Son of Awesomely Bad Books

[rachelmanija]

See post below for context, ie, if you guys don't entertain me, I can't guarantee I won't flee into the cold night in my jammies.

Last week lady_ganesh asked me to name and briefly describe the five worst books I'd ever read. I replied:

Oh God, SO MANY! How to choose?!

1. Robin Hobb's Forest Mage (The Soldier Son Trilogy, Book 2)

Comments

[oracne]

We need a scale of badness, to determine if you stop reading, or keep going in car-wreck fascination.

[therck]

I think I've blotted a lot of bad books from my mind. These days, I generally have a choice about whether or not to put a book aside. I read a lot of crap before I was twenty (finishing things because I simply didn't have access to more books) and didn't necessarily register books as *bad*. I suspect that some of not registering books as bad came from not being sure of the line between 'bad' and 'not my thing.'

The only book I can think of right now is The Fifth Sorceress. That was sufficiently bad that I didn't finish it, so I'm not sure I can count it.

[smtfhw]

If we're really going for bad, I spent three days in a hotel where the only reading material I could lay my hands on were three Jeffrey Archer novels - they were all the same and all universally awful.

[mroctober]

Christopher Rice's debut novel. Melodrama + Gary Stu.

The Still. Most dreadful protagonist ever. So selfish. Plus, crappy magic that permits gay sex since it's not 'losing your viriginity.'

[sartorias]

The problem for me is, I no longer finish them if they hit the ten on the stink-o-meter.

But some tens were:

All of Heinlein's later books. Goodkin's first. (Never poked my nose into any others.) Stephen Donaldson's Lord Foul's Bane.

Monsieur Tristesse A lot of French adults who seem to have nothing to do but obsess about whether a thirteen year old girl is "doing it" or not. And obsessing in a peculiarly voyeuristic and smug way. The only book that made me want to take a bath as soon as i finished it.

[nestra]

Stephen Donaldson's Lord Foul's Bane.

Oh, lord, I read all six of those. That was a lot of slog for no reward.

[cofax7]

Indeed. I was reading them back in high school when my finances were constrained and I'd read every vaguely-sf book in the school or town libraries, some things twice. I really would read anything.

I was amazed, later, to read Mirror of Her Dreams and not find the characters (and author) loathesome. Quite a surprise.

[nestra]

I'm afraid to reread Mirror of Her Dreams and A Man Rides Through. I worry that the gender issues I missed ten years ago will rise up and smack me.