Books or series you read but never finished and now you only remember vague details

[jurble]

For some reason today, upon reading the word executioner I was reminded that I had read a book or maybe even multiple books involving a boy trained as an executioner in some kind of executioner's guild.  Also there must have been magic involved or he was magical or something because otherwise that seems like an uninteresting plot.  I think there's a scene where he wanders into a dilapidated courtyard and sees a fair maiden at a window or something.

 

 I have no idea what this book was or even if I finished it were it a series.  But rather than just ask about what this was particularly, I'm curious to see if other people have humorous half-memories of books with titles long since forgotten.

[Jo498]

This must be the first book of Gene Wolfes "Book of the New Sun": The Shadow of the Torturer. He meets a girl in the "court of sundials"

I was a voracious reader in elementary school and have several half remembered books I must have read between ca. 9 and 12 that I don't remember the titles of and have only very vague memories about. This has been almost 40 years ago and I would not be interested in most of them any more but it still bugs me occasionally.

E.g. there was one of which I only read the first volume (because the school library had only this) about a boy who go abducted or lost in the aftermath of one of the world wars and experienced some odyssey throughout parts of Asia.

Then there was one (or probably several) about hunters in the "Wild West"? (or maybe Canada or Alaska) that had an episode about a long fight with a wolverine that had somehow become an arch-nemesis of this hunter.

Another one that took place in the early/mid 20th century with someone trying to track a shrunken head in South America that was somehow relevant to a missing person or whatever.

And a children's book that must have been rather popular in 70s? Germany that was about holidays in some island? resort with children organising themselves and there were some factions including "pirates" with a girl called Birgit the tigress as a leader (probably inspired by "Swallows and Amazons" but I think it was German or Scandinavian) but I don't remember the plot anymore.

I also remember that I once saw a TV movie that seemed to have a strangely familiar plot and halfway through I realized that I had read the book not too many years ago. Which was somewhat shocking because I was in my twenties then and there cannot have been more than about 5-7 years between the time I read the book and saw the movie and I had totally forgotten about that book.

EDIT: To be clear, I finished most of these books, as far as I recall, only at least one or two were first books of series and I never got to the second volume.

[Fez]

Absolutely. I read a huge number of sci fi/fantasy books all through middle and high school. I mostly remember the good ones (and some not so good, but rather memorable ones, like Terry Goodkind). But there were a ton of painfully generic books as well. And it goes both ways for me. There's books I remember reading, like a lot of Raymond Fiest stuff, that I don't remember most details of anymore. And, like you describe, there's half-remembered scenes that I don't remember where they came from.

First one that comes to mind is a book about a war with an alien species I think. The aliens were hiveminds, and there were originally a lot of them, but eventually one hivemind conquered all the others become the sole consciousness of its species. There were short interludes of its conquests in between the chapters about humans. I don't remember anything about the human stuff, or about what happened when humans encountered the alien. For a long time I thought maybe this was The Mote In God's Eye by Larry Niven; but after rereading the synoposis, I don't think it was. And that's an example of the other type, I know I did read The Mote in God's Eye, but I don't remember it at all. 

[ljkeane]

37 minutes ago, Fez said:

First one that comes to mind is a book about a war with an alien species I think. The aliens were hiveminds, and there were originally a lot of them, but eventually one hivemind conquered all the others become the sole consciousness of its species. There were short interludes of its conquests in between the chapters about humans. I don't remember anything about the human stuff, or about what happened when humans encountered the alien.

Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga?

ETA: Do you remember some really weird sex scenes and a bizarrely detailed sub plot about some section of the economy of the future? That's how you usually know it's one of Hamilton's books.

[Fez]

10 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga?

ETA: Do you remember some really weird sex scenes and a bizarrely detailed sub plot about some section of the economy of the future? That's how you usually know it's one of Hamilton's books.

Huh. I think you're right. I was originally going to say no, but then I realized that I had forgotten the Commonwealth Saga was a thing; I'd only remembered his Confederation Universe books.

The synopsis of Pandora's Star seems like it covers what I remember. And here was I thinking that it was probably a different Larry Niven book that I've forgotten the details of, like Footfall.

