5 sf books you wouldn't recommend to your worst enemy
mort...@ufcp.com
books would you _not_ recommend to go on the canon?
Everyone has read bad sf or fantasy. We're talking about the 5 books
that just stand out as being totally unredeemable.
I realize this might seem like a troll, since it's probably going to
generate some animosity as people suggest the favs of other people.
So, as my disclaimer: these are opinions only, and no one is going to
actually write up a canon based on these books anyway. Please don't
get offended when someone says that Lord of the Rings is the most
boring piece of fantasy to ever have been written. It's just
someone's opinion, that's all. I just happen to be interested in
these opinions right now.
I won't post my list yet, since I know that at least one of the books
on it was already suggested for one of the "Top 5."
mortaine
mort...@ufcp.com
http://www.ufcp.com/employee/steph/steph2.htm
-----------------------------------------------
Humility is like Zen; once you think you've got it, you don't.
Becida
The worst books are the ones I don't remember, I never finished reading
them.
Rob.
tomlinson
1. Frank Herbert, _Heretic of Dune_ (not sure if I've got that title
exactly right)
2. Elrond Hubbard, _Battlefield Earth_
3. every "franchise" novel I've ever read (Trek being the chief offender)
4. Arthur C. Clarke, _2061_ (everybody likes to blame the poor quality
of Clarke's latest novels on his co-writers--especially Gentry Lee.
But _2061_ proved that Clarke could write a boring, pointless turd
of a "novel" all by himself)
5. Terry Brooks' _Sword of Shannara_
Dishonorable mention for Isaac Asimov's _Foundation and Earth_, Orson
Scott Card's _Xenocide_, Anne McCaffrey's _The White Dragon_, and
Madeleine L'Engle's _Many Waters_ (sorry)--not necessarily for being
the worst, but for being the worst disappointments compared to their
mightier fore-runners.
-et
--
Ernest S. Tomlinson - some day a real rain'll come and wash all the scum off
the streets +---------------------------------------------------------------
------------+ "We don't have the First Amendment, thank God, in Canada."
- Tim Collings, an instructor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, B. C.
Stevens R. Miller
>Okay, this is a reversal of the "5 canonical sf books" list. What 5
>books would you _not_ recommend to go on the canon?
Neat question, though you need to put some kind of qualifier on what is
allowed (otherwise you're open to titles no one ever heard of). Let's say
we're limiting entries to works by anyone who meets at least one of the
following criteria:
Hugo or Nebula winner
Chief source of income is or was writing
Has written five or more novels published by a major house
Ever had a book on the Times's best-seller list
By these rules, I'm allowed to say that the Five Worst SF Novels were:
The Number of the Beast
God Emperor of Dune
Startide Rising
Rama II (or whatever it was called)
Dragonflight
--
Stevens R. Miller http://www.interport.net/~lex/
Andrew Hackard
forward to it, you should see the jubilation in teachers' lounges...)
In article <4if6mv$bmd@ns2>, <mort...@ufcp.com> wrote:
>Okay, this is a reversal of the "5 canonical sf books" list. What 5
>books would you _not_ recommend to go on the canon?
>
>Everyone has read bad sf or fantasy. We're talking about the 5 books
>that just stand out as being totally unredeemable.
[...]
(1) The HAB Report. I actually finished this, and I'm still not convinced
the publisher didn't leave out a few pages towards the end. But it's utterly
pointless, and wins the prize for most gratuitous use of deus ex glacie.
(2) Hermes Falling (or something like that). Astronauts attempting to save
the Earth from destruction *ride an asteroid*, Slim Picken-style, all the
way until its impact on the atmosphere of Earth. Tries and fails to be a
new Lucifer's Hammer.
(3) Wyrms. Ugh.
(4) Foundation and Earth/Prelude to Foundation (pick one). F&Earth wasn't
a *bad* story until the verrrrrry end, when I wanted to reach through the
wood pulp and throttle the Good Doctor for doing something that, IMO, did
not need to be done. (I call it RAHitis, though that's a particularly
virulent strain.) The only problem arose when I read Prelude and realized
I was reading the *exact same story* as F&Earth, down to the no-longer-a-
surprise ending. OTOH, Prelude is set on Trantor right before the Fall,
which redeems it slightly. So *one* of these books can stay. Damned if I
am going to pick the one. (Well, OK; I have to go with F&Earth, if only
because it tries to resolve the problem set up in Foundation's Edge,
probably the best of the series.)
(5) The Lost World. What a shameless attempt to capitalize on a prior
success by reusing the same general plot (as opposed to (4), above, which
used *exactly* the same plot). I have friends who enjoy Crichton
tremendously. *I* enjoy Crichton (though not tremendously, and I have
yet to read an ending to a Crichton novel that I believed). But this book
took his well-documented antitech bias to new heights, and brought it
explicitly out in the open on the last few pages. (You read it here first:
Cyberspace will destroy civilization.) You almost feel sorry for the poor
dinos, who have to go through this *again*.
--
"All men must die, it was their single \ HEY SENATOR EXON!!!
common heritage. But a book need never \
die and should not be killed; books were \ Shit, piss, cunt, fuck,
the immortal part of man." -- Hugh Farnham \ motherfucker, cocksucker, tits!
Russell Martin
>What the hell, I'm on spring break. (And if you think the *kids* look
>forward to it, you should see the jubilation in teachers' lounges...)
>
>In article <4if6mv$bmd@ns2>, <mort...@ufcp.com> wrote:
>
>>Okay, this is a reversal of the "5 canonical sf books" list. What 5
>>books would you _not_ recommend to go on the canon?
>
>(2) Hermes Falling (or something like that). Astronauts attempting to save
>the Earth from destruction *ride an asteroid*, Slim Picken-style, all the
>way until its impact on the atmosphere of Earth. Tries and fails to be a
>new Lucifer's Hammer.
>
I think that was _Shiva Descending_, by Benford and Rotsler.
I can't think up five, but the worst sf novel I ever read has to be a Star
Trek novel called _The Price of the Phoenix_, by Sondra Marshak and Myrna
Culbreath. Now, I'm not saying that just because it's Star Trek -- I have
read a few books based on that series that were pretty good, e.g. by John
M. Ford and Diane Duane. But this one... I swear, you can read entire
pages at a time and have no idea what the hell's going on, even though it's
set in a universe, and involves characters, most readers will be familiar
with. I plodded through to the end just to see if something, anything, was
going to make sense eventually, but it never did. What puzzles me in
particular is that it came out in the 70s, when major sf writers like Joe
Haldeman and David Gerrold were doing Star Trek books, but I have no idea
how this ever got into print!
Russell Martin
rma...@interlog.com
Benedict Walmisley
>Okay, this is a reversal of the "5 canonical sf books" list. What 5
>books would you _not_ recommend to go on the canon?
Falling Worlds - Cecillia Holland
The Stars in Shroud - Benford
Faerie Tale - Feist
Gormengast et al - Mervyn Peake
Number of the beast - Heinlein
Loki
: Okay, this is a reversal of the "5 canonical sf books" list. What 5
: books would you _not_ recommend to go on the canon?
Author Book
---------------------- ---------------------------
Anthony, Piers *
Hubbard, L. Ron *
I'm sure there are many more, but they're not coming to mind. Alas.
- Loki
--
+----------------------+---------------------------------+------------------+
| gwis...@uoguelph.ca | cs1...@snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca | Geoffrey Wiseman |
+---------------+------+---------------------------------+------+-----------+
| http://tdg.uoguelph.ca/~ontarion/users/geoff |
+-----------------------------------------------+
"Pbhyq guvf or pbafvqrerq n fhoyvzvany zrffntr?"
Stevens R. Miller
>Number of the beast - Heinlein
Hurrah! Benedict, if you visit New York, I shall buy you an ale.
yvo...@ibm.net
hasn't written yet.
I've got a review around here somewhere that describes the first book
as several hundred pages of sadistic misogynist crap. I couldn't have put it better
myself. I did keep reading to see if it got better. It didn't.
Yvonne
Selby, Australia
yvo...@ibm.net
He was hard and tough and wiry, just the sort that won't say die
There was courage in his quick impatient tread
And he wore the the badge of gameness in his bright and fiery eye
And the proud and lofty carriage of his head
A. B. Patterson
Jo Walton
genuinely rather not have read. All the ones I can think of are ones which
are sequels which spoiled the earlier work:
Orson Scott Card _Xenocide_
Mary Gentle _Ancient Light_
Robert Heinlein _To Sail Beyond the Sunset_
Otherwise, however bad a book is, it's just a bad book. A bad book that
retroactively spoils a good book is - well - just awful.
