Worst SF/F book you've read
Onyxhawke
Tolkein...
Dennis McKeirnan's "Iron Tower" has got to be the worst thing i've ever
had the misfortune to run my eyes over.
James Nicoll
Onyxhawke <onyx...@gmail.com> wrote:
>For me, much as i loath Jordan and Martin and don't have much use for
>Tolkein...
One of those is not like the others.
>Dennis McKeirnan's "Iron Tower" has got to be the worst thing i've ever
>had the misfortune to run my eyes over.
>
Ah, the series that introduces the idea of suck-forward (Man
is hit by arrow and knocked in the direction the arrow came from).
Problem is there are many ways a book can be bad and I'm
torn between the horrible science and pompous forword of CLASHING
SUN or the trite story telling of THE SPACE EGG or "How can 800
pages go by without ever going near a plot" of the entire genre
of fantasy-by-sections.
One current trend in fantasy I don't like is length. Long
almost never fixes bad but it can give bad more opportunities to
occur.
Mack Reynolds' EQUALITY: IN THE YEAR 2000 had current day
(for when it was written) and futuristic stuff. The current day
material was based on Reynolds' own travels and was interesting.
Unfortunately, the future was a utopia so nothing was allowed to
happen (aside from the usual "explain how the science and socialism
of the future have made toilets atom-powered!" stuff [1]). Since
both sections were in the same book, the shortcomings of the
futuristic sections were made more glaring by their absence from
the past sections.
INTO DEEPEST SPACE, Fred and Geoff Hoyle (I think) had
interesting ideas in the context of dodgy writing and some truly
bad (like Jupiter being only 7.5 million km from Earth) science.
What made the crap science notable is that Sir Fred was a professional
astronomer. Some day I'd like to read the good version of that book.
James Nicoll
1: At least one utopia had a long section on automated laundry. I thought
that was funny as a kid but as an adult, I think the washer/dryer was
one of the great liberating inventions of modern time.
--
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
Mike Schilling
"Onyxhawke" <onyx...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1123644185.8...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
Never read any Kratman, then?
Actually, neither have I. The worst book that comes to mind is Van Vogt's
_Null-A Three_. Now, I enjoyed the first two Null-A books. I know they
won't stand up to one second of thinking about any aspect of them (plot,
characterizations, world-building, prose, anything at all), but they're
great sensawunda porn. But the third one combined all of the previous
weaknesses with being flat-out dull. No excuse for its existence at all.
Onyxhawke
It should be noted that i've made no defence of Krat's writing skill,
just his intents and his actuall beleifs. I've met the man.
Sea Wasp
Nothing I have seen published by a commercial,
understands-how-to-make-profits publisher matches the depths to which
self-published material can sink. I have read (parts of) VAN GOGH IN
SPACE ! ! !, and I assure you, nothing you've ever read approaches
this. It makes Eye of Argon look good. The only thing I've seen which
competes with it (in terms of WRITTEN bad) is bad, bad fanfic and the
notorious _Night Travels of the Elven Vampire_. To give you an idea of
how bad these things are, think of the Star Wars Holiday Special.
Yes, I'm sorry, I made you think about that. But there, it's THAT
bad. Or worse, if possible, gods help us.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/
Mike Schilling
> It should be noted that i've made no defence of Krat's writing skill,
> just his intents and his actuall beleifs. I've met the man.
This newsgroup is about written SF; the intents, beliefs, and other personal
details of authors' lives outside of what's reflected in their work is
explicitly off-topic, and its discussion will be prosecuted to the full
extent of the law
John H
"Sea Wasp" <seawasp...@obvioussgeinc.com> wrote in message
news:42F97DAA...@obvioussgeinc.com...
> Onyxhawke wrote:
>> For me, much as i loath Jordan and Martin and don't have much use for
>> Tolkein...
>>
>> Dennis McKeirnan's "Iron Tower" has got to be the worst thing i've ever
>> had the misfortune to run my eyes over.
>>
>
> Nothing I have seen published by a commercial,
> understands-how-to-make-profits publisher matches the depths to which
> self-published material can sink. I have read (parts of) VAN GOGH IN SPACE
> ! ! !, and I assure you, nothing you've ever read approaches this.
Oh? Have you read Adam Lee's Irth series?
John
John H
The second or third book of the Posleen series... even though it was free
and on my favorite format (Palm), I couldn't finish it. The stupid kept
adding up. Also had the unfortunate effect of making me want to chuck the
"book" at the wall.
john
>
Tim McDaniel
James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>Ah, the series that introduces the idea of suck-forward (Man is hit
>by arrow and knocked in the direction the arrow came from).
Oh, so _that's_ Time's Arrow.
--
Tim McDaniel; Reply-To: tm...@panix.com
Onyxhawke
I could say i cared about persecution but i'd be lying and i avoid
doing that.
Onyxhawke
Nope, nor seen it, but i have a knack for avoiding books that i won't
like, I only read Dennis of the five lines of "DOOM DOOM DOOM went the
drums" per page for six chapters cause it was a gift.
stre...@rohan.sdsu.edu
[snip]
> Actually, neither have I. The worst book that comes to mind is Van Vogt's
> _Null-A Three_. Now, I enjoyed the first two Null-A books. I know they
> won't stand up to one second of thinking about any aspect of them (plot,
> characterizations, world-building, prose, anything at all), but they're
> great sensawunda porn. But the third one combined all of the previous
> weaknesses with being flat-out dull. No excuse for its existence at all.
I finished _Null-A Three_. No worries. It may not have been great, but it
was at least *readable*.
I couldn't finish _Gravity's Rainbow_, despite a lot of good stuff to be
found in /usr/bin/fortune attributed to it. I think I got to page 64.
More recently, despite liking Richard Morgan's other works, I gave up
on _Market Forces_. "I want to read something," I'd think, "oh, I have
Market Forces that I'm reading. Um. Er. Maybe I'll just sit here for a
bit until it's time to go to bed instead."
--
--Stewart Stremler---------------...@rohan.sdsu.edu--
Sorry, your solar system has a class Z address, so you can't have more
than three gas giants. -- Peter da Silva (1999)
David Dyer-Bennet
It's always such a personal decision. But for me, C.J. Cherryh's
_Downbelow Station_ is the worst SF book I've read half of.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd...@dd-b.net>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/>
RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com/> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/>
Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/>
Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/> Much of which is still down
David Dyer-Bennet
Yes, this can be one of the severe drawbacks of reading on a PDA.
Pete Fenelon
> It's always such a personal decision. But for me, C.J. Cherryh's
> _Downbelow Station_ is the worst SF book I've read half of.
I finished that one - eventually. Unlike Cyteen, which I believe is the
most tendentious pile of dull dreck ever written by an author who's won
major awards.
I've read worse pulp SF - the kind of stuff that *knew* it was crap -
but Cyteen seemed to think it was an Important Novel. The characters
were cardboard, the plot incomprehensible where it wasn't predictable,
and the writing flat and pretentious. I bounced off it four times and
decided it wasn't worth trying again.
pete
--
pe...@fenelon.com "There's no room for enigmas in built-up areas"
Scott Peterson
>
> Nothing I have seen published by a commercial,
>understands-how-to-make-profits publisher matches the depths to which
>self-published material can sink. I have read (parts of) VAN GOGH IN
>SPACE ! ! !,
There was a series of 4 or 5 books released when the DOOM computer
game was popular using the game as a theme. These were bad beyond
anything I've ever read before or since.
Mike Van Pelt
Sea Wasp <seawasp...@obvioussgeinc.com> wrote:
> ... the notorious _Night Travels of the Elven Vampire_.
> To give you an idea of how bad these things are, think of
> the Star Wars Holiday Special.
Ewwww....
The worst book I ever finished was David Palmer's
"Threshold." Just plain horrible on just about every
level, in a bad fanfic sort of way. (Well, minus the
grammar and spelling problems of bad, bad fanfic, and
it was, of course, typeset, not written in multiple
colors of felt pen on lined paper.)
I only finished it because "Emergence" was so wonderful,
I couldn't believe the same author could write something
so relentlessly fetid.
Someone, somewhere, has read the sequel, and rumors are,
it's even worse. Now that must be something to pry
loose Bin Laden's location from the detainees at Gitmo.
--
Tagon: "Where's your sense of adventure?" | Mike Van Pelt
Kevyn: "It died under mysterious circumstances. | mvp at calweb.com
My sense of self-preservation found the body, | KE6BVH
but assures me it has an airtight alibi." (schlockmercenary.com)
Mike Dworetsky
news:87y87am...@gw.dd-b.net...
> "Onyxhawke" <onyx...@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > For me, much as i loath Jordan and Martin and don't have much use for
> > Tolkein...
> >
> > Dennis McKeirnan's "Iron Tower" has got to be the worst thing i've ever
> > had the misfortune to run my eyes over.
>
> It's always such a personal decision. But for me, C.J. Cherryh's
> _Downbelow Station_ is the worst SF book I've read half of.
Agreed, and IMO a close second is P J Farmer's _Tongues of the Moon_.
--
Mike Dworetsky
(Remove "pants" spamblock to send e-mail)
Butch Malahide
James Nicoll wrote:
> Problem is there are many ways a book can be bad and I'm
> torn between the horrible science and pompous forword of CLASHING
> SUN or the trite story telling of THE SPACE EGG or "How can 800
> pages go by without ever going near a plot" of the entire genre
> of fantasy-by-sections.
Could you please give a little more information about CLASHING SUN,
like, say, who wrote it? Is it in print? Thanks.
