Single worst book/author you've ever read? (summary, novels, cover)

[RDSLOTS]

Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801

Conversely, when I was reading John Jakes's Civil War books, in the author's notes of the one that comes after Love and War Jakes lamented that no one, not even his writer friends, picked up on his symbolism of the black horses representing the Confederacy. In the beginning the black horses in the special unit are beautiful and proud, then they appear during war scenes, and by the end of the war there's a scene of a dead black horse with flies on it or something.

What a shame. Seems somebody would have picked up on that one. I've not read Jakes's Civil War books, so I cannot comment, but that is neat. How fitting, too -- the beautiful black horses. Out of curiosity, I wonder if Lee rode a black horse? Was the animal's name, 'Traveler,' or am I thinking of another horse?

I love finding things like that in author's works. I abhorred some know-it-all Prof (I'm sure you know what I mean) who insisted some symbolism, or other meaning, was in some work and couldn't help but wonder did the author intend that? Or does he (the Prof) just find it cool? Especially if one could find no mention of it in any criticisms or analysis of the work.

I always share things I find in works -- with my students, colleagues, or just family and friends now -- but always preface it with, "this just seemed cool to me" . . .

[stanman13]

I have read many great books and a few horrible ones. Those I can rarely remember, since I purposefully put them out of my brain. One that stands out for me was Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. A horrifically written, thinly veiled manifesto about the utopia which would exist if women ran the world. Not that I am opposed to debating the premise, but the book was very simply one of the worst I have read.

One person's trash, though. I notice that many of the books despised on this thread have been some of my favorites, and I suppose someone will arise to defend Ms. Gilman's most famous work.

[WindblownHair]

Debbie Macomber. Painfully amateurish. I started one book and couldn't finish it was so painful.

[Mightyqueen801]

Originally Posted by WindblownHair

Debbie Macomber. Painfully amateurish. I started one book and couldn't finish it was so painful.

I once tried to read Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellows. It had won the Pulitzer and I thought I should try to read something that had gotten such recognition. I just couldn't.

[j_k_k]

There are so many deserving candidates for this prestigious honor. For a bad plot, I'll go with Dale Brown's Fatal Terrain--a fatal murrain to the mind of the reader. For abominable character development, management and interaction, no one has yet exceeded Harry Turtledove's alternate history series where the Confederates win the Civil War. For something that hoses history with steamy urine, I vote for Caligula: Divine Carnage by Stephen Barber and Jeremy Reed, who deserve to be victims of old Gaius himself in penalty for the assault they have done to the discipline of history. They just wrote porn.

Speaking of porn, for a great example of a once-outstanding author who has turned her series into a literary brothel, it has to be Laurell K. Hamilton and the Anita Blake books. They've fallen to the point where there really aren't plots anymore, just sick monsters who can only be cured by increasingly kinky sex with the protagonist. And for slanted history, let's juxtapose two equally biased work: Zinn's A People's History of the United States and Schweikart & Allen's A Patriot's History of the United States. Zinn sounds like those jackasses who in my freshman year in college were chanting slogans about El Salvador, and by my junior year had moved on to chant about Nicaragua, and by my fifth year were raising hell about South Africa--same people, original issue hadn't changed one bit, just got bored and moved onto new causes. Scheweikart and Allen sound like something Glenn Beck would read to a Tea Party and that Sarah Palin would be stupid enough to swallow. The two works in tandem are the perfect metaphor for the national dialogue of today.

[j_k_k]

Originally Posted by stanman13

I have read many great books and a few horrible ones. Those I can rarely remember, since I purposefully put them out of my brain. One that stands out for me was Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. A horrifically written, thinly veiled manifesto about the utopia which would exist if women ran the world. Not that I am opposed to debating the premise, but the book was very simply one of the worst I have read.

I read that as well. I thought it was pretty lousy too.

[gobrien]

How about A Widow for One Year by John Irving? Although there were bits that I liked. I noticed others mentioning Umberto Eco, but I loved the story in The Name of the Rose and just skimmed the long passages that didn't contribute to the story. I do that with Stephen King books too, loved him growing up so I try to tolerate at least the story idea.

[Jess5]

A Widow For One Year was one big boring mess, IMO.

[DrummerBoy]

"A Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Marquez-Garcia. If check out any given critics' list of "Top 50" or even "Top 20" novels of all-time, chances are good that this book will be on it. So, at the urging of a chick I was dating a few years ago who had her degree in English Lit, I gave it a go. Jeez, what a piece of shiatsu! Why did the author use all those same Spanish names? Very confusing; no plot to speak of. Total self-indulgent literary masturbation. The novel is supposed to be of the genre referred to as "magical realism" but for me the only thing magic about it was how anyone could really think it of a classic!

[Cenk Armagan]

Originally Posted by annika08

I'm sure I'll get blasted with hate-mail for this, but I find Stephan King terribly overrated as a writer. I enjoyed his work when I was, say, 10 years old, but I find him repetitive and dull now. A great deal of his stories seem to be the same one churned out over .

