Your least favourite moments in otherwise good books.

[Tecdavid]

I ought to contribute a little something of my own.
The Wheel of Time has been mentioned here before, but although I love the series, I can't help but get angry at Jordan's female characters. Far too many act needlessly cruel, aloof, and a times, childish. I think he tried to avoid Damsel in Distress female characters (which, for the most part, he did), but I wonder whether he put something just as bad in their place.

 

[Extollager]

Prunesquallor is certainly integral to the book. In a way, he's the conscience of the book.

Yes -- in fact, I think you, or someone else, said this a while back and made me think I needed to see him as more than just annoying self-indulgence on Peake's part. I shouldn't say I will skip the Prunesquallor parts, but I will probably skim them, because in the past it seems they've gotten in the way of my reading the book again.

 

[nightdreamer]

I've whined about this in another thread, but the ending of Pullman's The Amber Spyglass put me off to no end. I wasn't haven't happy with that book in series anyway, but the ending retroactively ruined parts in The Subtle Knife that I actually liked. Grrrrr....

I've also whined about the graphic description of sex by a five-year-old in Piers Anthony's Firefly. Technically, it did add an element to the story, but it wasn't really a necessary element and the whole thing left me a bit ... queasy.

 

[Nerds_feather]

Jeyne Westerling.

 

[Mouse]

I third Bombadil. I skipped all that nonsense.

I'll add whatever-his-name from the Amber books. The main character. I want to say Gorwen, but that was the dragon in Through the Dragon's Eye. But him anyway. I stopped reading because he was so freaking irritating. (Oh wait, you said 'good books' sorry. Mind, I probably would've carried on if it hadn't been for matey.)

I know there are more things but I can't think right now.

 

[Steve S]

Although it's a powerful concept, I still struggle with the 'Scouring of the Shire' scenes in the Lord of the Rings. I hate to criticize Professor Tolkien, but I just feel that the tone and style of the writing in that sequence jars a little. Perhaps it works a bridge between the epic style of the preceding chapters and a return to the more homely, bucolic style of the Shire, but I'm afraid I find it awkward, stilted and dated in a way that does not apply to the rest of the book (which is clearly magnificent).

 

[Trailblazer]

On the topic of Tolkien. I am reading LoTR for the first time and even half way through FoTR I am appreciating the much more fleshed out and expanded plot/lore.

However, one of the things that bugged me in the film and bugs me even more with the book is the Weathertop incident.

We have these supernatural ring wraiths who are explicitly stated to be very powerful and dangerous corner 4, 4ft tall hobbits with no combat experience and 1 trained man dozens of miles from nowhere with no escape while outnumbering their quarry and almost nothing comes from it.

In the film Strider leaps in and waves a torch around until they - run off.

In the book it's much the same, though Frodo manages to slash the Witch King with his sword (cant remember if that's in the film its been awhile) before getting skewered. Strider's 'me bring fire!!!' is alluded to after the fact when Frodo regains consciousness and asks what happened.

Strider also says hes not sure why they fled and there are other comments scattered about the book so far like "they are creatures of shadow and hate the light and attention it brings" or "they despise fire".

Really though the outcome of this scene was very dissatisfying. The threat posed is clearly overstated significantly if the wraiths could not secure the ring from an essentially perfect situation entirely in their favour right then and there.
You could make an amusing comic strip of the wraiths meekly reporting back to Sauron on why they were unable to take the ring from a seemingly impossible to lose encounter.

Thankfully the scene from the film where the Wraith leans over the hobbits by the road and sniffs around and is completely clueless the all powerful magical item hes looking for is about 15 inches below him isnt in the book, the wraith already come off as inept as it is.

 

[Nerds_feather]

If anyone here is, like me, a fan of Stand on Zanzibar, then you'll know why I find "the Hipcrime Vocab" so irritating.

 

[sassy1]

Oh I like the Tom Bombadil part of LotR =)

The once scene that jumps out for me is the eaters bit in Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks, I thought it was unnecessary and disgusting.

 

[Rodders]

Funny, i was just going to mention that part of the book. I love the book, but that chapter was a little uneccessary. I wouldn't call it disgusting though, I thought that it was a comment on our own society in the decadance of some and the maleability of others.

 

[CrumpleHornedSnorkak]

For me, it's probably the end of LotRs. It was all going well, they destroyed the Ring (Hurrah!) and then it just went on ... And on ... And on. Then, for good measure, it kept on going. I admit, I never finished it. I feel bad, but it just wouldn't hold my attention. Sorry Tolkien..

 

[TheDustyZebra]

The endless descriptions of ships and their workings in the Honor Harrington books. I skim over all the technical stuff; I love the books because the story and the people are so compelling, but diagrams, schematics and comparisons of armor and weaponry just don't do anything for me.

 

[GlasgowSpacer]

Everything involving Mrs Dubose in to Kill a Mockingbird. On the one hand I can understand why Harper Lee included the chapter. It helps to establish the novel’s themes of courage and prejudice, since it shows that even someone we might dismiss as a crazy old recluse can in their own way be brave, just by having the will to keep on going despite their circumstances. It shows that courage is often a much more subtle and less obviously heroic quality than we see with Atticus.