Dave Goldman
wrote:
> It's always such a personal decision. But for me, C.J. Cherryh's
> _Downbelow Station_ is the worst SF book I've read half of.
I'd say "me too," but I'm more stubborn than you.
The second half was even more disappointing.
- Dave Goldman
Portland, OR
mick...@gmail.com
The Second of Anne McCafrey's "Acorna" series. The third was suposedly
worse but Iafter the second I didn't even look at the rest of the
series.
Mickey Zvi Maor
Rich Horton
Perhaps _The Hawks of Arcturus_, a 70s DAW book by Cecil Snyder III.
(I've long assumed that that might be a pseudonym, but noone seems to
have owned up to it.)
By an ordinarily reputable author? _Algorithm_, by Jean Mark Gawron.
Sea Wasp
No, and if it's even vaguely close to being that bad, I have no
intention of reading just so I can claw out my eyeballs and then
compare the marks each has left on my corneas.
Phil
Bujold, lots
Phil
Mike Ward
> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>> It's always such a personal decision. But for me, C.J. Cherryh's
>> _Downbelow Station_ is the worst SF book I've read half of.
>
> I finished that one - eventually. Unlike Cyteen, which I believe is the
> most tendentious pile of dull dreck ever written by an author who's won
> major awards.
Thank you. While I did not truly hate Cyteen I didn't like it and thought
it was incredibly tedious and cannot understand why it is so highly
praised. It feels good to her someone else say so. :)
Mike
Mike Ward
@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:
The worst SF novel I've ever read is probably Finney's "Time and Again." If
there was anything good about that novel it was totally lost in the shear
tediousness of it. It seemed that Finney wrote a short story and then
decided that with enough descriptions he could turn it into a novel.
Mike
Liz Broadwell
>had the misfortune to run my eyes over.
As a small person reading it and the first of Terry Brooks's neverending
_Shannara_ series, I always wondered why the Tolkien estate didn't sue
both guys for plagiarism. Ditto whoever owns the rights to _Forbidden
Planet_ suing Michael Crichton over _Sphere_, which is right up (or down)
there among the ten most annoying SF books I've ever read.
I find "worst" hard to define. For one thing, I tend to notice that
really bad books -- badly plotted, badly characterized, or badly prosed --
are really bad *really* quickly, so I usually drop and forget them rather
than plow through to the end. I have a much better recall for
"disappointing" books -- you know, the ones that seduce you into reading
them right through by having an element or three of interest, and then
failing miserably to capitalize on them. Right up in my top ten there
would be Patricia McKillip's _Book of Atrix Wolfe_ (the utter triumph of
style over substance), Robert Heinlein's _Cat That Walks Through Walls_
(fun beginning, utter chaos from the middle onward), and Meredith Ann
Pierce's _Pearl of the Soul of the World_ (which almost manages the
retrospective destruction of its two prequels, argh!)
Then there are weird cases like Philip Pullman's _Dark Materials_ books --
great prose and interesting characters, but a philosophical point of view
I have a very hard time suspending my disbelief sufficiently to empathize
with -- or Ursula Le Guin's _Tehanu_ et seq. -- which I can tell I would
enjoy if they weren't retconning Earthsea.
Peace,
Liz
--
Liz Broadwell (username-in-header at orphco dot org), Charter Orphan
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
"The Wizarding world is noticeably backwards in its approach to, well,
just about everything that isn't Wizardry. Which is actually plausible,
given how useful Wizardry seems to be for lots of things the rest of us
have had to resort to Extreme Cleverness for." -- John Schilling,
r.a.sf.w, 7/25/05
James Nicoll
Butch Malahide <fred....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>James Nicoll wrote:
>
>> Problem is there are many ways a book can be bad and I'm
>> torn between the horrible science and pompous forword of CLASHING
>> pages go by without ever going near a plot" of the entire genre
>> of fantasy-by-sections.
>
>like, say, who wrote it? Is it in print? Thanks.
That shoudl be CRASHING SUNS. I've corrected my error.
>
It's an early Edmund Hamilton and I read an edition from about
1962, from Ace in the days when Donald Wollheim was running it. Later,
he went off an founded DAW Books, which he ran until his retirement in
the 1980s*.
Wollheim had both strengths and weaknesses. Among his strengths
was a willingness to take chances on women and foreigners (So CJ Cherryh
was first published by DAW, although she had to add an H to the end of
her name to avoid looking _too_ girly, Edward Llewellyn was published
by him and so was Brian Stableford. If Wollheim had been around in the
late 1980s, I bet he'd have snapped up Iain M. Banks).
His weaknesses included at least one case of doing something
legal that was reeeeealllly slimy** and a fondess for old fashioned
style pulp that overcame any considerations of quality. As a result,
he published the Cap Kennedy series, which was dire beyond belief,
and some early Edmund Hamilton. In those days, Hamilton belonged to
the Very Large Explosions school of SF, with a side order of Crap
Science.
CRASHING SUNS is set 100,000 years from now***.
In the first story, aliens are steering their sun towards ours
so that they can ram ours and rekindle their clinker of a star (Hamilton
used the "Stars start off hot and slowly cool off" model). Humans have
just developed FTL so we go out to see why this star is headed towards
us. In the end, the aliens are exterminated with their own star-steering
device.
In the Star Stealers, the Interstellar Patrol (multi-species,
although they all seem to use the same naming system) ivestigates a dead
star that seems bent on stealing the Sun. Again, it is doomed (but
bad) aliens trying escape entropy. The IP uses the alien star steering
devices to make them miss the Sun.
The Orion Nebula is suddenly spinning faster and faster, threatening
to explode from v^2/r, which would destroy the entire galaxy because Hamilton
has no idea about things like scale or lightspeed. It turns otu there's a
doomed civilization inside the nebula that is trying to prevent the nebula
from collapsing. Helpfully, the IP causes the nebula to collapse, killing
all the aliens.
In the Comet Drivers, a giant comet seems bent on ramming the
galaxy, which would destroy it (Again, no idea of scale here). It turns
out that the comet is inhabited and the inhabitants want to recharge the
electrical coma of the comet by rubbing it on the galaxy, in the manner
of a charged balloon. Once again, plot foiled, aliens wiped out.
In the Cosmic Cloud, eyeless aliens who have only just been informed
of the galaxy's existance are stealing ships so that they can conquer the
galaxy. This plan relies on their etheric technology, which lets them
create anti-light zones****. The IP uses the cloud people's technology to
wreck the invading fleet and exterminate the cloud people.
This only gives a taste of how horrid the science in this is in
terms of the time it was written. Yes, the Bethe Cycle wasn't understood
until the end of the decade but people knew comets weren't bigger than
galaxies. Also, ether seems to have been the 1930s version of quantum:
it can do anything.
* I once did a WI where there was another Futurian who was a fitness freak
who got Blish to stop smoking and got Kornbluth into a weight-training
program and so on, with the result that the landscape of SF looked somewhat
different (not necessarily _better_) after 1960.
** He noticed that (wossname the publisher) had managed to let Lord of
the Rings slip out of copyright in the US so he published an unauthorised
mass market paperback edition. Since it was out of copyright, he initially
did not give JRRT any money. Surprisingly, this turned out to be a PR
disaster.
*** The name used were not 20th century names. I only mention this because
I've read books set ten thousand years from now where the names could be
from a 1970 KW phonebook.
**** What happens to a star when all the electromagnetic radiation is
negated?
--
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
James Nicoll
James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <1123659944.6...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
>Butch Malahide <fred....@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>James Nicoll wrote:
>>
>>> Problem is there are many ways a book can be bad and I'm
>>> torn between the horrible science and pompous forword of CLASHING
>>> SUNS or the trite story telling of THE SPACE EGG or "How can 800
>>> pages go by without ever going near a plot" of the entire genre
>>> of fantasy-by-sections.
>>
>>Could you please give a little more information about CLASHING SUNS,
>>like, say, who wrote it? Is it in print? Thanks.
>
>>
> It's an early Edmund Hamilton and I read an edition from about
>1962, from Ace in the days when Donald Wollheim was running it. Later,
>he went off an founded DAW Books, which he ran until his retirement in
>the 1980s*.
>
> His weaknesses included at least one case of doing something
>legal that was reeeeealllly slimy** and a fondess for old fashioned
>style pulp that overcame any considerations of quality. As a result,
>he published the Cap Kennedy series, which was dire beyond belief,
>and some early Edmund Hamilton. In those days, Hamilton belonged to
>the Very Large Explosions school of SF, with a side order of Crap
>Science.
I forgot to mention the introduction, which were by Wollheim.
Basically, his thesis is that the IP stories are SF done right and
he snarls about something he calls "slide rule SF", whatever that is.
Michael Urban
Onyxhawke <onyx...@gmail.com> wrote:
>For me, much as i loath Jordan and Martin and don't have much use for
>Tolkein...
>
>had the misfortune to run my eyes over.
>
Weis & Hickman's first "Dragonlance" book, whose title eludes me, and
is not worth the trouble of a Google search.
Peter Meilinger
>The worst book I ever finished was David Palmer's
>"Threshold." Just plain horrible on just about every
>level, in a bad fanfic sort of way. (Well, minus the
>grammar and spelling problems of bad, bad fanfic, and
>it was, of course, typeset, not written in multiple
>colors of felt pen on lined paper.)
>I only finished it because "Emergence" was so wonderful,
>I couldn't believe the same author could write something
>so relentlessly fetid.
