Garden of Rama by Arthur C Clarke and Gentry Lee. I want to seriously pimp-slap Lee (with a shovel) for what he did to that series! He took a very cool science fiction universe and turned it into a gawd damned floating soap opera! The second book in the series was passable, though excising the soap opera-ish bits would not have hurt it. This one, though, was ALL that crap -- or at least 2/3 of the book was that crap, because I didn't make it through the rest. After prolonged discussions on who is going to have sex with who, and subsequent failures (physically) to do so, when I saw her exhibiting the typcical female "I can't decide how to decorate something, and I'm going to redesign it a thousand times, even after construction starts" behavior -- this applied to the inside of the damned ship mind you -- I just gave up in disgust. That was one of the only books I have never finished. I hated the story and the characters too much.
Of the books I actually managed to finish, Catch in the Rye would have to be the worst. A singluar more pointless book I've not read. It's the travel-log of a moron's weekend in New York. After finishing it, I just had to ask "Why? Why do people think this is not only great, but one of THE greatest?"
Running a VERY close second is He, She and It by Marge Piercy. This is obviously and blatently a book written by a person who has not had a science class since (at best) highschool, and has done excatly zero research into the areas of technology she had her characters working in. At best I think she read Neuromancer by Gibson, and based the rest of her computer technology around what she knows of her personal computer. Probably it was based on just the latter ;thumbsdown. The characters are also idiots. The leads are supposed to be two women brilliant in their own fields, yet they cannot see the most bleedingly obvious things and behave in the most irrational fashion (even for being women). The characters were well developed and had depth, yes, but they were still fvcking morons. What really revolted me was the author having no concept of things technical, so that the world she creates where not pysically possible (dommed cities that only reach up 7-8 stories at most, have no supports, and no rational behind their construction) is logically stupid (you're building your own android from scratch for the purpose of protcting your town pysically and in cyberspace; do you base the internal design on Ash/Bishop from the Alien series, or the T-800 from the terminator series? If you said the latter, than you're not the author). The end is the perfect symbol of the book, too. The main character realizes that things can be rebuilt from their original design notes, but missed the boat COMPLETELY on why the android can't be rebuilt. See scathing review here (Logically Bad Science Fiction) for more in depth reasons why I hate this book.
Third would be Bram Stoker's Dracula. A very interesting look into the 19th century, as I had never read anything produced from then, and it was good to finally see the original source material that has been ripped up and reworked by hollywood and the literary community for well over a century. The problem was, I found it mind-numbingly boring. I can usually get through a book like that in a month or less. In fact, in the middle of that book I took a few weeks off to read a novel almost 200 pages longer than it. Dracula, though, took me close to 4 months to finish. It was just so slow, and dull, and bloody boring! Never once was I grabbed by the book and really drawn in, really compelled to read more. Thankfully that's the worst I can say about it.
In the realm of novels-just-for-novel's-sake, the worst ones I've read were the latest books in the Rogue Warrior series by Richard Marcinko. He just rips off and rehashes things from the first 5 books of the series, create shallow, pathetic villians, and generally degerates into mental masturbation.; ego stroking. They've got cool action to them, but beyond book 5 they're worthless. (5 and before, though, they just kick utter ass)
The Fall of Colossus by D.F Jones would probably be the most repugnant book I've read based on the mysoginist behavior of too many of the characters, the sadistic and mysoginist view the author takes to his female characters, and the stupid, stupid behavior exhibited on the part of other main players. There is no way they'd act the way they do.
Jaws by Peter Benchley was somewhat similar to that. Again, what annoyed me was a whole subplot to who is porking who. I didn't care and it didn't add anything to the novel. Hooper there almost soley to knock the bottom out of Mrs. Brody, so she can regain her snobbish islander mentality? WTF do I care about this? Why is so much of the book devoted to this?! Did Benchley get off on this or something? The rest of the characters are underdeveloped and immature in their portrayal. The ending itself is extremely anti-climatic. Really, the movie should have earned a screen writing oscar for how it was able to turn this piece of drek around so amazingly.