--
Jo J...@kenjo.demon.co.uk
********************************************************************
- - I kissed a kif at Kefk - -
********************************************************************
Florin is free at last. The rightful King is going home. Help us
drag a fantasy realm into the 21st century at Evolution, Easter 1996
Roberta and Craig Becker
books there are, at least five. *shudder*
Craig
--
-- Craig Becker bec...@bga.com http://www.bga.com/~beckers Austin, TX USA --
-- Austin Restaurants & Food - http://www.bga.com/~beckers/food --
-- Austin Gardening FAQ - http://www.bga.com/~beckers/gardening --
-- HTML Consulting Services - http://www.bga.com/~beckers/craig/tmr.html --
Bill McHale
As for other people:
Again there are more than five here but I am going to count series as a
single book
Frank Herbert -Anything with Dune in the title along with other words
(i.e.) all the sequels, particularly after Dune Messiah
Arthur C. Clark and Gentry Lee - Need I say more?
... Most of the Star Wars/Star Trek/ Dungeons and Dragons/... while about
10% are good it is not worth the effort of reading the other 90% to find
them.
Bill
***************************************************************************
The opinions expressed are mine and are not intended to represent those of
UCS, or UMBC. -Bill McHale, Assistant Systems Administrator
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Home page - http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~wmchal1
***************************************************************************
Stevens R. Miller
>(Stevens R. Miller) wrote:
>>By these rules, I'm allowed to say that the Five Worst SF Novels were:
>> The Number of the Beast
>> God Emperor of Dune
>> Startide Rising
>> Rama II (or whatever it was called)
>> Dragonflight
>Quite like one, thought one was a masterpiece. Ah well, I daresay you'd do
>the same for me.
Doubtless. (But that's what makes this game so much fun!)
Mike Gannis
>(1) The HAB Report. I actually finished this, and I'm still not convinced
>the publisher didn't leave out a few pages towards the end. But it's utterly
>pointless, and wins the prize for most gratuitous use of deus ex glacie.
I thought this was _The_HAB_Theory_ (but then, I made a point of not buying it).
Yecch.
There was a great "confession" by the publisher's art director in Dick Geis'
The Alien Critic back in the '70s - she deliberately gave it the worst cover art
and the ugliest title typeface she could in an attempt to kill the book's sales.
The author loved her cover, of course ...
William George Ferguson
>In article <4if6mv$bmd@ns2> mort...@ufcp.com writes:
>
>>Okay, this is a reversal of the "5 canonical sf books" list. What 5
>>books would you _not_ recommend to go on the canon?
>
>Neat question, though you need to put some kind of qualifier on what is
>allowed (otherwise you're open to titles no one ever heard of). Let's say
>we're limiting entries to works by anyone who meets at least one of the
>following criteria:
>
> Hugo or Nebula winner
> Chief source of income is or was writing
> Has written five or more novels published by a major house
> Ever had a book on the Times's best-seller list
>
>By these rules, I'm allowed to say that the Five Worst SF Novels were:
>
> The Number of the Beast
> God Emperor of Dune
> Startide Rising
> Rama II (or whatever it was called)
> Dragonflight
Mileage obviously varies, since I thought very well of 2 of those.
The Latest Crap From Gor by John Norman
As someone who grew up enjoying the Burroughs books, I started reading
these when they came out, and liked the first one more or less. I
started thinking by the second that he was emphasizing the
slavery/bondage theme too much. The fourth or fifth (and last one
that I actually read, although I'd do a quick scan in the bookstores
occasionally to see if there was any improvement [there wasn't]). I
leterally threw against a wall so hard it bounced.
Some really incredibly bad (and illegal) Tarzan rip-offs in the
mid-60s. I can't remember the author, but the title of one was Tarzan
And The Silver Globe.
Mike Gannis
>hac...@freeside.fc.net (Andrew Hackard) wrote:
>>(2) Hermes Falling (or something like that). Astronauts attempting to save
>>the Earth from destruction *ride an asteroid*, Slim Picken-style, all the
>>way until its impact on the atmosphere of Earth. Tries and fails to be a
>>new Lucifer's Hammer.
rma...@interlog.com (Russell Martin) replied:
>I think that was _Shiva Descending_, by Benford and Rotsler.
_Hermes_Fall_ was a different book by some Brit wossname, around 1980.
*FAR* worse than _Shiva_Descending_ ...
Andrew Hackard
:hac...@freeside.fc.net (Andrew Hackard) wrote:
:>(1) The HAB Report. I actually finished this, and I'm still not convinced
:>the publisher didn't leave out a few pages towards the end. But it's utterly
:>pointless, and wins the prize for most gratuitous use of deus ex glacie.
:
:I thought this was _The_HAB_Theory_ (but then, I made a point of not buying
:it). Yecch.
It may well have been. I checked it out of my high school library.
:There was a great "confession" by the publisher's art director in Dick Geis'
:The Alien Critic back in the '70s - she deliberately gave it the worst cover
:art and the ugliest title typeface she could in an attempt to kill the book's
:sales. The author loved her cover, of course ...
Wouldn't know; the edition I read didn't have the dust jacket. Thank Ghod
for small favors.
tomlinson
: How 'bout Piers Anthony's _Bio Of A Space Tyrant_? I forget how many
: books there are, at least five. *shudder*
Er, I take it that this series isn't, um, worth the time to read it? I've
an odd curious impulse to read these books, if only because of the titles
of the volumes (dammit, I've just _got_ to find out how this "space tyrant"
got to where he did!)
Oh, well. Maybe some other time.
-et (who is in the unusual position of never having read word one by
Piers Anthony)
Mike Gannis
>>>By these rules, I'm allowed to say that the Five Worst SF Novels were:
>
>>> The Number of the Beast
>>> God Emperor of Dune
>>> Startide Rising
>>> Rama II (or whatever it was called)
>>> Dragonflight
Ahhh ... Are we limited to major books and authors? If not ...
2150 AD, by Thea Alexander (Why is this book still in print? Why is it
always face-out on the shelf in the bookstore?)
Taurus Four, by Rena Vale. (Vintage 1970 or so. Expedition to the
Planet of the Space Hippies ... 8-0 There are at least four copies of
this at my favorite used bookstore.)
The Gate to Women's Country, by Sheri S. Tepper (YMMV)
Between the Strokes of Night, by Charles Sheffield (YMMV)
*ANYTHING* by John Norman or Joanna Russ. (Two authors who deserve each
other ...)
Bill McHale
> In article <4if6mv$bmd@ns2> mort...@ufcp.com writes:
>
> >Okay, this is a reversal of the "5 canonical sf books" list. What 5
> >books would you _not_ recommend to go on the canon?
>
> Neat question, though you need to put some kind of qualifier on what is
> allowed (otherwise you're open to titles no one ever heard of). Let's say
> we're limiting entries to works by anyone who meets at least one of the
> following criteria:
>
> Hugo or Nebula winner
> Chief source of income is or was writing
> Has written five or more novels published by a major house
> Ever had a book on the Times's best-seller list
>
> By these rules, I'm allowed to say that the Five Worst SF Novels were:
>
> The Number of the Beast
> God Emperor of Dune
> Startide Rising
> Rama II (or whatever it was called)
> Dragonflight
>
>
> --
> Stevens R. Miller http://www.interport.net/~lex/
>
>
What can I say there are two books on the list that I have not read but
of the others; 2. _God_Emperor_of_Dune_, what haven't read the last two
books in the series. 3. _Startide_Rising_, was there another one, because
while SR and Brin's work is not everyone's cup of Tea it was (imho) his
best, and certainly not deserving of one of the worst, 3. Rama II, you
might have a point here.
Charles Dye
etom...@rohan.sdsu.edu (tomlinson) wrote:
>-et (who is in the unusual position of never having read word one by
>Piers Anthony)
For "unusual" read "fortunate". The single worst book I have ever
read, in any genre, was "Firefly" ... the only book I've ever read
that made me think kindly of the Nazi school of literary criticism.
Stan Barton
>: books would you _not_ recommend to go on the canon?
>
>---------------------- ---------------------------
>Anthony, Piers *
>Hubbard, L. Ron *
>
>I'm sure there are many more, but they're not coming to mind. Alas.
>
> - Loki
>--
Come on now... Anthony's "Macroscope" was okay.
Stan Barton
>In ashen ink, mort...@ufcp.com inscribed:
>: Okay, this is a reversal of the "5 canonical sf books" list. What 5
>: books would you _not_ recommend to go on the canon?
>
>Author Book
>---------------------- ---------------------------
>Anthony, Piers *
>Hubbard, L. Ron *
>
Come on now... Anthony's "Macroscope" was okay.
Joy Green
quoth thusly...
>
>mort...@ufcp.com wrote:
>
>>Okay, this is a reversal of the "5 canonical sf books" list. What 5
>>books would you _not_ recommend to go on the canon?
