Worst thing you've ever read [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Dienekes

2012-05-07, 06:43 PM

Hello folks, pretty simple but odd request. I have a love of watching really terrible movies and poking fun at them. I'm curious if the same can be done with books, and was wondering if anyone had any good recommendation for terrible pieces of literature.

Now when I thought about this, really one series came into mind for me: Terry Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule series in which the protagonist are almost impossibly stupid, probably evil, and they face such horrible things like the dreaded "chicken that is not a chicken." All taken deadly seriously.

So I was wondering if there were any books you know of or read that were so bad they hurt your brain or made you burst out laughing, unintentionally. For board purposes let's keep these fictional and none-political or religious please.

Dumbledore lives

2012-05-07, 08:21 PM

Well I didn't read very much of it but in a bookstore I read the first page or so of the Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood book and burst out laughing. Excluding fanfic I think it was the worst written thing I've read, but I tend to avoid romances and other typically crappy written genres as a whole, so I'm not too good of a judge.

Eakin

2012-05-07, 08:25 PM

Google the Eye of Argon. It's amazing in its terribleness

Fri

2012-05-07, 08:51 PM

The worst book I ever bought is Celestine Propechy, a new age self-help book disguised as an adventure novel. In hindsight, it might not actually be that bad, if you're into those. But there's two things that made me really hate it. One, the premise sounds cool, and I've been pumped for the adventure, only to find it actually be new agey self help book in the line of... you know, Secret and such? Second, the translation is so... not bad but... flat. Every single character sounds the same, and pout the same mumbo jumbo in the same way, all through the book. I'm just assuming that in the original, they'll at least speak in different tones or something.

Lateral

2012-05-07, 09:40 PM

Google the Eye of Argon. It's amazing in its terribleness

Seriously, I have to second this. By the time I was done with the first paragraph, I was going, "This is utter dreck." By the time I had finished the first two lines of dialogue, I was ready to tear my eyes out.

By the time I finished the first fight scene, I nearly lost all faith in humanity and had to watch three straight episodes of My Little Pony to even begin the long, long road to recovery. I'm still haunted by the memories... *fetal position*

I... might be exaggerating just a bit, but it really is that bad. Spelling errors, purple prose so thick it's basically Tyrian, the worst use of in medias res I've ever seen, and everything about it manages to be both impenetrably dense and yet completely lacking substance. Go get some hard liquor and take a look. (http://www.rdrop.com/~hutch/argon)

Surfing HalfOrc

2012-05-07, 09:42 PM

The Unsuspecting Mage. Seriously, it's horrible!

It was a "Free eBook" on some webpage, so I downloaded it for my phone (I have the Kindle App) I couldn't get past the first chapter it was so bad.

Then I went to look at the reviews. They were either One Stars, or Five Stars. It became obvious that almost ALL the Five Star reviews were written by the Author Himself, since they all had the same stilted writing style... He also tried to rebut the negative reviews. Some of the Five Stars might have been written by his wife or kids, but outside of a very small, and possibly easily impressed or possibly reviewers that were being held hostage, nobody liked the story.

It was like watching a train wreck. Horrible, but so hard to turn away from.

There were some notes a few months ago saying the book has been revised and rereleased, but I don't know.

thubby

2012-05-07, 10:35 PM

it's hard to find a really bad book that's still legible.

Lord Raziere

2012-05-07, 11:00 PM

Seriously, I have to second this. By the time I was done with the first paragraph, I was going, "This is utter dreck." By the time I had finished the first two lines of dialogue, I was ready to tear my eyes out.

By the time I finished the first fight scene, I nearly lost all faith in humanity and had to watch three straight episodes of My Little Pony to even begin the long, long road to recovery. I'm still haunted by the memories... *fetal position*

I... might be exaggerating just a bit, but it really is that bad. Spelling errors, purple prose so thick it's basically Tyrian, the worst use of in medias res I've ever seen, and everything about it manages to be both impenetrably dense and yet completely lacking substance. Go get some hard liquor and take a look. (http://www.rdrop.com/~hutch/argon)

your right.

that is the least understandable thing I ever read.

easily forgettable then. :smallcool: if I can't understand it, might as well not remember it.

Inglenook

2012-05-07, 11:09 PM

I'm assuming fanfic doesn't count?

To get the obvious choice out of the way: I thought Twilight was incredibly poorly done on a variety of levels (characters, dialogue, vocabulary, etc.). But it was at least coherent.

I read Dr Dale's Zombie Dictionary recently and it was so so so bad—unfunny dad humor, overly long, and extremely repetitive.

There's one Dan Brown novel about the possibility of alien life existing in the arctic, or something? The climax took place on a sinking/exploding oil rig BUILT OVER A MAELSTROM FILLED WITH VORACIOUS SHARKS. My eyes hadn't rolled that much since my last demonic possession.

Manga Shoggoth

2012-05-08, 04:05 AM

A friend of mine lent me two, both qualify for "Worst thing I have ever read".

The first was a slim paperback called "A Woman in Space". Think Mills and Boon (including the cover...) meets Sci Fi...

...Almost...

...Actually, not at all. The "science" - such that it was - was awful and inconsistent. The writing was... bad. The characterisation was worse - and horribly sexist to boot. Then, about two-thirds of the way through the story we hit the sex scenes, at which point the level of writing hit juvenile.

Then there was "Quinton". His mother picked this up from a hotel in Scotland. It was self-published by the author (who was a member of the family who ran the hotel, so she even got a signed copy).

The artwork on the cover gave an impression of the delights to come. Dominating the cover was the front view of the hero (I assume ) mounting his steed. At least, I hope he was riding his steed, but the expression on his steed's face made that... questionable. To the top left was a tabeau of a virgin sacrifice, which hinted at at least something interesting happening in the story.

Undaunted, I ploughed in. And it was a vary hard furrow - two long forewords, in character (as it were), which painted the novel as the first book in a gripping series about the growth of a galactic empire from a simple agricultural planet. At least, I think that was what they were about.

Then, eventually we hit the story. The hier to some small kingdom is kidnapped (but, the text immediately assured us, would return to regain his kingdom). This took about two chapters in which the most interesting characters were the aforesaid mounts. And they only got one paragraph.

After four chapters I gave up. The author was incapable of creating narrative tension, let alone maintaining it. It read like someone who has read "Dune", liked the idea, but lacked the talent.

And the virgin sacrifice? My friend (who somehow managed to complete the book) assures me that even that was completely uninteresting. And didn't even involve a sacrifice.

Man on Fire

2012-05-08, 04:54 AM

There was one SF book I read as a kid. The cover was promising - it featured scary monster in the forest. What I got was bizarre science fiction with many interesting ideas but narration way to convoluded to follow, plot terrily slow ( I stopped reading halfway through and I don't think it even got into kidnapping of main character's father, promised on the blurb) and some balls-out insane ideas, like "the more people dissagree with each other, the bigger friends they are".

Mauve Shirt

2012-05-08, 04:54 AM

For terrible writing, any romance novel, especially one that involves the supernatural.

The_Admiral

2012-05-08, 04:59 AM

Not in English but any Malay book I got for my literature section for school.

So Meniti Kaca, wait that was okay.

Pahlawan Pasir Salak was long and had run off sentences galore.

Papa... (Akhirnya kau tewas jua!) too was dull and long the two ingredients of a horrible book.

Little fact. Nobody read the second two books.

Sith_Happens

2012-05-08, 10:25 AM

Does fanfic count? Because one time for fun in my freshman dorm about ten of us got together and had one person do a "dramatic reading" of My Immortal. Never have I laughed so hard while simultaneously having so much of me die inside.:smalleek:

thorgrim29

2012-05-08, 10:37 AM

I've read some pretty terrible manga (or maybe the translation was just horrible)... Other then that, I think books from Maupassant are awful. Especially "Le Horla". I understand he was basically inventing fantasy and all, but it's a confusing, weirdly written and stilted mess. "Boule de Suif" was also really bad. It's the story of a coach ride from a town to another. Most of the passengers are rich and respected citizens who stupidly forgot to bring food, the other is a fat prostitute (hence the title, but that sort of thing was attractive back then) who has tons of food. So everyone likes her until she has to do something for the good of the group and then they shun her. It's so boring.
La Venus d'ille, from he same period, suffers from much of the same.

SynissterSyster

2012-05-08, 10:48 AM

Dienekes

2012-05-08, 05:16 PM

Google the Eye of Argon. It's amazing in its terribleness

Good pick and one I have unfortunately already read. Also there's a better version you can find online (through TvTropes is where I got it) that is the full original manuscript. I would link to it, but it has some art that would be inappropriate. Crappy. Yet still inappropriate.

Does fanfic count? Because one time for fun in my freshman dorm about ten of us got together and had one person do a "dramatic reading" of My Immortal. Never have I laughed so hard while simultaneously having so much of me die inside.:smalleek:

I would rather stay away from fanfiction, unless you have one that is so terrible it can be compared with My Immortal.

Also, I've read My Immortal, probably the only fanfic I've read that I've actually enjoyed.

Any way thanks everyone for the suggestions so far, and keep them coming.

To Synisster, I know The Wizard's First Rule has a fan following, and I hope you don't feel insulted but I thought after the 2nd book it became terrible. I need to ask though, how did you not laugh yourself silly at the chicken that is not a chicken line? Or when the female girl has her army attack an opposing army in the middle of the night, glowing, and naked, in the middle of winter?

Also thorgrim languages are my Achilles heel. I've tried to learn 5 of them now, and have astoundingly failed at all but English. So I don't think I could really read Boule de Suif

Gnoman

2012-05-08, 05:40 PM

Anything written by Dan Brown. Seriously, about halfway through the Da Vinci Code, my brain got fed up with the stupid and made me throw the book into the fire. Fortunately, it was free.

Pokonic

2012-05-08, 06:42 PM

Well, I say that we should try to avoid fics that would end up in TV Tropes Troll Fic pile (or the sort of badly-spelled piles of crap) to focus on the ones with truly bad writing.

Weezer

2012-05-08, 06:56 PM

I'd say the Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. I'll ignore any of the political message, to avoid transgressing the forum rules, but besides that it's full of one dimensional cardboard cut out characters, utterly horrific pop-philosophy (not to mention an unspeakably bad misinterpretation of Nietzsche), and a depiction of rape as good, proper and justified. Ugh.

Lord Seth

2012-05-08, 06:58 PM

Then I went to look at the reviews. They were either One Stars, or Five Stars. It became obvious that almost ALL the Five Star reviews were written by the Author Himself, since they all had the same stilted writing style... He also tried to rebut the negative reviews. Some of the Five Stars might have been written by his wife or kids, but outside of a very small, and possibly easily impressed or possibly reviewers that were being held hostage, nobody liked the story.

Number of reviews for each number of stars on Amazon.com:
5 stars: 38
4 stars: 27
3 stars: 19
2 stars: 30
1 star: 49

Only about half of the reviews are 1 star or 5 stars.
I'm assuming fanfic doesn't count?

To get the obvious choice out of the way: I thought Twilight was incredibly poorly done on a variety of levels (characters, dialogue, vocabulary, etc.). But it was at least coherent.If Twilight is the worst thing someone's read, I'm guessing they've only read really good stuff. To this day I don't understand why people care about Twilight one way or the other...it's one of the most astoundingly mediocre things I've ever seen.
Does fanfic count? Because one time for fun in my freshman dorm about ten of us got together and had one person do a "dramatic reading" of My Immortal. Never have I laughed so hard while simultaneously having so much of me die inside.:smalleek:I don't know why it'd make you die inside, My Immortal is hilarious (though I do think it kind of got too incoherent towards the end). It's not quite as good as Light and Dark: The Adventures of Dark Yagami, but it's still pretty entertaining.
For terrible writing, any romance novel, especially one that involves the supernatural.I disagree.

Aotrs Commander

2012-05-08, 07:48 PM

Probably the worst thing I've forced myself to read was a sci-fantasy novel I'd borrowed, out of the library, I think, one holiday, based on the blurn at the back. About some girl, finding a dragon (which were some sort of robot ships or something), and going to some magical academt or something (I forget). It was utterly dreadful, and the only reason I forced myself through it was because I was on holiday and didn't have much other reading material. I don't remember much, only that it got a bit strange and that there was quite a lot of slightly creepy (well, to me anyway) sexual stuff. The one odd thing I remember, because it just struck as so wierd, was something about a dragonfly/insectoid girl stripping off at one point (because it was like the fantasy equivilent of American college and spring break or something) and it mentioning she had giant nipples. To which I thought... "The Frag." It was that sort of book.

