The Bad Book Club

[Guest Raidne]

Yes, but what you actually did was reaffirm the stereotype that made you sound like a jackass.

To spell it out: the point people are trying to make is that an author's goodness or badness has nothing to do with their sex, so you should stop categorizing authors on that basis entirely, whether it is to say either that (1) they suck or (2) that they might be better than you thought they were.

There is no "they."

ETA: Steve, thanks for mentioning The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher - someone almost had me talked into giving them a shot in another thread.

[TerraPrime]

I apoligize for my remarks and any offense taken.

Fair enough.

But let me put this question to you:

When you file books away as either a good book or a bad book, why attach the author's gender to the sorting? What does it signify? What is the value in associating the author's gender with the quality of the book? Why not, instead, find elements in the story that are in common, e.g., "I don't like books where female protagonists are painted as flawless" or "I don't like books where the authors switch perspectives in the middle of the book"? I mean, those ARE the things that make you dislike the books, not the gender of the authors, right? I mean, you don't read the book and then say "Gosh, this book is terrible because the author is a woman," right?

[Blaine]

For me, it's tempting to say Erikson's Gardens of the Moon, because it was a truly awful experience that seemed to last forever. But I've beat that terrible horse enough.

However, I'm pretty sure I've read worse. In some cases, I can enjoy a book, even while actively disliking some of the author's choices - just because it's still not a bad read, or fun ride, or at least an interesting character or something. Like The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, it was dumb and I see why people get angry over its success, but I also see why people like it. Because it's insanely readable.

Then there are those books where you can tell the author has genuine writing talent, but you just literally hate everything they choose to do with it. Those are the ones that are the worst to suffer through. The last one like this was Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson. The guy could write beautiful prose, but sweet lord, his characters are so painfully trite and stupid and pretentious and annoying and cloying and ugh. It makes me puke in my mouth a little bit just to think about it.

And then there's the book that is so bad it ruins every book in the series that came before or even after it. That book, folks is Dexter in the Dark - the 3rd Dexter novel. The first two were fun, if stupid and they spawned a fun and somewhat stupid TV show. However in the 3rd book, the author just decides he's bored with his stupid fun success and takes a sharp left turn that is so bad you can't really ever look at it the same way.

The author decides that Dexter's serial killer conscience/manifestation/drive/whatever is an ACTUAL MILLION YEAR OLD PARANORMAL BEING that lives inside Dexter. A demon or somesuchshit. And then he meets another demon/evil god/something that possesses people and they fight like demon pokemons or something and a there's a ritual and god I don't want to remember any more details.

Seriously. That happened. The facts might be wrong, but the gist is there.

And it's not like any of this had been set up beforehand. No supernatural at all, just a serial killer with a weird code and inner monologue and then BAM! he's Doctor fucking Strange. Somehow, I blame Twilight.

Then he put out a 4th and 5th book where all the supernatural stuff went bye-bye, but by that point, the damage was done.

[Guest Raidne]

Blaine: Oh. My. God. I have never been happier to read a spoiler and thus spare myself the experience more in my life. A hundred times, thank you.

[Zoë Sumra]

In some cases, I can enjoy a book, even while actively disliking some of the author's choices - just because it's still not a bad read, or fun ride, or at least an interesting character or something. Like The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, it was dumb and I see why people get angry over its success, but I also see why people like it. Because it's insanely readable.

Agreed entirely. My go-to author for an afternoon's immersive entertainment can't end a book properly to save her life - I've read twenty plus of her books and about three of them ended at vaguely the right time and with something resembling the right pace - and yet I keep reading.

[The Evil Hat]

Amen. I think she's probably my favourite author. Hard to believe some people wont read female authors because of some bad experiences. Seriously, the likes of Leguin,Mary Stewart and KJ parker are not to be compared with the excerable Elizabeth Moon or Laurell K Hamilton just because of gender. Surely some of the people in this thread are joking?

Anywhoo. Worst I've read was that Willow sequal by Chris Claremont and George Lucas. Made Goodkind seem like Ray Bradbury.

I just want to say that my post, which was as far as I know the only one to mention KJ Parker and Elizabeth Moon, was extremely sarcastic. As implied by the comparisons between radically different authors whose only similarity is gender.

