Books I never finished (and don't intend to)

Foxbat

Foxbat

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First up is Naked Lunch.... ??? I understand Burroughs spent the 10 years he took to write this out of his head on Heroin - it shows.

War and Peace..It's just too big, too many characters. I get lost turning over the page! I've read longer books than this but this one feels the longest.

Nietzche (is that how it's spelt?) Beyond Good and Evil
I understand he died in an asylum for the insane. At least this book taught me to hate pithy maxims.

Heinlein's Number of the Beast...I got to within 50 pages of the end and gave up, I just couldn't take any more. It's been so long since that I can't even remember what it was I disliked about this book.

I'm sure there must be others..
 
I couldn''t read A Confederacy of Dunces. After all the accolades, I went against my better judgement and picked it up. Couldn't get past the first chapter. I instantly hated every character and just didn't care what happened.
 
I bought "Naked Lunch" and "War and Peace", but never got around to reading them (I watched an old b/w 2 part film of War and Peace years ago - figured it was true to the story, and therefore it wouldn't be necessary to read the book. :) ). I'm sure there's more leeway with the Naked Lunch film (Roy "Jaws" Scheider, as the lead, was it?).

I started Peter F. Hamilton's "Fallen Dragon", but about 50 pages in it just sent me yawning of. No tension whatsoever, even in the supposed early "dramatic" scene. I do not like not finishing books, though. :)

I did stop halfway through Cervantes "Don Quixote". I figured I'd read the good half, it was starting to slow, and I felt that I only needed the experience anyway. Interesting comedy, but the joke(s) moves too long in the telling.

I bought Kim Stanley Robinson's "Green Mars" not too long ago. I read something of the first chapter, then figured I really shouldn't read it until I'd read "Red Mars", as the Green one is part 2 in a trilogy.

Hm...I'm sure there's more - I used to read the first few pages of a book when I bought it. And if I bought a few at once, the one I'd read first was the one that wouldn't let me stop after the first few pages. I'm sure a few got left behind. I think Huxley's "Island" was one of those.
 
Collected works of Franz Kafka...

Not the long novels though... It is utterly strange, and although I have now read a lot of his stories, I don't think I will finish it... But stranger things has happened, so I'm not ruling it out completely... :)
 
I quite like Kafka. Obviously peoples tastes are different but I'd stick with it if I were you.
:)
 
LOL. I know what you mean. You definitely have to be in the right frame of mind before attempting some of his stuff.
 
Any books that have more than a thousand pages War and Peace, Les Miserables, and The Count of Monte Cristo.
Anything written by Peter Hamilton.
After a while you can soon lose interest in the long-winded reads.
In fact these days anything over 550 pages loses my interest.
 
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Foxbat said:
Heinlein's Number of the Beast...I got to within 50 pages of the end and gave up, I just couldn't take any more. It's been so long since that I can't even remember what it was I disliked about this book.
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Have you considered reading The Pursuit of the Pankera: A Parallel Novel about Parallel Universes , i.e. an apparently earlier version of The Number of the Beast, where the first third is the same, but the rest is very different?
 
I think I read some Nietzche
but I suspect I did a lot of page skipping.

I started on Lord of the Rings but...
 
Dahlgren by Samuel Delany Ive attempted to read this book on 2 occasions and both time stopped. It is one the most incomprehensible books ive ever encountered . The first I ever got was around 40 pages and then I just gave up.
 
Leviathan Wakes. One of the most awful things I've ever (tried to) read. I struggled to about page three hundred and some vomiting zombies appeared out of nowhere. Pitched it and the next two books in the bin.
 
Vince W said:
Leviathan Wakes. One of the most awful things I've ever (tried to) read. I struggled to about page three hundred and some vomiting zombies appeared out of nowhere. Pitched it and the next two books in the bin.
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I've not read any Corey. But I do know that people really do wax lyrical over this series. I trust you @Vince W, on some of your past choices that we somewhat see eye-to-eye on some issues regarding SF. So could you point to other authors. stories. or worlds that this series resembles?

Just curious.

(I could, of course, just read the first one....but already my immediate reading pile - as opposed to my true, long term, reading pile that is much bigger, and which is hiding somewhere - is starting to grow uncontrollably and now starting to become an alternative long term reading pile.)
 
The problem with Leviathan Wakes is that it was so full of sci-fi tropes that it resembles far too many other stories and series. I got the distinct impression that the authors were watching television while writing this and put whatever bits they liked from whatever was on in the book. I think it was written specifically to get a television series, so in that respect it was a success.

It tries to be working class science fiction but it feels like working class fiction written by an art school hack. I would look to books like Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy or several of Niven's Known Space stories for similar characters and themes without the extra chrome tacked onto Leviathan Wakes to dazzle readers into thinking they are reading something original.
 
Vince W said:
The problem with Leviathan Wakes is that it was so full of sci-fi tropes that it resembles far too many other stories and series. I got the distinct impression that the authors were watching television while writing this and put whatever bits they liked from whatever was on in the book. I think it was written specifically to get a television series, so in that respect it was a success.

It tries to be working class science fiction but it feels like working class fiction written by an art school hack. I would look to books like Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy or several of Niven's Known Space stories for similar characters and themes without the extra chrome tacked onto Leviathan Wakes to dazzle readers into thinking they are reading something original.
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At the bookstore , I picked up the first book read a few pages and put it back on the shelf. It just didn't appeal to me.
 
I love Delany and technically I have read it, but I'm not sure I really understood or enjoyed it at the time. I was pretty young and I think a lot of it went over my head. I have it still and keep meaning to read it again.
 
Vince W said:
I love Delany and technically I have read it, but I'm not sure I really understood or enjoyed it at the time. I was pretty young and I think a lot of it went over my head. I have it still and keep meaning to read it again.
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Ive read by him Babel 17, Nova and Triton all of them great books

Ive made two attempts at reading Dahlgren. I didn't get far . I couldn't figure out what the book was supposed to be about.:unsure: :oops:
 
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