As yet more proof that Tastes Vary (tm), I'd probably
switch those paragraphs around. Threshold was dumb
pulp but I enjoyed it well enough. I'm quite sure
I'm remembering the good parts (The monsters, mainly.
I like monsters) more than the bad (The preachiness,
mainly. Especially the "I'm a human. I don't despair.
I GET ANGRY!!!")
Emergence definitely had some good points, but man did
it have some bad, too. Best example of an original
character Mary Sue that I can think of, to start with.
Feh.
Pete
Caleb N. Diffell
Onyxhawke wrote:
> For me, much as i loath Jordan and Martin and don't have much use for
> Tolkein...
>
> Dennis McKeirnan's "Iron Tower" has got to be the worst thing i've ever
> had the misfortune to run my eyes over.
Nah. It's fairly bad, and I picked up _Trek to Kraggen-Cor_ recently
(having read and enjoyed it when I was around 13) and couldn't bring
myself to finish it, but it's not the worst I've seen, not by a long
shot.
My "Worst SF Book Ever" Award goes to Mike Jeffries' _Loremasters of
Elundium_ series. I bought 3 of them in paperback in my foolish youth
because they were compared favorably to Tolkien on the cover (this is
now a Huge Red Flag for me, from that point onward). They were
absolutely awful. I never finished the third one, and may not have
finished the second. A quick Google search revealed there are now MORE
of them ("...they're spawning!!"); I have no idea how sales of the
first three could possibly have justified another one or two in the
series. I've stricken most of it from my memory, so I can't really give
specifics, but check out the customer reviews on Amazon (which are
almost uniformly negative) for an idea. This series is without a doubt
the worst I've ever read.
Now, if you're talking disappointing (as in, started off with a great
premise but then failed to deliver), I might be tempted to say Larry
Niven's _The Integral Trees_, which I thought was awesome for the first
2/3 chapters, and then went downhill fast, failing to deliver on the
promise of the setting and scope. The other one I would say is
extremely disappointing is John Varley's _Titan_, about the expedition
that enters the giant orbiting alien satellite. Could've been great,
ended up with an extreme case of deus ex machina, not to mention lousy
writing for the second half (seemed rushed, like Varley just wanted to
finish the darn thing because even he didn't like the direction it was
heading).
Lots42
Spencer.
It started out promising. Every once in a while, a certain big American
city gets stuck in Elf-land for a while. Trading places with a chunk of
Elf-Land.
It was quite horrible.
The heroine, Tinker, was a complete moron. She literally does not call
on the two seperate armies of men willing to protect her when a psycho
threatens her life.
And the worst part is, when she goes all googly eyed for the Elf Lord.
Who abandons her at every opprotunity, only showing up for booty calls.
The Elf that -does- stay by her side through torture and literally
bleeds for her and protects her from nearly every threat imaginable?
Dumped and ignored the second Booty-Man shows up.
It's really quite fascinating for how awful it can get.
What will the girl do now? Let a near-stranger feel her up? Ignore the
medical facillity right in front of her face in order to crawl off and
bleed? Run away from allies? (All things she's done)
Tina Hall
> Onyxhawke <onyx...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> For me, much as i loath Jordan and Martin and don't have much
>> use for Tolkein...
> One of those is not like the others.
So Tolkien was printed much earlier. Doesn't automatically make it
better or worse.
<snip>
> Problem is there are many ways a book can be bad and I'm torn
> between the horrible science and pompous forword of CLASHING SUN
> or the trite story telling of THE SPACE EGG or "How can 800 pages
> go by without ever going near a plot" of the entire genre of
> fantasy-by-sections.
What's 'fantasy-by-sections'?
> One current trend in fantasy I don't like is length. Long almost
> never fixes bad but it can give bad more opportunities to occur.
Short doesn't give an opportunity for good to occur.
> Mack Reynolds' EQUALITY: IN THE YEAR 2000 had current day (for
> when it was written) and futuristic stuff. The current day
> material was based on Reynolds' own travels and was interesting.
> Unfortunately, the future was a utopia so nothing was allowed to
> happen [...]
Utopia is no excuse; you could always have some 'unfortune' intrude
from outside... Like spacefaring humans descending onto happy aliens
(recurring event in Star Trek, except the bad guys never get
beaten).
> Since both sections were in the same book, the shortcomings of the
> futuristic sections were made more glaring by their absence from
> the past sections.
I don't understand that. Did the story happen in two different
times?
<snip>
--
Tina
No internet access.
### XP v3.40 RC3 ###
Lots42
James Nicoll wrote:
> Problem is there are many ways a book can be bad and I'm
> torn between the horrible science and pompous forword of CLASHING
> SUN or the trite story telling of THE SPACE EGG or "How can 800
> pages go by without ever going near a plot" of the entire genre
> of fantasy-by-sections.
Speaking of, there's way too many '(DISASTER!)' novels wherein the
disaster doesn't even -happen- by page 80. Unforgiveable, in my book.
If there's an earthquake promised, the ground better by god be shaking
before the end of Chapter 1 or I'm moving on.
Lots42
Scott Peterson wrote:
> There was a series of 4 or 5 books released when the DOOM computer
> game was popular using the game as a theme. These were bad beyond
> anything I've ever read before or since.
Four.
The last two were hideous awfulness.
But I liked the first two. They were good 'popcorn' books. My favorite
part is how the guy and the gal had -no- sexual tension whatsoever.
They were, astonishingly enough, just good friends. A rare plot thread
like that needs encouragement and support, like a fat tightrope walker.
James Nicoll
Tina Hall <Tina...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>> Onyxhawke <onyx...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> For me, much as i loath Jordan and Martin and don't have much
>>> use for Tolkein...
>
>> One of those is not like the others.
>
>So Tolkien was printed much earlier. Doesn't automatically make it
>better or worse.
>
><snip>
No, but both Martin and Tolkien appear to me to be more ambitious
in their goals than Jordan.
>> Problem is there are many ways a book can be bad and I'm torn
>> between the horrible science and pompous forword of CLASHING SUN
>> or the trite story telling of THE SPACE EGG or "How can 800 pages
>> go by without ever going near a plot" of the entire genre of
>> fantasy-by-sections.
>
>What's 'fantasy-by-sections'?
800 page installments of a 8000 page book, with nothing being
resolved in the 800 pages and the possibility that the author will die
or the series will be cancelled before the end.
>> One current trend in fantasy I don't like is length. Long almost
>> never fixes bad but it can give bad more opportunities to occur.
>
>Short doesn't give an opportunity for good to occur.
You'd be surprised at how good some of the short novels of
the past could be. You in general, not you-Tina.
>> Mack Reynolds' EQUALITY: IN THE YEAR 2000 had current day (for
>> when it was written) and futuristic stuff. The current day
>> material was based on Reynolds' own travels and was interesting.
>> Unfortunately, the future was a utopia so nothing was allowed to
>> happen [...]
>
>Utopia is no excuse; you could always have some 'unfortune' intrude
>from outside... Like spacefaring humans descending onto happy aliens
>(recurring event in Star Trek, except the bad guys never get
>beaten).
Or there's the Kim Stanley Robinson solution, where the crisis
is somethign that has nothing to do with the utopian aspects of the book.
It doesn't matter how nice the economy is if, for example, the big problem
is the protagonist's love life falling apart.
>> Since both sections were in the same book, the shortcomings of the
>> futuristic sections were made more glaring by their absence from
>> the past sections.
>
>I don't understand that. Did the story happen in two different
>times?
>
Yes, that is what I meant by current day and futuristic stuff.
Basic plot: sick man is put in cold sleep in 1970 or so.
He wakes up in 2000. The future is a non-Soviet style communist utopia*,
with added lectures about how wonderful things are now**. The book contrasts
the Glorious Shiny Future with the Horrible Horrible Past. Unfortunately,
the Glorious Shiny Future is dull as hell and the Horrible Horrible Past,
while Horrible, is at least interesting.
James Nicoll
* Reynolds being one of a very few socialists who regularly appeared in
ANALOG. Since he was the sort of man who'd sneak across a heavily guarded
border to satisfy his curiousity, he took a very dim very of Soviet
Communism.
** The only group I have ever seen that could drone on longer than
utopians about how superior their system is to others is Canadians.
Lots42
Liz Broadwell wrote:
> I have a much better recall for
> "disappointing" books -- you know, the ones that seduce you into reading
> them right through by having an element or three of interest, and then
> failing miserably to capitalize on them.
Or worse, completely destroying the elements of interested.
A series of books, name and title escape me, involve a group of
fantasy, sci-fi and 'modern surburbia' characters being thrown hither
and yon through space time.
It had many fantastic elements, such as the long-term negotiations
between the spacemen and the fantasy guys. (Just to say 'Hello, how are
you', involved a three day walk).
But in the end, everything went to hell. Characters went batshit insane
simply for an excuse to slaughter them out of the plot. Plot threads
through all the books were dumped. The explanation? "Oh, the hoped for
MacGuffin never would have worked anyway, the characters were simply
believing in a lie. Haw haw."
It was as if the author had an angry, spiteful ex-wife who took over
for the last book and wrote the crappiest crap possible, simply to
'get' the ex-husband.
Lots42
Michael Urban wrote:
> Weis & Hickman's first "Dragonlance" book, whose title eludes me, and
> is not worth the trouble of a Google search.
Past the first trilogy, the Dragonlance titles increase in quality,
then they drop off dramatically.
