Books You've Never Been Able to Get into or Finish

For me, Neuromancer. Far to much tech and not enough story. Meh, maybe it's just me.
 
I finished The Road, but I think it's greatly overrated. I never got on with Moorcock: I gave up on both Count Brass and Gloriana, both of which sounded as if they'd be interesting. There are a lot of books I know I don't want to read (Dune sequels included) and a couple of older fantasy novels that I've started and thought "This is just plain bad" before discarding.

Neuromancer isn't bad, but the two sequels are more readable. Count Zero is a very entertaining book. Unlike Neuromancer, Gibson seems to have put all the words in so you can tell what's going on.
 
Toby Frost said:
I finished The Road, but I think it's greatly overrated. I never got on with Moorcock: I gave up on both Count Brass and Gloriana, both of which sounded as if they'd be interesting. There are a lot of books I know I don't want to read (Dune sequels included) and a couple of older fantasy novels that I've started and thought "This is just plain bad" before discarding.

Neuromancer isn't bad, but the two sequels are more readable. Count Zero is a very entertaining book. Unlike Neuromancer, Gibson seems to have put all the words in so you can tell what's going on.
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Stephen Palmer said:
I didn't much care for Mona Lisa Overdrive, I have to admit, and there is something about the rawness and edginess of Neuromancer that is very appealing. It's one of those books whose flaws you forget or miss and you take on the wild ride...
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I loved all three Sprawl books though I did make this comparison of Count Zero with Neuromancer "it's more coherent and feels less like it's trying to show off"

I actually quite liked Gloriana (and I'm generally not too keen on Morcock's work) but I did read it shortly after reading Gormenghast.
 
That's interesting, because I read Gloriana very much on the basis that it was a homage to Gormenghast. I think it's just Moorcock's prose style I don't really warm to. There were certainly some long passages that seemed very much homages to Peake, but overall it just didn't click the way Gormenghast did.

Re-reading Neuromancer is interesting. It's much more obviously a heist story with interludes of weirdness, but it's got loads of interesting stuff in there. I just wish it was dealt with a bit more clearly and in more detail. I have a feeling that Gibson said somewhere that he was scared of spending too much time on anything when he wrote it, but I'm not sure I could find the quote.
 
given that I'm a philistine name just about any classic novel and I'll be pretty much guaranteed to dislike it/be bored to tears by it
 
Toby Frost said:
That's interesting, because I read Gloriana very much on the basis that it was a homage to Gormenghast. I think it's just Moorcock's prose style I don't really warm to. There were certainly some long passages that seemed very much homages to Peake, but overall it just didn't click the way Gormenghast did.

Re-reading Neuromancer is interesting. It's much more obviously a heist story with interludes of weirdness, but it's got loads of interesting stuff in there. I just wish it was dealt with a bit more clearly and in more detail. I have a feeling that Gibson said somewhere that he was scared of spending too much time on anything when he wrote it, but I'm not sure I could find the quote.
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It was a long time ago, my hair was long, my flares wide and I was into a lot of weirdness. I wonder how I'd get on with it today! :D
 
Droflet said:
For me, Neuromancer. Far to much tech and not enough story. Meh, maybe it's just me.
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I hear this sometimes. I love Neuromancer, and most of Gibson's writing for that matter. However he does just dump you into the world with no regard as to whether his readers will 'get it'. For some people it works.

The main problem with Neuromancer now is that it's quite dated technically. When it was first published 4Meg of RAM was impossible. Kids today aren't sure what a Meg is. :)
 
Nothing recently springs to mind except David Brin's Startide Rising.

To comment on other posters' mentions: I loved The Silmarillion but have not read it twice (unlike LOtR which has had multiple reads - speaking of which my first attempt (when I was 11?) only got me as far as half way through TT); it took two or three attempts to get past the first 100pages of Thomas Covenant (first trilogy) after which I devoured it and the second set; I think Catcher in the Rye is genius and I liked Lolita.

And one day - well, several days obviously - I'm going to make another concerted attempt at Gormenghast...

Oh, and was Soldier's Son written by Hobb? It didn't seem like it! I finished it but was very disappointed.
 
Well there you go, I'm on the outside again. Meh. I loved Startide Rising. but friends couldn't get past the dolphin crew, or something.
 
I've recently finished Wool, think it's very over hyped. The first part of the book is good, especially Holstons' chapters but the rest didn't really live up to that standard for me.
 
There's the traditional Tolkien and Dune, I can just about make it to the third Dune book and skimmed through the last but despite being interested in seeing how they reach that destination I just don't...care anymore by the time I get to the third.

Steven Erikson is one I should like, everything is there that should make them definate reads. But I just can't get into them and after a while I realise I'm just putting off reading so move onto some other book.

Pretty much any military sci-fi, with very few exceptions it's just the current US Navy IN SPACE with technology no one has considers the implications of when it comes to tactics and ship designs.
 
Vaz said:
I've recently finished Wool, think it's very over hyped. The first part of the book is good, especially Holstons' chapters but the rest didn't really live up to that standard for me.
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My main problem with Wool was the scale, I starting thinking about just how deep the pits were. People walking downstair for a certain number of hours for a couple of days at such and such a speed. Then they didn't even reach the bottom, there were even more levels, mine shafts and oil wells.

I like the book but it does get a bit silly.
 
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We all having different tastes. We're on our sixth page so that should be apparent by now. Writing, like reading, is subjective after all. Is it not?
 
Droflet said:
For me, Neuromancer. Far to much tech and not enough story. Meh, maybe it's just me.
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I can't get on with any of Gibson's books. But I love him on Twitter and I'm a huge fan of cyberpunk anime. Horses for courses, and all that. I think for me, cyberpunk just works better in a visual medium like anime.
 
Idoru said:
I can't get on with any of Gibson's books. But I love him on Twitter and I'm a huge fan of cyberpunk anime. Horses for courses, and all that. I think for me, cyberpunk just works better in a visual medium like anime.
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That's odd. I always assumed you took your username from the book of the same name by Gibson.
 
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