Recent poor reads

[Frosty]

Saint you might try out Michael Crichton's, Prey - I enjoyed it.

Angalin - I took your advice, I quit a book last night 3 chapters into it.

[Angalin]

Good for you! Onward and upward to the next crappy novel!

[Snowbeat]

If I had the choice between stabbing my eyes with dull sporks, scraping my back against a piece of old sandpaper, using an indrustrial-grade auto-sander on my penis, then taking a cleaning-alchohol bath or reading any of Terry Goodkind's or Paolini's books again, I'd choose the horrific, painful death any day.

[Marcelo Rebelo Firqoralas]

I'm slowly working my way through Dreamsongs at the moment, and I must say that I found "Nightflyers" really disappointing. There are plenty of very good stories in this collection ("Meathouse Man" is my favourite so far), but "Nightflyers" was really just a stupid horror movie in space.

[Ormond]

Since so many people commented on my little review of Astra and Flondrix I thought I'd point out that the book was published in 1977 and that Seamus Cullen was the pseudonym of an American-born author who lived in Ireland and who died recently. I am a bookaholic and buy many more books every year than I can read, so a lot of the books I end up reading are older ones I've owned for years or that I've bought in used book stores.

And to show that not everyone agrees with my opinion of Astra and Flondrix, you can look at the Amazon reviews of it:

http://www.amazon.com/Astra-Flondrix-Seama...n/dp/0394733398

[Calibandar]

Couple of books mentioned here that I have to second, first of all Stego's mention of The Eye in Heaven by David Keck which I thought was a very poor Fantasy book.

Like Firgoret I was also disappointed by GRRM's Nightflyers. I also read Sandkings and thought that was better, but I found it hard to grasp why many people elevated that to the superhuman short story status it has.

Hereward is probably also correct in mentioning Tom Lloyd's Stormcaller as one of the worst debuts of the year as I see rows of negative reviews come out about that one ( and it looked so promising that I boufght it in hardcover!).

I was also really underwhelmed by The Briar King and Charnel Prince. Underwhelming characters and only rarely is there a sense of danger or caring about what happens to anyone in the story. By-the-numbers Fantasy nowhwere near the Tolkien-Martin level.

[Rakov]

I was also really underwhelmed by The Briar King and Charnel Prince. Underwhelming characters and only rarely is there a sense of danger or caring about what happens to anyone in the story. By-the-numbers Fantasy nowhwere near the Tolkien-Martin level.

Great! Just invested twenty quid in those two along with Blood Prince (only to get the latest issue of the Fantasy & SF Book Club mag to find them as part of a three-for-£12.97 offer!!!!).

One mustn't believe the hype, then. Since this series has been garnering much praise. And Stormcaller has been getting some good noises. It's all just publisher hype, then? Eye of Heaven stands on the strength of Martin's' praise.

One must always be wary of major genre author recommendations - they can often have very funny and obscurantist tastes!

[Happy Ent]

http://www.amazon.com/Astra-Flondrix-Seama...n/dp/0394733398

I assume that following that link will make the amazon ads on this site so much more entertaining...

[Gildor]

I'm not aware of any hype over Keyes, but then I tend to ignore most it anyway. But of the first two i've read by Keyes, I found them to be solid and enjoyable books, better than most of the other books out there anyway.

The only truly terrible book i've read recently is, Black Sun Rising by C.S.Friedman. Essentially, good ideas, but poorly executed with a horribly boring quest style plotline, just, no, no, no, no!

Baudolino by good ol' Umberto deserves a little mention, I started it about a week back, and while it wasn't bad per se, I just wasn't really getting into it very much, so down it went.

[williamjm]

It really annoyed me to do this as I rarely give up on a book, but I'd simply had enough of M. John Harrison's Viriconium. Given the high level of praise lavished on this book by just about everyone, the fact that it didn't work for me was somewhat surprising. I did like the first story with the dwarf charging around in power armour, but the stories in the middle seemed to lack any kind of point whatsoever and I lost the will to carry on.

If by the 'stories in the middle' you mean the short stories (originally published as "Viriconium Nights" IIRC) then I'd agree with that, I did find most of them fairly pointless. I did like the Viriconium novels, though, particularly the first two.