My recommendation is to go by publication dates, then quit reading once
the original trilogy characters start popping out spawn.
Caleb N. Diffell
>** He noticed that (wossname the publisher) had managed to let Lord of
>the Rings slip out of copyright in the US so he published an unauthorised
>mass market paperback edition. Since it was out of copyright, he initially
>did not give JRRT any money. Surprisingly, this turned out to be a PR
>disaster.
I have a 70's-era paperback copy of _The Hobbit_ (maybe by Baen Books?
Can't remember) that has a blurb by JRRT on the back that says
something to the effect of "...this edition, and no other, has been
authorized for publication by the author. Those with respect for living
authors (at least) will purchase it, and no other." I kinda figured
something like the above had happened to prompt this.
Nancy Lebovitz
Peter Meilinger <mell...@bu.edu> wrote:
>Mike Van Pelt <m...@web1.calweb.com> wrote:
>
>>The worst book I ever finished was David Palmer's
>>"Threshold." Just plain horrible on just about every
>>level, in a bad fanfic sort of way. (Well, minus the
>>grammar and spelling problems of bad, bad fanfic, and
>>it was, of course, typeset, not written in multiple
>>colors of felt pen on lined paper.)
>
>>I only finished it because "Emergence" was so wonderful,
>>I couldn't believe the same author could write something
>>so relentlessly fetid.
>
>As yet more proof that Tastes Vary (tm), I'd probably
>switch those paragraphs around. Threshold was dumb
>pulp but I enjoyed it well enough. I'm quite sure
>I'm remembering the good parts (The monsters, mainly.
>I like monsters) more than the bad (The preachiness,
>mainly. Especially the "I'm a human. I don't despair.
>I GET ANGRY!!!")
>
across an alien planet while throwing telekinetic lightning bolts
at a pursuing dragon isn't all bad.
--
Nancy Lebovitz http://www.nancybuttons.com
http://livejournal.com/users/nancylebov
My two favorite colors are "Oooooh" and "SHINY!".
Mike Schilling
"James Nicoll" <jdni...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:ddd0qe$o31$1...@reader2.panix.com...
> In article <MSGID_2=3A240=2F2199.13=40fidonet...@fidonet.org>,
> Tina Hall <Tina...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>>James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>>> Onyxhawke <onyx...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>> For me, much as i loath Jordan and Martin and don't have much
>>>> use for Tolkein...
>>
>>> One of those is not like the others.
>>
>>So Tolkien was printed much earlier. Doesn't automatically make it
>>better or worse.
>>
>><snip>
>
> No, but both Martin and Tolkien appear to me to be more ambitious
> in their goals than Jordan.
Creating a perpetual motion money machine isn't ambitious?
Caleb N. Diffell
_The Hall of the Dragon King_, _The Warlords of Nin_, _The Sword and
the Flame_.
Had they been marketed toward adolescents only (i.e. ages 10-15), that
would've been more appropriate. I remember enjoying them when I was
around 11 or 12 (but the third one was a definite step down in quality
compared to the first two), but the writing certainly won't hold much
interest for adults. One of Lawhead's problems is his poetry/songs.
They are almost all uniformly bad, throughout all of his books. While
his writing can sometimes be decent (see below), he has a tin ear for
poems and songs that causes me to cringe when I turn the page and see
stanzas coming.
All of Lawhead's books are regrettably like that, with the notable
exception of the _Taliesin_, _Merlin_, and _Arthur_ trilogy which is
actually quite good and well written (and the poetry wasn't too, too
bad). _Pendragon_ and _Grail_ were lousy. Lawhead's _Albion_ trilogy
was crummy, too. The first book wasn't too bad, but the next two were
very poor. I've not read much of his newer _Celtic Crusades_ stuff, but
the one about Aiden the monk's journeys in the Mediterranean wasn't too
great either. I remember liking his scifi "duology" when I was a
youngster.
Mike Schilling
"Caleb N. Diffell" <cdif...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1123682109.2...@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> >James Nicoll wrote:
>>** He noticed that (wossname the publisher) had managed to let Lord of
>>the Rings slip out of copyright in the US so he published an unauthorised
>>mass market paperback edition. Since it was out of copyright, he initially
>>did not give JRRT any money. Surprisingly, this turned out to be a PR
>>disaster.
>
> I have a 70's-era paperback copy of _The Hobbit_ (maybe by Baen Books?
> Can't remember)
Ballantine.
> that has a blurb by JRRT on the back that says
> something to the effect of "...this edition, and no other, has been
> authorized for publication by the author. Those with respect for living
> authors (at least) will purchase it, and no other." I kinda figured
> something like the above had happened to prompt this.
The unauthorized (pirated is such a judgmental word) edition was Ace.
James Nicoll
Caleb N. Diffell <cdif...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>James Nicoll wrote:
>>** He noticed that (wossname the publisher) had managed to let Lord of
>>the Rings slip out of copyright in the US so he published an unauthorised
>>mass market paperback edition. Since it was out of copyright, he initially
>>did not give JRRT any money. Surprisingly, this turned out to be a PR
>>disaster.
>
>I have a 70's-era paperback copy of _The Hobbit_ (maybe by Baen Books?
Ballantine, I belive.
This is not a put-down: by any chance are you are, hrm, 25 or
younger?
A geezer who grew up reading SF in the 1970s would have a
good chance of having encountered GALAXY MAGAZINE when Jim Baen
was editing it with a keen eye and enough money to buy a two-four
once a month, as long as it wasn't a premium brand. They'd then
probably have followed him to ACE, where he reprinted a lot of
Good Old Stuff (like some solid Poul Anderson, right in the middle
of my Read All Anderson phase and almost all of HB Beam Piper) and
some Good New Stuff, then followed him to Tor and then followed him
to Baen Books in 1983, at which point he was killed and replaced
by his evil twin Jim* who set out to convince me to stop buying his
books with Stupid Publisher Tricks like new titles for old books
without any indication that the book was old. By me, I mean me
in the general sense.
Before GALAXY, he was with Ace. Wikipedia claims he was
in the complaints department, which I never heard before now,
and also the gothic department.
>Can't remember) that has a blurb by JRRT on the back that says
>something to the effect of "...this edition, and no other, has been
>authorized for publication by the author. Those with respect for living
>authors (at least) will purchase it, and no other." I kinda figured
>something like the above had happened to prompt this.
Yepper.
Caleb N. Diffell
> >I have a 70's-era paperback copy of _The Hobbit_ (maybe by Baen Books?
>
> Ballantine, I belive.
Ah, yes. I remembered "B" on the spine but couldn't think of Ballantine
for some reason.
>
> This is not a put-down: by any chance are you are, hrm, 25 or
> younger?
>
Close, 28. I'm not really knowledgeable about the "behind the scenes"
of the SF publishing industry, even modern-day. I tend to pay close
attention to authors, but not to publishers, so the concept of
"following" a person through the publishing industry because I like
what they choose to publish is pretty foreign to me (but I can see how
it would help to find someone with tastes similar to my own and then
simply try what they publish).
My copy of _The Hobbit_ was my dad's old tattered paperback that I read
probably sometime around 1988.
Michael S. Schiffer
news:ddcsa7$jpd$1...@reader2.panix.com:
>...
> ** He noticed that (wossname the publisher) had managed to let
> Lord of the Rings slip out of copyright in the US so he
> published an unauthorised mass market paperback edition. Since
> it was out of copyright, he initially did not give JRRT any
> money. Surprisingly, this turned out to be a PR disaster.
Though Tolkien and his publishers didn't become interested in
producing a paperback (Tolkien has a line in his letters about
disliking "Penguins and Puffins and their softshelled kin", or
something to that effect) until they had to provide an alternative to
Ace's. The end result was certainly a net benefit for the potential
audience, and likely for Tolkien's bottom line. (Not that this
justifies what Ace did-- if you trip someone and they fall onto a
pile of money, it still wasn't a nice thing to do.)
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS
msch...@condor.depaul.edu
James Nicoll
Michael S. Schiffer <msch...@condor.depaul.edu> wrote:
>jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote in
>news:ddcsa7$jpd$1...@reader2.panix.com:
>>...
>> ** He noticed that (wossname the publisher) had managed to let
>> Lord of the Rings slip out of copyright in the US so he
>> published an unauthorised mass market paperback edition. Since
>> it was out of copyright, he initially did not give JRRT any
>> money. Surprisingly, this turned out to be a PR disaster.
>>...
>
>Though Tolkien and his publishers didn't become interested in
>producing a paperback (Tolkien has a line in his letters about
>disliking "Penguins and Puffins and their softshelled kin", or
>something to that effect) until they had to provide an alternative to
>Ace's.
I thought it was mostly the publisher who wasn't interested
in MMPK?
Kind of like how Scribners was not all that interested in
MMPK editions of the RAH YAs, since they (apparently) saw them as
competing products.
James Nicoll
>> This is not a put-down: by any chance are you are, hrm, 25 or
>> younger?
>>
>
>Close, 28. I'm not really knowledgeable about the "behind the scenes"
>of the SF publishing industry, even modern-day. I tend to pay close
>attention to authors, but not to publishers, so the concept of
>"following" a person through the publishing industry because I like
>what they choose to publish is pretty foreign to me (but I can see how
>it would help to find someone with tastes similar to my own and then
>simply try what they publish).
>
That means you were about six when Jim Baen began Baen Books,
putting it in the Always Around catagory for you, the same way DAW
(founded 1971, when I was ten) is for me.
