NOT recommended reading!

[Brian G Turner]

This is a vent for complaining about books you didn't like. This isn't about setting an objective standard - simply personal opinion on what you've read - but didn't like.


The Reality Dysfunction - Peter Hamilton

This is the first book in a trilogy - which is basically one simple but forced, often pointless, and full of holes, plotline padded out by spending hundreds of pages at a time on completely irrelevant characters - which remain pretty two-dimensional, and even contradictory, regardless. I nearly threw the book down in disgust at one point, but made myself continue on condition of skip-reading most of the rest. I was interested in a couple of elements - but there's no way I'm going to subject myself to thousands more pages of redundancy just to follow them. I'm sure if you stripped the trilogy down to one book it could be more interesting. But only after the plot is properly fixed. Which is a shame, because when Hamilton writes well, he properly enages. But these are sparse moments in a pointlessly overlong work.

 

[Kilroy]

Okay, its not sci-fi but never read "Island" by Aldous Huxley. Its the most boring novel ever. I mean EVER. I need to read it for school because its absolutly perfect for my Essay on "The Elements of Utopia" but i warn all of you. NEVER READ THIS NOVEL!! NOTHING HAPPENS FOR 300 PAGES!!

Kilroy Was Here

 

[SirRob]

You don't like Peter Hamilton! I loved Fallen Dragon. Really fast paced with brilliant action, but his vision of the future was a little inept as human culture and everyday life was practically the same, apart from FTL spaceships and technology generally being souped up.

Whats so boring about Island Kilroy. Have you read Brave New World?

 

[Brian G Turner]

You don't like Peter Hamilton! I loved Fallen Dragon. Really fast paced with brilliant action

Just a personal opinion of "The Reality Dysfunction", nothing more - which is anything but fast paced! Methinks he was being far too indulgent with that work, and had maybe done well enough on previous novels to get away with having it published.

 

[PaenDragaan]

ok, this isn't a novel, it's an Author. Never, ever, ever! read Margret Atwood. I hate everything she's ever written, yet was forced to read it in highschool english. :theatrical shudder: I most vehemently advise you to never read her if not physically forced to!

 

[SirRob]

A book I really don't like is Knight's Dawn by Kim Hunter. Sub standard fantasy with a childish plot and a good example on how not to build a world. Its been reprinted but AVOID it!

 

[RagnarokNRoll]

ANYTHING by george lucas is, i guess the word i'm looking for is classic, but that doesn't make it good. Star Wars really isn't that good. No one believes me, because they're parents watched it and loved it, and they make their kids love it, because they had to love it because if they didn't the whole world will hate them, so basically for 2 or 3 generations the entire world has been brainwashed into loving books and movies by a guy who isn't that good an author or director, and they're forced to believe that he's a "Genious" when he's actually just a really nerdy guy who spent alot of money so he'd be recognized for years to come. Fin.

 

[Ciuva]

I don't like Terry Brooks' books. At least the few ones I read before I just couldn't read more of it. Sometimes it seems so very, very obvious what's going to happen. Other times I just can't see the logic in them. I don't remember much of it now, since it's a long time ago. I think it was the main character in one of the books who were captured by his enemy. He was prophecied (suprise, surprise) to be the only one who could kill that enemy or something, but his friends, who wanted to rescue him, meant that their friend probably would be brought to where their enemy was. Where is the logic? If your men had captured the only one who had a chance of killing you, would you have brought him to the place he was trying to get to, the only place he was sure to meet you and, maybe, kill you?
I think not.
If this wasn't enough, I don't think he's a good story teller either. It's just like he's telling you what's happened just to tell it, not to bring you "into" the story.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Is he the one who wrote about the evil chicken?

[EDIT - sorry, my bad - that was Terry Goodkind.]

 

[clareabella]

ok, not book related, but star wars 1,2 and most probably 3 are sucking big time. the story lines are crap, although i suppose it's the special effects making everything melodramatic.

but the jedi power been explained by bloodcells??????? anakin being a moany little sh*t??????
it's all so predictable, even though we know what's going to happen, still. it's still a pile of storyless pap.

terry pratchett's strata was pap too, it's like just leaving all the complicated pratchett bits in the story and taking out all the actual good bits that make sense.

 

[dwndrgn]

I'm apparently in the minority here - I love Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. He does what Gallagher said we should all do 'Look at the world with new eyes'. He points out funny characters, beliefs and ideals that we would otherwise not see. I don't mind laughing at myself.
I mean, who doesn't laugh reading about Cut Me Own Throat Dibbler?
Or how about Death of Rats?
And the river Ankh? I've visited several of its cousins here in the states - East River anyone?

 

[scifimoth]

I have yet to find anything by Anne Rice that I can actually read past the first chapter....
I find her writing style tedious...

 

[nemesis]

Pratchett is variable. He has good days and bad days.

 

[Ahdkaw]

Well I have to disagree on two books mentioned in this thread. The first, Peter F. Hamiltons The Reality Dysfunction, whilst admittedly slow in places, IMO was a very enjoyable read.

And Aldous Huxleys Island, another book that has been slammed, but again another book I thoroughly enjoyed. It was an anti-thesis (correct word?) to Brave New World and well worth the read.

 

[dwndrgn]

I hated Brave New World so maybe I should read Islands if it really is the antithesis (yes, correct word) of the former.

 

[polymorphikos]

It may seem hard to believe, but I haven't read a bad book in years. IMO, books that I can't finish aren't bad, i just have points that I can't move past for some reason. Probably the driest and least appealing book in my library is Dracula. I just can't connect with it, and feel that it's a lot like the origional movie in that everone raves about it but it's actually not that goo. I'll finish it one day, as I've theory that it's crippled by an overlong build-up.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Another of Stokers' books, The Lair of the White Worm 9i think) is utterly the most vile piece of nonsense I have ever read. SOme of his short stories are good, though.


OK, another book I personally disliked: Oath of Fealty by Niven and Pournelle. Some of their other stuff is quite classic, but this one just failed to connect with me on any level and I actually found it reprehensible on an ideological level. (The title says it all).

 

[Brian G Turner]

Lair of the White worm was also made into a film - one of Hugh Grants pre-celebrity releases.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Heh, oddly appropriate.

 

[nemogbr]

I actually loved Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy, although I do agree about the Deus Ex Machina ending.

I've only read a few of Terry Pratchett's work, the latest "Monstrous Regiment" and "Thief of Time" were very readable. The former certainly gives a new spin on Mulan scenario..

Someone told me that "Dracula" was written as a script so it does come across as a very dry read.