>
The Interpreter - Brian Aldiss
I Will Fear No Evil - Robert Heinlein
Titus Groan - Mervyn Peake
Number of the Beast - R Heinlein again
Anything by Piers Anthony EXCEPT the Split Infinity series (Which I must
admit I quite liked, which is why I read others)
Joy
Mark Chu-Carroll
>>forward to it, you should see the jubilation in teachers' lounges...)
>>
>>
>>>Okay, this is a reversal of the "5 canonical sf books" list. What 5
>>>books would you _not_ recommend to go on the canon?
>
>>
>>the Earth from destruction *ride an asteroid*, Slim Picken-style, all the
>>way until its impact on the atmosphere of Earth. Tries and fails to be a
>>new Lucifer's Hammer.
>>
>
>Trek novel called _The Price of the Phoenix_, by Sondra Marshak and Myrna
>Culbreath. Now, I'm not saying that just because it's Star Trek -- I have
>read a few books based on that series that were pretty good, e.g. by John
>M. Ford and Diane Duane. But this one... I swear, you can read entire
>pages at a time and have no idea what the hell's going on, even though it's
>set in a universe, and involves characters, most readers will be familiar
>with. I plodded through to the end just to see if something, anything, was
>going to make sense eventually, but it never did. What puzzles me in
>particular is that it came out in the 70s, when major sf writers like Joe
>Haldeman and David Gerrold were doing Star Trek books, but I have no idea
>how this ever got into print!
Goodness, this brings back absolutely *awful* memories.
I first read this book in something like 6th grade. It gave me absolutely
*awful* headaches - but I finished it, because at the time, I was very proud
that I had *never* not finished a book that I decided to read.
Then, while I was in college, I decided to see if it was as bad as I
remembered. It gave me the same damned awful headaches *again*. I kept
reading it, because I couldn't believe that anyone would write
something so *totally* pointless. I thought it had to go *somewhere*.
It didn't. I suffered twice for no good reason.
That's the only book that I've ever found that actually caused me
physical pain to read. I almost wonder if it was deliberate. How
could such completely horrible writing be accidental?
<MC>
--
Mark Craig Chu-Carroll || "I'm not dumb,
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center || I just have a command of thoroughly useless
m...@watson.ibm.com || information." --- Calvin
Andrea Lynn Leistra
Jo Walton <J...@kenjo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Mary Gentle _Ancient Light_
I agree on this one - I was extremely disappointed with it, especially
because it took me so long to find the thing.
Hm, four more:
*Harvest of Stars* - Poul Anderson
*Rama Revealed* - Gentry Lee (& Clarke, supposedly)
any of the Dune sequels - Frank Herbert
*Towers of the Sunset* L.E. Modessit (the only one on this list I've
actually put down in sheer boredom)
--
Andrea Leistra http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~aleistra
-----
Life is complex. It has real and imaginary parts.
Bruce R. Cordell
> Okay, this is a reversal of the "5 canonical sf books" list. What 5
> books would you _not_ recommend to go on the canon?
> Stevens R. Miller wrote:
> Let's say we're limiting entries to works by anyone
> who meets at least one of the following criteria:
> Hugo or Nebula winner
> Chief source of income is or was writing
> Has written five or more novels published by a major house
> Ever had a book on the Times's best-seller list
The choices below more reflect my relative disappointment when reading
these books, based on what I know these authors are actually capable of,
rather than the objective merits of each work.
Beowulf's Children - Niven, Barnes, Pournelle
Sail Beyond The Sunset - Heinlein
Eternity - Bear
Hrm... I canıt think of any more at the moment; I guess Iım fairly easy to
please :).
--
________________________________________
Bruce R. Cordell, Core AD&D, Designer
TSR, Inc. (414 248 3625)
cor...@execpc.com; TSRCo...@aol.com
http://www.execpc.com/~cordell
________________________________________
Michael Kozlowski
>In article <4if6mv$bmd@ns2>, mort...@ufcp.com writes:
>>Okay, this is a reversal of the "5 canonical sf books" list. What 5
>>books would you _not_ recommend to go on the canon?
> _Quozl_, Alan Dean Foster
That's not even close to Foster's worst. _Codgerspace_ was much
worse.
(OTOH, his _Damned_ books were quite good.)
--
Michael Kozlowski
mlko...@students.wisc.edu
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~kozlowsk
Arthur Wohlwill
>From: bec...@bga.com (Roberta and Craig Becker)
>Subject: Re: 5 sf books you wouldn't recommend to your worst enemy
>Date: 18 Mar 1996 17:23:32 GMT
Frank Herberts " The White Plague"
(You might enjoy it if you know nothing about biology though)
Arthur Wohlwill U55...@UIC.EDU
--
bob storti
University of Illinois at Chicago
E-Mail: rvst...@uic.edu
Steve Miale
Stevens R. Miller <l...@interport.net> wrote:
>BWalm...@wolf.demon.co.uk (Benedict Walmisley) writes:
>>Number of the beast - Heinlein
>
>Hurrah! Benedict, if you visit New York, I shall buy you an ale.
Heresy! "Number of the Beast" is on a level with the Bard compared to
"I Will Fear No Evil."
Steve
Mark Shaw
The Number of the Beast (Heinlein)
To Sail Beyond the Sunset (Heinlein)
Anything by CJ Cherryh
Books 2-n of most series (Riverworld, World of Tiers, Dune, etc.)
YMMV.
---
Mark Shaw
My opinions only
PGP public key available at ftp.netcom.com:/pub/ms/mshaw
Gregg Parmentier
In article <4if6mv$bmd@ns2>, mort...@ufcp.com writes:
>Okay, this is a reversal of the "5 canonical sf books" list. What 5
>books would you _not_ recommend to go on the canon?
Two of these books made me stop reading the author altogether, two have
made me VERY selective, one author hasn't written anything since:
_The Eternal Enemy_, Michael Berlyn
_Night of Power_, Spider Robinson
_Xenocide_, Orson Scott Card
_Quozl_, Alan Dean Foster
_Mute_, Piers Anthony
>I realize this might seem like a troll, since it's probably going to
>generate some animosity as people suggest the favs of other people.
I suspect I may hit on one or two of those.
Ggg
--
Gregg Parmentier Gregg-Pa...@UIowa.Edu
http://www-pi.physics.uiowa.edu/~parmentier/
editor of "The Vance Phile" - a fanzine
dedicated to the work of Jack Vance
"Why, in the name of the Connatic's pet owl, should we even
consider a limit to the possibilities of this, our one and single life?"
Andrew Hackard
>>>Okay, this is a reversal of the "5 canonical sf books" list. What 5
>>>books would you _not_ recommend to go on the canon?
>>(2) Hermes Falling (or something like that). Astronauts attempting to save
>>the Earth from destruction *ride an asteroid*, Slim Picken-style, all the
>>way until its impact on the atmosphere of Earth. Tries and fails to be a
>>new Lucifer's Hammer.
>I think that was _Shiva Descending_, by Benford and Rotsler.
Nope; I've read _Shiva Descending_, and enjoyed it pretty well. This
wasn't nrealy that good.
Not to ruin the ending (as if that were possible), but the asteroid ends
up bouncing off Earth's atmosphere, skimming off most of the ozone layer.
Not quite as much fun as the "You've created a new moon!" ending of Shiva.
I deleted your rant about _Price of the Phoenix_ (which I've not read),
but I intentionally excluded Trek novels and the TSR monolith; I figured
we were only talking about *real* SF. ;-)
Thasaidom
>I've read a lot of forgettable tripe, but there aren't many books I'd
>genuinely rather not have read. All the ones I can think of are ones which
>are sequels which spoiled the earlier work:
>
>Orson Scott Card _Xenocide_
>
>Mary Gentle _Ancient Light_
>
>Robert Heinlein _To Sail Beyond the Sunset_
>
>Otherwise, however bad a book is, it's just a bad book. A bad book that
>retroactively spoils a good book is - well - just awful.
>
You people are not trying. I have started many worse books than any
mentioned here.
What about the works of Lionel Fanthorpthe and John Lymington and that
all time turkey "The Gods Hate Kansas" (I have mercifully forgotten the
name of the author).
--
Thasaidon
thas...@mortis.demon.co.uk
"Why this is hell. Nor am I out of it - Mephistopheles
(Faust by Christopher Marlowe)
MoJo
In Article<4iivd6$g...@news-s01.ny.us.ibm.net>, <yvo...@ibm.net> write:
>
> That too easy! The complete Gap series by Steven Donaldson. Even ones he
> hasn't written yet.
> I've got a review around here somewhere that describes the first book
> as several hundred pages of sadistic misogynist crap. I couldn't have put it
better
> myself. I did keep reading to see if it got better. It didn't.