Ilmater, if you want a disapointing ending, read Interview with the Vampire. That has the single most nonsensical ending I have EVER read! I went through the whole damned book waiting to see what would finally motivate Louis to tell his story to the reporter... and there was nothing. It ended with not just a chapter being pointless and having no foundation in the novel, but the whole damned book itself having no motivation behind it at all! It's like Rice came up with this really cool idea, figured "Ah, I'll work on the why later" and then either forgot or just didn't care enough to bother figuring it out. There is no reason AT ALL, EVER in the whole book that would lend credince to Louis wanting to talk about his past. After going through all that, I just felt robbed.
Of the books I actually managed to finish, Catch in the Rye would have to be the worst. A singluar more pointless book I've not read. It's the travel-log of a moron's weekend in New York. After finishing it, I just had to ask "Why? Why do people think this is not only great, but one of THE greatest?"
Running a VERY close second is He, She and It by Marge Piercy. This is obviously and blatently a book written by a person who has not had a science class since (at best) highschool, and has done excatly zero research into the areas of technology she had her characters working in. At best I think she read Neuromancer by Gibson, and based the rest of her computer technology around what she knows of her personal computer. Probably it was based on just the latter ;thumbsdown. The characters are also idiots. The leads are supposed to be two women brilliant in their own fields, yet they cannot see the most bleedingly obvious things and behave in the most irrational fashion (even for being women). The characters were well developed and had depth, yes, but they were still fvcking morons. What really revolted me was the author having no concept of things technical, so that the world she creates where not pysically possible (dommed cities that only reach up 7-8 stories at most, have no supports, and no rational behind their construction) is logically stupid (you're building your own android from scratch for the purpose of protcting your town pysically and in cyberspace; do you base the internal design on Ash/Bishop from the Alien series, or the T-800 from the terminator series? If you said the latter, than you're not the author). The end is the perfect symbol of the book, too. The main character realizes that things can be rebuilt from their original design notes, but missed the boat COMPLETELY on why the android can't be rebuilt. See scathing review here (Logically Bad Science Fiction) for more in depth reasons why I hate this book.
Third would be Bram Stoker's Dracula. A very interesting look into the 19th century, as I had never read anything produced from then, and it was good to finally see the original source material that has been ripped up and reworked by hollywood and the literary community for well over a century. The problem was, I found it mind-numbingly boring. I can usually get through a book like that in a month or less. In fact, in the middle of that book I took a few weeks off to read a novel almost 200 pages longer than it. Dracula, though, took me close to 4 months to finish. It was just so slow, and dull, and bloody boring! Never once was I grabbed by the book and really drawn in, really compelled to read more. Thankfully that's the worst I can say about it.
In the realm of novels-just-for-novel's-sake, the worst ones I've read were the latest books in the Rogue Warrior series by Richard Marcinko. He just rips off and rehashes things from the first 5 books of the series, create shallow, pathetic villians, and generally degerates into mental masturbation.; ego stroking. They've got cool action to them, but beyond book 5 they're worthless. (5 and before, though, they just kick utter ass)
The Fall of Colossus by D.F Jones would probably be the most repugnant book I've read based on the mysoginist behavior of too many of the characters, the sadistic and mysoginist view the author takes to his female characters, and the stupid, stupid behavior exhibited on the part of other main players. There is no way they'd act the way they do.
Jaws by Peter Benchley was somewhat similar to that. Again, what annoyed me was a whole subplot to who is porking who. I didn't care and it didn't add anything to the novel. Hooper there almost soley to knock the bottom out of Mrs. Brody, so she can regain her snobbish islander mentality? WTF do I care about this? Why is so much of the book devoted to this?! Did Benchley get off on this or something? The rest of the characters are underdeveloped and immature in their portrayal. The ending itself is extremely anti-climatic. Really, the movie should have earned a screen writing oscar for how it was able to turn this piece of drek around so amazingly.
Ilmater, if you want a disapointing ending, read Interview with the Vampire. That has the single most nonsensical ending I have EVER read! I went through the whole damned book waiting to see what would finally motivate Louis to tell his story to the reporter... and there was nothing. It ended with not just a chapter being pointless and having no foundation in the novel, but the whole damned book itself having no motivation behind it at all! It's like Rice came up with this really cool idea, figured "Ah, I'll work on the why later" and then either forgot or just didn't care enough to bother figuring it out. There is no reason AT ALL, EVER in the whole book that would lend credince to Louis wanting to talk about his past. After going through all that, I just felt robbed.
The crazy brother is the section of the novel that gets hard to understand because there's no punctuation!!!
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