But like Bombadil it just cuckoos its way into the narrative and grinds it to a halt. Tom Bombadil at least happened at a point in the story where the pace was relatively relaxed so it could afford to take a few detours. Dubose butts in at a point where the story’s becoming more focused, making the sub plot a lot more intrusive.

 

[Nick B]

The endless descriptions of ships and their workings in the Honor Harrington books. I skim over all the technical stuff; I love the books because the story and the people are so compelling, but diagrams, schematics and comparisons of armor and weaponry just don't do anything for me.

I'm giving Weber a try and got to say I'm struggling. I'm half way through Basilisk Station and finding I can't read more than a page or two. I don't like Honor Harrington, I don't like treecats (and I love cats), I don't think I have so far met a character I actually connect with at all.

 

[RebeccaTheWrecker]

For me it was Tyrion's abrupt change of character in ASoIaF, in the last book (I've forgotten the name of it). I know the betrayal changed him and his actions following the betrayal would have changed his character, but he became so unlikeable, at least to me, that I began looking forward to end of his chapters. I know he's a Lannister and his newfound mean streak was done for a reason, and it's not like the change came out of nowhere, but for me, someone who doesn't like Jon Snow or Daenarys (is she even capable of making a reasonable decision on her own?), it made the book almost unreadable.

 

[kierandell1409]

I've got two I really didn't like. Quick warning, both involve spoilers.

The first is the end to the final Chronicles of Narnia book. The first six books were so child friendly, I was kinda shocked at how brutal this one was. First there's the big battle where the good guys are hopelessly outnumbered...oh, wait, here comes help...wait, what? Why are the dwarves killing the good guys? I understand they were upset with Aslan, but this seems a little much. And then once the big battle was over and the other Seven Friends of Narnia come up, Aslan basically says "you all died in a train crash, but that's fine because you get to spend an eternity in My Country." And no-one was upset by this. You'd think there'd be a little more crying upon finding out you're dead. And my last major problem is Susan. Her entire family, as well as her cousin and several family friends die, and not only does everyone ignore this, she's basically described as being a sl*t (in more polite words). She has lost more than half a dozen people at once, and the characters are like "Meh, whatever. Let's party."

My other complaint is with the Inheritance Cycle. Mostly, it's the fact that Paolini goes into excruciating detail about some minor things, has tonnes of barely (if at all) important scenes that probably double the length of each book, and the last hundred or so pages of the final book were just an extended epilogue, during which I just kept thinking "Galbatorix is dead. What else could you possibly have to say?"

Otherwise, both series are great.

 

[Lilmizflashythang]

When I read Mount Dragon by Preston and Child, it was Susan de Vaca that did me in. The woman was determined not to like anyone that was white.

 

[Mr Fraaz]

When the wood elves in The Hobbit sit in the trees and sings annoying things like:

Hey ninny nanny nonny
Look at the pony

Unacceptable!

I quite like Tom Bombadil though!

 

[Randy M.]

[...]In Blackwood's "The Willows," it seems to me the author's confidence in his material sort of collapses when the narrator starts vaporing on about occultic ideas.

I thought of that as the usual rationalizing one does when faced with something unexplainable. (Either that or I just slid over it because I was otherwise enjoying the story quite a bit.)

In Lovecraft's "Shadow Over Innsmouth," there's a breakdown of artistry (and Lovecraft had been writing well) when he has his narrator questioning the old coot on the dock, and then the oldster sees something and Lovecraft spells out the scream. Actually, in a way it's endearing (I always have to imagine Lovecraft up in his room "sounding out" the letters to get the quality he wanted -- wonder what the aunts thought if they heard him! like something out of P. G. Wodehouse), but I think it more or less stopped me dead on one rereading.

Not quite as bad, I suppose, but I had the feeling the last time I read "The Shadow Out of Time" that much of the length of the story was taken up with trying too hard to sell his central premise. Didn't really hit that until about mid-way, though.

In Hodgson's The Night Land, the stuff about the narrator's lady-love is awful. I have tried to finish the book more than once and just haven't brought myself to do it.

I almost hit the wall in Hodgson's The House on the Borderland with the deep space stuff toward the end. He was trying so hard to describe the transcendentally indescribable that it went on and on and on, kind of like any narration of someone else's vacation.

Maybe one of the best known examples of this is the reappearance of Tom Sawyer in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Once Jim and Huck pass their last chance to head north Twain had written himself into a corner and the Sawyer antics fall flat compared to the depth of earlier portion of the novel.

Randy M.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I'm giving Weber a try and got to say I'm struggling. I'm half way through Basilisk Station and finding I can't read more than a page or two. I don't like Honor Harrington, I don't like treecats (and I love cats), I don't think I have so far met a character I actually connect with at all.

Oh, dear. If you don't like Honor or the treecats, it's definitely not worth the trouble of slogging through the ship stuff! I read past the ship stuff because of Honor and the treecats, and the other characters.