Generally, handicapping editors isn't that hard because most
SF lines, with one glaring exception, only have one or two editors
at any given time. You read Baen, you're dealing (mostly) with Jim Baen's
tastes. Ace is Ginjer Buchanan. You read DAW and it's (I think still)
Betsy Wollheim and Sheila Gilbert (?). Del Rey used to be Lester I
Have a Lot of Made Up Middle Names del Rey and his wife Judy-Lynn.
Tor is the hard one. They employ a lot of editors, whose
tastes vary. They don't always indicate who has edited what (on
the choice of the editor*, I think) so editor stalking can be more
difficult with Tor. Ear-tagging works but is rather surprisingly
illegal.
James Nicoll
* It's an all or nothing deal, I think. They cannot chose to be credited
on SPENDID NOVEL OF IMAGINATION AND CLEAN PROSE and not on SOME BOOKS YOU
PRINT FOR THE MONEY.
If I recall the comments of [NAME WITHHELD at Avon] about
[TITLE WITHHELD] by [AN AUTHOR WHOSE SHOULD BE BEATEN WITH STEEL
PIPES FOR PLAGARIZING DAVID LANGFORD], there are authors who have
what we call "easily hurt feelings" and I imagine, speaking here in
a theoretical sense, some authors would be hurt if their editor
decided to withhold their name on that particular author's books.
ruth
Sea Wasp <seawasp...@obvioussgeinc.com> wrote:
I have read (parts of) VAN GOGH IN
> SPACE ! ! !
Oh My. That is a truly terrible idea. I think I love it.
--
Anthony Nance
Onyxhawke <onyx...@gmail.com> wrote:
>For me, much as i loath Jordan and Martin and don't have much use for
>Tolkein...
>
>had the misfortune to run my eyes over.
>
Welllllll, unfortunately, it took me a while to learn that I really
don't have to read all the books in a series.
So I've read _Heretics Of Dune_ (aka My Own Private Duncan Idaho).
and _Chapterhouse Dune_. Although they have blurred together in
my head, I can't outright forget them. I can't say which is worse,
but I can say that they're both terrible.
Also, unfortunately, my timeline is one in which sequels to
_Rendezvous with Rama_ were written. Worse is the fact that
I've read these sequels. They were terrible, but, slowly,
I forget them more and more as time goes by.
Tony
Justin Bacon
James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <1123644185.8...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>,
> Onyxhawke <onyx...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >For me, much as i loath Jordan and Martin and don't have much use for
> >Tolkein...
>
Frankly, viewed from anything other than a gross "they're fantasy" POV,
none of those are like the others.
> 1: At least one utopia had a long section on automated laundry. I thought
> that was funny as a kid but as an adult, I think the washer/dryer was
> one of the great liberating inventions of modern time.
The importance of the washer, the dryer, and toilet paper are vastly
undervalued by those who possess them.
--
Justin Alexander Bacon
http://www.thealexandrian.net
art...@yahoo.com
>I finished that one - eventually. Unlike Cyteen, which I believe is the
>most tendentious pile of dull dreck ever written by an author who's won
>major awards.
I suspect Greg Bear has won some major awards. I just hope that
Darwin's Radio didn't win any. Did Blood Music win anything? I found
that book rather annoying.
Then there is "The White Plague" by Herbert, who must have won many
awards. The White Plague isn't a bad book for those who know nothing
about biology. (knowing nothing about biology isn't going to help with
Darwins' radio, which is one of those books in which you are
disappointed that the protagonists are still alive by page 50.....
r.r...@thevine.net
>Pete Fenelon <pe...@fenelon.com> wrote in news:2c8cdd...@fenelon.com:
>
>> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>>> It's always such a personal decision. But for me, C.J. Cherryh's
>>> _Downbelow Station_ is the worst SF book I've read half of.
>>
>> I finished that one - eventually. Unlike Cyteen, which I believe is the
>> most tendentious pile of dull dreck ever written by an author who's won
>> major awards.
>
>Thank you. While I did not truly hate Cyteen I didn't like it and thought
>it was incredibly tedious and cannot understand why it is so highly
>praised. It feels good to her someone else say so. :)
>
>Mike
>
>>
>> I've read worse pulp SF - the kind of stuff that *knew* it was crap -
>> but Cyteen seemed to think it was an Important Novel. The characters
>> were cardboard, the plot incomprehensible where it wasn't predictable,
>> and the writing flat and pretentious. I bounced off it four times and
>> decided it wasn't worth trying again.
>>
I'm a big Cherryh fan, and I find _Cyteen_ important, but unlikable.
I'm glad to have read it once, so that I can start fitting the Union
worldview into my evolving picture of what's really going on in the
Alliance/Union universe. But as a book, it doesn't thrill me.
Rebecca
Konrad Gaertner
>
> I have a 70's-era paperback copy of _The Hobbit_ (maybe by Baen Books?
> Can't remember) that has a blurb by JRRT on the back that says
> something to the effect of "...this edition, and no other, has been
> authorized for publication by the author. Those with respect for living
> authors (at least) will purchase it, and no other." I kinda figured
> something like the above had happened to prompt this.
Were there unauthorized editions of _The Hobbit_ too?
--
Konrad Gaertner - - - - - - - - - - - email: gae...@aol.com
http://www.livejournal.com/users/kgbooklog/
Justin Bacon
Sea Wasp wrote:
> Nothing I have seen published by a commercial,
> understands-how-to-make-profits publisher matches the depths to which
> self-published material can sink. I have read (parts of) VAN GOGH IN
> SPACE ! ! !, and I assure you, nothing you've ever read approaches
> this. It makes Eye of Argon look good. The only thing I've seen which
> competes with it (in terms of WRITTEN bad) is bad, bad fanfic and the
> notorious _Night Travels of the Elven Vampire_. To give you an idea of
> how bad these things are, think of the Star Wars Holiday Special.
Yeaaarrghhh...
I'm going to be drooling out the side of my mouth for the rest of the
day.
Christopher J. Henrich
wrote:
> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
> > It's always such a personal decision. But for me, C.J. Cherryh's
> > _Downbelow Station_ is the worst SF book I've read half of.
>
> I finished that one - eventually. Unlike Cyteen, which I believe is the
> most tendentious pile of dull dreck ever written by an author who's won
> major awards.
>
> I've read worse pulp SF - the kind of stuff that *knew* it was crap -
> but Cyteen seemed to think it was an Important Novel. The characters
> were cardboard, the plot incomprehensible where it wasn't predictable,
> and the writing flat and pretentious. I bounced off it four times and
> decided it wasn't worth trying again.
>
Most of the postings on this thread seem to be about books in which the
author tried to tell an interesting story but failed, at least for the
posters.
There is a deeper level of depravity: books in which the author tries
/not/ to tell an interesting story and succeeds all too well. Barry
Malzberg, in _Beyond_ _Apollo_ , tried to make the exploration of space
into an occasion of nasty tedium. Brian Aldiss, in _Report_ _from_
_Probability_ _A_, did his best to have no recognizable narrative at
all.
Pehaps I am being unfair. I do not recall if I finished _Beyond_
_Apollo_, and I know I bounced off the Aldiss after no more than twenty
pages. But if a sample of food has gone rotten, you usually don't have
to eat the whole thing to know this.
--
Chris Henrich
http://www.mathinteract.com
Yes, one can rant about the program designs, but generally things keep getting
more and more confused as time goes on. --Sea Wasp
ruth
"art...@yahoo.com" <art...@yahoo.com> wrote:
hmmmm.....My biology student kid enjoyed Darwin's Radio quite a bit. Is
it totally implausible? I liked it a lot better than the sequel which
made me want to throw things.
--
Dorothy J Heydt
James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>>
> That means you were about six when Jim Baen began Baen Books,
Interesting way of looking at it. Now, in my tender youth it was
Ballantine, who were (unless you count Gnome Press) the only SF
publishers there were.
And their paperbacks cost a quarter, which lets you know how long
ago it was.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
Dorothy J Heydt
Konrad Gaertner <gae...@aol.com> wrote:
>"Caleb N. Diffell" wrote:
>>
>> I have a 70's-era paperback copy of _The Hobbit_ (maybe by Baen Books?
>> Can't remember) that has a blurb by JRRT on the back that says
>> something to the effect of "...this edition, and no other, has been
>> authorized for publication by the author. Those with respect for living
>> authors (at least) will purchase it, and no other." I kinda figured
>> something like the above had happened to prompt this.
>
>Were there unauthorized editions of _The Hobbit_ too?
No. Ballantine put that disclaimer on all its Tolkien works
during that period.
Richard R. Hershberger
Liz Broadwell wrote:
> On 9 Aug 2005 20:23:05 -0700, Onyxhawke <onyx...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >Dennis McKeirnan's "Iron Tower" has got to be the worst thing i've ever
> >had the misfortune to run my eyes over.
>
> _Shannara_ series, I always wondered why the Tolkien estate didn't sue
> both guys for plagiarism. Ditto whoever owns the rights to _Forbidden
> Planet_ suing Michael Crichton over _Sphere_, which is right up (or down)
> there among the ten most annoying SF books I've ever read.
I am long past feeling any obligation to finish a bad book just to see
if it gets better. But from my younger and stupider days the first
Shannara book certainly qualifies as one of the worst I have read to
completion. I swore to never send any money Brooks's way, even
indirectly by checking his books out of the library. I have heard that
he got better, but I have stood firm. (My other candidate for worst
book/series is the first Thomas Covenant trilogy. I haven't look at
any of the later books.)
