Stupid or Unhappy Endings that P'd You Off - Spoil Away, guys

[LongRider]

8 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

Noooo the evil gay rapist is definitely in book one. And there's...a lot of sex. 

In book one, as noted; almost rape, marital rape, gay sex, gay rape, gay man raped a woman (or perhaps just tried to and almost did) and lots of hetro sex.  And more sex and more of the main characters fucking some more.   I got through 1 1/2 books, and decided to find a series with a more interesting story and less fucking because 300 episodes of OMFG Big-O ograsimc fucking got pretty tiring after the first, um, 5 or so. 

[maarsen]

I read only the first book but yeah, no desire to read anymore after that. It wasn't so much the sex but the bland writing.

[Darth Richard II]

Yeah it's not the romance that turned me off, it was the awful prise combined with the worst accent in a book ever plus the endorsement of abuse plus terrible homophobic sterotypes.

[redjako]

Vellum: The Book of All Hours: Hal Duncan

I picked up the book on a whim at Barnes and Noble years ago. I was enthralled, loved the writing and the story up until about 3/4 of the way through.

Then the book takes weirdness turns for weirdness sake, removes and changes its primary charactesr, and goes completely off the rails.

[Liver and Onions]

17 hours ago, redjako said:

Vellum: The Book of All Hours: Hal Duncan

I picked up the book on a whim at Barnes and Noble years ago. I was enthralled, loved the writing and the story up until about 3/4 of the way through.

Then the book takes weirdness turns for weirdness sake, removes and changes its primary charactesr, and goes completely off the rails.

I kind of remember that one. I know I read it, but it certainly didn't stick with me. 

To add to the thread, this one's more of a series-shift than a single ending. The conversation about Outlander reminds me of my experience with the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter books. I started them years ago, and there were quick reads, kinda fun. Nothing too spectacular. And then... well, let's just say I wanted the sex scenes to STOP so the book could get on with the plot. And then I realized the sex WAS the plot, and that was the end of that. 

Now I realize the books were pretty much garbage to being with, but they were at least a good diversion. 

[Spring Bass]

For films, the worst ending I can remember was for a movie called The Guardian that came out in 2006 and starred Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher. It's a movie about the US Coast Guard and their Aviation Survival Technician program that rescues lost swimmers and the survivors of sinking ships.  Here's why it's awful -

For most of the movie, there's tension between Costner and Kutcher because Kutcher is the new up-coming trainee in the program, while Costner is the experienced "top swimmer" who has had an accident and lost someone (meanwhile, his marriage is falling apart because he refuses to retire). As far as these types of movies go, it's not bad. Finally, Costner goes out on a mission with Kutcher and almost drowns, convincing him to retire. There's a wonderful scene where we see Kutcher going out on a rescue mission while Costner appears to finally resign himself to moving on, gives his now- ex-wife the signed divorce papers. It's a very good ending, one of the best I've seen for such movies -

. . . . Except that it then goes on, and on. It adds a scene where Kutcher gets into trouble on that mission, Costner has to go save him, Costner (of course) dies heroically on the mission, and then we get the whole "there is a legend of a guardian", blah, blah. It feels horrifically tacked on, and honestly soured what was a decent movie for me. I would not be surprised if there was executive meddling involved. 

 

[Denvek]

The Eddings thread reminded me that Eddings is incapable of writing a decent ending - the wrap-ups of both the Malloreon and the Tamuli after the main threat has been eliminated are complete anticlimaxes.

[redjako]

4 hours ago, Liver and Onions said:

I kind of remember that one. I know I read it, but it certainly didn't stick with me. 

To add to the thread, this one's more of a series-shift than a single ending. The conversation about Outlander reminds me of my experience with the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter books. I started them years ago, and there were quick reads, kinda fun. Nothing too spectacular. And then... well, let's just say I wanted the sex scenes to STOP so the book could get on with the plot. And then I realized the sex WAS the plot, and that was the end of that. 

Now I realize the books were pretty much garbage to being with, but they were at least a good diversion. 

Good call! I had the exact same issue with Anita Blake. It got very overly sexual (not offensively, just boring and dull) after about book... 7-8. I stopped after such, but enjoyed the series up until then in my teens/early twenties.

However I think your right about sex being "the" plot. Even books 7-8 had an overabundance, but at least SOME plot was happening

[Darth Richard II]

ha. There are, uh, real life reasons for the Blake tonal shift, that are either hilarious or sad depending on the day.

[maarsen]

I have a special reason for disliking Anita Blake stories. Let's just say the fucking guy even looks like me. 

[Spaßvogel]

 

The Doctor nuWho finale that really irritated me was End of Time Part 2.  First I never liked the Simm Master, not his fault, just a poorly written character.  The explanation that the Master was mad because the Time Lords implanted a signal in his brain was ridiculous. The extremely silly and convoluted reason that Wilfred was locked in the booth, the Doctor's rant before he lets him out, the "I don't want to go" thing before regenerating.  Bleah. 

More recently, I was pretty sucked in to Wayward Pines, was liking it a lot, and then the last episode of Season one came along.  What a horrible, horrible, way to end the season.  The twist at the end was not only a completely unlikely outcome of the scene it preceded, but it ruined everything I was starting to like about the show. 

[C.T. Phipps]

16 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

ha. There are, uh, real life reasons for the Blake tonal shift, that are either hilarious or sad depending on the day.

I know them all as I used to be a huge fan of the series. It's how I met my wife.

They still made the books unreadable on grounds of, "This is not just porn but badly written porn w/ no plot or connection to the series as well as a plot device to make people have sex."

Also, it's weird because she HAD a porn series in Merry Gentry.

[Liver and Onions]

I heard the, let's say, speculation on the Anita Blake books. I agree that it sounds sad and hilarious, in a bad way. 

I actually read a few of the Merry Gentry books too, mostly because I thought it would be a neat idea. I don't know why I read beyond the first one, because it torpedoed its premise – the female lead is in a contest with her evil cousin to have a kid first in order to get the throne of the modern Faerie/Unseelie court. Only it, in my opinion, wrecks the idea by surrounding her with hot guys willing to die for her. It's less of a dilemma and only a wish-fulfillment fantasy. And, like the Blake books, it pushes aside legal and social ramifications of Faerie existing in the modern world for the SEX. 

I have no idea if the series ended, and I care far too little to even do a wiki check.

 

 

[C.T. Phipps]

I recommend people check out Dottie Smith's verbal menagerie reviews of Anita Blake's books. Sadly, I don't recommend going beyond the first book because while thats' entertaining, they become pure visceral hatred for every book thereafter.

https://eternaleve.wordpress.com/the-anita-blake-series-my-reviews/