, all of whose plots could be predicted before pen touched paper. When the book's plot can be predicted within the first chapter, that's not clever artifice on the part of the author. That's a hint you can use the book for propping up a shaking table.

Lackey's prose and characterisation is as uninspired as the fan-fiction role-players write on the back of their character sheets. If you do not already love this sort of pastiche, move on. Otherwise, read at your own peril.

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