> Yvonne
> Selby, Australia
> yvo...@ibm.net
>
> He was hard and tough and wiry, just the sort that won't say die
> There was courage in his quick impatient tread
> And he wore the the badge of gameness in his bright and fiery eye
> And the proud and lofty carriage of his head
>
> A. B. Patterson
>
How about Dhalgren?
That one is bad enough to count as all 5. What a truly dreadful book. ack
ptui.
MJ
Stevens R. Miller
>gwis...@uoguelph.ca (Loki) wrote:
>>In ashen ink, mort...@ufcp.com inscribed:
>>: Okay, this is a reversal of the "5 canonical sf books" list.
>>Anthony, Piers *
>Come on now... Anthony's "Macroscope" was okay.
Yes, but his sequel, "Macaroniscope" signalled the end of of the Giant Pasta
trilogy. (God, I love this group.)
Mike Gannis
>>>: Okay, this is a reversal of the "5 canonical sf books" list.
In inky ash, gwis...@uoguelph.ca (Loki) inscribed:
>>>Anthony, Piers *
Stan Barton <sba...@erols.com> wrote:
>>Come on now... Anthony's "Macroscope" was okay.
l...@interport.net (Stevens R. Miller) wrote:
>Yes, but his sequel, "Macaroniscope" signalled the end of of the Giant Pasta
>trilogy. (God, I love this group.)
I thought the *end* of the series was _Proctoscope_ ...
Jan Six
> Titus Groan - Mervyn Peake
** OUCH **
Please say you mean _Titus Alone_.
______________________________________________________________________
Jan Six |"It is a hypothesis that the sun will rise in the
| morning. This means we don't _know_ it will rise"
Jan...@uku.fi | - Ludwig Wittgenstein
|
It's my real name.|"Actually, now that you come to mention it..."
Honest. | - Nikolaus Copernicus
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Michael Chary
Mark Chu-Carroll <m...@lusitania.watson.ibm.com> wrote:
>Russell Martin <rma...@interlog.com> wrote:
>>
>>I can't think up five, but the worst sf novel I ever read has to be a Star
>>Trek novel called _The Price of the Phoenix_, by Sondra Marshak and Myrna
>>Culbreath. Now, I'm not saying that just because it's Star Trek -- I have
Invoke not those names out loud, lest you bring the curse upon us once again.
>>read a few books based on that series that were pretty good, e.g. by John
>>M. Ford and Diane Duane. But this one... I swear, you can read entire
>>pages at a time and have no idea what the hell's going on, even though it's
>>set in a universe, and involves characters, most readers will be familiar
>>with. I plodded through to the end just to see if something, anything, was
>>going to make sense eventually, but it never did. What puzzles me in
>>particular is that it came out in the 70s, when major sf writers like Joe
>>Haldeman and David Gerrold were doing Star Trek books, but I have no idea
>>how this ever got into print!
And they kept it up. I mean, they printed a sequel. They even wrote a
couple more for the Pocket series. And their novels brought *down*
the average level of quality of the pocket series. I mean, even by
comparison to now.
>Goodness, this brings back absolutely *awful* memories. >
>I first read this book in something like 6th grade. It gave me absolutely
>*awful* headaches - but I finished it, because at the time, I was very proud
>that I had *never* not finished a book that I decided to read.
I would try to describe how bad this book and these authors are, but I
must confess that I never would havebelieved it myself if someone had
tried to describe it to me, so what's the point? I mean, this is the book
that would have made Guttenberg smash his press with an axe had he known
where it would read. The Yoko Ono of science fiction.
Michael A. Chary
I think the worst ones are the ones with real authors names on them. They
are sort of like trapdoor spiders. They shill you into buying them and then
they destroy your mind.
_Cradle_ by Arthur C Clarke and Gentry Lee
I don't know what sort of pictures of Clarke, Lee has, but they can't be
worth this.
_Eye of Cat_ by Roger Zelazny (God rest his soul)
_Fantastic Voyage II_ by Isaac Asimov
Anything by Frank Herbert other than _Dune_
Any of the "Incarnations of Immortality" besides _On a Pale Horse_ (Okay,
_Bearing an Hourglass_ wasn't *so* bad, but beyond that *ick*)
--
Court Philosopher and Barbarian, DNRC http://ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu/~fchary
"As a fairly observant human, I do realize that many women have negative
reactions to sexually explicit depictions of women and renderings of
violence towards women." - Socolow (but he's really tough anyway)
eyeb...@interpath.com
> One book that I would heartily add to this list is John Barnes'
> _Kaleidescope Century_. It's not that it's badly written or there's
> some sort of fundamental problem with the plot, it's just that there's
> such a soulnessness to the work. I found it not just depressing (hey,
> I *like* depressing books - I'm British 8-) ) but demoralising:
> there's not even a sense of being able to learn something from the
> nastiness of the central characters (which is the essential redeeming
> feature of say, Spindrad's _The Men in the Jungle_, a nasty book if I
> ever read one, but one I enjoyed and would recommend)
I heartily second this nomination. KC is perhaps the most unrelievedly
squalid little toad of a novel I've ever read, all the worse for the
author's demonstrable narrative and imaginatory skills. As this thread
isn't really about "bad" books, per se, but about books to give to someone
you hate, I can think of no better candidate. Barnes' talent will keep
them from putting the book down, and by the end of it, the hapless reader
will feel dirty and diseased and generally in a real bad mood.
But if the purpose of this thread is to give your worst enemy something to
distract the bastard/bitch and keep him/her away from "real" sf, then I'd
suggest any and all of the countless Star Trek/Wars novelizations. SF at
its lowest common denominator, and there is enough of this crap to keep
the enemy preoccupied for life while you go about your business of
exploring genuine, challenging speculative fiction.
eyebrown
Christian Weisgerber
> To my worst enemy... See my list of best books:-)
:-)
> As for other people:
L. Ron Hubbard
BATTLEFIELD EARTH
- nonsensical science, bad characterization, bad plot, bad
writing, ...
Saul Dunn
The STEELEYE trilogy
(Were these comic strip novelizations?)
- incoherent, absurd, no characterization, ...
Alex Raymond with Con Stefferson or Carson Bingham
The six FLASH GORDON comic strip novelizations
(Well, #3 might just qualify as readable.)
- incoherent, contradictory, outright silly, bad
characterization, ...
Glen A. Larson with various ghostwriting "co-"authors
The BATTLESTAR GALACTICA novelizations
- incoherent, contradictory, bad characterization, ...
And if you can read German:
Clark Darlton (=Walter Ernsting)
DER FREMDE ZWANG (1959)
- incredibly bad science and characterization, horribly dated
--
Christian 'naddy' Weisgerber na...@mips.pfalz.de
See another pointless homepage at <URL:http://home.pages.de/~naddy/>.
-- currently reading: Philip José Farmer, The Unreasoning Mask --
Christopher Davis
SRM> == l...@interport.net (Stevens R. Miller)
MG> == Mike Gannis <mga...@sdsc.edu>
SB> Come on now... Anthony's "Macroscope" was okay.
SRM> Yes, but his sequel, "Macaroniscope" signalled the end of of the
SRM> Giant Pasta trilogy. (God, I love this group.)
MG> I thought the *end* of the series was _Proctoscope_ ...
Nah, you're thinking of _Procto Plus_, the fix-up about the Earth doctor
who was kidnapped by aliens and had to take care of space hemorrhoids.
kbc...@dmu.ac.uk
> >: books would you _not_ recommend to go on the canon?
> >
> >---------------------- ---------------------------
> >Anthony, Piers *
> >Hubbard, L. Ron *
> >
>
and the first 4 Xanth Books are quite good ,goes a bit flat after that.
Stephen Mawson
Nancy Lebovitz
Stevens R. Miller <l...@interport.net> wrote about _# of the Beast_:
>
>(Oh, I should add one more reason: I was in Naval Officer Candidate School at
>the time I read it, and spent my days listening to lectures that more-or-less
>explained why the book's approach to leadership in practice was such a crock
>of shit, then went to bed each night with another helping from the crock. It
>was maddening.)
>
Could you summarize some of the ideas from the lectures? I can believe
that there was something wrong-headed about the folks' approach in
the book (or else why did they have so much trouble with something
that isn't usually that much of a problem?), but I can't put a finger
on it.
On the other hand, the Navy doesn't have to deal with starting a
hierarchy from scratch.
Nancy Lebovitz (nan...@universe.digex.net)
12/95 updated calligraphic button catalogue available by email
kbc...@dmu.ac.uk
>
> What the hell, I'm on spring break. (And if you think the *kids* look
> forward to it, you should see the jubilation in teachers' lounges...)
>
> >books would you _not_ recommend to go on the canon?