I'm slowly working my way through Dreamsongs at the moment, and I must say that I found "Nightflyers" really disappointing. There are plenty of very good stories in this collection ("Meathouse Man" is my favourite so far), but "Nightflyers" was really just a stupid horror movie in space.

I would say "Nightflyers" is one of the weakest of Martin's major stories (I think it was an award winner?), like you say it did feel quite like a horror movie in space. It was reasonably entertaining, with a few good moments (I quite liked the Volcryn IIRC), but not his best in my opinion.

[Werthead]

Virconium has been on my to get list for a long time along with Wolfe's Book of the New Sun, and Peake's Gormenghast. I think the main reason I haven't picked these books up is they seem more like work than fun. A book can be erudite and demanding but can also be really fun. I don't pick up any fun vibes with those books. A book I'm reading now, Orphans of Chaos, I believe falls into the demanding to read but fun category.

Sorry to here you didn't care for The Bonehunters. That is the other book I've started(about 50 pages in) and enjoy it a bit more than Midnight Tides. The only thing I really liked about Midnight Tides was the Tehol/Bugg character interaction and the entire last 250 pages. Erikson knows how to really end his novels. The end of Deadhouse Gates has the greatest fantasy ending in my book. Memories of Ice and Midnight Tides both end on fantastic final sentences. I think I'll enjoy The Bonehunters because there are too many characters in this book I love(Quick Ben, Kalam{my fav}, Karsa, Fiddler, Cotillion). Even Ammanas has made an appearence thus far.

I got about thirty pages into The Reality Dysfunction and stopped. I think I'm in way over my head to start my sc/fi reading with this book. All the Neural-nanonics and nano-neurotics had me reelling. I really loved the combat wasp attack though. I think I need to tackle something a bit less advanced first before I delve back into the Night's Dawn. I have Dune and Starship Troopers I can read. I read the first hundred pages of Dune and the writing has gone down a lot easier for me.

The Reality Dysfunction is by no means a complex work, especially not compared to Dune. There are some unusual cadances and terms in the book but they're pretty easy to understand once you get a hold on them: neural nanonics are simply brain implants to give the person immediate acess to the information networks and communications, to aid in starship control and assist recall. Mercenary nanonics can speed up their reaction times and give them increased strength and stamina. ZTT (zero temporal transit) is simply a fancy way of saying 'hyperspace jump'. Bitek is biological technology (technology dervied from living cells and organisms).

The Bonehunters has the weakest ending of the Malazan books to date. One of the strengths of Erikson's structure is that it really doesn't allow for cliffhangers. However, the fact that for the first time The Bonehunters leads directly into Reaper's Gale means we get an absolute avalanche of them at the end of the book. Really irritating. Okay, it was only a year's wait for the next book (only a bit more than five months now), but it's still irritating.

Gormenghast and Book of the New Sun are hard work, to some extent, but are also intellectually fascinating to read (Gormenghast more so than Book of the New Sun, to be honest). I would recommend them.

I've got this but haven't read it yet, Hereward! (luckily it came as a set of five for £25.) Granted that preferences can often be subjective, if it really had that effect upon you, it always baffles me that some books that, it soon becomes clear, aren't up to much, end up getting published, knowing how tortuous a process it is to try and get published. Just how bad can the stuff that didn't get published be, one wonders, if Stormcaller (and I'm taking your judgement at face value given your terse and intelligent appraisal) really is that bad?

Stormcaller was one of the three 'hot new debuts' of 2006, published by Gollancz simultaneously (give or take a few weeks) with The Lies of Locke Lamora and The Blade Itself. There are some places offering discounts if you buy all three at the same time. However, Stormcaller does seem to have been the one to receive the most mixed reviews.

Great! Just invested twenty quid in those two along with Blood Prince (only to get the latest issue of the Fantasy & SF Book Club mag to find them as part of a three-for-£12.97 offer!!!!).

One mustn't believe the hype, then. Since this series has been garnering much praise. And Stormcaller has been getting some good noises. It's all just publisher hype, then? Eye of Heaven stands on the strength of Martin's' praise.