I suspect I remember so little because I've consciously rejected the memory of it...

And why I tend not to read sci-fantasy anymore (as that was the worst of the samples I have encountered, but almost always the sci-fantasy books I read were pretty much drivel.)

Togath

2012-05-08, 07:58 PM

The worst book I've ever read is probably "the demon king", the author seemed to from time to time forget things such as grievous injuries that had happened to the characters, a good example is the evil king guy character; at one point he gets stabbed(with an overly long description lasting about 1-2 pages, and that's just the description of him being stabbed, not the description of the knife fight) and one chapter later(1-2 pages after) he gets up after being very clearly dead and shouts for the guards to catch the main character(which is somewhat redundant, as he was described as being basically a mary sue wizard who could kill someone very easily with magic), soon after that he randomly finds out whop the main character's mother and younger sister are and proceeds to torch their house and slowly burn them to death(at which point i nearly through the book into a pond, and I don't mean that sarcastically) then the hero....fails to do anything about the burning house, soon after he decides to go back to the ruins of his house for some reason(after having spontaneously been unconscious for three weeks) and what follows that is a chapter consisting of the most disgusting descriptions I've ever read, then he starts riffling through the burnt corpses of his mother and younger sister to take a possession of each of theirs to remember them by, then he spontaneously decides he needs to become a wizard, then the book ends. The biggest problem with the book is that most other authors would have just summed up it's plot in a page or two long prologue(and it could very easily have fit into a 1-2 page prologue), in addition, the book as full to the brim with over used clichés.

Maxios

2012-05-08, 08:15 PM

A Traitor in the Mist. Also known as: the book I wrote when I was nine, and was in talks to get published for a brief period of time (I'm retty sure this was because this was because the publishing people finally read the book and saw just how crappy it was).
I posted some of the worst lines in Random Banter a couple weeks ago.

Aside from that, when I was in the fourth grade; eons ago, my teacher used to read books to the class. The first Harry Potter, Where the Red Fern Grows, etc. Anyway, there was this book called the Babysitting Wars or something like that. She read it for a grand total of a week and a half when she realized every student in the class hated it.
The book was written for young (8-12) girls and was about a babysitter whose clints were stolen by a rival babysitter, but then (from what I remember from the back of the book) "They decide to work out their differences and become best friends).
The thing is, even the girls in the class hated it. As I recall, a few students took the time to "rest their eyes" (read as: nap), a few were absent-mindingly looking at their desks at the various spots, and a few were reading their own books under their table.
I spent a large portion of the time coming up with an over-complicated scheme the heroine of the tale could have used to gain the clients back, humiliate her rival, and come out on top with even more work.

TheLaughingMan

2012-05-08, 08:16 PM

If Twilight is the worst thing someone's read, I'm guessing they've only read really good stuff. To this day I don't understand why people care about Twilight one way or the other...it's one of the most astoundingly mediocre things I've ever seen.

It's just so bland. At least most bad writing has the decency of at least being comedic. Twilight just... is.

Genosaurer

2012-05-08, 09:17 PM

Return of the Native. I am a voracious reader typically able to go through a 400 page book in around a day and enjoy a variety of genres; this is the only novel I was literally unable to force myself to finish. I believe it is the worst thing to have ever been put into writing in the English language, and I suspect that the only thing preventing it from being weaponized is the Hague Conventions.

Lord Seth

2012-05-08, 09:42 PM

It's just so bland. At least most bad writing has the decency of at least being comedic. Twilight just... is.Well yeah, which is exactly what makes it not bad. It's just a slightly below average book that deserves neither praise nor scorn. All Twilight deserves, in my mind, is a great big "meh."

Katana_Geldar

2012-05-08, 09:46 PM

erikun

2012-05-08, 10:08 PM

The Beasts of Valhalla (http://www.amazon.com/The-Beasts-Valhalla-George-Chesbro/dp/0967450330) by George C. Chesbro. I've read bad, I've read boring, I've read terrible pulp romantic drek, and I still give it to this book hands-down. The entire book reads like a bad Dan Brown novel, although it makes Dan Brown look like a well-researched genius. I've even read titles like The Historian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Historian), and while that one isn't very good, its problems lie primarily on being a slow-paced suspense that simply draws things out too long.

The Beasts of Valhalla, however, is just poorly written. It tries to pass itself off as psudo-scientific, but absolutely everything in the book stands out as ridiculous. Little to no characterization, and poorly awkward dialogue (from what I remember). And to top the whole thing off, what buildup the book did manage to build up was complete tossed out with the reasoning that
Hypothermia reverses genetic mutations. No, really.

You should be thanking me for digging through my closet to even look up the title of the book again; I've tried my best to forget as much as I can. :smallyuk:

I would rather stay away from fanfiction, unless you have one that is so terrible it can be compared with My Immortal.
My Inner Life, a dramatic reading (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKzJ9_oKnCs) (Author's Notes, part one)

Dr.Epic

2012-05-08, 10:15 PM

TSGames

2012-05-08, 10:21 PM

So I was wondering if there were any books you know of or read that were so bad they hurt your brain or made you burst out laughing, unintentionally. For board purposes let's keep these fictional and none-political or religious please.
American Gods by Neil Gaiman

TheLaughingMan

2012-05-08, 10:39 PM

Well yeah, which is exactly what makes it not bad. It's just a slightly below average book that deserves neither praise nor scorn. All Twilight deserves, in my mind, is a great big "meh."

That's rather the point. Twilight exists in an uncanny valley in literature, where it is neither good enough to read nor bad enough to sneer at. It has utterly failed as entertainment, a job which even My Immortal has managed. A bad book can be fun, but a boring book is like a prison sentence: You cannot wait to be rid of it. That's why I personally dislike the book: It is a black hole where fun gets sucked in and is never seen again.

Dienekes

2012-05-08, 10:46 PM

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Really? Mind you I think the book is a bit overrated and not one of Gaiman's best. But I wouldn't count it near as bad as say, The Problem of Susan.

TheLaughingMan

2012-05-08, 10:54 PM

Really? Mind you I think the book is a bit overrated and not one of Gaiman's best. But I wouldn't count it near as bad as say, The Problem of Susan.

This man speaks much truth.

*shudder*

Ninjadeadbeard

2012-05-09, 01:04 AM

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Sacrilege! :smallwink:

My personal Hates:

Atlas Shrugged. Awful, one-dimensional characters and a plot that feels like the longest, slowest train ride ever. I just kept wishing violent deaths for every single character that appeared. When I realized I had gotten halfway through the book I hurled it against the wall before it could infect me with fail.
Intruder in the Dust. It just didn't work. I checked sparknotes when I was done, and I couldn't believe it was the same book. What garbage.
Anything and everything ever constructed by that vile, puss-spewing fat-head HG Wells. I have never been so bored to tears, so disgusted with any literature. The man was walking literary cancer. I read a lot of older books, from Robert E Howard to Twain, to friggin' Dante, so it's not an age thing, it's a Taste thing.

Excuse me, I have to rifle through my Discworld collection now, before the red mist will abate.

Surfing HalfOrc

2012-05-09, 04:15 AM

Number of reviews for each number of stars on Amazon.com:
5 stars: 38
4 stars: 27
3 stars: 19
2 stars: 30
1 star: 49

Only about half of the reviews are 1 star or 5 stars.

It was about 15-20 5 Stars and 10-15 1 Stars when I read it (I think it had just come out.) I looked it up not too long ago, and the author had mentioned that the book had undergone significant revisions.

Couldn't bring myself to try again...

The_Admiral

2012-05-09, 09:27 AM

Sacrilege! :smallwink:

My personal Hates:

Anything and everything ever constructed by that vile, puss-spewing fat-head HG Wells. I have never been so bored to tears, so disgusted with any literature. The man was walking literary cancer. I read a lot of older books, from Robert E Howard to Twain, to friggin' Dante, so it's not an age thing, it's a Taste thing.

HG Wells? Little Wars was okay, Floor Games too.

Inglenook

2012-05-09, 01:18 PM

The Time Machine was one of my favorite childhood books. I never thought of Wells as a bad writer, but maybe I need to try rereading it.

Cen

2012-05-09, 01:38 PM

Any book based on a computer game (especially Planescape: Troment and Baldur's gate came to my mind)

Also The Black Magician trilogy by Trudi Canavan - I can't realise why many people hate twilight but have no fealings for that one. It's characters are so bland, one dimentional and Mary Suish that even Mookie would be impressed

Weimann

2012-05-09, 01:44 PM

Virginia Woolf. /controversy

Chess435

2012-05-09, 02:03 PM

Does the FATAL rulebook count?

comicshorse

2012-05-09, 06:10 PM

Heart of Darkness. A book where every word drags like lead.

Das Platyvark

2012-05-09, 07:30 PM

I don't think it's any crime to write a boring book, so long as the author is getting something out of it (Not money, I mean on an emotional level), but to write something downright bad is different entirely. Like Water For Chocolate was painful to read—there's such a thing as a good romance, and this isn't it. At times the writing was just plain awful, (though that may have been the translation), and I simply did not care about a single character presented therein. The magical realism feels boring & forced.

Kaun

2012-05-09, 07:33 PM

The Harry Potter series - my wife said i wasn't allowed to make fun of the movies because i hadn't read the books which were much better! I got through the first three before i decided making fun of the movies wasn't worth the pain.

I now just remain respectfully quiet when she is watching one.

Edit: I should add i know i have read worse books but none of them spring to mind.

Whiffet

2012-05-09, 09:28 PM

The only thing that comes to mind is a work of another student in a creative writing class. I can't really go into the details of the work because it was very graphic, but let's just say it was X-Men meets one of the films the Cinema Snob reviews.

Oh, man. It doesn't seem fair to get mad at what students write in a creative writing class, but awful stuff does seem to come out of them.

I took a creative writing class about a year ago. This one sort-of-friend of mine was also taking it. He wrote stories before even taking the class and was just looking for some pointers. He mentioned near the end of the semester that he was working out a publishing deal. I wasn't sure whether to feel happy for my sort-of-friend's success or horrified; his stories were awful. Better than what most people in class came up with, but most people weren't working on getting published. I'd like to think a real editor would help improve his writing, but I wouldn't count on it.

What was wrong? I don't want to go into detail in case by some chance he actually visits this forum and figures out I'm talking about him (fantasy writer and gamer. There's a possibility!) I still see him pretty often, and he'd probably be really pissed. :smalltongue:

So, the problems. Well, he was good at what made a teacher happy; lots and lots of unnecessary detail and incomprehensible metaphors. I would sometimes have to read his stories five times before I could figure out what the heck happened. Once I did understand, I would realize he didn't think the story through very well. Only once did I ask him to explain something close to be beginning that made no sense. It was pretty standard monsters-aren't-really-monsters story, in this case werewolves. The main character becomes a werewolf at the end. I should emphasize that there was no hint that the character was predestined to get involved with werewolves.

Me: So, why was -insert nonsensical detail about character here-?
Student: Because then -insert major detail about werewolves- can happen later.
Me: But why is it like that in the first place? It doesn't make sense, even in the context of the story.
Student: It makes sense because he becomes a werewolf at the end!

Das Platyvark

2012-05-09, 10:10 PM

@Whiffet: Point. I've long held that no one writes as well as they think they do. I'm currently attending progressive art school, and there's an awful lot of encouragement going on, and not near enough brutal criticism. The result being that we produce about 50% good writers, and 50% arrogant half-wits.

Lord Seth

2012-05-09, 10:46 PM

Any book based on a computer game (especially Planescape: Troment and Baldur's gate came to my mind)Are we talking just computer games, or also video games? Because I remember those Nintendo Adventure Books (based on Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda) were pretty fun.

Also The Black Magician trilogy by Trudi Canavan - I can't realise why many people hate twilight but have no fealings for that one.Easy one. People have heard of Twilight.

Bulldog Psion

2012-05-10, 12:23 AM

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

I agree with you wholeheartedly. What appalling trash. I would probably put Ayn Rand ahead of it but I didn't manage to finish that, so American Gods is probably the worst thing I've ever actually read through, mostly because someone I knew was raving endlessly about it.

Weezer

2012-05-10, 12:27 AM

I agree with you wholeheartedly. What appalling trash. I would probably put Ayn Rand ahead of it but I didn't manage to finish that, so American Gods is probably the worst thing I've ever actually read through, mostly because someone I knew was raving endlessly about it.