> >
> >that just stand out as being totally unredeemable.
>
> [...]
>
> (1) The HAB Report. I actually finished this, and I'm still not convinced
> the publisher didn't leave out a few pages towards the end. But it's utterly
> pointless, and wins the prize for most gratuitous use of deus ex glacie.
>
> (2) Hermes Falling (or something like that). Astronauts attempting to save
> the Earth from destruction *ride an asteroid*, Slim Picken-style, all the
> way until its impact on the atmosphere of Earth. Tries and fails to be a
> new Lucifer's Hammer.
>
>
> (4) Foundation and Earth/Prelude to Foundation (pick one). F&Earth wasn't
> a *bad* story until the verrrrrry end, when I wanted to reach through the
> wood pulp and throttle the Good Doctor for doing something that, IMO, did
> not need to be done. (I call it RAHitis, though that's a particularly
> virulent strain.) The only problem arose when I read Prelude and realized
> I was reading the *exact same story* as F&Earth, down to the no-longer-a-
> surprise ending. OTOH, Prelude is set on Trantor right before the Fall,
> which redeems it slightly. So *one* of these books can stay. Damned if I
> am going to pick the one. (Well, OK; I have to go with F&Earth, if only
> because it tries to resolve the problem set up in Foundation's Edge,
> probably the best of the series.)
>
Foundation and Earth's a good book ,though I admit the ending is weak ,but
the rest of the book makes up for this.
> (5) The Lost World. What a shameless attempt to capitalize on a prior
> success by reusing the same general plot (as opposed to (4), above, which
> used *exactly* the same plot). I have friends who enjoy Crichton
> tremendously. *I* enjoy Crichton (though not tremendously, and I have
> yet to read an ending to a Crichton novel that I believed). But this book
> took his well-documented antitech bias to new heights, and brought it
> explicitly out in the open on the last few pages. (You read it here first:
> Cyberspace will destroy civilization.) You almost feel sorry for the poor
> dinos, who have to go through this *again*.
I like this book ,ok it's not as good as Jurasic (I can't spell this) park
,but it's not that bad.
Some books that I really Hate
The Three Stigma of Parma Eldrich (not sure if this is spelt right ) i can't
remember the author and don't want to to .
Travels of --- Cornielus and Una Person in the Twentieth Centuary
By Micheal MoorCock.
This is really bad ,doesn't seem to go anywhere .The other books are quite
good .I really like the StormBringer Collection about Elric.
Any of the DeathGate books By Hickman and Weis .
I don't really know why I don't like these ,but can't get into them .
Stephen Mawson
N Sullivan
Psychlone Greg Bear
Betty Ragan
Russell Martin <rma...@interlog.com> wrote:
>I can't think up five, but the worst sf novel I ever read has to be a Star
>Trek novel called _The Price of the Phoenix_, by Sondra Marshak and Myrna
>Culbreath.
Oh, a hearty second to that! I hated that book back when I was a very
niave youngster who pretty much indiscrimately liked *anything* with the
name "Star Trek" on the cover. The truly tragic thing is, I bought this
book and its sequel at the same time, and felt somehow *compelled* to finish
the sequel, since I'd already spent money on it. *Shudder*
If we're talking Trek novels: Marshak and Culbreath aside, my vote for
Wost Trek Novel Ever (and a book I certainly wouldn't wish on my worst
enemy) is David Dvorkin's _Timetrap_, which mangles the character of Captain
Kirk far, far beyond recognition.
Top of the list of worst books, though, would have to be a little volume
called _V: The Florida Project_ by Tim? Sullivan. I got this thing for 99
cents, back when _V_ was popular. It was *not* worth it.
(Both of those, of course, are what might be called "franchise" books and
therefore perhaps too easy as targets for this sort of thing... But, really,
despite it being socially aceptable, I'm not at all inclined to dismiss
media-based books out of hand just because they're "franchise." There have
been several Trek books I've really enjoyed, even since I've grown out of
above-mentioned indiscriminate youth. And I just recently read _No Future_,
a Doctor Who novel that was remarkably good, and even full of (gasp!)
*character development*! But when they're bad, those kinds of books tend
to be *really* bad.)
--
Betty Ragan (bra...@nrao.edu)
The above post is a figment of your imagination. Neither the author nor her
employer claim responsibility for anything you might think you've just read.
Roy Stilling
> >hac...@freeside.fc.net (Andrew Hackard) wrote:
>
> >>(2) Hermes Falling (or something like that). Astronauts attempting to save
> >>the Earth from destruction *ride an asteroid*, Slim Picken-style, all the
> >>way until its impact on the atmosphere of Earth. Tries and fails to be a
> >>new Lucifer's Hammer.
>
> rma...@interlog.com (Russell Martin) replied:
>
> >I think that was _Shiva Descending_, by Benford and Rotsler.
>
> _Hermes_Fall_ was a different book by some Brit wossname, around 1980.
Oi! Do you mind? It was by an *Australian* - John Baxter, 1978.
>
> *FAR* worse than _Shiva_Descending_ ...
Oh, neither of them were too bad. Trouble is, Niven and Pournelle
rather sewed up the asteroid strike market with _Lucifer's Hammer_
Though quite what Arthur C. Clarke thought he was contributing with
_The Hammer of God_ I really don't know...
--
Roy Stilling | "There is no loyalty except loyalty to Micro$oft.
Winchester, Hampshire, England | There is no love except love of billg.
rp...@stilling.tcp.co.uk | All competing software we will destroy."
http://www.tcp.co.uk/~stilling/ | - with apologies to Orwell...
Roy Stilling
_Kaleidescope Century_. It's not that it's badly written or there's
some sort of fundamental problem with the plot, it's just that there's
such a soulnessness to the work. I found it not just depressing (hey,
I *like* depressing books - I'm British 8-) ) but demoralising:
there's not even a sense of being able to learn something from the
nastiness of the central characters (which is the essential redeeming
feature of say, Spindrad's _The Men in the Jungle_, a nasty book if I
ever read one, but one I enjoyed and would recommend)
Four other really bad books:
Heinlein's _"Number of the Beast"_ - 'nuff said
Paula Volsky _Illusion_ (strictly fantasy, most of which is by
definition awful, but somehow I made the mistake of reading it)
Colin Greenland _Take Back Plenty_ - what a waste of paper!
Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee _Rama II_ - this is one book I wish
I'd never read as it spoils the wonderful ending to _Rendezvous with
Rama_ I haven't read the rest of the Rama books and have absolutely
no intention of doing so.
--
Roy Stilling | rp...@stilling.tcp.co.uk | "These are the days of
Winchester, | http://www.tcp.co.uk/~stilling/ | miracle and wonder"
Hampshire | | - Paul Simon
Yet Another Steve
SF novels in English. All I could find were the horrible Fleuve Noir
series of French SF novels, which were uniformly constructed of cardboard
characters, cliche-ridden plots, and dialogue that made Doc Smith seem
like Nabokov by comparison.
So, pick any 5 titles off the Fleuve Noir list, and I won't recommend 'em!
Steve
Ahasuerus the Wandering Jew
> _Hermes_Fall_ was a different book by some Brit wossname, around 1980.
John Baxter, 1978.
--
Ahasuerus http://www.clark.net/pub/ahasuer/, including:
FAQs: rec.arts.sf.written, alt.pulp, the Liaden Universe
Biblios: how to write SF, the Wandering Jew, miscellaneous SF
Please consider posting (as opposed to e-mailing) ID requests
Ross TenEyck
>Two of these books made me stop reading the author altogether, two have
>made me VERY selective, one author hasn't written anything since:
> _Night of Power_, Spider Robinson
I found that it helps to consider _Night of Power_ as something that
Robinson just had to get out of his system. Some of his other stuff
is much better.
--
============== http://weber.u.washington.edu/~teneyck/home.html ==============
Ross TenEyck MS Mech Eng | A crow pecks at the wind-tossed scrap of paper,
ten...@u.washington.edu | scavenging between the lines of an old letter;
Tsuki ni kawatte oshioki yo! | he hoards stories like flecks of quartz.
Stevens R. Miller
>Stevens R. Miller <l...@interport.net> wrote:
>>BWalm...@wolf.demon.co.uk (Benedict Walmisley) writes:
>>>Number of the beast - Heinlein
>>Hurrah! Benedict, if you visit New York, I shall buy you an ale.
>Heresy! "Number of the Beast" is on a level with the Bard compared to
>"I Will Fear No Evil."
Yes, it was a very difficult choice to make.
However, fair is fair. Steve, if you visit New York, I shall buy you an
ailment.
Arnold Christianson
could think of could be considered the equivalent of five:
"Battlefield Earth" by L. Ron Hubbard.