I think Eye of Heaven was recommended by Erikson, not Martin. And Keyes has gotten a lot of praise from people (including Stego, IIRC) precisely because he is GRRM-lite. If you are going to be lightweight version of one of the top fantasy authors, you might as well pick the best one. Plus Keyes' other books I've read have been pretty good. I'm holding off on the series until the fourth and final book is out.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

Great! Just invested twenty quid in those two along with Blood Prince (only to get the latest issue of the Fantasy & SF Book Club mag to find them as part of a three-for-£12.97 offer!!!!).

One mustn't believe the hype, then. Since this series has been garnering much praise. And Stormcaller has been getting some good noises. It's all just publisher hype, then? Eye of Heaven stands on the strength of Martin's' praise.

One must always be wary of major genre author recommendations - they can often have very funny and obscurantist tastes!

Yes, Keyes is horrible unfortunately. I was so excited when my (at the time) wife sent me the Briar King while I was overseas. Two long weeks later I finished it and threw it away.

Recently I read Jack Ketchum's Off Season...

The Darkness that Come Before was almost as bad as Gardens of the Moon.

I was on a pretty bad streak there until the Keep and I've seemed to only find good books since then.

[needle]

It really annoyed me to do this as I rarely give up on a book, but I'd simply had enough of M. John Harrison's Viriconium. Given the high level of praise lavished on this book by just about everyone, the fact that it didn't work for me was somewhat surprising. I did like the first story with the dwarf charging around in power armour, but the stories in the middle seemed to lack any kind of point whatsoever and I lost the will to carry on.

Glad it wasn't just me.

[Spring Bass]

Keyes seems to improve significantly as he continues; each book in the Kingdom of Bone and Thorn series was better than the one before it, in my opinion.

On the OT: If I go back about a month or so, the last book in the Elven Nations trilogy from the Dragonlance setting, The Qualinesti by Thompson, was disappointing, considering that the first book in the trilogy, while not brilliant work, was actually quite enjoyable.

[Eponine]

Not recent, but I think that Mirror of her Dreams (or something like that) by Stephen Donaldson was the worst fantasy book I ever read. I'd rate it worse than Goodkind.

[MinDonner]

Yeah, the Mirror of her Dreams was pretty poor, though I'd put it in the "boring and not worth a reread" camp rather than the "Worse than Goodkind" one!

Dragon Queen by Alice Borchardt was bloody awful. She's Anne Rice's sister, isn't she? Figures.

[Yrael]

The Darkness that Come Before was almost as bad as Gardens of the Moon.

I'm ashamed. I too did not enjoy reading The Darkness That Comes Before. In fact, I never finished it. But since so many boarders have loved it I could not find the courage to list it here. I figured something must be wrong with me for me not to like it. But even trying to remember this book is painful, so there you have it: TDTCB by Scott Bakker was the most tedious read I've had in a long time. Too long, boring, names way too complicated to pronounce or to remember, plot way too complicated too comprehend, unlikable characters and so on and so forth.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

I'm ashamed. I too did not enjoy reading The Darkness That Comes Before. In fact, I never finished it. But since so many boarders have loved it I could not find the courage to list it here. I figured something must be wrong with me for me not to like it. But even trying to remember this book is painful, so there you have it: TDTCB by Scott Bakker was the most tedious read I've had in a long time. Too long, boring, names way too complicated to pronounce or to remember, plot way too complicated too comprehend, unlikable characters and so on and so forth.

Some will defend it to the death but there are plenty of people like us who found it boring. Some will even claim you aren't smart enough if you don't like it. Just because something is boring doesn't mean that something is good. I'm glad you were able to get that off your chest.

[Kalbear]

Not recent, but I think that Mirror of her Dreams (or something like that) by Stephen Donaldson was the worst fantasy book I ever read. I'd rate it worse than Goodkind.

Wow, that's one of my favorite fantasy books ever. The worldbuilding is gorgeous and the characters rock.

As to TDTCB - I'm mostly surprised at anyone saying it's boring. I can totally see people getting tired of all sorts of things about it, and that's not a besmirchment on them. But boring? Really?

[harman]

Assassinn trilogy or something like that by Robin Hobb. Just boring. Wasnt bad but after reading Eldest by Paolini and others it paled in comparison. The Bastard KIng by some guy whose name i cant remember. Couldnt get past page 200.