I'm just wondering why? I found it a pretty good book, not the best, not even Gaiman's best, but not horrific.

Tvtyrant

2012-05-10, 12:38 AM

Is it okay to use philosophy, or are we locked into fiction?

In fiction, probably The War of the Flowers by Tad Williams. I usually like his stuff, but yeeeessssh did I hate that thing.

Ninjadeadbeard

2012-05-10, 12:39 AM

I agree with you wholeheartedly. What appalling trash. I would probably put Ayn Rand ahead of it but I didn't manage to finish that, so American Gods is probably the worst thing I've ever actually read through, mostly because someone I knew was raving endlessly about it.

I...what? What? I...wha...What!? :smallfurious: I can see someone disliking The Graveyard Book (not my favorite Gaiman)...but...what!?

factotum

2012-05-10, 01:20 AM

Misery Esquire

2012-05-10, 08:38 AM

Does the FATAL rulebook count?

Depends.

Did you finish reading it?
:smalltongue:

SaintRidley

2012-05-10, 10:54 AM

Heart of Darkness and Mrs. Dalloway are very much not my cup of tea.

Truly can't understand the hate some have for American Gods.

Telonius

2012-05-10, 01:53 PM

Worst I've read (at all): The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand. This has the distinction of being one of only a handful of books I've started but never finished.

Worst I've actually finished: Crossroads of Twilight, Robert Jordan. I bought it hardcover, right when it came out. Most disappointing reading experience I've ever had. I felt cheated out of my $20. On the plus side, it was a motivating factor to really get to work on my own book. It was my, "And he gets paid for this?!" moment.

Honorable Mentions: Beloved, Toni Morrison. Johnny Tremaine, Esther Forbes. (Why they continue to subject students to this, is beyond me).

Zeful

2012-05-10, 02:42 PM

The Dragonbone Chair. Nothing happens for the first 6 or so chapters and the life of the totally uninteresting servant boy is so bloody quaint that I fell asleep twice trying to read the thing.

Nekura

2012-05-10, 05:27 PM

Their eye’s were watching god. Had to read it for school years ago and it was a horrible chore to make it through all the heavy southern dialect. Lucky my mind seems to have purged all details about what the book was about. Other then that probably the second and third Eragon books. The first wasn’t to bad but wasn’t good either the others to I had to constantly stop reading and put down and eventually let people know that while yes I enjoy fantasy books about dragons and such to not get me any of the other books as gifts.

prufock

2012-05-10, 05:39 PM

Worst books I've ever read:
1. The Sheppard's Are Coming (http://www.shopdownhome.com/item.php?id=419) by Earl Pilgrim. The copy I've linked appears to be a later edition, because they removed the apostrophe from the title. Yes, the edition I read had an error IN THE TITLE. I couldn't finish this.

2. I got drunk and read the first few pages of Twilight, or one of its sequels; I don't really remember any specifics, all I know is we laughed and laughed.

Aotrs Commander

2012-05-10, 07:20 PM

The Dragonbone Chair. Nothing happens for the first 6 or so chapters and the life of the totally uninteresting servant boy is so bloody quaint that I fell asleep twice trying to read the thing.

Wading very slowly through the second book of that series. (By which I mean, I started it late lasy year while on holiday and got about half way through and have read to odd chapter since.) My Mum, who's read the whole series, said it got much better in the third and forth books, so we'll see.

It's... definately slow, to put it mildly, and there seem a few too many pointless character deaths for my liking, but we'll see...

Still, it's not as bad as some stuff I've read, and it's something for holiday reading. (I have a policy of only buying and reading books for holidays, since we can't afford the storage space otherwise; other times, I tend to voraciosuly read fanfic. (Well, decent fanfic, anyway; which does exist, you just have to be prepared to find a fanbase with a modicum of intelligence and do a lot of wading through crap!))

Verte

2012-05-10, 11:15 PM

Thinking about it, the worst book I can recall finishing was Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl, which I read about ten years ago. Its antagonist, Artemis Fowl, was described as prodigal genius, yet none of his actions actually demonstrated that he was one. Its plot was unmemorable, especially since Artemis was supposed to be some sort of criminal mastermind. Its other characters were one-dimensional - they had maybe one trait and that was that. Its humor lacked wit and the action lacked excitement; both seemed really contrived. But really, what bothered me so much about it was that are actually a lot of good books aimed at preteens that are much better and that I could have read instead.

I think the second-worst (at least right now) book that I've finished is Anne Rice's The Witching Hour, mainly because it was a 1000 page slog with an unsatisfying ending. It wasn't really scary, it wasn't really insightful, and mostly it had me feeling grossed out. Granted, the writing itself was fine.

I hated Stephen R. Donaldson's Lord Foul's Bane, but I didn't finish it. Also, some of the Thieves' World stories were really awful.

As far as Neil Gaiman is concerned, I liked Anansi Boys, American Gods, and Sandman (at least the first 2 volumes, which are the ones that I've finished) a lot. I wasn't as crazy about Neverwhere, but I wouldn't call it one of the worst books I've read.

Tvtyrant

2012-05-11, 01:52 AM

Wading very slowly through the second book of that series. (By which I mean, I started it late lasy year while on holiday and got about half way through and have read to odd chapter since.) My Mum, who's read the whole series, said it got much better in the third and forth books, so we'll see.

It's... definately slow, to put it mildly, and there seem a few too many pointless character deaths for my liking, but we'll see...

Still, it's not as bad as some stuff I've read, and it's something for holiday reading. (I have a policy of only buying and reading books for holidays, since we can't afford the storage space otherwise; other times, I tend to voraciosuly read fanfic. (Well, decent fanfic, anyway; which does exist, you just have to be prepared to find a fanbase with a modicum of intelligence and do a lot of wading through crap!))

I actually loved the Dragonbone Chair as a kid. Different strokes for different folks.

Ninjadeadbeard

2012-05-11, 02:21 AM

I hated Stephen R. Donaldson's Lord Foul's Bane, but I didn't finish it.

You didn't finish it? Why not? The first TC trilogy was amazing!

Rhydeble

2012-05-11, 05:27 AM

The only book that I can remember stopping reading in disgust is the sixth dune book (yes, of course, magical space jews that were TOTALLY THERE ALL ALONG. That, combined with the uberpowerful superspeed general, who was totally the best general ever even though he did not know that his enemy had build a city a few miles from his home.) There's other books i stopped reading out of boredom, but never really thrown across the room out of stupidity.

Aotrs Commander

2012-05-11, 06:54 AM

I actually loved the Dragonbone Chair as a kid. Different strokes for different folks.

Well, seeing as I've not given up on the series, it can't be that bad!

(If anything, I think the second book is probably less interesting than the first, as not much seems to happen other than everyone running around and getting picked off. Still, I'm only about 60-70% of the way through book two, so... It's certainly very slow-paced though.)

I forced myself through the Thomas Covenant books, but I wasn't very impressed. I think it says something that the only character I liked in the entire set of books was Vain, and he had like one line of dialogue.

Avilan the Grey

2012-05-11, 07:02 AM

Das Platyvark

2012-05-11, 07:51 AM

The two books I have enjoyed the least were Atlas Shrugged and Catcher in the Rye; the latter actually made me talk my teacher into letting me read another book instead after reading a third of it (it was a reading assignment in High-school).

What do you have against it? I loved that book. It's called a classic for reason.
Sure, it's angsty, but it's also quite well written, has interesting (though occasionally unlikable) characters, and tells an good and unusual story.
Not trying to be agressive here, I just wanted you to explain in depth.

Telonius

2012-05-11, 07:58 AM

Personally, Catcher never did it for me. It wasn't the worst thing I've ever read, but it just didn't stack up to the hype. I'd read The Chocolate War just before I read Catcher, too; Catcher just looked shoddy in comparison. (I think I must have been about 13 when I read it - I understand the "started the genre" thing now, but it didn't help the reading experience at the time).

Avilan the Grey

2012-05-11, 08:01 AM

What do you have against it? I loved that book. It's called a classic for reason.
Sure, it's angsty, but it's also quite well written, has interesting (though occasionally unlikable) characters, and tells an good and unusual story.
Not trying to be agressive here, I just wanted you to explain in depth.

I honestly don't remember more than it made my head hurt. Seriously, something with the way it was written felt very "off" to me and made my head feel funny. It felt like being in some kind of dream and not being able to wake up, and I can't explain it any better than that, really; like I was desperately trying to peel away the "weirdness" and get to the story.

fergo

2012-05-11, 08:38 AM

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Just out of interest, why? :smallconfused:

I haven't read many of Gaiman's books, but I love that one.

Thinking about it, the worst book I can recall finishing was Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl, which I read about ten years ago. Its antagonist, Artemis Fowl, was described as prodigal genius, yet none of his actions actually demonstrated that he was one. Its plot was unmemorable, especially since Artemis was supposed to be some sort of criminal mastermind. Its other characters were one-dimensional - they had maybe one trait and that was that. Its humor lacked wit and the action lacked excitement; both seemed really contrived. But really, what bothered me so much about it was that are actually a lot of good books aimed at preteens that are much better and that I could have read instead.

I (think I) read it as a pre-teen and loved it. Of course I would see its flaws if I went back and read it again, but I think I'd still enjoy it.

For what it's worth, I've been reading the series as it continues, and have been pretty much enjoying them less and less; but at the end of the day, they're aimed at an audience a good bit younger than me, so that's to be expected.

As for children's writing that seems just as good now... may be a little controversial, as I know lots of people don't like them, but I've always loved His Dark Materials. In fact, I think I apreciate them more now than I did when I first read them.

Aotrs Commander

2012-05-11, 09:15 AM

Ooh, another thought.

Kes, which we had to read for our GCSEs. I have never read a book that was so insipid that it managed to turn a subject I like (falconry) into a dull, tedious morass of boredom.

Actually, my A level in English literature (which I only did because language conflicted with my other three A levels) did no less than two books on black American culture/history, which I felt was perhaps a tad narrow on the field, given that I was in England... No offense to Maya Angelou, but her autobiography was not especially enthralling reading, even given historical context, to a seventeen-year old Englishman... (Those were my pre-Lich days.)

The other one of the two was absolutely dreadful, even though it was sort of about what I identified as a revenant, and included such delightful topics as implied beastialty (you know, for literature!) I didn't even read that one properly, I merely got away with skimming the bits I needed for the assignments and exam, and tried to purge the memory afterwards, with reasonable sucess, since I can't remember the title.

Actually, that probably has to count as my top one, under the circumstances, doesn't it? So bad I actually didn't read it except as forced...

Sith_Happens

2012-05-11, 09:16 AM

As for children's writing that seems just as good now... may be a little controversial, as I know lots of people don't like them, but I've always loved His Dark Materials. In fact, I think I apreciate them more now than I did when I first read them.

Oh yeah, that was a great one.:smallbiggrin:

Rhydeble

2012-05-11, 09:31 AM

Arcane_Secrets

2012-05-11, 09:36 AM

The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy was absolutely excruciating. I had to read it for a high school English class.

Empire by Orson Scott Card. I can't really discuss why it's so terrible, but if I had known about its reputation in advance (the one time I don't google a book in advance...) I probably never would've even read it in the store. I felt soiled after reading it.

The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler. Again, undiscussable here.

Slander by Ann Coulter. I'm not sure if it even counts as the worst thing I've ever read because I haven't been able to get more than ten pages into it without setting it down again and wanting to kill it with fire.

With regards to Lord Foul's Bane, I'm not sure I'd call it the worst thing I've ever read but it seems to be written in a style so as to deliberately make it as hard to like as possible. The protagonist is an honestly terrible person and something about the writing style is nigh-impenetrably dense. I get the feeling that it might have actually been a much better book if someone aside from the author had written it instead.

Douglas

2012-05-11, 09:42 AM

Worst I've actually finished: Crossroads of Twilight, Robert Jordan. I bought it hardcover, right when it came out. Most disappointing reading experience I've ever had. I felt cheated out of my $20. On the plus side, it was a motivating factor to really get to work on my own book. It was my, "And he gets paid for this?!" moment.
I hope that didn't put you off the series. It got a lot better again in the next book.

Nerzi

2012-05-11, 09:48 AM

Just out of interest, why? :smallconfused:

I haven't read many of Gaiman's books, but I love that one.

Personally I just didn't find it very good.