Not to disrespect the dead, but this has got to be the longest
piece of garbage I've ever felt forced to finish. Around page
100 I thought of stopping. I didn't, and I'll never get those
hours back.
For more flames of this book, contact me directly. I won't
waste this group's time with more unsolicited abuse of this
1000 page mistake.
Arnie
Jon Hansen
>ton...@central.co.nz (Joy Green) wrote:
>> Titus Groan - Mervyn Peake
>** OUCH **
>Please say you mean _Titus Alone_.
Depends on if Joy was talking about just the first book of Gormenghast
(called _Titus Groan_) or the overgrown complete "critical edition",
including (Gohd help us) part of Peake's incomplete _4th volume_ in the
series. That was called _Titus Alone_.
So the whole question here is: does just the first book stink or the
whole series/trilogy/monstrosity. Personally my rule is that I give most
books a hundred pages to grab my attention. Titus Groan didn't even make
it that far....
Jon (enjoying an unexpected snow day)
Jon Hansen
jmha...@indiana.edu
http://nickel.ucs.indiana.edu/~jmhansen
Stevens R. Miller
>All right, I'm asking for it.
>Why is everyone flaming _Number of the Beast_?
>...listing it on the all time worst list is unfair. Just
>because RAH has had much better books, don't relegate one of
>his not-quite-up-to-par works to SF damnation. Had someone
>else written it, would you still put it on your all time
>worst list?
Thank you, Stephen. I've been fighting the urge to ask this question, because
I wasn't sure it would be of any interest to anyone else. Now, however, I can
blame what happens next on you.
Your question is quite insightful. Failed expectations can be the most acute
of disappointments. I loved Heinlein's books when I was a teen, so the
garbage he wrote from after 1972 seemed particularly awful by failing to meet
(IMHO) his own high standard.
Nevertheless, I think the book can be judged as trash on its own merits. The
most common complaint is the seemingly endless rangling over who is going to
be captain of the car. To me, it was as interesting as listening to four
year-old children argue over who will be in charge of the treehouse. Now,
even without recourse to his other books, this was not only boring, but it was
disappointing. That's because the issues surrounding the debate made the
determination of who would command, and what it meant to agree to accept
command, more important than it would be in a treehouse. Yet Heinlein's
characters seem also to be impossibly competent (I notice a backlash reaction
to the "competent man" of SF in recent years, and blame this book for much of
it), or else so dumb that the competent characters can't be blamed for failing
to accept their authority when disagreements arise. What could have been a
source of dramatic conflict, by showing what a rock-and-a-hard-place can come
of commitments to authority you can't always trust, was just another
self-indulgent, my-way-or-no-way, late Heinlein paramilitary wet dream.
(Egad, *how* many times did the phrase, "I am obligated to advise you" really
stand for, "listen up, dumbass!"?)
The lost opportunities for a real story are what most annoyed me about the
book. Add back into my analysis the expectations I held for Mr. Heinlein
right up until he passed away (yet never met, after 1972, I'm sad to say), and
you have my reasons in toto for finding the book so foul.
(Oh, I should add one more reason: I was in Naval Officer Candidate School at
the time I read it, and spent my days listening to lectures that more-or-less
explained why the book's approach to leadership in practice was such a crock
of shit, then went to bed each night with another helping from the crock. It
was maddening.)
--
Stephen R. Decker
Why is everyone flaming _Number of the Beast_? I've read it
two or three times and really enjoyed it as a diversion from
the serious SF stuff. It may not be classic literature (or
even plain literature, depending on your definition), but I
thought it was just a fun story. True, it was a bit
long-winded and really didn't get anywhere, but I think
listing it on the all time worst list is unfair. Just
because RAH has had much better books, don't relegate one of
his not-quite-up-to-par works to SF damnation. Had someone
else written it, would you still put it on your all time
worst list?
Off the top of my head, (my collection is in storage until I
get some new shelves built) the five worst are:
The Paradys series by Tanith Lee. I have been trying to
finish the second book for about a year now and just can't
bring myself to pick it up again.
_Level 7_ by Mordecai ?, This may be considered classic,
but my God, talk about lack of literary style. (Possibly
due to the translation, but still).
_Asylum_ author forgotten. Short story in Dozois 12th
annual. Did this story have a point other than to whine
about global warming and conservative politics?
_The Lost World_ Michael Crichton. I know, maybe
hypocritical to what I wrote about Number of the Beast,
but this falls into the sequel that never should have been
category. Did he put any original thought into this book?
The Dune sequels, Frank Herbert. Enough said.
"Red alert. Full power the the forward deflectors" OK,
ready for your replies.
Steve Decker
Michael Chary
>
>Why is everyone flaming _Number of the Beast_? I've read it
>two or three times and really enjoyed it as a diversion from
>the serious SF stuff. It may not be classic literature (or
>even plain literature, depending on your definition), but I
>thought it was just a fun story. True, it was a bit
>long-winded and really didn't get anywhere, but I think
>listing it on the all time worst list is unfair. Just
>because RAH has had much better books, don't relegate one of
>his not-quite-up-to-par works to SF damnation. Had someone
>else written it, would you still put it on your all time
>worst list?
No one else *could* have written it. _Number of the Beast_ takes all of
Heinliein's worst little tendencies, the stuff that Spider Robinson
tried to apologize for in his essay, and distills those qualities in one
book. Just really annoying. However, I think RAH's worst book was
_Job_.
>_The Lost World_ Michael Crichton. I know, maybe
> hypocritical to what I wrote about Number of the Beast,
> but this falls into the sequel that never should have been
> category. Did he put any original thought into this book?
For his sake, I hope not :)
(What really bugged me about it was that he totally whored the concept of
_Jurassic Park_ by reviving Malcolm. Since he had hammered us with the
"moral lesson" of Malcolm's death, this was unforgiveable. Like doing a
sequal to King Lear with Lear sitting on a beach drinking mai-tai's)
Richard Latham
> Stevens R. Miller wrote: << with possibly massive deletions >>
>
> Let's say we're limiting entries to works by anyone
> who meets at least one of the following criteria:
> Hugo or Nebula winner
> Chief source of income is or was writing
> Has written five or more novels published by a major house
> Ever had a book on the Times's best-seller list
>
I'd like to see someone put together this list of authors and novels, constrained
by these criteria.
I assumed that you meant the author had received a Hugo/Nebula for a novel ...
expanding this to any length work would certainly make the possible receipents
of the "White Wash Award" much longer.
Without including awards for shorts/novellas etc, I don't think you'd have
as many as 50 possible authors. Surely we don't think that 10% of the folks
that have ever won a Hugo for a novel also wrote such an utter piece of
trash that you wouldn't recommend it to your worst enemy ?
#include <disclaimer.std> /* I don't speak for IBM ... etc etc */
Richard Latham - IBM - lat...@vnet.ibm.com
Chris Camfield
Michael A. Chary <ma...@po.CWRU.Edu> wrote:
>I think the worst ones are the ones with real authors names on them. They
>are sort of like trapdoor spiders. They shill you into buying them and then
>they destroy your mind.
>
>_Cradle_ by Arthur C Clarke and Gentry Lee
>
>I don't know what sort of pictures of Clarke, Lee has, but they can't be
>worth this.
>
>_Eye of Cat_ by Roger Zelazny (God rest his soul)
What have you got against Eye of Cat? Now, if you said "To Die In Italbar",
I might agree.
Chris
--
Christopher Camfield ccam...@uwaterloo.ca
1996 BMath Joint CS/C&O [1999 BA Classical Studies???]
"Do you need a new invention? Are you in the right dimension?"
(The Jazz Butcher)
John Novak
>And they kept it up. I mean, they printed a sequel.
Yup.
_Price of the Phoenix_ and _Fate of the Phoenix_ were the two
connected books. I read the first one, as a young child, but could
never stomach the second one.
There are two more, too, that aren't connected at all.
_The Prometheus Design_ and _Triangle_.
If memory serves, the first one is about some quasi-mystical "problem
of violence" plaguing the galaxy, which turns out to be the result of
some galaxy-wide lab experiment by Big Aliens. Much of the action
takes place on a world where the natives have horns on their heads and
look more or less like devils. Which of course requires Kirk and
Spock to surgically modify themselves to look like that and gives the
authors room to construct endless symbols about how Spock looks and
acts like a devil. Weird.
But on the other hand, I recall reading somewhere that the original
character conception for Spock in the TV series was significantly more
saturnine to begin with-- reddish skin, sharper features and a more
hostile view of mankind. It's almost like they were working off those
original concepts, but not the TV series.