Richard R. Hershberger
Liz Broadwell
<jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
> Tor is the hard one. They employ a lot of editors, whose
>tastes vary. They don't always indicate who has edited what (on
>the choice of the editor*, I think) so editor stalking can be more
>difficult with Tor. Ear-tagging works but is rather surprisingly
>illegal.
Still? Didn't the U.S. House of Representatives manage to get it into the
latest recension of the USA PATRIOT Act, or am I confusing it with the
muzzles-for-librarians provision?
Peace,
Liz
--
Liz Broadwell (username-in-header at orphco dot org), Charter Orphan
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
"The Wizarding world is noticeably backwards in its approach to, well,
just about everything that isn't Wizardry. Which is actually plausible,
given how useful Wizardry seems to be for lots of things the rest of us
have had to resort to Extreme Cleverness for." -- John Schilling,
r.a.sf.w, 7/25/05
art...@yahoo.com
>hmmmm.....My biology student kid enjoyed Darwin's Radio quite a bit. Is
>it totally implausible? I liked it a lot better than the sequel which
>made me want to throw things.
Blood Music, but the writing did. (perhaps I just stopped caring when
they got to the major biological revelations) The biology of Darwin's
Radio has bothered others on this newsgroup, judging from previous
posts on this books.
James Nicoll
Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>In article <ddd4ej$hiv$1...@reader2.panix.com>,
>James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>>>
>> That means you were about six when Jim Baen began Baen Books,
>>putting it in the Always Around category for you, the same way DAW
>>(founded 1971, when I was ten) is for me.
>
>Interesting way of looking at it. Now, in my tender youth it was
>Ballantine, who were (unless you count Gnome Press) the only SF
>publishers there were.
>
>And their paperbacks cost a quarter, which lets you know how long
>ago it was.
I was at someone's summer cottage last year and I found an
ancient copy of Buck's THE GOOD EARTH, which I think was the first
modern MMPK in the US. A little history in the palm of my hand...
Jeffs
> Also, unfortunately, my timeline is one in which sequels to
> _Rendezvous with Rama_ were written. Worse is the fact that
> I've read these sequels.
Those certainly qualify as the worst books I've ever finished (though
_Richter 10_ is also on the list...why, why, WHY does Clarke allow such
tripe to be written with his name on the cover??? It's not like he
needs the money or the publicity).
However, there is one book that was far worse: _Assemblers of
Infinity_ (I think), by Kevin Anderson and somebody. In the prolog, a
supposedly brilliant engineer sees his partner killed by a mysterious
accident. His reaction? He does the same thing his partner does and,
surprise, gets killed in the same way. I threw the book across the
room and didn't bother reading any further.
Jeffs
Chuk Goodin
>> It's always such a personal decision. But for me, C.J. Cherryh's
>> _Downbelow Station_ is the worst SF book I've read half of.
>
I'd say it, but I don't think I made it to halfway. Pretty boring, but
her "Lois and Clark" book was good.
--
chuk
James Nicoll
>James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>>>
>> That means you were about six when Jim Baen began Baen Books,
>>putting it in the Always Around category for you, the same way DAW
>>(founded 1971, when I was ten) is for me.
>
>Interesting way of looking at it.
One of many tricks I use to orient myself in history. I was
a bit surprised when I realized that WWII was only about as far
before my birth as, eg, we are now from the Free Trade Agreement.
(I was born, for example, closer to the beginning of NorAm
SF than to the present, so for me people like Jack Williamson and
Leigh Brackett are beings who still had active careers when I noticed
SF. Maybe Williamson is a bad example).
Because of my age, only important to me, I think of publishers
like DAW, Bantam, Avon, Ballantine and so on as ancient and established
concerns, where Del Rey, Tor and Baen are to me young up and comers with
a lot of promise.
Bill Snyder
I would have said that the pod in the Baen Basement didn't hatch until
a few years later. And he wasn't the only one doing the re title
trick. (And in fairness, sometimes the author of a reprint -- quite
reasonably, if he assigned little weight to the reader-confusion
factor -- really, really wanted his "real" title instead of the one
the original pb publisher had stuck on it. I mean, if you were Poul
Anderson, would you prefer to be known as the author of _The Man Who
Counts_ or _War of the Wing-Men_? _A Twelvemonth and a Day_ or _Let
the Spacemen Beware!_?)
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank.]
Liz Broadwell
I found that on a "here, take this book" table recently and spent about
fifteen minutes laughing hysterically at the incongruity -- not of Cherryh
writing a media tie-in per se, but of Cherryh writing a _Lois and Clark_
media tie-in. (Sort of like finding Anne McCaffrey doing a _Rat Patrol_
novel.) I read it and found it engaging enough to keep[*], mostly because
it did the thing that the superhero media tie-ins I enjoy most do:
figuring and laying out how the mundane details of being a superhero,
using superheroic powers, or doing the superhero's secret-identity job
might (conceivably) work. (Diane Duane's media-tie-ins are good at this,
too.) The Cherryh falls kind of flat at the end after a good beginning
and reasonable middle -- I had the impression that she was working against
a hard page-count and possibly also kicking a bit at not being able to
write anything that would muck with the t.v. series continuity.
Peace,
Liz
[*]Although I ditched the dust jacket, which I don't normally do. But the
half-naked actors staring at me every time I took the book off the shelf
gave me the creeps.
James Nicoll
You may well be right. It was a generation ago, after all.
He also did more, hrm, Dull With Good Intentions books
back then, pro-space developement stuff like Kotani's SF. I think
he has entirely abandoned that subgenre.
BTW, if you ever get the chance to see Kotani speak under
his real named (Yoji Kondo), do so.
> And he wasn't the only one doing the re title
>trick. (And in fairness, sometimes the author of a reprint -- quite
>reasonably, if he assigned little weight to the reader-confusion
>factor -- really, really wanted his "real" title instead of the one
>the original pb publisher had stuck on it. I mean, if you were Poul
>Anderson, would you prefer to be known as the author of _The Man Who
>Counts_ or _War of the Wing-Men_? _A Twelvemonth and a Day_ or _Let
>the Spacemen Beware!_?)
I think you mean THE NIGHT FACE. "A Twelvemonth and a Day" is
the title of the original novelette.
Fine. Make me go check something.
[sf/x footsteps up and down the stairs to the SF annex of the
library]
Both of those were renamed during Baen's _Ace_ days (actually,
THE NIGHT FACE may have been renamed by Gregg Press [1]) and my copies
make it very clear what the previous titles were.
I don't object to retitling. I just want that to be indicated
somewhere, as a supertitle on the cover or in the copyright statement.
1: Nope: The introduction to TNF says in part:
"My thanks to Jim Baen, now in charge, for recognizing that
readers have more intelligence than they were once given credit
for having. In return, I admit that he is probably right in considering
the original name too cumbersome; hence the new one."
Joseph T Major
>On 9 Aug 2005 20:23:05 -0700, Onyxhawke <onyx...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Dennis McKeirnan's "Iron Tower" has got to be the worst thing i've ever
>>had the misfortune to run my eyes over.
>>
>>
>
>As a small person reading it and the first of Terry Brooks's neverending
>_Shannara_ series, I always wondered why the Tolkien estate didn't sue
>both guys for plagiarism.
>
You did know that McKiernan had originally written a sequel to
_LotR_? The Estate refused to release the rights, so he had to paint
over all the specific names (ISTR the "dwarrows" were originally
hobbits) and he had to write a prequel to his book.
The _Shannara_ books were incited and encouraged by Lester del Rey,
who in the history of SF he brought out in 1976 listed the first book as
one of the greatest of the era. Most important, I'd concede. But
"greatest" is quite a different value judgement. _SoS_ (and note the
similarity to what sailors called one of the "foods" they got at mess)
heralded the era of Extruded Fantasy Product (I really think "Processed
Fantasy Product", in the same vein as "Processed Cheese Product", is
more appropriate, but . . .). Lin Carter, who could tell a good book
but not always a bad one (particularly when he'd written them), declared
_SoS_ the worst book of the year. Carter had brought a lot of good old
fantasy novels out in paperback in the seventies, so he may have had a
point..
> Ditto whoever owns the rights to _Forbidden
>Planet_ suing Michael Crichton over _Sphere_, which is right up (or down)
>there among the ten most annoying SF books I've ever read.
>
>
But maister Will: Shakspur is no longer among ye livynge.
Joseph T Major
leoch...@gmail.com
David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
> "Onyxhawke" <onyx...@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > For me, much as i loath Jordan and Martin and don't have much use for
> > Tolkein...
> >
> > had the misfortune to run my eyes over.
>
> _Downbelow Station_ is the worst SF book I've read half of.
I don't know. Heavy Time was worse, IMO.
Although admittedly, I'm only halfway through Downbelow Station myself,
right now. And have been halfway through for coming up on a month.
Leo
leoch...@gmail.com
Onyxhawke wrote:
> For me, much as i loath Jordan and Martin and don't have much use for
> Tolkein...
>
> Dennis McKeirnan's "Iron Tower" has got to be the worst thing i've ever
> had the misfortune to run my eyes over.
One word: Gor.
Although Travis Taylor is pretty awful, too.