Not the worst thing I've ever read by a long way but the only reason I finished it is that I made a deliberate choice of making sure it was the only book I had with me on a day that involved a lot of queuing (I read the first half during the morning queue for day passes at Wibledon, put it down without the remotest interest in picking it up again and then decided the next year when I was getting ready for Wimbldon again that I might as well see how it ended). It was all 'this is a really clever rerence' and not enough 'this is a compelling story'. It's the sort of subject matter I really should like, given my interests and such, but the execution was just tedious and even by the end I felt nothing for any of the characters.

Actually that's a problem I have with Gaimen in general. Very neat ideas, but something about the writing style and characterisation leaves me unimpressed and bored.

Now for worst book I've ever read...that's a hard one but The Time Traveler's Wife is by far the worst book I've read this year.

Verte

2012-05-11, 11:19 AM

You didn't finish it? Why not? The first TC trilogy was amazing!

I was about a quarter of the way through when I realized I wasn't enjoying it since he reached the Land, so I decided not to finish, especially since I had other books to read.

I forced myself through the Thomas Covenant books, but I wasn't very impressed. I think it says something that the only character I liked in the entire set of books was Vain, and he had like one line of dialogue.

I have to agree with the above in that I didn't really like any of the characters. I mean, I'm pretty sure that Thomas was intended to be a terrible, unlikable person, but the others all seemed rather wooden to me.

With regards to Lord Foul's Bane, I'm not sure I'd call it the worst thing I've ever read but it seems to be written in a style so as to deliberately make it as hard to like as possible. The protagonist is an honestly terrible person and something about the writing style is nigh-impenetrably dense. I get the feeling that it might have actually been a much better book if someone aside from the author had written it instead.

This pretty much sums up the rest of my feeling here better than I could.

I (think I) read it as a pre-teen and loved it. Of course I would see its flaws if I went back and read it again, but I think I'd still enjoy it.

For what it's worth, I've been reading the series as it continues, and have been pretty much enjoying them less and less; but at the end of the day, they're aimed at an audience a good bit younger than me, so that's to be expected.

Yeah, after posting I realized I might have been a bit harsh, considering that it was a book targeted at 10 year olds. I mean, if I had read it when I was 8 or 9 (instead of 12) I might have enjoyed it more - especially since I can recall reading books that definitely weren't very good but seemed fun at the time. I think part of my annoyance was that it was that it seemed like it was promoted more than other, better books.

As for children's writing that seems just as good now... may be a little controversial, as I know lots of people don't like them, but I've always loved His Dark Materials. In fact, I think I apreciate them more now than I did when I first read them.

Yeah, those were some of my favorite books as a kid! And they definitely held up to rereading later. But yeah, I know some people are offended by them or don't think its themes are appropiate for kids.

Telonius

2012-05-11, 11:30 AM

I hope that didn't put you off the series. It got a lot better again in the next book.

Unfortunately, it did. I'll probably get around to reading it one of these days, but my memory of wanting all the main characters to drown in a bog is still just too strong.

Goosefeather

2012-05-11, 12:58 PM

Actually, my A level in English literature (which I only did because language conflicted with my other three A levels) did no less than two books on black American culture/history, which I felt was perhaps a tad narrow on the field, given that I was in England... No offense to Maya Angelou, but her autobiography was not especially enthralling reading, even given historical context, to a seventeen-year old Englishman...

I feel your pain, having had to study Caged Bird when I was fifteen. Given that GCSE English classes can make even Shakespeare seem dull and insipid, Angelou never stood a chance. I think I also kind of resented the fact that we were studying her simply because of her gender and race, rather than for any inherent merit in her work itself. And the rape scene was just ridiculous.

SoC175

2012-05-11, 03:11 PM

Hello folks, pretty simple but odd request. I have a love of watching really terrible movies and poking fun at them. I'm curious if the same can be done with books, and was wondering if anyone had any good recommendation for terrible pieces of literature.
Baldur's Gate the Novels. Book 1 and 3 are the worst pieces of crap I have ever read. Book 2 is the best of the loot but still worse than anything save it's brethren

Ninjadeadbeard

2012-05-11, 04:04 PM

I was about a quarter of the way through when I realized I wasn't enjoying it since he reached the Land, so I decided not to finish, especially since I had other books to read.

Alright. At least that's a reason. Personally, I still think TC's the best modern literature I've ever read, but it takes a bit before it gets good (although the last trilogy is starting to bog down).

Yeah, those were some of my favorite books as a kid! And they definitely held up to rereading later. But yeah, I know some people are offended by them or don't think its themes are appropiate for kids.

I really liked the first book (my best friend in 7th grade loaned me his copy and he was a HUGE fan). I'm not sure why I stopped. I think I heard some spoilers about the rest of the series and decided that I wouldn't enjoy it as much without the surprise. I wasn't actually aware of any "offensive" material* in the book until the movie came out and...died. I didn't think the movie was too bad either.

Also, yeah, Dune got weird at the end, but everyone here's got to admit it's better than his son's wretched work (http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/10/15). Link may be NSFW.

* :smalltongue:

factotum

2012-05-12, 01:26 AM

I was about a quarter of the way through when I realized I wasn't enjoying it since he reached the Land, so I decided not to finish, especially since I had other books to read.

True story--I read the first trilogy out of sequence (2, 3, then 1) due to borrowing them off a sibling while he was still reading the first one, and I can actually say the first book is unquestionably the worst of the three. If you still have the books around, try reading the second one! You don't actually lose much from not reading the first one and you might enjoy it more.

grimbold

2012-05-12, 02:19 AM

assuming the books should be english i hafta say strawerry shortcake and the talent show

i read it when i was 11, my 8 year old (at the time) sister had given me the book and said "this is the worst thing i've ever read"

and i read it

oh the horror

as for books on french
many of the classic are just 300 pages of description with 10 pages of plot :smallannoyed:

Ninjadeadbeard

2012-05-12, 02:36 AM

as for books on french
many of the classic are just 300 pages of description with 10 pages of plot :smallannoyed:

Ya know? I thought that way too, and it's true for most classic French literature. But then I had to translate The Count of Monte Cristo for a Translation class, and it was a pretty brisk, entertaining read. Granted, I think the original (and most Dumas in particular) was written as pulpy penny-dreadful-type books, so YMMV.

grimbold

2012-05-12, 02:12 PM

Ya know? I thought that way too, and it's true for most classic French literature. But then I had to translate The Count of Monte Cristo for a Translation class, and it was a pretty brisk, entertaining read. Granted, I think the original (and most Dumas in particular) was written as pulpy penny-dreadful-type books, so YMMV.

oh i agree that some of it is EXCELLENT

but a lot of it is horrific :smallamused:

Emmerask

2012-05-12, 04:03 PM

I have read Wizard's First Rule and I loved the series so I gues YMMV on some books. LIke for me I felt "The DaVinci Code" Was just meh. One page chapters just didn't cut it for me. I understand the appeal but still. I work in a library so I see a Huge amount of books that make me go wtf. For as much hate as it gets "Twilight" isn't a bad read when you realize it is a sappy romance.

The DaVinci Code was actually quite "good" in comparison to "The Lost Symbol" so yeah either lost Symbol or Sword of Truth series (excluding the first book which was okay).

Verte

2012-05-12, 04:15 PM

True story--I read the first trilogy out of sequence (2, 3, then 1) due to borrowing them off a sibling while he was still reading the first one, and I can actually say the first book is unquestionably the worst of the three. If you still have the books around, try reading the second one! You don't actually lose much from not reading the first one and you might enjoy it more.

Actually, I only ever got the first book. However, I'll keep that in mind if I come across them used or something.

I really liked the first book (my best friend in 7th grade loaned me his copy and he was a HUGE fan). I'm not sure why I stopped. I think I heard some spoilers about the rest of the series and decided that I wouldn't enjoy it as much without the surprise. I wasn't actually aware of any "offensive" material* in the book until the movie came out and...died. I didn't think the movie was too bad either.

I'd definitely recommend finishing the trilogy if you get a chance. I think they're definitely worthwhile reads even knowing some spoilers. I thought he really explained a lot of the mysteries that had been established in the first book well. Plus there was suspense and character development, and if I recall correctly, more interesting settings. However, I don't know how much was spoiled for you.

As for Dune, I stopped reading the series after finishing Children of Dune. I didn't hate it or anything, but I don't think I was in the mood to read about more of the weirder elements that had developed in that book. Then, after a couple years, I realized had forgotten just enough of the books that I'd have to reread them all if I wanted to continue with the rest of them, which I didn't feel like doing.

Opperhapsen

2012-05-12, 05:08 PM

The millennium trilogy.
It's...
It's really bad.

I usually finish whatever I set out to, but this was pain.

The writing was stale, the main character became relegated to just going on about how awesome this bull**** "HACKING GURL" was, and she was a complete mary sue.
Who was not only THE BEST HACKER EVER FOR SRZ, but also capable of punching out a boxing heavyweight champion in one punch. (And despite being described as odd looking and plain in the beginning, we end up being told about how she's SO FRIGGING HOT GAIZ)

Weezer

2012-05-12, 06:07 PM

oh i agree that some of it is EXCELLENT

but a lot of it is horrific :smallamused:

And that's different from all books how?

Inglenook

2012-05-12, 06:34 PM

I have mixed feelings on His Dark Materials. I remember loving most of it, but the end left me confused. It was like "Okay, you have this brilliant, fantastic multiverse … and now they're killing God." It just seemed like Pullman was trying to be controversial for the sake of controversy by suddenly making the series into a dystheist Narnia. And I realize that the themes were sort of there throughout the entire trilogy, but it still felt jarring.

Of course, I haven't read them since I was like twelve, so it's very likely I might feel differently about it on a reread.

Ooh, speaking of lengthy slogs, how about Battlefield Earth? I read it in seventh grade at my dad's urging (he had the first edition copy, bless him), and it took me like two months to finish. Boringly perfect protagonist, comic book villains, and hundreds of pages devoted to crawling around in mine shafts or whatever.

comicshorse

2012-05-12, 06:43 PM

Ninjadeadbeard

2012-05-12, 07:34 PM

As for Dune, I stopped reading the series after finishing Children of Dune. I didn't hate it or anything, but I don't think I was in the mood to read about more of the weirder elements that had developed in that book. Then, after a couple years, I realized had forgotten just enough of the books that I'd have to reread them all if I wanted to continue with the rest of them, which I didn't feel like doing.

My favorite Dune book is the fourth one, God Emperor of Dune. The next one...was worse. A Huge timeskip without anyone stringing the whole thing together (sans one), plus (as has been said) that whole Space Jews plot that came outta nowhere and went nowhere fast, and a new and totally un-foreshadowed enemy who's entire modus operendi amounted to a petulant child's tantrum set on a multi-galactic scale.

The Miles Teg = The Flash stuff was odd, but somewhat acceptable, and probably the only good part aside from Duncan #89,824,788,594's total multi-lifetime-memory restoration. Yay karma! which had its own squicky parts added for no reason other than squick. Just pretend there's four books and wish real hard for KJ Anderson and B Herbert to get bent.

Goosefeather

2012-05-12, 07:52 PM

I have mixed feelings on His Dark Materials. I remember loving most of it, but the end left me confused. It was like "Okay, you have this brilliant, fantastic multiverse … and now they're killing God." It just seemed like Pullman was trying to be controversial for the sake of controversy by suddenly making the series into a dystheist Narnia. And I realize that the themes were sort of there throughout the entire trilogy, but it still felt jarring.

Of course, I haven't read them since I was like twelve, so it's very likely I might feel differently about it on a reread.

To be fair, the last Narnia book did throw subtlety completely out the window as well. When I first read the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the whole allegory thing shot straight over my head (mind you, I was about 7), but by the Last Battle, those themes could not have been more in-your-face.

Inglenook

2012-05-12, 08:11 PM

Oh, for sure. I still feel odd about the Narnia series as well.

Lord Seth

2012-05-12, 10:16 PM

I didn't like His Dark Materials. The Golden Compass was okay, but the next two books basically pulled a bait-and-switch on the audience by hijacking the plot in a completely different direction apparently just to lecture the audience. It felt almost like two different book series. I thought the ending was kind of lame as well.
To be fair, the last Narnia book did throw subtlety completely out the window as well. When I first read the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the whole allegory thing shot straight over my head (mind you, I was about 7), but by the Last Battle, those themes could not have been more in-your-face.I disagree. The Last Battle was certainly the most blatant of the series, but it could easily have been a lot more in your face. It certainly didn't go anywhere near as far as His Dark Materials in terms of throwing it at you.