[SteveWestenra]

ETA: Steve, thanks for mentioning The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher - someone almost had me talked into giving them a shot in another thread.

Hahaha. Well, I wouldn't want to turn someone away from something they might enjoy. They definitely aren't on the same level of utter badness as the other three books I mentioned (which I WOULD want to turn someone away from reading). They're quick and they're fun for the first few books, but the series (in my opinion) hasn't developed enough to warrant there being so many of them. Also, Jim Butcher needs a better editor (or perhaps a grammar text). D:

[SteveWestenra]

Blaine:

Ahaha. Reading that made my day, thank you. I haven't read any of the Dexter books. I have to wonder how they'll deal with that in the show or if they'll even bother at all.

[Rakka]

This is a tough call. I think the top place is split between some crappy "boy finds a magic ring in the attic, falls through a portal, saves the world" pastiche, a Finnish self-publication that tries to be set in Finnish prehistory and fails so hard it hits escape velocity in the first five pages or so, and Redemption of Althalus. That one finally opened my eyes to see what self-cannibalizing hack Eddings had become. (Elder Gods would probably have made the list had I bothered to read it, but the setting itself was too brain-achy to even consider reading the book.)

Among the other books in the "couldn't bother read them through" are and a Finnish science fiction story where the author is too in love with getting the facts right and consequently makes the story hell of a drag to read, reread Seven Man's War, and Jonathan Strange and mr. Norrell. The last one probably doesn't deserve to be included in the list, but the writing style was just so damn boring and revived the memory of having tried to read Pickwick Club's papers, and there was just no way I could be bothered to waste my time slouching through the style to maybe eventually get to the story. I hate the 19th century.

Does a translation making a book horrible count? Because the Finnish one for Lord Foul's Bane was spectacularly horrible. Not to mention the whiny rapist protagonist.

[Lordwalker]

Fair enough.

But let me put this question to you:

When you file books away as either a good book or a bad book, why attach the author's gender to the sorting? What does it signify? What is the value in associating the author's gender with the quality of the book? Why not, instead, find elements in the story that are in common, e.g., "I don't like books where female protagonists are painted as flawless" or "I don't like books where the authors switch perspectives in the middle of the book"? I mean, those ARE the things that make you dislike the books, not the gender of the authors, right? I mean, you don't read the book and then say "Gosh, this book is terrible because the author is a woman," right?

Thank you. I DON'T think to myself, "this is terrible because the author is a woman." Never have. I don't buy or not buy books based on gender, but rather on what the "blurb" says, plus a not too small amount of research on here or other forums. I like or dislike books based on their characters and the style of writing. For example, I don't like the character of Bella, in the Twighlight series but I do like the character of Hermoine in the Harry Potter series. I like the writing style of George Martin and Daniel Abraham, but I don't like the style of Robin Hobb or Terry Goodkind, etc.

I hereby retract any and all statements I may or may not have made about any gender (or specific lack thereof in the case of any definitive prevelant gender) of any author at any time in the past and will refrain from doing so in the future.

I highly recommend no one read The Twilight series, I don't like the way "it" writes.....I also don't like sparkly vampires.

And for the record .... Raidne is one smart it.

[Blaine]

Blaine: Oh. My. God. I have never been happier to read a spoiler and thus spare myself the experience more in my life. A hundred times, thank you.

You're welcome. I would film a PSA to inform people not to ever read that book, but I do hate to spoil, I guess. Even the Amazon ratings, which by the 3rd book in a series are made up of mostly diehard fans, are abysmal. I seriously question whether the author's editor just hates him to let that idea make it to print.

Blaine:

Ahaha. Reading that made my day, thank you. I haven't read any of the Dexter books. I have to wonder how they'll deal with that in the show or if they'll even bother at all.

Oh, the TV writers have long ago abandoned the books. In fact, it's one of those rare occurrences where the adaptation is generally considered far better than the source material - especially after the first book. I think the author, Jeff Lindsay, had exactly one good idea - the character of Dexter. After that, it's all pretty much a steep downhill slope. I wouldn't recommend those books to anyone over the show. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure the only reason they're still getting printed is because the show is so much better.