Leo
Bill Snyder
Nicoll) wrote:
>In article <cgakf1hodur4tdmmo...@4ax.com>,
>Bill Snyder <bsn...@airmail.net> wrote:
>> And [Baen] wasn't the only one doing the re title
>>trick. (And in fairness, sometimes the author of a reprint -- quite
>>reasonably, if he assigned little weight to the reader-confusion
>>factor -- really, really wanted his "real" title instead of the one
>>the original pb publisher had stuck on it. I mean, if you were Poul
>>Anderson, would you prefer to be known as the author of _The Man Who
>>Counts_ or _War of the Wing-Men_? _A Twelvemonth and a Day_ or _Let
>>the Spacemen Beware!_?)
>
> I think you mean THE NIGHT FACE. "A Twelvemonth and a Day" is
>the title of the original novelette.
Blah. Yes, of course. I actually had a vague "something isn't quite
right here" twinge while typing that, but couldn't seem to pin it
down; obviously my Senior Moment Warning synapses are as yet not fully
operational.
> Fine. Make me go check something.
>
> [sf/x footsteps up and down the stairs to the SF annex of the
>library]
>
> Both of those were renamed during Baen's _Ace_ days (actually,
>THE NIGHT FACE may have been renamed by Gregg Press [1]) and my copies
>make it very clear what the previous titles were.
Thanks, and Double blah. Missed that one entirely.
James Nicoll
I ran across a terrible SF book in the mid-1990s where someone
had taken a bad story along the lines of an inferior James Clavell
novel set along the Chinese coast, done a S&R to replace the 19th
century props with SF props and then changed nothing else, including
the 19th century sailors' jargon. I am fairly certain that caused
lesions to form on my brain.
Liz Broadwell
>Liz Broadwell wrote:
>>
>>As a small person reading it and the first of Terry Brooks's neverending
>>_Shannara_ series, I always wondered why the Tolkien estate didn't sue
>>both guys for plagiarism.
>>
> You did know that McKiernan had originally written a sequel to
>_LotR_? The Estate refused to release the rights, so he had to paint
>over all the specific names (ISTR the "dwarrows" were originally
>hobbits) and he had to write a prequel to his book.
Yes, I heard about this many-several years after I read the books. I
don't know much about copyright law, but it always struck me as odd that
just "painting over the names" was enough to avoid trouble with the
Tolkien estate. (I also amused one of my h.s. English teachers by writing
an essay which made a point-for-point comparison between LOTR and _The
Sword of Shannara_ to show that the latter was clearly derived from the
former. I believe his reaction was something like, "So?" -- which at the
time I thought was lame, but many-several years of lit-crit training later
strikes me as an awfully good question. Answering it, however, would
require me to reread _The Sword of Shannara_, which I am unwilling to do.)
>> Ditto whoever owns the rights to _Forbidden
>>Planet_ suing Michael Crichton over _Sphere_, which is right up (or down)
>>there among the ten most annoying SF books I've ever read.
>>
> But maister Will: Shakspur is no longer among ye livynge.
I'm pretty sure Master Shakespeare's _Tempest_ didn't feature monsters
from the id being released by humans meddling with a piece of technology
built by an alien species. :-p
Peace,
Liz "I've read William Shakespeare, and you, Mr. Crichton ... " B.
Tina Hall
> Butch Malahide <fred....@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Could you please give a little more information about CLASHING
>> SUNS, like, say, who wrote it? Is it in print? Thanks.
> That shoudl be CRASHING SUNS. I've corrected my error.
And kindly added a typo for compensating meddling with the quotes.
Very nicely done. :)
> CRASHING SUNS is set 100,000 years from now***.
> In the first story, aliens are steering their sun towards ours
> so that they can ram ours and rekindle their clinker of a star
> (Hamilton used the "Stars start off hot and slowly cool off"
> model). Humans have just developed FTL so we go out to see why
> this star is headed towards us. In the end, the aliens are
> exterminated with their own star-steering device.
<snip further examples>
> This only gives a taste of how horrid the science in this is in
> terms of the time it was written.
It's the kind of science that I'd call proper Science _Fiction_. I'd
like that kind of stuff, if the story itself weren't horrid, about
exterminating all those hapless aliens.
> Yes, the Bethe Cycle wasn't understood until the end of the decade
> but people knew comets weren't bigger than galaxies. Also, ether
> seems to have been the 1930s version of quantum: it can do
> anything.
Ether sounds more interesting than quantum; magic rather than
physic. (Neither terms tells me much.)
But this reminds me, is there another definition for 'entropy'
besides: "(Physics) a quantity expressing how much of a system's
thermal energy is unavailable for conversion into mechanical work. -
Origin: Greek <skip word> 'transformation'"?
Because the way people use the word doesn't match this. They use it
as if it's some social situation of a culture, and not a quantity at
all, never mind anything to do with physics.
<snip>
--
Tina
No internet access.
### XP v3.40 RC3 ###
Mike Schilling
"Anthony Nance" <na...@math.ohio-state.edu> wrote in message
news:ddd5t4$mfu$1...@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu...
> So I've read _Heretics Of Dune_ (aka My Own Private Duncan Idaho).
Perfect.
Mike Schilling
"Bill Snyder" <bsn...@airmail.net> wrote in message
news:cgakf1hodur4tdmmo...@4ax.com...
> And in fairness, sometimes the author of a reprint -- quite
> reasonably, if he assigned little weight to the reader-confusion
> factor -- really, really wanted his "real" title instead of the one
> the original pb publisher had stuck on it. I mean, if you were Poul
> Anderson, would you prefer to be known as the author of _The Man Who
> Counts_ or _War of the Wing-Men_? _A Twelvemonth and a Day_ or _Let
> the Spacemen Beware!_?)
There's a lot of this in the VIE: _To Live Again_ became _Clarges_, _The
Dying Earth_ became _Maizarin the Magician_, _Eyes of the Overworld_ became
_Cugel the Clever_, etc. The changed titles are on the whole weaker, IMHO,
but it was not my decision.
Dorothy J Heydt
Richard R. Hershberger <rrh...@acme.com> wrote:
>
>I am long past feeling any obligation to finish a bad book just to see
>if it gets better.
I'm at the next stage beyond that: I don't feel any obligation to
finish a good book if I don't like it. It can be well-written,
well-thought-out, well-characterized, but if it makes my skin
crawl, by the Great Horn Spoon I'm not gonna finish it. G. R. R.
Martin, e.g.
Dorothy J Heydt
Liz Broadwell <ebro...@see-below-in.sig.thanks> wrote:
>On Wed, 10 Aug 2005 12:50:46 -0400, Joseph T Major <jtm...@iglou.com> wrote:
>>Liz Broadwell wrote:
>
>>> Ditto whoever owns the rights to _Forbidden
>>>Planet_ suing Michael Crichton over _Sphere_, which is right up (or down)
>>>there among the ten most annoying SF books I've ever read.
>>>
>> But maister Will: Shakspur is no longer among ye livynge.
>
>I'm pretty sure Master Shakespeare's _Tempest_ didn't feature monsters
>from the id being released by humans meddling with a piece of technology
>built by an alien species. :-p
No, but it did feature the monster Caliban, who certainly
followed the beck and call of his own Id wherever it led.
No 33 Secretary
news:slrndfkffr....@pobox.upenn.edu:
> On Wed, 10 Aug 2005 12:50:46 -0400, Joseph T Major <jtm...@iglou.com>
> wrote:
>>Liz Broadwell wrote:
>>>
>>>As a small person reading it and the first of Terry Brooks's
>>>neverending _Shannara_ series, I always wondered why the Tolkien
>>>estate didn't sue both guys for plagiarism.
>>>
>> You did know that McKiernan had originally written a sequel to
>>_LotR_? The Estate refused to release the rights, so he had to paint
>>over all the specific names (ISTR the "dwarrows" were originally
>>hobbits) and he had to write a prequel to his book.
>
> Yes, I heard about this many-several years after I read the books. I
> don't know much about copyright law, but it always struck me as odd
> that just "painting over the names" was enough to avoid trouble with
> the Tolkien estate.
It is. Plagarism isn't illegal, and copyright violations involve verbatim
copying, or using actual characters.
As much as we might wish it, badly written rip-offs aren't illegal.
--
Terry Austin
www.hyperbooks.com
Campaign Cartographer now available
David Cowie
>
> I couldn't finish _Gravity's Rainbow_, despite a lot of good stuff to be
> found in /usr/bin/fortune attributed to it. I think I got to page 64.
>
I finished _Gravity's Rainbow_ when I was 16 or so, and still remember a
few fragments of it. Mind you, I couldn't tell you what it was *about*,
and I'm not sure I could have told you then, either.
> More recently, despite liking Richard Morgan's other works, I gave
> up on _Market Forces_. "I want to read something," I'd think, "oh, I have
> Market Forces that I'm reading. Um. Er. Maybe I'll just sit here for a
> bit until it's time to go to bed instead."
Despite liking Morgan's first two novels, (1 more than 2), I didn't even
start _Market Forces_.
--
David Cowie
Containment Failure + 15242:01
Tim McDaniel
Jeffs <jeff_...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>However, there is one book that was far worse: ... by Kevin Anderson
>and somebody.
From previous discussions, I gather that "by Kevin Anderson and" is
sufficient.
--
Tim McDaniel; Reply-To: tm...@panix.com
Tim McDaniel
James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
> It's an early Edmund Hamilton and I read an edition from about
>1962, from Ace in the days when Donald Wollheim was running
>it. Later, he went off and founded DAW Books, which he ran until his
>retirement in the 1980s*.
[et multa caetera]
Thanks for the history.
Dangling pronoun question: did anyone else wonder for a moment
"So why did Edmund Hamilton call his company DAW Books?"?