Sith_Happens

2012-05-12, 10:24 PM

To be fair, the last Narnia book did throw subtlety completely out the window as well. When I first read the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the whole allegory thing shot straight over my head (mind you, I was about 7), but by the Last Battle, those themes could not have been more in-your-face.

Oh, for sure. I still feel odd about the Narnia series as well.

Funny, the last book was the only one I never got around to reading. The rest were okay.

As for my own "worst books I've ever (completely) read" list, from least to most horrible:

----------

The fourth Maximum Ride book (The Final Warning).

The first three entries in this are an awesome sci-fi action/drama/comedy trilogy about a group of teenage mutants trying to set up a semi-sane life for themselves while fighting off the sinister organization that created them. The fourth is a tacked-on author tract about global warming with a dull villain and a prominent, mediocre romance subplot.

Interestingly enough, while looking up the subtitle of the book (which I had forgotten) it seems that there have been another three entries in the series. Skimming the synopses they seem to be more along the lines of The Final Warning than of the first three books, so I think I'll pass on them.:smallsigh:

----------

Deltora Quest.

Eight books (turns out there are two sequel series but I haven't touched them) that I read in half as many days, all of them wasted. It has about the least original fantasy plot I've ever read (to the point that I called the final "twist" halfway through the first chapter of the first book), with dreadful pacing and boring characters to boot. All of that I can forgive, given that I had nothing better to read at the time. What drove me crazy was that in eight books, not once did the heroes ACTUALLY SOLVE A SINGLE FREAKING PROBLEM THEMSELVES. Every single dilemma they ended up in, they got out of through some hamfisted coincidence or conveniently placed plot device. Seriously, these guys couldn't wipe their own arses without a deus ex machina to help them find the toilet paper.

----------

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

Where do I even start... The other two things only sucked from a narrative perspective; this, on the other hand, is one of the few things I've read that was just a bad book in every possible way.

Think of every story in any medium that plays off a low-functioning autistic child (or, in this case, teenager) for cheap drama, but with a worse writing style.

Now imagine that the story is written from the perspective of the autistic teenager, by an author who has no idea how to do that. Which basically amounts to having two pages of repetitive stream-of-consciousness and poorly-explained math proofs for every page of actual events, while having the poor kid be painfully unaware that in the course of ~230 pages he's just completely ruined his parents' lives, after already having been the reason they split up years before the start of the book.

Finally, imagine that you yourself have high-functioning Asperger's Syndrome and were pestered into reading this book by your mother because she thought it would somehow be "helpful." Needless to say I was NOT AMUSED.:smallannoyed:

Ninjadeadbeard

2012-05-12, 11:52 PM

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

I had to read this for a literature class. Not amused either. Every reason of yours is dead-on, plus this: Regardless of the main character's mental/learning/whatever problems, he's still kind of a huge prick. He has absolutely no redeeming qualities aside from naivete, and that only gets so much sympathy from me.

Another book that needs to burn: The Scarlet Letter. Again, I love a lot of older fiction, but this thing is just...awful, front to back. Why does this exist?

WyvernLord

2012-05-13, 01:06 AM

Chiming in for the purpose of agreeing with people.
At the time I was reading His Dark Materials my favorite past time was literally running around pretending to be a superhero. I still found the second and third books to be insanely obvious. Religion bad, stomp stomp. Stopping there because of board policy. And the first was a little too, whee look at the little girl go. HDM is the reason I have never used a prophesy in any of the games I run or characters I have played.

Narnia. I loved these books but I've read the ending and it messes with my enjoyment of the others. All of that and they die. And go to heaven, but not the people who couldn't give blind worship to a being that only comes in the span of decades if not centuries. And then only to a favored few. Anytime they come from earth they take over the lives of everyone else. No one else ever can take a priamary role without an earthling coming over and rescuing them. Or Aslan rescues them.

willpell

2012-05-13, 01:42 AM

factotum

2012-05-13, 02:09 AM

Ooh, speaking of lengthy slogs, how about Battlefield Earth? I read it in seventh grade at my dad's urging (he had the first edition copy, bless him), and it took me like two months to finish.

I actually quite enjoyed Battlefield Earth--science was ropey and John Goodboy Tyler did get quite annoying, but as turn-your-brain off entertainment it worked OK. Can't say I've gone out of my way to find any other L. Ron Hubbard books since, mind you...

DaedalusMkV

2012-05-13, 02:55 AM

I nominate Nikolai Tolstoy's "The Coming of the King", simply because it's the only book I can remember actually struggling to get through. You think the Silmarillion is a bit dry? This has it beat...

Oh my, yes. I made it about a third of the way in before I realized that not only was I not enjoying it, but I couldn't actually remember anything that had happened or what the current plot point was. It was more like reading a dry research paper on Arthurian mythology than a novel, and the prose was so obtuse and purple that it could be very difficult to actually figure out what was going on. One of the few books I've ever just put down half-way through out of sheer, unrelenting boredom.

Probably the worst book I've ever read is... Uh, right, The Gates of Dawn by Robert Newcomb, the second in his relatively long-running "epic fantasy" series which will never be finished because even though Del Ray paid him for nine books in advance they were losing money on the printing costs for the later books. The first book in the series, The Fifth Sorceress, is a notoriously awful brick of a book which was near-universally panned and the target of numerous accusations of misogyny (accurately; all the villains were female, and in this setting female magic-users are genetically predisposed to evil and sexual deviancy). The second book was worse. It's the story of how the "young" (30 years old, but acts 13 and is repeatedly referred to as young) prince of some country that basically got destroyed in the first book fights his four-month-old son to prevent him from opening a gateway which will do vague but bad things. Over the course of the book he finds Twu Wuv (for the third time in two books), gets hit by the old "mwaha, I poisoned you and you'll need to do what I say to get the antidote" trick, nearly dies of no less than three different illnesses, discovers that he basically has an unlimited supply of magical abilities that might possibly activate at any given time and do anything (deus ex machina in a box), and then the villain's plan was revealed to be incapable of succeeding, rendering all of the events of the book pointless. I happily admit that I only read all the way through it because I was putting up scathing chapter summaries on a different forum as the result of a dare. The prose was purple to say the least, the characters were often one-dimensional cardboard cutouts with no rhyme or reason to their actions, nothing at all in the series made any sense whatsoever and the whole thing was filled with plot-holes. Bleck.

Nifar

2012-05-13, 04:50 AM

Tolkien. Hands down worst I've ever read. It's so unrealistic.

Okay, now that I'm done trolling, the real "worst" depends on what standards we're using, and whether or not I can count fanfiction. If we can, and we're going by "most sick and depraved thing you've ever read", it'd be either "Rectified Anonymity", also know to Topless Roboteers as "The Pokemon Story", or "Sweet Apple Massacre".
If we're going by just vaguely awful, Twilight comes close, for a great number of reasons, as does Anita Blake and Catcher in the Rye, but ultimately Atlas Shrugged's complete lack of redeeming features wins out.
As far as "boring, long, and plodding", the award goes to the Wheel of Time. Which, last I checked, is still not over yet. The author is dead, and there's what, two more books left? Holy ****, why? This is a story that could have been told in, like, six. Tops. Jordan just had a ton of pointless bull**** in the books that, while it helped to establish scenes, characters, and the world in general, ultimately it was not needed, and got boring fast.

Aidan305

2012-05-13, 05:08 AM

For terrible writing, any romance novel, especially one that involves the supernatural.

Try Kelly Armstrong's Women of the Other World series. It's actually good.

For me, the worst would be The Eye in the Pyramid, first book of the Illuminatus! trilogy. I'm usually able to read even badly written stuff, but this had me putting it down after only 30 pages of drivel and terrible writing.

Fnord.

grimbold

2012-05-13, 06:17 AM

oh right
i forgot to hate on harry potter

i think that the tropes and characters are just horrific and exist only to help harry (who is an idiot IMO) :smallannoyed:

i guess it could be viewed as an ok series as best, but definitely not worthy of all it's attention

Emmerask

2012-05-13, 07:21 AM

"Worst" would be a severe exagerration, but the most tepid piece of literature I can recall having ever read was the ten-book Belgariad and Malloreon series/es by David Eddings. It was reasonably pleasant description, but the whole thing is about how a prophecy gets fulfilled exactly as it was stated, and there's just no tension at all, and the scenery walkthrough is not nearly spectacular enough to make up for this.

Tastes differ, the Belgariad series would actually be in my top 20 best fantasy series :smallbiggrin:

As far as "boring, long, and plodding", the award goes to the Wheel of Time. Which, last I checked, is still not over yet. The author is dead, and there's what, two more books left? Holy ****, why? This is a story that could have been told in, like, six. Tops. Jordan just had a ton of pointless bull**** in the books that, while it helped to establish scenes, characters, and the world in general, ultimately it was not needed, and got boring fast.

Well I kind of agree, the story really could have been told in maybe 4 or so books, my main problem however is that there are no likable women in the entire series, atleast I don´t remember any of them who I did not view with disgust... though now that Sanderson has taken over they did become a tad more likable and there is actually stuff happening but I really wouldn´t read the series again.

Lord Seth

2012-05-13, 09:01 AM

And go to heaven, but not the people who couldn't give blind worship to a being that only comes in the span of decades if not centuries. And then only to a favored few.Huh? I don't believe that's what happens.

Inglenook

2012-05-13, 01:03 PM

I loved The Belgariad and Mallorean as a kid. When I reread it as an adult I realized how formulaic and schlocky it was, but then I learned that Eddings apparently did this on purpose, combining all the fantasy archetypes into one ridiculous, happy-go-lucky mess. Helped me enjoy it a lot more. :smallsmile:

And as for the prophesy, it only came to pass because the characters involved chose to follow it through. I think there was a conversation shortly before or after the fight with Torak where Belgarath told Garion that he always had the choice to not go through with it (although to do so would result in a mad god ruling the world, of course).

TheLaughingMan

2012-05-14, 09:47 PM

And go to heaven, but not the people who couldn't give blind worship to a being that only comes in the span of decades if not centuries. And then only to a favored few.

I'm not sure that the Narnians' worship of Aslan is quite "blind," seeing as he has not only sacrificed himself for their sake and came back, but has known access to the Narnian afterlife-equivalent and was personally witnessed by Narnia's first inhabitants as having created their whole freaking world in the first place, in addition to the isolated incidents of his saving their rear-ends. There aren't all that many reasons not to like the guy who continually saves your bacon, unless you're just being prideful or unreasonable.

Or Aslan rescues them.

???

So Aslan isn't allowed to help out his own prodigies now? Because usually, it's not a bad strategy to ask your setting's benevolent deity for help in a given struggle against evil. And seeing as how Narnia's villains are usually pretty powerful guys/gals, I'm not sure if much could be done on one's lonesome, especially given Narnia's usually docile residents.

EDIT: We're probably erring a bit too closely towards religious discussion, though, so perhaps it's best to just drop discussion. Ah, and here I was looking forward to a nice debate! :smallfrown:

Lateral

2012-05-14, 10:25 PM

PrometheusMFD

2012-05-14, 10:36 PM

EDIT: We're probably erring a bit too closely towards religious discussion, though, so perhaps it's best to just drop discussion. Ah, and here I was looking forward to a nice debate! :smallfrown:

To be fair, The Chronicles of Narnia is probably the most heavy handed allegory in classic fantasy.
Not that that detracts from the story.

WyvernLord

2012-05-14, 11:07 PM

~snip~

I did over state the problems I see. The last book struck a nerve in me when I read it. So there wouldn't have been much of a debate anyway.

Hbgplayer

2012-05-14, 11:57 PM

1 9 8 4
Worst. Book. Ever!

TheLaughingMan

2012-05-14, 11:58 PM

1 9 8 4
Worst. Book. Ever!

And then the internet burst into flames.

The End.

Tvtyrant

2012-05-14, 11:58 PM

1 9 8 4
Worst. Book. Ever!

Agreed. I particularly love his conception of language as the arbitrator of thought.

Lord Seth

2012-05-15, 12:54 AM

1 9 8 4
Worst. Book. Ever!Are you joking?

Sith_Happens

2012-05-15, 01:14 AM

Are you joking?

Of course he is isn't joking; 1984 has always been a wonderful horrible book, and we've always been at war with Eurasia Eastasia. If you need any further clarification, please do not hesitate to ask the first available representative at the Ministry of Love.:smallsmile:

Feytalist

2012-05-15, 02:08 AM

Ooh, speaking of lengthy slogs, how about Battlefield Earth? I read it in seventh grade at my dad's urging (he had the first edition copy, bless him), and it took me like two months to finish. Boringly perfect protagonist, comic book villains, and hundreds of pages devoted to crawling around in mine shafts or whatever.