[Myshkin]

I just want to say that my post, which was as far as I know the only one to mention KJ Parker and Elizabeth Moon, was extremely sarcastic. As implied by the comparisons between radically different authors whose only similarity is gender.

So has KJ Parker been positively identified as a woman? I've seen Parker's name now mentioned several times as an example of a good female SF/F author, but last I knew Parker's identity, including gender, was still a mystery. Has this changed?

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

Myshkin -- Nope. Parker was previously identified as a woman on official websites and in interviews and things, but now no gendered pronouns are used. Or pronouns at all, I guess. It makes for some awkward sentences, but

Blaine -- I'm pretty sure I've read that, and don't remember it at all. (The synopsis of the fourth book seems familiar, and I don't think I would have skipped #3.) I think I must have blocked the entire book out of my memory.

[Datepalm]

I don't think I've ever read anything by this Farland fellow but your description has perked my interest, even though that probably wasn't your intent.

From the way you describe it doesn't seem like the author would be ignorant of all the implications. Fiction books shouldn't require commentary from the author telling the audience what is good and bad and what to think. Is it possible that Mr. Farland was just too subtle for you?

You know, I kept hoping that, but it just never came. I've now kind of intrigued myself, enough that i'm considering going back and seeing if I was totally missing something, but then I remembered that its also really, really mediocre in writing, characterization, plotting and everything else. Honestly, theres just no sign anywhere in the book that Farland is doing some kind of super subtle deconstruction at all. As far as I can tell, he really does want the reader to take the incredibly odious hero as sympathetic and heroic and accept that the magic system is not a hideous crime against humanity, etc. Its at the moral level of like, Gone with the Wind, (only actually worse, because he dosen't even pretend the slaves are happy) but there isn't even a war on over slavery.*

I think this is actually worse than writers like Goodkind or Card, who have a clear political agenda - I might find it extremely distasteful, but at least its out there. This guy is either a complete and totally immoral moron or the most abject failure ever at getting across to the reader.

*Nominally, ok? Not to derail the thread over what the civil war was or wasn't about.

[Old Nan]

I think this is actually worse than writers like Goodkind or Card, who have a clear political agenda - I might find it extremely distasteful, but at least its out there. This guy is either a complete and totally immoral moron

I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots.

The opinion that all art needs to moralize is something I find very peculiar, particularly for a reader of Martin, whose political agenda is entirely hidden in satire. Is this a Socialist edict?

[Dr Adder]

@Blaine

sounds like he turned Dexter into a Z grade Charlie Parker.

as for bad books anything by Dan Brown

Eat Pray Love - self indulgent twaddle.

The Fifth Sorceress.

Lord of the Isles by David Drake. Don't know what his other stuff is like but I hated this book.

Is it ok to include James Patterson books even though he doesn't write them anymore?

[Datepalm]

The opinion that all art needs to moralize

Intent counts for nothing: Everything moralizes. Everything is political.

[MinDonner]

I think you're missing Datepalm's point. Goodkind has, at least, realised what his agenda is, and has deliberately chosen to evangelise it through the medium of mediocre fantasy. GRRM, while not overtly evangelising, is certainly aware of the moral implications of his characters' actions and so hasn't (eg) made Gregor the hero. It sounds like this Runelords guy is just completely clueless about what even constitutes a grey area and is happily writing about this evil society without even noticing that it's evil.

[Guest Raidne]

I think you're missing Datepalm's point. Goodkind has, at least, realised what his agenda is, and has deliberately chosen to evangelise it through the medium of mediocre fantasy.

OMG, this whole discussion has taken me back to Richard's carving and unveiling of The Statute, which is, definitely, the worst part of the worst book of the worst series that I have ever read. Although, it did help me understand what Hitler's issue with modern art was all about.

[Spastic Plastic]

The opinion that all art needs to moralize is something I find very peculiar, particularly for a reader of Martin, whose political agenda is entirely hidden in satire. Is this a Socialist edict?

LOL at the "Socialist edict" accusation.

Oh, and what political agenda? Is there a political agenda in Martin's books that my dull mind didn't notice, wrapped in layers of satire? Please, Old Nan, let me bask in your wisdom.