Liz Broadwell
>Liz Broadwell <ebro...@see-below-in.sig.thanks> wrote:
>>On Wed, 10 Aug 2005 12:50:46 -0400, Joseph T Major <jtm...@iglou.com> wrote:
>>>Liz Broadwell wrote:
>>
>>>> Ditto whoever owns the rights to _Forbidden
>>>>Planet_ suing Michael Crichton over _Sphere_, which is right up (or down)
>>>>there among the ten most annoying SF books I've ever read.
>>>>
>>> But maister Will: Shakspur is no longer among ye livynge.
>>
>>I'm pretty sure Master Shakespeare's _Tempest_ didn't feature monsters
>>from the id being released by humans meddling with a piece of technology
>>built by an alien species. :-p
>
>No, but it did feature the monster Caliban, who certainly
>followed the beck and call of his own Id wherever it led.
Fortunately, however, Sigmund Freud was more interested in disseminating
Id as a concept than exploiting it as a franchise, so the copyright issue
doesn't apply there. :-) And now I'm having flashbacks to the version of
_The Tempest_ that ran on Broadway about ten years ago or so, and starred
Patrick Stewart as Prospero. It was okay, I guess, but the audience
tended to laugh in inappropriate places.
Peace,
Liz
wth...@godzilla.acpub.duke.edu
I was prepared to suspend disbelief for the sake of the book.
Problem was, I really didn't like the book. And I like Bear,
even to the point of finishing "Legacy" and his Foundation book
which are often sited as his worst books prior to "Darwin's Radio".
Gave up on DR about page 100. I seem to recall that it won the
Nebula for 2000, was nominated for the Hugo.
--
William Hyde
EOS Department
Duke University
Mike Schilling
"Tim McDaniel" <tm...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:ddddn5$9be$1...@tmcd.austin.tx.us...
"Destroyer of All Worlds" Books.
ruth
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
> In article <1123690071.4...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
> Richard R. Hershberger <rrh...@acme.com> wrote:
> >
> >I am long past feeling any obligation to finish a bad book just to see
> >if it gets better.
>
> I'm at the next stage beyond that: I don't feel any obligation to
> finish a good book if I don't like it. It can be well-written,
> well-thought-out, well-characterized, but if it makes my skin
> crawl, by the Great Horn Spoon I'm not gonna finish it. G. R. R.
> Martin, e.g.
We must be of similar ages. There comes a time when one just doesn't
want to waste any time.
--
Bateau
>For me, much as i loath Jordan and Martin and don't have much use for
>Tolkein...
>
>Dennis McKeirnan's "Iron Tower" has got to be the worst thing i've ever
>had the misfortune to run my eyes over.
Worst SF: Hellburner was pretty fucking boring. The later Dune books
too.
Worst fantasy: Lord Foul's Bane. Duh.
James Nicoll
Tina Hall <Tina...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>
>But this reminds me, is there another definition for 'entropy'
>besides: "(Physics) a quantity expressing how much of a system's
>thermal energy is unavailable for conversion into mechanical work. -
>Origin: Greek <skip word> 'transformation'"?
Order and disorder. The more entropy a system has, the
more disorded it is.
ruth
"art...@yahoo.com" <art...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Ruth:
> >hmmmm.....My biology student kid enjoyed Darwin's Radio quite a bit. Is
> >it totally implausible? I liked it a lot better than the sequel which
> >made me want to throw things.
> The biology didn't bother me as much as that in The White Plague or
> Blood Music, but the writing did.
Yeah, it was rather clunky but I stayed with it and rather enjoyed it. I
seem to remember a lot of discussion of the biology back when I was a
mere lurker ( for the past ten years..).
--
Gene Ward Smith
Jeffs wrote:
> However, there is one book that was far worse: _Assemblers of
> Infinity_ (I think), by Kevin Anderson and somebody. In the prolog, a
> supposedly brilliant engineer sees his partner killed by a mysterious
> accident. His reaction? He does the same thing his partner does and,
> surprise, gets killed in the same way. I threw the book across the
> room and didn't bother reading any further.
A while back I started a thread about an Anderson book which begans
with a neutron star teleported to the center of a Jovian planet. Not
that much happened by way of a consequence.
Duke of URL
> Ah, the series that introduces the idea of suck-forward (Man
> is hit by arrow and knocked in the direction the arrow came from).
You MUST be joking for dramatic effect. NO ONE could possibly be that
stupid!
Bateau
>Sea Wasp <seawasp...@obvioussgeinc.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> Nothing I have seen published by a commercial,
>>understands-how-to-make-profits publisher matches the depths to which
>>self-published material can sink. I have read (parts of) VAN GOGH IN
>>SPACE ! ! !,
>
>There was a series of 4 or 5 books released when the DOOM computer
>game was popular using the game as a theme. These were bad beyond
>anything I've ever read before or since.
I have the fourth book of the official Doom novelizations.
Have you read the comic?
Randy Money
> For me, much as i loath Jordan and Martin and don't have much use for
> Tolkein...
>
> Dennis McKeirnan's "Iron Tower" has got to be the worst thing i've ever
> had the misfortune to run my eyes over.
>
Well, I'll stick to books from within the genre, and I'll let pass a
Murray Leinster novel since it probably passed muster when written, just
not by the time I read it.
No, I'd have to nominate, _Challenge the Hellmaker_ by Walt and Lee
Richmond. I recall little beyond the title and want to keep it that way.
Randy M.
Steve Coltrin
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:
> In article <42FA2102...@worldnet.att.net>,
> Konrad Gaertner <gae...@aol.com> wrote:
>>"Caleb N. Diffell" wrote:
>>>
>>> I have a 70's-era paperback copy of _The Hobbit_ (maybe by Baen Books?
>>> Can't remember) that has a blurb by JRRT on the back that says
>>> something to the effect of "...this edition, and no other, has been
>>> authorized for publication by the author. Those with respect for living
>>> authors (at least) will purchase it, and no other." I kinda figured
>>> something like the above had happened to prompt this.
>>
>>Were there unauthorized editions of _The Hobbit_ too?
>
> No. Ballantine put that disclaimer on all its Tolkien works
> during that period.
Though I wouldn't call it a disclaimer so much as a, uh, claimer.
--
Steve Coltrin spco...@omcl.org Tom Cruise can kiss my ass
"A group known as the League of Human Dignity helped arrange for Deuel
to be driven to a local livestock scale, where he could be weighed."
- Associated Press
Bateau
>
>Onyxhawke wrote:
>> For me, much as i loath Jordan and Martin and don't have much use for
>> Tolkein...
>>
>> Dennis McKeirnan's "Iron Tower" has got to be the worst thing i've ever
>> had the misfortune to run my eyes over.
>
>(having read and enjoyed it when I was around 13) and couldn't bring
>myself to finish it, but it's not the worst I've seen, not by a long
>shot.
>
>My "Worst SF Book Ever" Award goes to Mike Jeffries' _Loremasters of
>Elundium_ series. I bought 3 of them in paperback in my foolish youth
>because they were compared favorably to Tolkien on the cover (this is
>now a Huge Red Flag for me, from that point onward). They were
>absolutely awful. I never finished the third one, and may not have
>finished the second. A quick Google search revealed there are now MORE
>of them ("...they're spawning!!"); I have no idea how sales of the
>first three could possibly have justified another one or two in the
>series. I've stricken most of it from my memory, so I can't really give
>specifics, but check out the customer reviews on Amazon (which are
>almost uniformly negative) for an idea. This series is without a doubt
>the worst I've ever read.
Are they the ones with the king with the robe of jewels in the big hall
full of candles cause he's afraid of the dark? I think I read that. Blew
goats.
>Now, if you're talking disappointing (as in, started off with a great
>premise but then failed to deliver), I might be tempted to say Larry
>Niven's _The Integral Trees_, which I thought was awesome for the first
>2/3 chapters, and then went downhill fast, failing to deliver on the
>promise of the setting and scope. The other one I would say is
>extremely disappointing is John Varley's _Titan_, about the expedition
>that enters the giant orbiting alien satellite. Could've been great,
>ended up with an extreme case of deus ex machina, not to mention lousy
>writing for the second half (seemed rushed, like Varley just wanted to
>finish the darn thing because even he didn't like the direction it was
>heading).
Dorothy J Heydt
David Cowie <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>On Wed, 10 Aug 2005 05:24:26 +0000, stremler wrote:
>
>>
>> I couldn't finish _Gravity's Rainbow_, despite a lot of good stuff to be
>> found in /usr/bin/fortune attributed to it. I think I got to page 64.
>>
>
>I finished _Gravity's Rainbow_ when I was 16 or so, and still remember a
>few fragments of it. Mind you, I couldn't tell you what it was *about*,
>and I'm not sure I could have told you then, either.
Oh, that thing. The title, which is a poetic way of talking
about a ballistic trajectory, is the best thing about it.
What it's about: in the 1920s a mad scientist runs experiments
involving giving an infant boy sexual stimuli in the presence of
some kind of plastic. Later, during WWII, his subject, now a GI
in London, gets an erection whenever a V-2 is about to strike
because it's got that kind of plastic in it. The rest of the
book is mostly people with bizarre sexual fetishes. Late in the
story the GI is part of the Allied troops invading Germany and,
as the social structure of Germany falls apart in the face of the
invasion, so does his personality fall apart in the face of I
forget what.
I don't call it science fiction, though you might call it sci-fi
if you wanted to.
I read it only because of the title and was profoundly
disappointed.