Worst Book Ever

[Harbinger]

The worst book that I ever read to completion was The Celestine Prophecy.

[dANdeLION]

I started Sword of Shannara at least three times but the first couple of chapters were such an insulting rip off of Tolkien that at some point I just couldn't stand it any more.

Yeah, and when Brooks tried an original idea in that book, ot came off more like he was unable to stay focussed on pretending to be Tolkein than anything else.

[Luke The Unbeliever]

For me it would have to be <i>Sword of Truth 6: Faith of the Fallen.</i>

Okay, so I bought the first 6 books as a box set, and would go so far as to say that the first 4 books aren't really that bad. In fact I love <i>Wizard's First Rule</i>. But I saw the writing on the wall with book 5, just 400+ extra pages of worthless plotline and re-hashing what I'd already read in the first 4 books.

I wasn't expecting much for book 6, and I didn't get 3 paragraphs read before I tossed it aside. How does 20 or 30 consecutive sentences beginning with the words:
"She could/couldn't remember..." sound to you?

exactly.

The ending of book 5 was good enough for me to say "enough is enough." At least I can slightly respect this series with the way I chose to leave it

[I'm Murrin]

If you never finished Faith of the Fallen, then you missed out on the worst book of the series: The Pillars of Creation. Just plain terrible from beginning to end, in every possible way. That's where I stopped reading the series.
I actually thought Faith of the Fallen wasn't that bad (though nowadays I couldn't force myself to read any of them).

[dANdeLION]

www.lulu.com/content/1830971

Easily the worst book, ever!

[Loredoctor]

www.lulu.com/content/1830971

Easily the worst book, ever!

Isn't Thomas Cummins a guy who walked into town to pay his phone bills, got leprosy and then was transported into a magical land?

[Prebe]

Heh!

[aTOMiC]

www.lulu.com/content/1830971

Easily the worst book, ever!

Isn't Thomas Cummins a guy who walked into town to pay his phone bills, got leprosy and then was transported into a magical land?

God I hope not!

[deer of the dawn]

Jeffery Archer's Honor Among Thieves. I just found it to be a fairly well-written insult to my intelligence.

Actually I am sure the worst were a bunch of books I read when I was a young teen. They fell into the "historical romance" category. After I read about the third or fourth one (thinking I was learning cool stuff about feudalism or conquistadores) and the heroine was falling in love with the sea captain, Viking, or cowboy who chained her to his bed to rape her evey night AGAIN, I went Ooooohhh, I get it. This is costume porn, and I've been had.

[Dromond]

For the life of me, I can't remember the author or the title to this book...

When I was in 7th grade (12 years old, 1980) I found a paperback of a horror book in my mmath class. It was about a high school girl who was babysitting for a family of 4 or 5 kids for 2 weeks. No sooner did the parents leave than the older boys hit her over the head and tied her to a bed. Throughout the course of the book she was repeatedly raped (not a single character was over 16), sodomized, beaten, and tortured. The night before the parents returned, the kids tied her to the fence and pushed a hot fireplace poker through her abdomen until she died.

I read this book 26 years ago, and it still sticks to me. I can't remember if there was a point to it, of if it was just sadistic. I'd actually like to read it again to see if it really is as detestable as I remember it.

This must be it... I imagine it's out of print, the copies are exceedingly expensive for used books on amazon, I wonder if it's become a collectible for sick bastards with a bondage or rape fetish.
www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553141392/10 ... e&n=283155

[Cail]

For the life of me, I can't remember the author or the title to this book...

When I was in 7th grade (12 years old, 1980) I found a paperback of a horror book in my mmath class. It was about a high school girl who was babysitting for a family of 4 or 5 kids for 2 weeks. No sooner did the parents leave than the older boys hit her over the head and tied her to a bed. Throughout the course of the book she was repeatedly raped (not a single character was over 16), sodomized, beaten, and tortured. The night before the parents returned, the kids tied her to the fence and pushed a hot fireplace poker through her abdomen until she died.

I read this book 26 years ago, and it still sticks to me. I can't remember if there was a point to it, of if it was just sadistic. I'd actually like to read it again to see if it really is as detestable as I remember it.