Yeeah, you will get blasted not because of your feelings towards King but because of your uninspired notion about his stories being the "same one churned out over and over, with minor details changed and the basic plot the same" and you truly deserve to get blasted as the following list will probably help you understand your mistake. I challenge you to find another author/ storyteller/ writer in the history of modern fiction with this exhaustive range of works both in terms of thematic scope and format:

1. King has released many classic works dealing with staples of horror fiction:

a) The Stand- considered by many to be one of the best post-apocalyptic novel - this theme also runs through in some of his shorts stories loosely connected to the Stand. Cell is another book in this field, this time blended with zombie-theme.

b) Salem's Lot- considered by many to be the best modern vampire story, or at least as good as the classic Dracula- it is the modern classic version of vampire legend.

c) The Shining- considered by many to be the best modern (or ever) haunted house story, or at least on par with the genre's other classics by Shirley Jackson and Richard Matheson. Haunted house theme is also done from another point of view in "1408".

d) Carrie/ Firestarter- two uber-child stories backed by social themes (the former deals with the misguided teenage angst and horror in the USA schools using telekinetic powers as the ground, the latter attacks at the sinister government using the pyrokinetic powers as the backdro) Carrie is considered one of the best debuts in the history of modern fiction

d) Christine- the best modern haunted-car fiction that is still unrivalled

e) Pet Sematary - one of the best Monkey's Paw versions and, interestingly, a different look at zombie fiction mingled with themes addressing how to cope with the death of your loved ones- considered by many to be the most horrific book both in King's ouvre and in general fiction

f) Cujo- another social commentary addressing the relations between husbands and wives and the mechanics of the relations between families, using a rabid St Bernard horror as a backdrop. one of the most know iconic animals/ beasts in modern fiction, right behind Moby Dick and Jaws.

g) Dead Zone- another political story using future-seeing powers as a backdrop, addressing questions such as if Hitler could be killed, in what way would history change?

2) King has released excellent coming of age novels with or without suparnatural tones and horror

IT- Considered by many (including me) to be the best horror novel, and sometimes, one of the best fiction works, blending everything that is pure horror, kneaded with family-child relations, racism in 50s USA and the childhook nostalgia.

The Body- mostly known in the movie version, Stand by Me, a somber, sincere account of a child's growing up and looking at his past. This simply shows how versatile and talented King is in that he can tell a great story without those "cheap" trills.

The Talisman a collaboration with Peter Straub (which as many King books do falls in more than one category here)

3) King has written excellent prison stories. Shawshank Redemption and Green Mile. Should I need to elaborate more?

4) King has written excellent, if sometimes bloated, speculative and truly imaginative science-fiction books: The Running Man (the end of which is more shivering when you think about 9/11), the Long Walk, the Tommyknockers, Dreamcatcher and, most recently, the magnificent Under the Dome.

You can find many science-fiction stories in his collections, the Jaunt in Skeleton Crew being one of the most original and most horrific sci-fi story next to Alien. Also, the Langoliers in Four Past Midnight is one of the most original sci-fi novellas ever. The famous Mist is also a sci-fi novella with heavy straight horror tones.

5) King has written great fantasy novels, shockingly better than many seasoned writers in the genre: The Eyes of the Dragon, Talisman and most notably Insomnia. As usual there are many short storises, and of course, that great western fantasy the Dark Tower series, which is a sub-genre in its own. Regulators is another dark fantasy attempt. I am not so sure but Needful Things may be categorized in this group too.

6) King has written great straight thrillers and crime novels. Colorado Kid is the most known example, Rose Madder and Blaze (published under Bachman name) are also thrillers and many stories in his collections include pastiches or homages to Sherlock Holmes and other great detective stories (the story of flexible bullet, the ledge etc)

7) King has written great stories dealing with author-fan relation (Misery), author's relation with his muse or alter ego (the Dark Half, Secret Window), the author's block (Bag of Bones, the Shining), creative powers gone awry (the excellent Duma Key).

8) King is the most prolific and one of the best short-story writers of the USA. He has published five (yes that is 5) short story collections, ranging from pure terror to most poetic ones with any theme and any kind of story you can expect. 3 of these collections are simply masterpieces, one of them is very good and one of them is good. Just guess how great they are. He also won the prestigious O'Henry Award with his short story "The Man in Black Suit"

9) The guy is also a prolific and excellent novella writer, collecting his novellas in the classic Different Seasons, the more mundane Four Past Midnight and the most recent and excellent Full Dark, No Stars. In his novellas he mostly explores the dark relations between humans without much place for his famous supernatural thrills.

10) The guy published great non-fiction books: Danse Macabre (an almost chronological breakdown of the horror genre (including movies) for the second half of the last century), a classic how-to-write book with semi-autobiographical tones (On Writing), baseball books and baseball articles.

11) The guy has written dark incest books and their effects on families, in particular, on daughters (Gerald's Game) and on mothers (Dolores Claiborne).

12) Believe it or not, the guy has written love stories using horror as background: Bag of Bones, and most recently, Lisey's Story.

13) The guy never gives up his pop-culture side: He is writing his column in EW.

14) In his collections, you can find poems and yes, even a teleplay.

15) He has written scenarios, the best and most original one being the Storm of the Century.

16) And encompassing all things above and going beyond them is the Dark Tower, which according to some is the single rival to the Lord of the Rings as fantasy series are concerned.

17) He has written a werewolf book in the calendar format.

I am tired but I am sure that there is more that I have not covered.

Now just look and still TELL me that he writes the same thing "over and over" with "minor changes in details". Your words sounded terribly wrong then and they still sound ultimately laughable now.


PS: I am not a native English speaker so sorry for my grammatical mistakes or wrong choices of words.