Also interesting, now that I think back, the planet where much of the
action takes place is one that's experiencing something like a
low-tech technical Singularity. Paraphrasing as closely as I can from
a ten year old (at least) memory, "There are always those rare periods
in a culture's history where a century brings about as much change as
would a millenia, a decade as much change as a century, and a year as
much change as a decade. Sometimes, those scales superimposed
themselves. [The culture] was experiencing rapid, unthinkable change
right now, advances of decades and centuries happening in mere years."
Of course, they were still somewhere between gunpowder and television
when Our Heroes showed up.
Come to think of it, that may be the earliest reference I ever came
across to the idea of the technological Singularity.
_Triangle_, I remember much more dimly. All I can really remember is
that the central conflict was between Kirk and Spock (and by
extension, The Establishment) and a group or groups of people who were
using telepathy in order to form permanent telepathic unions of
ever-increasing size.
The Phoenix books were about technological immortality, through the
transporters.
More trans-humanist ideas. All I got out of the books at the time,
though, was that they really sucked. I mean, they _really_ sucked. I
read them at a time when I was so young that I really didn't track
authors, per se. I saw "Star Trek" on the cover and bought them.
These books were among the ones that made me notice who was writing
what-- so that I could actively avoid those authors like the plague.
It's odd, given that those are some of the more interesting themes
(IMO) to examine through science fiction. Christ, now I wish I
hadn't thrown them all away.
--
John S. Novak, III j...@cegt201.bradley.edu
http://cegt201.bradley.edu/~jsn/index.html
The Humblest Man on the Net
John Novak
>Why is everyone flaming _Number of the Beast_? I've read it
>two or three times and really enjoyed it as a diversion from
>the serious SF stuff.
Because it's completely directionless and utterly lacking in any
literary merit, IMO. Like most of the Heinlein books I've read (I've
been told I somehow managed to pick the worst three he ever wrote to
read first, which spoiled me on Heinlein for the rest of my life) it
starts out going one direction until Heinlein gets bored. Then, with
no apparent rhyme or reason, it ricochets off the invisible Plot
Barrier in a new direction. How many times did this book do that?
WHAT WAS THE POINT OF IT ALL?
>his not-quite-up-to-par works to SF damnation. Had someone
>else written it, would you still put it on your all time
>worst list?
Yes.
I haven't posted my bottom five yet, but this one is fighting for
inclusion.
Ian Sutherland
kbc...@dmu.ac.uk <kbc...@dmu.ac.uk> wrote:
>Some books that I really Hate
>
>The Three Stigma of Parma Eldrich (not sure if this is spelt right ) i can't
>remember the author and don't want to to .
What? You didn't like _The Three Stigmata of Palmer
Eldritch_? Tastes really do differ ...
The author's name, in code so you don't have to remember
it, is Horselover Fat.
--
Ian Sutherland
i...@eecs.nwu.edu
Sans Peur
Andrea Lynn Leistra
Jon Hansen <jmha...@silver.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote:
>Depends on if Joy was talking about just the first book of Gormenghast
>(called _Titus Groan_) or the overgrown complete "critical edition",
>including (Gohd help us) part of Peake's incomplete _4th volume_ in the
>series. That was called _Titus Alone_.
Hm.
I'd say the _third_ volume of the trilogy is below the level of the first
two (_Titus Groan_ and _Gormenghast_), which are superb. It goes off in a
completely different direction. Peake was losing his marbles when he
wrote it, and it shows. The _third_ volume, the very odd one, is _Titus
Alone_.
>So the whole question here is: does just the first book stink or the
>whole series/trilogy/monstrosity. Personally my rule is that I give most
>books a hundred pages to grab my attention. Titus Groan didn't even make
>it that far....
How can you not love the first paragraph?
(I don't have the book with me, or I'd quote it.)
I'll freely admit, it's not exactly fast-paced.
--
Andrea Leistra http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~aleistra
-----
Life is complex. It has real and imaginary parts.
don redmond
jmha...@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Jon Hansen) wrote:
> Jan...@uku.fi (Jan Six) wrote:
>
> >ton...@central.co.nz (Joy Green) wrote:
> >> Titus Groan - Mervyn Peake
>
> >** OUCH **
> >Please say you mean _Titus Alone_.
>
> Depends on if Joy was talking about just the first book of Gormenghast
> (called _Titus Groan_) or the overgrown complete "critical edition",
> including (Gohd help us) part of Peake's incomplete _4th volume_ in the
> series. That was called _Titus Alone_.
>
> So the whole question here is: does just the first book stink or the
> whole series/trilogy/monstrosity. Personally my rule is that I give most
> books a hundred pages to grab my attention. Titus Groan didn't even make
> it that far....
>
I must object, i think. The first two volumes of the trilogy, Gormenghast
and Titus Groan, were great books. In fact, i might be tempted to list the first
one in one of these x books that are gospel. The last one (or one and a
half), Titus
Alone, wasn't very good, but i guess the publisher just figured let's get it out
there too, maybe we can sucker the readers of the first two.
Don Redmond
don redmond
(snip)
> Some books that I really Hate
>
> The Three Stigma of Parma Eldrich (not sure if this is spelt right ) i can't
> remember the author and don't want to to .
>
It's Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and it's by P. K. Dick. I think its a
great book, certainly one of Dick's best. However, since there is no
accounting for taste we might as well go on to the next book list.
(snip)
>
> I don't really know why I don't like these ,but can't get into them .
>
> Stephen Mawson
Don Redmond (not enjoying the snow)
Oeystein Halseth Lund
: Roberta and Craig Becker (bec...@bga.com) wrote:
: : How 'bout Piers Anthony's _Bio Of A Space Tyrant_? I forget how many
: : books there are, at least five. *shudder*
: Er, I take it that this series isn't, um, worth the time to read it? I've
: an odd curious impulse to read these books, if only because of the titles
: of the volumes (dammit, I've just _got_ to find out how this "space tyrant"
: got to where he did!)
I rather liked it as a matter of fact - I thought it was well woth
the money I paid for it, and gave me what I wanted.
'course, I bought them for about $2 a piece in a clearance sale, and
I was just looking for something to pass the time...
Anyway - my most heartfelt dis-recomendation must go to brian Aldiss'
Helicona series. I got about halfway through the second book, and
that was beginning to become physically painful.
--
"Don't play with madness. Madness doesn't play."
-Charles Buckowski.
Paul T. Riddell
time, and most of it proves Sturgeon's Law (thus explaining why I read
science books far more often than SF nowadays), and aside from the
obvious "shooting fish in a bucket with an ICBM" of lambasting "Star
Trek" and "Star Wars" books, there's still a lot of garbage that makes
you want to lick the toilets in Grand Central Station clean in order
to get the taste out of your mouth. Here they are, in no particular
order:
Numero Uno: _The Lost World_ by Michael Crichton. Talk about
fatally assaulting your own bibliography: this one apparently was
written for the sole purpose of a new film for Steven "What do you
mean 'Amblin' isn't an anagram of NAMBLA?" Spielberg.
Numero Two-o: _Armada_ by Michael Jahn. I've read a lot of "Star
Wars" ripoffs, but this one takes the whole bakery. Space shuttles in
dogfights with aliens here to eat us, enslave us, and steal our
wimminfolk.
Numero Three-o: _Deliverance: The Next Generation_ by Whitley
Strieber. Yes, I know the real title is _Communion_, but let's have
some truth in advertising, shall we? Either Strieber was dumb enough
to present his anal rape fantasies for all the world to see, or he saw
all of the UFO gits, calculated how much disposable income they had,
and was smart enough to take advantage of gits who aren't smart enough
to come out of the rain.
Numero Three-o: _Red Mars_ by Kim Stanley Robinson. I heard
"Springtime for Hitler" in full orchestration in my head while
slogging through this turkey. The two subsequent books are even
worse.
Numero Four-o: Any of Harry Harrison's "West of Eden" books.
Harry, if you're going to write a book on dinosaurs, read some books
on them that were published after World War I. I know
palaeontologists who started reading this book and threw it across the
room after about fifteen pages.
Numero Five-o: _Fortress of the Pearl_ by Michael Moorcock. I love
both Moorcock's tragedies and his comedies, but this stinker was
written solely for the cash. Did we _really_ need another Elric
novel?
Of course, I could go on for days: I haven't touched anything
co-written by Gentry Lee or Gregory "Working as hard as I can to be a
poor man's Larry Niven" Benford. Then there's that unmitigated piece
of shit called _Squashed Armadillocon_...
Cordially,
Paul T. Riddell
http://www.merid.com
Jonathan Meltzer
Any of the Arthur Clarke/Gentry Lee collaborations
Everything that Piers Anthony wrote after "Orn"
Jonathan Meltzer
_Radix_, A.A. Atanasio
BlackwellL
with several I couldn't stand to read. I would add Gwyneth Jones's _White
Queen_. Junk is unforgivable when it poses as intellectual work.
