Andorion Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 2 hours ago, Spockydog said: Okay then. But you asked for it... The Abominable by Dan Simmons: 736 pages of incredibly detailed mountaineering guff, followed by the revelation that the Abominable is not, in fact, anything to do with Yetis, but a selection of photographs showing Hitler buggering some pre-pubescent Jewish boys. Oh yeah. But there were Yetis..... at the very end, I think.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starkess Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 Little Women. Jo and Laurie clearly should have been together, and Ms. Alcott thwarted it out of spite (since the book was not published as one part, so she saw the reaction to part 1 and people thinking Jo/Laurie were a good match). Pisses me off so much that I last time I re-read the book I decided I would not read it again. I could have been okay with Jo deciding not to marry, but for Amy and Laurie to marry and Jo pairing off with the stuffy old dude--no no no. It's all wrong!! That's the first one that comes to mind, but I'm sure I could think of others!! ETA: Oh, since you mention TV and not just books, I'll add the obligatory: LOST. Fuck that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard II Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 11 hours ago, SeanF said: One successful writer I know says that coming up with a good ending is by far the hardest part of writing a novel. Yeah, but there's bad endings, then there's King endings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolverine Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 On 3/28/2016 at 6:29 PM, Myshkin said: Maybe this thread should be renamed to something like Stupid Endings or Endings That Pissed You Off. Unhappy Endings makes me think of books like The Hunchback of Notre Dame or The Idiot or Anna Karenina; books where the ending is decidedly unhappy, yet beautifully handled and perfectly in keeping with the tone. As for an ending that really pissed me off I nominate King's The Dark Tower, for a multitude of reasons. Here begins the SPOILERS. First there's King writing himself into the series as basically God; then there's Susannah finding an alternate reality in which Eddie and Jake are still alive, thereby robbing their respective death scenes of all power; then the biggest one for me is the stupid death of Flagg, the entire series' main bad guy, and his replacement with the emo useless Mordred and the ridiculous Crimson King; which leads to the final indignity of the Crimson King being the lamest bad guy of all time, and the final battle for the fate of all worlds just being a scene in which the Crimson King lobs hand grenades from a balcony while Roland hides behind a rock. This is probably mine. Especially the bolded parts. But you are right on with all of that post. The Wind Through the Keyhole was a really nice return to that world though IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sologdin Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 i was very angry that at the end of paradise lost they got evicted. what a cheap copout. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rorshach Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 I saw sologdin had replied and knew in my heart that he would bitch about Paradise lost. Terrible end to the thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contrarius+ Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 I was pissed off by the end of The Fifth Season, just because it turned out to be so serialized -- so much "no, you must buy the next book to find out!" rather than a complete story. I hate serialized story-fragments, especially when you aren't warned about it BEFORE you buy the book! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HexMachina Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 4 hours ago, Contrarius+ said: I was pissed off by the end of The Fifth Season, just because it turned out to be so serialized -- so much "no, you must buy the next book to find out!" rather than a complete story. I hate serialized story-fragments, especially when you aren't warned about it BEFORE you buy the book! You didn't know it was part of a series beforehand? Should have spent more time on the forums then (Also, Amazon UK at least lists it as Book 1 of the Broken Stone trilogy) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard II Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 Yeah my paperback clearly lists it as a series, althgouh having bought things not knowing they are series before I feel your pain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Writhen Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 I can see being a bit miffed by the end of The Stand, but TDT tied up all the ends pretty well for its flaws. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maarsen Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 Bad endings? Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame has got to have the worst ending of any book I have ever read. Absolutely everyone dies at the end, in the most contrived ways ever. Hero, heroine, major, minor, they all die, every last one. You wonder how France is still populated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard II Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 What, I just saw that disney movie the other day, that's not what happens! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanF Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 10 hours ago, maarsen said: Bad endings? Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame has got to have the worst ending of any book I have ever read. Absolutely everyone dies at the end, in the most contrived ways ever. Hero, heroine, major, minor, they all die, every last one. You wonder how France is still populated. I tend to agree with Msyhkin who found it a sad end, but not a bad end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Selig Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 Speaking of Stephen King's endings, I got to mention Bag of Bones. Overall the ending is not that bad, but it really bugs me that the main character decided to stop writing in the end even though his writing block was gone. The whole book up to that moment made it abundantly clear that he absolutely loved writing, that he was a natural storyteller and that he was suffering deeply due to his writing block even though he was rich enough that he didn't need to earn more money from writing to live very comfortably for the rest of his life. But at the end he decided to give up writing altogether because he saw the woman he loved killed in a way similar to what happens in some of his books. I get that he wouldn't want to write such scenes anymore, but why the hell wouldn't he simply write novels without murders in them? Maybe he won't be so successful commercially, but he didn't care much about that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contrarius+ Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 15 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said: You didn't know it was part of a series beforehand? Should have spent more time on the forums then (Also, Amazon UK at least lists it as Book 1 of the Broken Stone trilogy) SERIAL, not series. They are not the same thing. A proper series book should have a complete story arc within each book, plus a series arc that develops over multiple books. A serial book is actually one novel split into fragments. There is not a completed arc within each fragment. This would be like when Charles Dickens would split up his books into multiple parts so he could publish them -- serially -- in newspapers. See the difference now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HexMachina Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 33 minutes ago, Contrarius+ said: SERIAL, not series. They are not the same thing. A proper series book should have a complete story arc within each book, plus a series arc that develops over multiple books. A serial book is actually one novel split into fragments. There is not a completed arc within each fragment. This would be like when Charles Dickens would split up his books into multiple parts so he could publish them -- serially -- in newspapers. See the difference now? Sorry, my mistake. Didn't read what you wrote properly. Or did and just didn't process it very well. Sorry! Though I would argue that there were completed arcs. Or at the very least it was a distinct "this is stage 1 of this arc over". I feel like we get completed arcs, more or less (with wiggle room for Jemisin to resist later for further revelations) for Damaya and Syenite (I know they are the same person but it's the easiest way to speak about her). Both have a beginning (Leaving her parents; Being assigned to Alabaster) both have a middle (Various reveals about the Fulcrum, tantalising hints and lots of character building; revealing some truths about suppression of orogenes, Syenite growing to realise she shouldn't accept these things as standard life, some set up for the series mysteries with the obelisks etc.) and an ending (Becoming Syenite; the loss of her child and Alabaster and development into Essun). With Essun it's slightly different of course, and I guess I can see the serial nature there, since the kicking off of her arc in finding her daughter never happens, and we end with a whole set of new questions kicked off in the final chapter(s). I still enjoyed it though. Again, sorry for the mistake Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iskaral Pust Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 I agree with the Dark Tower for reasons described above. I also hated the reductive deus ex machina in every Harry Potter book (why did I keep reading?). Lost needs no explanation. Interstellar I could accept because it wanted to be a warm & fuzzy family version of a decent sci-fi -- sometimes broad appeal is enforced on good genres. I generally don't like serials where the author avoids wasting a good antagonist by implausibly preserving the antagonist after every defeat just so that they can come back to do the very same thing. Batman was guilty of this (the lack of death penalty in Gotham resulted in so many innocent lives lost) but Heroes, from what I remember, was annoyingly bad at it, and the Sharpe series did it with Hakeswill (who was very entertaining), especially in all the volumes added later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HexMachina Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 Thinking about children's books too, I feel like The Last Battle takes the cake for awful endings. Even as a child who seemed not to take in anything at all about religion when people tried to teach me, this one still felt wrong when I read it as a child. Revisiting as I got older, well, yeah. Ugh. Not good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iskaral Pust Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 I still hate the ending of the parable of the prodigal son. It also makes it very clear to me that most supposed Christians do not follow the direct tenets of the Nazarene. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Astromech Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 23 hours ago, maarsen said: Bad endings? Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame has got to have the worst ending of any book I have ever read. Absolutely everyone dies at the end, in the most contrived ways ever. Hero, heroine, major, minor, they all die, every last one. You wonder how France is still populated. I loved it but am also a sucker for a sad ending. I'm surprised the film ending of I am Legend hasn't been mentioned yet. The fucking ending of ALF Season 3 finale of Deadwood. I refuse to accept that as a series finale. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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