I'm still inordinately proud that I managed to read the whole thing through.

I'll just add that the Dune series is still one of my favourites. Chapterhouse is a lot less convoluted than the rest, but I still feel it's a decent ending to the whole series.

We shall not speak of the prequels.

As for the Thomas Covenant series, I'd agree that it was meant to be dense and difficult to get into. It's still a great piece of literature.

Telonius

2012-05-15, 08:58 AM

Another book that needs to burn: The Scarlet Letter. Again, I love a lot of older fiction, but this thing is just...awful, front to back. Why does this exist?

Hawthorne is one of my favorite authors. But Scarlet Letter ... it only made sense to me as a story of what guilt and denial will do to a person. It's my least favorite of his works, but I did get what he was trying to do. (Didn't hurt that I'm a child of adultery myself, and had been dealing with a lot of those sorts of emotions at the time I read it). You might enjoy "The Minister's Black Veil" a bit more. It's a short story of Hawthorne's, and deals with similar themes of self-imposed isolation. (And is also about 30 times better than Scarlet Letter).

Grey Watcher

2012-05-15, 09:02 AM

As far as "boring, long, and plodding", the award goes to the Wheel of Time. Which, last I checked, is still not over yet. The author is dead, and there's what, two more books left? Holy ****, why? This is a story that could have been told in, like, six. Tops. Jordan just had a ton of pointless bull**** in the books that, while it helped to establish scenes, characters, and the world in general, ultimately it was not needed, and got boring fast.

Ugh. You had to go and remind me that that's a thing that exists. Now I'm depressed. My mother bought me those books as a birthday present one year. I don't think she's ever read them, but she probably figured I liked epic fantasy and at the time (aged 17 or 18 if I remember correctly), was a fairly easy critic of these things. After plodding through endlessly repetitive character development, reading the same SHOCKING REVELATIONS from like three different characters, a mind-numbingly dense maze of unnecessary plot twists shocking swerves, doomsday being always just around the corner but never actually getting any closer, all of it drenched in gallons of the most over-simplified, sexist view of the world, I finally gave up after 5 or 6 installments. They're still on the bookshelf in my room at my parents' house. I should probably donate them to the library or something, though I'd hate to inflict them on anyone else.

As for other terrible literary experiences this thread forced me to, unfortunately recall, I have three.

Two were reading for school. In grade school, had to do a book report and picked a bit of historical fiction set during the American Revolution. Seemed like an interesting premise, some of that period told through the eyes of a moderately ranked British army officer (the eponymous Major Andre). What followed was a long series of dull, plodding excuses as the narrator describes his own journey wandering behind enemy lines in disguise while trying, rather witlessly, to claim he was not a spy. I hated the book so much my report was like 2 weeks late and I got in trouble with my teacher. My mom actually read the book and agreed with me at that it was dense, stupid, and totally not worth it, but that I probably should've just sucked it up and finished my work on time anyway. :smallbiggrin:

The other school assigned book was for summer reading during high school. Somewhere I got the idea that The Right Stuff would be an exciting read. When I got halfway through the book, I stopped holding out hope that "the good part" would ever come.

The last entry is another present from a loved one: in this case, a Christmas present from my fiance. He knows nothing about fantasy, and very little about fiction in general (he's a huge non-fiction buff), so he just picked something that had an interesting cover. Sadly, that was about the most interesting thing about it. I honestly can't remember much about it now, but there was a lot of poorly formulated stuff involving one character being the reincarnation of a long dead king, another wandering on the oceans and having a lot of adventures that ultimately had no bearing on any other part of the plot, and the general impression that there was a lot more going on in the writer's head than he ever put down on paper: missing exposition, connecting events, etc. I vaguely wondered if it was part of a longer series, as an explanation for why there were such huge gaps, but I couldn't find anything at the time.

Anyway, at the OP: If you're looking for bad literature to read and laugh at, I would not recommend any of these. They were each, in their way, painful to read and I'm sorry to even bring them up. Except, y'know, misery loves company, I guess.

Hbgplayer

2012-05-15, 11:30 AM

Are you joking?

Not at all. I hated reading that foul book.
The only book/series of books that ranks lower than that is the Twilight books. Yes, I read them, trying to understand what all the hype was about and maybe, just maybe, be able to talk to a few girls about it. Worst. Decisoin. EVER! :yuk:

Of course he is isn't joking; 1984 has always been a wonderful horrible book, and we've always been at war with Eurasia Eastasia. If you need any further clarification, please do not hesitate to ask the first available representative at the Ministry of Love.:smallsmile:

Lol :smalltongue:

Lord Seth

2012-05-15, 01:13 PM

Not at all. I hated reading that foul book.And...what makes it so "foul"?

I can understand not liking it, but I'm confused as to why someone would hate it with such magnitude.

Goosefeather

2012-05-15, 01:25 PM

And...what makes it so "foul"?

I can understand not liking it, but I'm confused as to why someone would hate it with such magnitude.

Agreed. I mean, it's hardly badly written from a technical point of view, so I assume Hbgplayer's objection is to the themes portrayed - but given that the book is satire, arguing against those themes, couldn't you argue that if it's able to provoke such a strong emotional response, surely it's well-written, and achieves its purpose, hence making it a good book? Compare Lolita.

Someone like Ayn Rand, on the other hand, doesn't fall into this category, because although she provokes a similar emotional response, it's unintentional, and she's writing in earnest.

Das Platyvark

2012-05-15, 01:40 PM

Not at all. I hated reading that foul book.

May we have some reasoning here?

Gnoman

2012-05-15, 06:17 PM

I also hated 1984, primarily because the social structure presented therin was sociologically impossible, the psychological theories that it was founded on had been largely debunked at the time it was written, and thus the verisimilitude crucial to a good satire was impossible for me to find. It is notable that I found Animal Farm to involve much less suspension of disbelief, and greatly enjoyed it. (Incidentally, the film version of the latter with Patrick Stewart is a masterpiece, and I suggest you go see it immediately.)

From this perspective, however, the classic I find the worst is The Cold Equations.

Rallicus

2012-05-15, 06:38 PM

I don't know, I've read a lot of horrible books. The latest was The Haunted Mesa, though.

Basically a story about a guy who mulls over the same trivial questions before going on a tangent about the complexities of the universe for some reason. This happens for like, 200 pages or so, while he's off doing stuff that has no real impact on the story.

Then he goes into a parallel universe to save his friend. There's a contrived love plot in there where he falls in love with some girl from the parallel universe for no particular reason other than her pretty face or something. He saves his friend, some old cowboy that was there, some random girl his friend fell in love with and, VIOLA, 350 pages of nothing.

It's also horribly written.

I give the author a pass, though, because he died a year later. He was probably delirious.

Misery Esquire

2012-05-15, 10:32 PM

all of it drenched in gallons of the most over-simplified, sexist view of the world

Hmm. I thought it's problem rested more on the fact that R.Jordan could only write one-and-a-half female characters and supplanted that on every woman* you meet in the series. And, maybe, three males. (Duty, Cheeky, and Angsty. And Perrin. Which is Angst+.)

*It's Nynavyene, but stubborner`

`It's like those other stubborn people, but even stubbornerer'

' It's like those people, but eve-...

Right, that's headed into another skit.

Grey Watcher

2012-05-15, 11:31 PM

Hmm. I thought it's problem rested more on the fact that R.Jordan could only write one-and-a-half female characters and supplanted that on every woman* you meet in the series. And, maybe, three males. (Duty, Cheeky, and Angsty. And Perrin. Which is Angst+.)

*It's Nynavyene, but stubborner`

`It's like those other stubborn people, but even stubbornerer'

' It's like those people, but eve-...

Right, that's headed into another skit.

Right, in WoT, all women are calculating... rhymes-with-withces and all men are either dense or naive (which amount to the same thing most of the time). Probably didn't help that I was reading at the same time I was coming to terms with being gay and seeing the sexes presented as such monolithic entities with such an inexplicably vast gulf between them just quickly started to seem downright silly. And then I started on Book Two.

factotum

2012-05-16, 01:31 AM

From this perspective, however, the classic I find the worst is The Cold Equations.

Why? What's wrong with that story? :smallconfused:

Saph

2012-05-16, 07:04 AM

Right, in WoT, all women are calculating... rhymes-with-withces and all men are either dense or naive (which amount to the same thing most of the time).

Heh, you're not the only one to feel that way. The really interesting thing about WoT is that Robert Jordan didn't think the female characters in the series were obnoxious at all. He just thought they were "strong", apparently quite sincerely.

There's a theory floating around the WoT fandom which says that all the WoT female characters are based on Jordan's wife (who Jordan was very much in love with). One collaborator actually met said wife, and said afterwards that now he understood why the WoT female characters were the way they were . . . Might just be an urban legend, though. :smalltongue:

Gnoman

2012-05-16, 03:39 PM

Why? What's wrong with that story? :smallconfused:

Leaving aside the fact that the setup seems designed to murder people, considering the complete lack of any security (knowing that stowaways are a problem, they solve it with a handgun and a closed -but not locked- door), and the fact that there are enough unneccesary objects mentioned that they could have jettisoned those instead of the girl; the ships described in the story would have a 100% failure rate. If an engine was running even half a percent high in fuel consumption (an extremely tight tolerance even for a factory-new engine of any kind), the ship would crash. Frankly, there isn't a single line in the story that stands up to even cursory scrutiny. The author was attempting to subvert utopian sci-fi, but wound up simply making all the characters look like imbeciles or psychopaths.

Giggling Ghast

2012-05-16, 04:58 PM

When someone cites a book like 1984 as the worst book they've ever read, I don't take them seriously.

If 1984, the Thomas Covenant series or even Harry Potter are truly the worst things you've ever read, then you've never really dipped your toes into the vast ocean of bad literature that exists in the world. There is an astounding amount of truly godawful books out there. Quite a few of them are tie-ins to other media or feature scantily-dressed men and women posing on the cover.

People read those books without any expectation of them being actually good. And they're promptly forgotten once finished or abandoned quickly part of the way through, because why would you waste your time on trash?

That's not to say that they actually liked "This Popular Book That Everyone Loves But I Don't." They probably really did dislike said book. But even though it was objectively better than, say, the book adapation of the movie Speed, they get riled up over "The Scarlet Letter" because it didn't meet their expectations.

Lateral

2012-05-16, 05:10 PM

When someone cites a book like 1984 as the worst book they've ever read, I don't take them seriously.

If 1984, the Thomas Covenant series or even Harry Potter are truly the worst things you've ever read, then you've never really dipped your toes into the vast ocean of bad literature that exists in the world. There is an astounding amount of truly godawful books out there. Quite a few of them are tie-ins to other media or feature scantily-dressed men and women posing on the cover.

People read those books without any expectation of them being actually good. And they're promptly forgotten once finished or abandoned quickly.

That's not to say that they actually liked "This Popular Book That Everyone Loves But I Don't." They probably really did dislike said book. But even if though it was better than, say, the book adapation of the movie Speed, they get riled up over "The Scarlet Letter" because it didn't meet their expectations.
This is a very good point. That said, there are cases of things so bad that you can't help but remember them with horror. For example, to me that's Eye of Argon. (To be fair, though, I knew exactly what I was getting into when I started it, but still.)

Giggling Ghast

2012-05-16, 05:30 PM

Axolotl

2012-05-16, 05:42 PM

When someone cites a book like 1984 as the worst book they've ever read, I don't take them seriously.Personally I just imagine someone raised on Dostoyevsky and Proust cursing Orwell as a poor imitator of Kafka.

TheLaughingMan

2012-05-16, 06:16 PM

"Well, the Eye of Argon is truly awful," Candle Jack ejaculated somberly, his azure orbs glazing mistily at his vivid recollection of the infamous tale spoken of in hushed whispers at taverns and brothels where patrons indulge whimsically in dalliances with half-naked harlots with heaving bosoms.

The Bellowing Carbon-based Life-form focussed his glinting mud-stained orbs upon the incandescent marvel of the humour-enwrapped syllable congregation encrypted 'pon a virtual tapestry into which he had woven innumerable heartstrings. The Guffawing Hominid then enclosed and then receded his orb valves not once, not twice, but thricescore times as his mind-meat melded its legions of thought into a comprehensible word-squadron, whereupon he reclined his posterior podium and let out an enthusiastic man-cry. "Aha!" he posited as his pinned up his language-communicator, "that was a good one!"

