Books you least enjoyed (but managed to finish)

[Alidar Jarok]

Other classics I hate the writing style of are 1984 and Children of Men. 1984 I made it to page 11... 6 times and fell asleep every time.

I found 1984 difficult at first, but the story picks up about halfway through. I liked it by the end, but it takes some work to get to that point.

There are plenty of books I've read that were painful to get through, but they were all required back when I was in High School (fuck you Scarlet Letter). I can't think of a book I read for fun that was just bad. Certainly, I didn't finish any and then managed to push them out of my mind.

The only thing I liked of Asimov's were his Norby Chronicles, but those are light and fluffy and not "serious" science fiction. They were pretty amusing, as I recall.

I read Norby when I was a kid. I don't remember how many stories I read, but they were definitely fun. I actually like the Foundation Trilogy. I think my history background helped. The newer books were disappointing, but I don't think they completely ruined by enjoyment. The last several chapters of Foundation and Earth came damn close, though. It also came close to retroactively ruining everything that came before, but, fortunately, I don't believe in retroactively ruining something.

 

[Owain Taggart]

The last several chapters of Foundation and Earth came damn close, though. It also came close to retroactively ruining everything that came before, but, fortunately, I don't believe in retroactively ruining something.

Oh geez, forgot about this one. Is this the one that had the hermaphrodite character? Yeah, I remember really hating Foundation & Earth and wondered what the heck he was thinking. Fortunately the prequels that followed were much better.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

Catcher In The Rye- Maybe I read it too late in life for it to have the right impact, but Holden really did strike me as just a whiny douche.

I, Claudius- Huge fan of the mini-series, but just couldn't get into the book. All I remember was ponderous descriptions that went on for pages.

The New Atheism and the Erosion of Freedom- My first encounter with the fact that there are some fundamentalist Christians who are just bat-shit crazy, lying sociopaths.

 

[Relayer1]

Espedair Street by Ian Banks.

I read the same few pages several times without taking anything in, and quit.

Weird.

 

[Tora Ziyal]

I read Angels and Demons and, while the story and some of the debates about science vs. religion were good, the writing itself was abysmal. and lot's not forget the means in which Langdon survived.

Ugh.

On a related note, the Da Vinci Code was far worse.

I can't really remember ever disliking a book more than The DaVinci Code. Maybe a couple of the books we had to read in high school.

 

[Australis]

Yeah, I finished the DaVinci Code, but wasn't overawed, especially the ending.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

The last several chapters of Foundation and Earth came damn close, though. It also came close to retroactively ruining everything that came before, but, fortunately, I don't believe in retroactively ruining something.

Oh geez, forgot about this one. Is this the one that had the hermaphrodite character? Yeah, I remember really hating Foundation & Earth and wondered what the heck he was thinking. Fortunately the prequels that followed were much better.

I can't remember whether or not that's it. Then again, I might be thinking of Foundation's Edge. Essentially, it was two chapters of exposition (seriously, Ayn Rand would be jealous) where Asimov explains how everything is tied together in the universe and the main character is given the choice to abandon Harry Seldon's plan for some kind of transcendentalist plan instead. And something with robots. It just felt like it missed the whole point of the series. The lack of Galactic Encyclopedia entries emphasized that it wasn't the same thing as well.

I'm all for writing something different. But I don't see why it should be called "Foundation" in that case. Especially since all the books are now tied together, it could be set in the same universe without having to make us think it has the same tone and style as a Foundation book.

 

[Owain Taggart]

The last several chapters of Foundation and Earth came damn close, though. It also came close to retroactively ruining everything that came before, but, fortunately, I don't believe in retroactively ruining something.

Oh geez, forgot about this one. Is this the one that had the hermaphrodite character? Yeah, I remember really hating Foundation & Earth and wondered what the heck he was thinking. Fortunately the prequels that followed were much better.

I can't remember whether or not that's it. Then again, I might be thinking of Foundation's Edge. Essentially, it was two chapters of exposition (seriously, Ayn Rand would be jealous) where Asimov explains how everything is tied together in the universe and the main character is given the choice to abandon Harry Seldon's plan for some kind of transcendentalist plan instead. And something with robots. It just felt like it missed the whole point of the series. The lack of Galactic Encyclopedia entries emphasized that it wasn't the same thing as well.

I'm all for writing something different. But I don't see why it should be called "Foundation" in that case. Especially since all the books are now tied together, it could be set in the same universe without having to make us think it has the same tone and style as a Foundation book.

Oh yep, I agree. I remember when I had read that, I had a distinct feeling that it it felt very wrong in the direction that it took. I think I had read an explanation along the lines that it was the publisher that had asked him to tie it all together. The whole book felt like it had jumped the shark, or whatever the literary equivalent is. Just looked it up and it's definitely Foundation & Earth. I actually found Foundation's Edge to be not too bad. It's what it lead up to in Foundation & Earth that was terrible and felt like a waste of time.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Well, I think he wanted to tie all his books together. The publisher just wanted him to finish the series. Of course, he didn't actually take it to completion, ironically enough, defeating the whole point of writing the books.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Fortunately the prequels were much better. So, whatever happened with Foundation & Earth was a mistep.

 

[Starbreaker]

I managed to make it through The Stars, My Destination by Alfred Bester. It's hailed as one of the best SF novels of all time. I just didn't care for it. Maybe it was the hype.

 

[Tom Hendricks]

For me it was, Lovely Bones. I must have picked that up and put it down a hundred times before I finished it.

 

[kirk55555]

Cradle by Gentry Lee and Arthur C. Clarke definitely fits this topic. I expected it to be at least decent sci Fi with Clarke attached to it, but the sci fi was only average and a good portion of the stuff around the sci fi story was rather explicit sex scenes, which really surprised me. I'm assuming those were Lee's "contribution", but it was really bizarre and did nothing positive for the story, it was just weird and wasted time. It didn't even have a story reason, it was just random sex described in too much detail that just wasted pages.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I enjoyed Cradle, but it ultimately wasn't very good.