[jurble]

9 hours ago, Jo498 said:

This must be the first book of Gene Wolfes "Book of the New Sun": The Shadow of the Torturer. He meets a girl in the "court of sundials"

Eegads, you are correct.   Checking my Kindle library, I finished the first half but not the second.

[Jo498]

Book of the New Sun is in 4 volumes and while it is a fascinating book, it is quite understandable that one would get stuck because it is also totally weird.

[Vaughn]

Some book about a psychic orphan maybe half-alien called Eye of Cat or Cat's Eye or something? 80s, maybe a series? 

Not the Zelazny or Atwood books. 

[Leofric]

3 hours ago, Vaughn said:

Some book about a psychic orphan maybe half-alien called Eye of Cat or Cat's Eye or something? 80s, maybe a series? 

Not the Zelazny or Atwood books. 

There were the books by Joan D. Vinge about a psychic orphan named Cat, one book was called Catspaw

[Leofric]

14 hours ago, Jo498 said:

Then there was one (or probably several) about hunters in the "Wild West"? (or maybe Canada or Alaska) that had an episode about a long fight with a wolverine that had somehow become an arch-nemesis of this hunter.

 

This sounds vaguely familiar, I remember some story about a teenage kid that was running a trapline to support his family and a wolverine was raiding all his traps before he could check them, so he had to go after the wolverine.  There might have been a dog too.   Not sure if it is the same story, but it was probably 40 years ago that I read it.

[Vaughn]

1 hour ago, Leofric said:

There were the books by Joan D. Vinge about a psychic orphan named Cat, one book was called Catspaw

Yes! 'Psion' is what I was thinking of. From Goodreads - "the tale of a street-hardened survivor named Cat, a half-human, half-alien orphan telepath."   (Patting my own back here) - I nailed that! 

Anyone read these as an adult? They hold up? 

[Prince of the North]

The Wheel of Time series for me.  I never finished it and now I vaguely remember things about it.

[Jaxom 1974]

12 hours ago, Fez said:

 For a long time I thought maybe this was The Mote In God's Eye by Larry Niven; but after rereading the synoposis, I don't think it was. And that's an example of the other type, I know I did read The Mote in God's Eye, but I don't remember it at all. 

Are you me from High School?  I know I also read this for the distinctive title...and that's about all I remember...

[Wilbur]

Same experience for me.  In second grade the school librarian suggested that because the picture books were boring for me to read that I might like to try the "chapter books".  And so I read a whole lot of books that I frankly didn't really understand, but whose plot elements have stuck with me for decades.  Since I didn't understand how titles or authors names worked until about fifth grade, I have no idea what these books that I read for a three-year period were called.  It probably didn't help that some of the stories were probably in anthologies such as "Alfred Hitchcock Presents".

Much later, as a parent, I successfully figured out large numbers of these books and purchased them for our daughter.  Still, it is the ones I never could locate that seem like they must have been really magical, although in truth they were probably dross.

Example:  Teenage American explorers go to Mexico?  Central America? and explore a Mayan pyramid?  Aztec ruin? and end up scuba diving in underground rivers.  Skeletons of human sacrifices show up.  Also possibly some sort of treasure.  Boats and aircraft are involved.  The book must have been printed around the 1950s or 60s, and it seems like it might have been a series of stories, maybe like the Hardy Boys.  I remember it as being terribly exciting, but who knows?

Humorously, one time I was sitting in an antique store waiting for my wife, and I picked up a book from the pile, the first one that came to hand.  Lo and behold, it was one of the Roy Rogers mystery books, with a 1940s publishing date.

[Jo498]

8 hours ago, Leofric said:

This sounds vaguely familiar, I remember some story about a teenage kid that was running a trapline to support his family and a wolverine was raiding all his traps before he could check them, so he had to go after the wolverine.  There might have been a dog too.   Not sure if it is the same story, but it was probably 40 years ago that I read it.