This must be it... I imagine it's out of print, the copies are exceedingly expensive for used books on amazon, I wonder if it's become a collectible for sick bastards with a bondage or rape fetish.
www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553141392/10 ... e&n=283155

Holy sh*t, that's it!

[Auleliel]

I also usually stop reading books if I think they aren't worth reading. Two books that I couldn't get more than ten pages into were "Gone with the Wind" and "The Bears of Blue River". I didn't enjoy the movie of the former, either.

[Vader]

"Die dunkle Seite" (The Dark Side) by Frank Schätzing - a completely overrated German author. Read like a bad mix between Dan Brown and Tom Clancy - and Dan Brown already was hard to endure for me ...

[Endymion9]

My list:

Piers Anthony - And Eternity [crapping ending to a decent series]
Isaac Asimov - Prelude to Foundation [hated the prequel books but loved the series]
John Gregory Betancourt- The Dawn of Amber [Just didn't seem like the same Oberon]
Ramsey Campbell - The Overnight [had such high hopes for this after all the raving I'd heard of Campbell]
Orson Scott Card - Children of the Mind [should have stopped with the third book. Hate the rewriting of the series too making Ender a dunce and Bean a superman]
Doug Dorst - Alive in Necropolis
Stephen King - The Colorado Kid
Ursula LeGuin - Tehanu
Anne Rice - The Vampire Armand
Dan Simmons - Children of Night

[Montresor]

For the life of me, I can't remember the author or the title to this book...

When I was in 7th grade (12 years old, 1980) I found a paperback of a horror book in my mmath class. It was about a high school girl who was babysitting for a family of 4 or 5 kids for 2 weeks. No sooner did the parents leave than the older boys hit her over the head and tied her to a bed. Throughout the course of the book she was repeatedly raped (not a single character was over 16), sodomized, beaten, and tortured. The night before the parents returned, the kids tied her to the fence and pushed a hot fireplace poker through her abdomen until she died.

I read this book 26 years ago, and it still sticks to me. I can't remember if there was a point to it, of if it was just sadistic. I'd actually like to read it again to see if it really is as detestable as I remember it.

By all accounts...well, almost all, Let's Go Play at the Adams', by Mendal Johnson is a masterpiece of suspense fiction. I've never read it (though I do want to), though take a look at the reviews left on Amazon. It's clear that the book isn't exactly intended as pornography (it kind of sounds like it doesn't deliver on those grounds), and is instead an attempt to A shock the hell out of the reader, and B pass some commentary on how the murder of 16-yr-old Sylvia Likens (in 1965) may have happened. From what I understand, Let's Go Play at the Adams' isn't meant to be a direct version of the Likens' murder, though the inspiration seems clear.

I'm intrigued, especially if the glowing reviews of the author's power and literary style are justified, so I may just order it and give it a go. Not that I'm expecting a pleasant or comfortable read . . .

[danlo]

Endymion9 said: Tehanu. Read it again you'll never understand all the Earthsea books in the proper way unless you 'get' this great book...

[Avatar]

I think Tehanu is the best of the Earthsea books myself.

--A

[Endymion9]

Endymion9 said: Tehanu. Read it again you'll never understand all the Earthsea books in the proper way unless you 'get' this great book...

Danlo,
Just the thought of reading it again makes me want to cry <grin>. But I'll consider it. I thought that Tehanu and can't remember the last book in the series..something with Wind..tried to undo all the "magic" that was created in the first three. Like the author wanted to destroy this wonderful world she created, growing to hate it in her later years.

Similar to what Orson Scott Card seems to want to do with the Ender series now.

[Fist and Faith]

I thought that Tehanu and can't remember the last book in the series..something with Wind..tried to undo all the "magic" that was created in the first three. Like the author wanted to destroy this wonderful world she created, growing to hate it in her later years.

Really, really, really not what she did. Really. She completed it. She finally and completely turned the entire world and its magic into the Yin/Yang that it was based on from the first book. One thing leads into the other. One thing becomes the other. All is one. The Tao.

[andy h]

I read Vernon God Little on the strength that it won the Booker Prize.
Utter tosh.....how can a book this bad win a major prize?