Raistlin1040

2012-05-16, 06:31 PM

I couldn't get through The Chocolate War. The pacing was really slow and I just couldn't get into it at all. Not the worst thing I've ever read, but certainly not an enjoyable venture.

Atlas Shrugged. No thanks.

Robinson Crusoe is pretty damn terrible. It's the kind of book that most people know the story of (through Swiss Family Robinson, Castaway, film versions), but rarely sit down to actually READ. The philosophy is awful, the writing is incredibly dry, the characters are boring and one-dimensional. I understand that it's the first English novel, so there wasn't much precedent for good character development or plot, but still.

Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire isn't great either. Memoir of his time in the desert with no other people around. Isolated passages are very powerful, but the whole book together is self-indulgent and heavy-handed.

The last two I read for class, which may have contributed to my dislike of them. I don't know if I've every read anything TRULY terrible (I tend to put most things down that I don't enjoy after an hour or so), so I'll say either Atlas Shrugged or Robinson Crusoe, both which fall into the "Bad, but not mind-numbingly awful" category.

Whiffet

2012-05-16, 11:45 PM

The Bellowing Carbon-based Life-form focussed his glinting mud-stained orbs upon the incandescent marvel of the humour-enwrapped syllable congregation encrypted 'pon a virtual tapestry into which he had woven innumerable heartstrings. The Guffawing Hominid then enclosed and then receded his orb valves not once, not twice, but thricescore times as his mind-meat melded its legions of thought into a comprehensible word-squadron, whereupon he reclined his posterior podium and let out an enthusiastic man-cry. "Aha!" he posited as his pinned up his language-communicator, "that was a good one!"

Actually, that's probably better than the real thing.

ThirdEmperor

2012-05-17, 12:15 AM

Narnia. I loved these books but I've read the ending and it messes with my enjoyment of the others. All of that and they die. And go to heaven, but not the people who couldn't give blind worship to a being that only comes in the span of decades if not centuries. And then only to a favored few. Anytime they come from earth they take over the lives of everyone else. No one else ever can take a priamary role without an earthling coming over and rescuing them. Or Aslan rescues them.

Yeah. I loved the other Narnia books, in fact I'm pretty sure it was the first series I ever read in entirety, but although I could happily list off my favorite points of every other book, I could never think of a single good thing to say about the last one.

For me, the worst would be The Eye in the Pyramid, first book of the Illuminatus! trilogy. I'm usually able to read even badly written stuff, but this had me putting it down after only 30 pages of drivel and terrible writing.

Fnord.

I find it hard to refute with any of your points, but I must say I utterly disagree with the final conclusion. The Illuminatus! trilogy's entire point is to be incomprehensible, filled with paradoxes, logic loops and riddles, and the writing is done in the perfect style to accentuate that.

In short, I would argue it's an ironically bad book and purposefully a mindscrew, which in my opinion changes it from 'bad' to hilarious.

As for the book I personally find to be the worst, I'd have to say Swiss Family Robinson. I read it as an nine year old and even then found it to be ridiculous, as the characters instantly and perfectly learned any skill they were required to by the plot, the island itself was utterly impossible in terms of ecosystem and the sheer degree to which the author failed to in any way research the subject matter astounds me.

Misery Esquire

2012-05-17, 12:31 AM

Robinson Crusoe is pretty damn terrible.

Ah, but we got the Wishbone's Robinson Crusoe out of it.

So it's 'kay. :smalltongue:

factotum

2012-05-17, 01:35 AM

Frankly, there isn't a single line in the story that stands up to even cursory scrutiny. The author was attempting to subvert utopian sci-fi, but wound up simply making all the characters look like imbeciles or psychopaths.

I suspect the problem there may be down to editorial interference. I heard that the editor who published the story kept sending it back to the author until he came up with a version where the girl dies; maybe all the stuff you're talking about is holdover from an earlier version of the story where they found a way to survive?

(Oh, and I'll point out that there clearly *was* some leeway in the fuel, or the guy wouldn't have been able to keep the girl alive by simply reducing thrust--there just wasn't enough leeway to allow a safe landing with her additional mass once they got deep into the planet's gravity well).

Feytalist

2012-05-17, 01:43 AM

Ah, but we got the Wishbone's Robinson Crusoe out of it.

So it's 'kay. :smalltongue:

Robinson Crusoe is one of the few books I never could finish. Another would be Moby ****. Not because the writing was bad, but because it is so stupendously dense. I admitted defeat in the end.

I'll still admit to liking Atlas Shrugged. If not for the themes, then for the way they were presented. Rand could bring across her point very well.

Avilan the Grey

2012-05-17, 04:54 AM

factotum

2012-05-17, 06:21 AM

But explain to me why I should read books i KNOW are bad?

I don't think he said you *should*, but it is quite hard to believe you've never read anything worse than 1984 unless you've only read about 4 books in your life. :smalltongue: (I'm not the biggest fan of 1984 myself, I hasten to add, but I've read much worse without having to go hunting for bad stuff deliberately!).

Aotrs Commander

2012-05-17, 10:30 AM

Tastes differ, the Belgariad series would actually be in my top 20 best fantasy series :smallbiggrin:

I'd rate it higher than that, probably in my top five.

Eddings slowly slipped of the pedastal, though. Sparhawk was nearly as good, Althalus was above average, and the Elder Gods were dull, so dull they're the only ones I never finished reading.

That series had two problems. The biggest was the going over and over of the same events from three or four perspectives, sometimes word-for-word, so it was boring. The second, which I would have not minded in isolation, was the fact the bad guys really didn't generate any kind of feasible threat. It was clear from the outset they were utterly outclassed and out-thought by the good guys and were never going to win. They achieved what I would term Credible Threat. Now, I wouldn't have minded that so much if the repetition hadn't gotten so tedious.

Giggling Ghast

2012-05-17, 12:32 PM

I don't think he said you *should*, but it is quite hard to believe you've never read anything worse than 1984 unless you've only read about 4 books in your life. :smalltongue:

Exactly!

Bad literature is inevitable, like death or taxes. Sooner or later, someone will buy one for you as a Christmas gift and you force your way through it to avoid disappointing the giver. Or you'll pick up some dodgy paperback to burn through while on a plane or a bus. Maybe one day you'll like a Good Entertainment Product so much that you'll seek out the related media and end up reading some godawful tie-in novel or fan fiction. (Mass Effect Deception, for example.)

PrometheusMFD

2012-05-17, 04:00 PM

To be honest, 1984 pales in comparison to The Great Gatsby. Analogy stories and bad satire tend to suck when you haven't personally experienced what they are talking about, and The Great Gatsby just exacerbates things with poor characterization and bad pacing.

Sith_Happens

2012-05-17, 05:26 PM

But explain to me why I should read books i KNOW are bad? It's like arguing that I shouldn't call "Daredevil" the worst movie I have seen, because I haven't seen "The Room". That argument is really not valid.

What are you talking about? "The Room" is hilarious.:smallwink:

Also, on a similar note, if Daredevil is the worst movie you've ever seen, then you haven't seen very many bad movies.

"Well, the Eye of Argon is truly awful," Candle Jack ejaculated somberly, his azure orbs glazing mistily at his vivid recollection of the infamous tale spoken of in hushed whispers at taverns and brothels where patrons indulge whimsically in dalliances with half-naked harlots with heaving bosoms.

The Bellowing Carbon-based Life-form focussed his glinting mud-stained orbs upon the incandescent marvel of the humour-enwrapped syllable congregation encrypted 'pon a virtual tapestry into which he had woven innumerable heartstrings. The Guffawing Hominid then enclosed and then receded his orb valves not once, not twice, but thricescore times as his mind-meat melded its legions of thought into a comprehensible word-squadron, whereupon he reclined his posterior podium and let out an enthusiastic man-cry. "Aha!" he posited as his pinned up his language-communicator, "that was a good one!"

What... words are not supposed to... how many thesarauses did it take to... AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NNescio

2012-05-17, 06:51 PM

Das Platyvark

2012-05-17, 08:11 PM

I think it's important to distinguish between bad things and and things you don't like. While the 'classics' that are getting bashed here do have a tendency to be rather dry, there's often a reason the become classics.
This isn't to say the people hating on Moby **** or The Great Gatsby don't have a point (though I rather enjoyed the former, in all its nautical dullness) but rather that they need to look at what made it bad—is it the book, the author, or how they read it?

-Sentinel-

2012-05-17, 08:17 PM

Eddings slowly slipped of the pedastal, though. Sparhawk was nearly as good, Althalus was above average, and the Elder Gods were dull, so dull they're the only ones I never finished reading.
While I loved The Belgariad and The Malloreon, I found that the first Sparhawk series (The Elenium) was quite a step down. (Haven't read any of Eddings' other series.) The characters were rather unsympathetic; the hero, in particular, came across as self-righteous, violent-minded, petty and vindictive. Plus, the author was painting the words bad guy all over his villains instead of letting his readers judge them by themselves. Eddings' books do have good qualities (the snarky banter is always entertaining), but their main problem is the Protagonist-Centered Morality (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ProtagonistCenteredMorality).

Although, when it comes to that particular problem, it's hard to beat Terry Goodkind and his war-crime-committing "heroes". And then there's Goodkind's objectivist preaching and sick obsession with rape... Be sure to stay the hell away from The Sword of Truth. Not the worst thing I've ever read, but probably the worst that actually had any success.

The Eye Of Argon at least has the merit of being so bad it's good. It has way more entertainment value than a merely mediocre book.

Has anyone here ever heard of the Maradonia Saga? It's a series of young adult fantasy novels written and self-published by a talentless, delusional teenage girl called Gloria Tesch. She advertises herself as the world's youngest novelist (which she isn't), uses sockpuppets to bump his Amazon ratings up and has been claiming for several years that a film based on her series is in the making (yeah, right). I haven't actually read the Maradonia series, but a thorough chapter-by-chapter skewering (complete with lines from the books) can be found here (http://conjugalfelicity.com/maradonia/).

Gnoman

2012-05-17, 08:21 PM

I suspect the problem there may be down to editorial interference. I heard that the editor who published the story kept sending it back to the author until he came up with a version where the girl dies; maybe all the stuff you're talking about is holdover from an earlier version of the story where they found a way to survive?

(Oh, and I'll point out that there clearly *was* some leeway in the fuel, or the guy wouldn't have been able to keep the girl alive by simply reducing thrust--there just wasn't enough leeway to allow a safe landing with her additional mass once they got deep into the planet's gravity well).

If you don't have the fuel margin to handle an extra 75-80 kilos of mass, then the mission is doomed. There have been many cases where seemingly identical aircraft have taken off, with one running out of fuel and crashing/being forced to make an emergency landing, while the other reaches the desitnation with enough fuel for another half-hour of flight. Being a spaceship doesn't make a difference to that. (Actually, being a constant-boost ship is worse, as he could simply cut the engines out for a little while, then restart.

Fundamentally, that's why The Cold Equations is a terrible story. The moral was forced by incredibly stupid plot points at all levels.

The Glyphstone

2012-05-17, 08:58 PM

I'd say John Ringo's Paladin of Shadows/Kildar series (birth of the OH JOHN RINGO NO meme), but since even the author knows it's awful, and I went in expecting it to be awful, it become So Horrible It Couldn't Help But Be Hilarious.

Lateral

2012-05-17, 10:54 PM

The Eye Of Argon at least has the merit of being so bad it's good. It has way more entertainment value than a merely mediocre book.
Mmm, I don't actually think it's really so bad it's good. It kind of goes past that hill entirely. Rather, my opinion on it is that it's one of the very, very few books that is so bad that it passes being good into being heinous, and goes so far into that area that it hits a wall of sheer hilarity. I can't think of a single other work of literature that reaches the second so-bad-it's-good marker.

What... words are not supposed to... how many thesarauses did it take to... AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Read. Now. (http://www.rdrop.com/~hutch/argon) Alcohol is advised.

factotum

2012-05-18, 01:32 AM

Eddings' books do have good qualities (the snarky banter is always entertaining)

I sort of disagree there...yes, the snarky banter is entertaining, but I don't think it's a good quality of the books simply because *everybody* does it. If it were just the characters you'd expect to be snarky (Silk, say) doing it then it would be OK, but when it's everyone I find it feels forced.

factotum

2012-05-18, 01:45 AM

Being a spaceship doesn't make a difference to that.