Could be. I must have read it in the early-mid 1980s. But most of the books in that local library were rather old, so it could have been written/published much earlier (I also do not remember if it was a translation from an American book.) I don't remember it being a teenage kid, I thought it was more like a lone wolf type hunter/trapper at the frontier. But I am also pretty sure that I am mixing together at least two different books. One was about getting to and settling Oregon and the hardships of these settlers, a probably different one was mostly about hunting and trapping. And apparently the described behavior is what wolverines tend to do? In any case, wolverines were really hated and feared, this trope I remember from several such books. (The funny thing is that in Geman wolverine is called "Vielfrass" (roughly meaning "glutton" like its Latin species name gulo gulo) which sounds kind of funny.

Another book I dimly recall was about a boy who was to spent a vacation or even to live with a distant grumpy relative in Scotland. This boy was obsessed with Bonnie Prince Charlie and that period of Scottish history (which was confusing for me as I did not have this knowledge that was mostly presupposed in the book) and I think he gets involved into some crime detection (like in Enid Blyton but this book was directed at somewhat older kids than the Blyton books).

[mcbigski]

There was this one series about a kid with magical powers, some sort of doggie, and a lot of crow symbolism.  Remember liking it, but don't think I ever finished it.

[shortstark]

I read a book as a kid that was way too advanced for me and for decades I have been trying to find out the name and author, anyways it was about the prohibition, basically some rich dude planned it from start to finish and had control over numerous mobsters and politicians, in later years I keep thinking it's a twist on some real persons life but I can't make the connection..

[Leofric]

On 5/28/2020 at 12:23 AM, Jo498 said:

Could be. I must have read it in the early-mid 1980s. But most of the books in that local library were rather old, so it could have been written/published much earlier (I also do not remember if it was a translation from an American book.) I don't remember it being a teenage kid, I thought it was more like a lone wolf type hunter/trapper at the frontier. But I am also pretty sure that I am mixing together at least two different books. One was about getting to and settling Oregon and the hardships of these settlers, a probably different one was mostly about hunting and trapping. And apparently the described behavior is what wolverines tend to do? In any case, wolverines were really hated and feared, this trope I remember from several such books. (The funny thing is that in Geman wolverine is called "Vielfrass" (roughly meaning "glutton" like its Latin species name gulo gulo) which sounds kind of funny.

Another book I dimly recall was about a boy who was to spent a vacation or even to live with a distant grumpy relative in Scotland. This boy was obsessed with Bonnie Prince Charlie and that period of Scottish history (which was confusing for me as I did not have this knowledge that was mostly presupposed in the book) and I think he gets involved into some crime detection (like in Enid Blyton but this book was directed at somewhat older kids than the Blyton books).

I figured out what book I was thinking of, it is called Big Red by Jim Kjelgaard.   He wrote a bunch of books about Irish Setters and other dogs.  It was in my dog phase when I read his books as well as a bunch of books by Albert Payson Terhune about collies, and of course Call of the Wild and White Fang by Jack London. 

[Jo498]

Thanks. Kjelgaard seems pretty close to the type of books I had in mind and a bunch of them were translated into German in the 60s although the name does not ring a bell. (A book I still have in German is Judson's "Cold River" and one of the few animal books I liked (never having had or liking pets myself), Desert Storm (Sturmwolke) by Logan Forster)

If "Big Red" is written from the dog's perspective, it was probably not the one I meant. As I said, I am pretty sure I am mixing two books together. It is really annoying that I never wrote stuff like that down. I even remember when that library in the village I grew up was dissolved and they gave away a lot of the older books. I was probably around 20 then and got a bunch but I do not recall if I looked for these rare books. Probably they had not made such an impression that I would search for them almost 10 years later or they were already gone.

[Larry of the Lawn]

5 hours ago, Leofric said:

I figured out what book I was thinking of, it is called Big Red by Jim Kjelgaard.   He wrote a bunch of books about Irish Setters and other dogs.  It was in my dog phase when I read his books as well as a bunch of books by Albert Payson Terhune about collies, and of course Call of the Wild and White Fang by Jack London. 

Oh man there's a Jim Kjelgaard book I loved as a kid, main character's name was Link, he was a trailer I think stranded in some valley tracking a poacher or something as a deputized ranger.  Absolutely loved that stuff as a kid.