Actually, it does. Aircraft will have varying rates of fuel consumption because of local weather effects like wind and the like, which a spacecraft simply doesn't have to deal with (until the last little bit of the descent, which is a tiny part of the overall journey). As for 75kg not being much--the problem here is that this additional mass is having to be decelerated from whatever speed the spacecraft was dropped off at to zero relative at the planet's surface, and almost all of that extra fuel burn will be happening outside the planet's atmosphere; the faster the ship is going to start with, the more difference it makes, because kinetic energy varies with the square of the speed.

Don't get me wrong, your point about the spacecraft being a bit poorly secured if the girl was able to get in it in the first place is certainly valid, but I'm not sure the one about the extra mass being irrelevant is.

McStabbington

2012-05-18, 02:21 AM

Hrm. If we're looking at literature, I'd say it's a tossup between Jaws and A Tale of Two Cities, albeit for completely different reasons. First of all, yes, I realize that there are many worse books out there; it's just that I've been canny enough to avoid those. The problem that I had with ATotC is purely based on the prose. Something about the writing of Englishmen in the 19th century lends itself to unduly dense phrasing that forces you to read it over and over again to understand. I didn't appreciate that. As for Jaws, it was poorly-plotted, with a lot of side stories that added nothing but pages.

If we're talking non-fiction, Ayn Rand's attempt at actual philosophy in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, although not because of the ideas presented so much as the manner of presentation. Philosophy books have a certain cadence to them, and a good one walks a reader through an argument step by step to show why a point must be correct. Rand . . . didn't do this. I can only assume that she just didn't realize how cursory she was being. And this problem cropped up enough that by the end of the first chapter, I had to return the book lest I physically destroy it.

Avilan the Grey

2012-05-18, 02:59 AM

I don't think he said you *should*, but it is quite hard to believe you've never read anything worse than 1984 unless you've only read about 4 books in your life. :smalltongue: (I'm not the biggest fan of 1984 myself, I hasten to add, but I've read much worse without having to go hunting for bad stuff deliberately!).

What are you talking about? "The Room" is hilarious.:smallwink:

Also, on a similar note, if Daredevil is the worst movie you've ever seen, then you haven't seen very many bad movies.

I don't read nearly as much as I used to; but part of it is to know when to stop. I genuinely loved the early Anita Blake books, but saw in Blue Moon where the series was heading and went cold turkey on it. My wife (who I only knew as a chat friend back then) continued two more books and got more than a little irritated over the fact that I was right, and she should have cut off at the same point.

It is the same with movies for me; I tend to not experience any really bad movies, because I tend to only watch movies I am pretty sure I would like. Life is too short to waste two hours on movies that most likely are not to your liking when you could spend them playing Mass Effect 2 or Diablo III... :smallbiggrin:
We have a huge DVD collection; in fact one of my arguments every time the cable company calls and wants us to subscribe to dedicated movie channels is "we watch TOO MANY movies; by the time it is on the channel, we either have bought it, or don't want to see it".

factotum

2012-05-18, 07:01 AM

I see where you're coming from, but I think it's nice to read or watch something outside your normal comfort zone occasionally--you might actually really enjoy it! Of course, there's the possibility it's utter tripe, but you can always stop watching (or reading) before the end if that's the case. The last time I can remember actually having done that is when I tried to watch the live action Inspector Gadget movie, mind you...

Manga Shoggoth

2012-05-18, 07:29 AM

It doesn't have to be in English, right?

Dream of the Red Chamber. Boring novel, boring plot, boring characters, and epitomises the boring parts of boring Chinese soap operas. Freaking boring opening repeats itself for a couple boring iterations before it even gets into the boring story. Plus it was required reading in my (Chinese) high school. And to top it all off it is written in what passes for the ancient vernacular, making it less comprehensible.

So bad, in fact, that it gets a mention in one of Barry Hugharts Master Li and Number Ten Ox stories. Number Ten Ox isn't impressed either. This is the only reason I have heard of the title.

Even my 4-volume translation of Journey to the West wasn't that repetitive.

Avilan the Grey

2012-05-18, 08:16 AM

Dienekes

2012-05-18, 08:42 AM

On the other hand, again... if I pick up a book, and the back blurb makes me go "bleh", I won't read it.

True, but admittedly my current favorite book series had a back blurb that made me go "meh" and I only picked it up months later because of a friends recommendation.

Of course "meh" isn't as bad as a "bleh" but they're in the same ballpark.

Gnoman

2012-05-18, 04:03 PM

Actually, it does. Aircraft will have varying rates of fuel consumption because of local weather effects like wind and the like, which a spacecraft simply doesn't have to deal with (until the last little bit of the descent, which is a tiny part of the overall journey). As for 75kg not being much--the problem here is that this additional mass is having to be decelerated from whatever speed the spacecraft was dropped off at to zero relative at the planet's surface, and almost all of that extra fuel burn will be happening outside the planet's atmosphere; the faster the ship is going to start with, the more difference it makes, because kinetic energy varies with the square of the speed.

Don't get me wrong, your point about the spacecraft being a bit poorly secured if the girl was able to get in it in the first place is certainly valid, but I'm not sure the one about the extra mass being irrelevant is.

First, the aircraft I was referring to were military aircraft on patrol in formation with each other, flying literally through the same places. It was a fairly frequent phenomenon in the Pacific War. Second, you won't spend 90 percent of your deceleration time in the planet's atmosphere if you're flying a constant-boost ship. You'll have to spend just abnout as much time slowing down as you did speeding up, with maybe 10% of the effort being used to fight the gravity well at the end. Third, the author vastly exaggerated the effect that an extra person would actually make to fuel consumption. Even modern Earth-based craft, which are much smaller, so ~75kg would be a much more significant increase in mass, don't run on tolerances that tight, for good reason. From the description of the ship in the story, it's essentially putting an extra flea on a robin.

molten_dragon

2012-05-18, 04:43 PM

I've got a few to add.

David Weber's Out of the Dark: The single worst book I've ever read. It's boring, overly descriptive, and the ending made me want to commit genocide.

Kevin J. Anderson's Saga of Seven Suns series: Reading this didn't fill me with rage the way some of these other books did. I just sort of stopped reading halfway through the series when I realized that I didn't give a rat's ass about any of the characters in the book or what happened to them. Mostly just boring.

Gail Martin's The Summoner: This isn't a book, this is a D&D campaign journal, and it's not even a well-written one. I've read better on this website.

Chris Evans's Iron Elves trilogy: This series felt like it started in the middle of another series. Nothing is explained, and you feel like you're missing out on a bunch of the plot. It's confusing, and the pacing is awful. The climax of the book is crammed into the last 15 pages or so.

Edit: Just thought of one more. Greg Egan's Incandescence. This is less of a novel than a physics textbook. It has absolutely no plot, and is essentially an account of a fictional species experimenting to determine the laws of orbital mechanics and relativity. The single most boring thing I've ever read.

Squark

2012-05-18, 05:43 PM

While these aren't as bad as some examples, both The Awakening and The Great Gatsby hold a place as two of the books I read in high school that I liked the least.

The Great Gatsby... I'm not sure what the point was. Is it optimistic? Pessimistic? It just really was not that great, especially since it came right before better books.

The Awakening holds the dubious honor of being the only book to ever put me to sleep while reading it. It might hold a place in literature, but it takes a really, really dull read to do that. And it was midday, for the record.

factotum

2012-05-19, 07:13 AM

Second, you won't spend 90 percent of your deceleration time in the planet's atmosphere if you're flying a constant-boost ship. You'll have to spend just abnout as much time slowing down as you did speeding up, with maybe 10% of the effort being used to fight the gravity well at the end.

Er, yes, that's exactly what I said, isn't it? :smallconfused:

Gnoman

2012-05-20, 02:37 PM

It is likely I misuderstood you. I thought you were suggesting that nearly all decelleration would happen in the gravity well, instead of the ship entering said well at a little under orbital speed and then fighting the pull, which is the only really practical way to do so.

factotum

2012-05-20, 04:07 PM

I said most of the deceleration would take place outside the atmosphere and would thus not be affected by crosswinds and other weather phenomena that you referred to when talking about aircraft. The comment about gravity well was a few posts back, but thinking about it, I was probably wrong to even bring it up--the extra mass on the ship would affect the fuel consumption pretty equally no matter where in the flight they were, so long as the thrust levels remained the same.

Gnoman

2012-05-20, 04:41 PM

Ah. Then the sole point of confusion is that the aircraft I was referring to were under identical aerodynamic conditions, meaning that crosswinds and the like played absolutely no part in the discrepancy. It's a bit off-track anyway, as I was simply trying to demonstrate that there is no way to give an engine performance tolerances tight enough that you can calculate fuel expenditure so precisely that even the mass of a single person causes the scenario to fail.

factotum

2012-05-21, 01:31 AM

The Glyphstone

2012-05-21, 08:45 AM

I've got a few to add.

David Weber's Out of the Dark: The single worst book I've ever read. It's boring, overly descriptive, and the ending made me want to commit genocide.

I'm a cheerfully admitted MWW fanboy, so I had to go look this book up to see if it was just another of his usual creations. I found it on Wikipedia...

...holy crap, was the man drunk or something when he wrote it, and his editors even drunker when they approved it? That was the most absolutely awful thing I'd ever seen his name attached to, and I was only reading the Wiki plot summary.

Lost Demiurge

2012-05-21, 09:43 AM

I'm a cheerfully admitted MWW fanboy, so I had to go look this book up to see if it was just another of his usual creations. I found it on Wikipedia...

...holy crap, was the man drunk or something when he wrote it, and his editors even drunker when they approved it? That was the most absolutely awful thing I'd ever seen his name attached to, and I was only reading the Wiki plot summary.

I don't know. I don't know what he was thinking. Weber was always a fun read for me before, but... Never again.

And the worst thing is that I bought it before knowing anything about it. The back cover blurb looked fun, and I figured "Hey, Weber is always good for a quick read."

NO.

I sold it to half price books, and got maybe $1.00 for the trade. It will never bring back my lost money or time or goodwill to Mr. Weber, but that's a dollar I will never again spend on his books. I don't care what else he's done, that book has scared me off of his work for life.

The Glyphstone

2012-05-21, 11:33 AM

Well, at least your sacrifice has done me good - I know to never touch a copy of it, and thus avoid the further poisoning of his good name in my mind.

Elfinor

2012-05-21, 12:39 PM

Worst series I remember reading to the conclusion: The Elder Gods by David Eddings. Constant repetition of 'falling back to the next defensive line' x 1000 followed by deus ex machina. Spoilered spoiler.
The ending literally involved the new crop of gods going back in time to handwave away all the bad events of the previous books and even events before the series started just like it never happened, only better. Hooray:smallannoyed:

Worst book I remember quitting: A Sherrilyn Kenyon (I think?) novel, it was a supernatural romance. Total Pain.
Repeat the following over at least the first third of the book (I quit):
Him: Why is she being so nice to me even though I'm being such a jerk? No one has ever done this for me before...
Her: Even though he's such a jerk there's just something so irresistably sexy about him. There must be some kindness beneath his rough exterior...

I read an encyclopedia on her world (I don't think it was this novel's world, but they were stuck in a hut in a blizzard for the first third, so unsure) and found it interesting. So she writes better world-encyclopedias than novels, I suppose:smalltongue:

Honorable Mention: His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman has killed my love for reading - I bought the books just over a year ago (because they've received good reviews) and IT HURTS. Lyra is on the verge of being a Mary Sue character (Lee Scorseby: If only I had a daughter that was half as good and pure as her!). Pullman constantly seems to be trotting out the line, 'You must obey me because I have the Knife/a gun and I am stronger than you' - never something more organic like a simple 'Do it or I'll shoot!'. I've gone from a couple of novels a week to taking over a year to get through this trilogy - almost done, I've gone too far to give up now:smallyuk:

Gnoman

2012-05-21, 03:36 PM

I think tolerances on rockets tend to be a lot tighter, simply because the more mass in fuel you carry, the more it takes to get the thing off the ground and into orbit--you don't want to have to put an extra hundred tons of fuel on board purely to compensate for fuel consumption issues in the engines!

Mind you, I'm surprised to hear that fuel consumption is so uncertain in modern-day jets...

Tighter. yes. Tighter to the point needed for The Cold Equations? Impossible. Even nuclear warheads, which are smaller (precision becomes exponentially difficult as the size of the object increases), and don't go under the constant stresses that an engine goes through (stress deforms parts, reducing efficiency), aren't quite that precise. You rarely hear about it in modern times because everyone includes a healthy safety margin in their fuel supply, though every few years you hear about an airliner that tried to cut costs and landed dry.