Laura
Joy Green
>
>ton...@central.co.nz (Joy Green) wrote:
>
>> Titus Groan - Mervyn Peake
>
>** OUCH **
>
>Please say you mean _Titus Alone_.
No I really mean Titus Groan - I hated it.
Of course that might have something to do with _when_ I read it - on a
very long direct flight between England and New Zealand when I got
diverted adding 12 hours to a 36 hour journey, lost my luggage, and was
plagued by flight attendants telling me to have a nice day every 20
minutes or so
Joy
Jim Lahue
on 19 Mar 1996 16:40:08 GMT,
Mark Shaw <ms...@asic.sc.ti.com> writes:
< stuff deleted >
>Anything by CJ Cherryh
>
>YMMV.
>
What didn't you like about the following?
- The Faded Sun Trilogy (Kesrith, Kutath, Shon'jir)
- Serpent's Reach
- Hunter of Worlds
- Wave Without a Shore
- The Gate of Ivrel
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Jim Lahue | Disclaimer: All expressed
jla...@vnet.ibm.com | views are mine alone and not
| necessarily shared by IBM
tkoren
<way big snip>
> late Heinlein paramilitary wet dream.
<ditto>
"late Heinlein paramilitary wet dream."? Oh my, I actually *like* the Number of
the Beast. :)
Liav.
Gharlane of Eddore
Thasaidom <thas...@mortis.demon.co.uk> writes:
>
> You people are not trying. I have started many worse books than any
> mentioned here.
>
> What about the works of Lionel Fanthorpthe and John Lymington and that
> all time turkey "The Gods Hate Kansas" (I have mercifully forgotten the
> name of the author).
>--
I just cracked up, seeing "THE GODS HATE KANSAS" in a worst-SF-book list
from someone in the U.K.
"THE GODS HATE KANSAS" was made into a color movie in the U.K. in
the late sixties.
It was also the proximate model for a "DOCTOR WHO" script.
I'm not real impressed with the book myself, but it's obviously been
enjoyed by SOME of your countrymen.....
Gharlane of Eddore
l...@interport.net (Stevens R. Miller) writes:
>
.....<lots of deletia>
>
> The lost opportunities for a real story are what most annoyed me about the
> book. Add back into my analysis the expectations I held for Mr. Heinlein
> right up until he passed away (yet never met, after 1972, I'm sad to say),
> and you have my reasons in toto for finding the book so foul.
>
> (Oh, I should add one more reason: I was in Naval Officer Candidate School
> at the time I read it, and spent my days listening to lectures that
> more-or-less explained why the book's approach to leadership in practice
> from the crock. It was maddening.)
>--
And the Master strikes again!
Stevens, you're one of the folks he *WROTE* that book for!
....you just don't realize it yet.
The point you missed was that what was happening in the foreground was NOT
what the book was about; "THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST" is a lecture on the
art and science of writing, superficially couched as fiction. It's an
instructional manual that Heinlein left behind for the people who could
appreciate it, with a reading list and homework assignments.
Here's one major clue: Every time the action begins to pall,
or the characters need to be ham-handedly moved from one place to
another, up pops a "Black Hat." And every single time a "Black Hat"
pops up, we get a name for the creature... and every one of the names
is an anagram for "ROBERT A. HEINLEIN," or for "BOB HEINLEIN,"
or for "GINNY HEINLEIN," etc.
These incoherent motivational elements normally appear right on the heels
of a discussion of how incompetent writers use some kind of deus ex
machina to churn up the action, because they don't have the wit to
generate a STORY.... you think all that dialog about "who's in charge?"
wasn't PURPOSEFUL and CONSCIOUS? The answer is simply, and blatantly
obvious, if you read the book as a literary critique of the genre
couched as fiction..... it's *supposed* to be boring, and inane, and
stupid, on the surface, leading right up to the point at the end of
the book where an anagrammatized Heinlein tries to escape into Valhalla
and gets tossed out for his hubris.
"NUMBER OF THE BEAST" was a book that Heinlein wrote for his friends,
for lovers of fiction, for people who love puzzles, and for the readers
he loved and respected. And for the readers who didn't quite know how
to read yet, he provided a surface story that would bore and aggravate
them so much that they might go try reading some of the many wonderful
OTHER books, by other writers, that he pointed out.
....You see, Heinlein *KNEW* you! He knew that in the opening chapter,
you'd be so bemused by his descriptions of Deedee's physiognomy and
personality, that you'd gloss right over the fact that Dr. Neil
O'Heret Braine ( rOBert a HeiNlein ), the stiff-legged caricature
impervious to the charms of young ladies, would institute an armed
strike against the heroes to get them started on their book-long
run..... and he was RIGHT! You kept reading for the wrong reasons,
even after he'd announced that he was doing something radically
different than writers normally do.
It's a textbook. He knew he'd be leaving in a few years, and he wanted
to write about what he knew of his craft, and leave something behind
for those who cared about him; and that party scene at the end was his
way of saying his goodbyes, and expressing his very real love for the
people he was about to leave.
I'm not sure it's his greatest book, but it's certainly the biggest,
most wonderful, delightful, incisive, and *aware* practical joke
ever played on the reading public.
Take another look at it some time, and try to read it as a long lecture
on the art and science of fiction writing, with a stunning example of
How Not To sitting right there in the foreground as a constant reminder.
Matt McIrvin
wonderful old SF movie _Forbidden Planet_.) Actually, it's bad enough to
be funny. I think Gharlane originally brought this turkey to my
attention via a Usenet post.
E. C. Tubb's _Space: 1999_ novelization-- I think it was called
"Breakaway." I suppose that anyone who actually reads a _Space: 1999_
novelization gets exactly what he or she deserves.
_Earthlove: A Space Fantasy_ by Neil McAleer. Imagine all of Richard
Bach's novels compressed into one queasy-making mass. McAleer later
wrote the authorized biography of Arthur C. Clarke.
--
Matt McIrvin NewsWatcher killed my Indent-o-Meter!
(Now you'll know which newsreader I'm using.)
Ahasuerus the Wandering Jew
> The single worst book I have ever
> read, in any genre, was "Firefly" ... the only book I've ever read
> that made me think kindly of the Nazi school of literary criticism.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Next step in Anthony-bashing: "He gives child molestation a bad name" :)
--
Ahasuerus http://www.clark.net/pub/ahasuer/, including:
FAQs: rec.arts.sf.written, alt.pulp, the Liaden Universe
Biblios: how to write SF, the Wandering Jew, miscellaneous SF
Please consider posting (as opposed to e-mailing) ID requests
A. Young
Benedict Walmisley <BWalm...@wolf.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>Falling Worlds - Cecillia Holland
>The Stars in Shroud - Benford
>Faerie Tale - Feist
>Gormengast et al - Mervyn Peake
>Number of the beast - Heinlein
>
Well, I can't think of quite so many as that, but the top of my list
under SF books I wouldn't give my worst enemy has got to be _The
Difference Engine_. I'm afraid that _Consider Phlebas_ might also
qualify: it's beautifully written without a doubt, but I find the
moral/philosophical underpinings of Banks' universe so repugnant that
his books seem well-constructed shells, empty inside, and life's too
short and art to long to waste time on empty shells..... [I hope this
doesn;t get me flamed off the list by Loki!] Also Lackey's _Mage Wind_
books.... So I have three that fit the category (-;
Flame away --- our wet snowfall has dampened everything down in
Toronto and should be a retardant!!!!
Abigail
--
Dr Abigail Ann Young, Records of Early English Drama| young@epas.|
Victoria College, University of Toronto | utoronto.ca|
http://www.epas.utoronto.ca/~reed/reed.html || Home pages for REED & REED-L
http://www.epas.utoronto.ca/~reed/reed-l.html|| Try 'em, you'll like 'em
James Nicoll
unrealistic post WWIII novel) may make my list. Flaws include bad physics
(habitable planets around low mass low luminousity stars all have long
years in his books, when it should be the other way round. Also, the
tachyon winds from the white and black hole (depending on the chapter)
at the centre of the galaxy take 18 billion years to get to our neighborhood.
not only is the amount of time odd, given that tachyons are FTL and
the centre of the galaxy is something like 10 kiloparsecs away but the
universe is only 8-12 billion years old, so these tachyons predate
the universe) and a plot device ripped bleeding from the original
Star Trek show (An evil entity that feeds on negative emotion).
James Nicoll
--
" The moral, if you're a scholar don't pick up beautiful babes on deserted
lanes at night. Real Moral, Chinese ghost stories have mostly been written
by scholars who have some pretty strange fantasies about women."
Brian David Phillips
Christian Weisgerber
> Anything by CJ Cherryh
They'll flame you to a crisp. ;-)
> Books 2-n of most series (Riverworld, World of Tiers, Dune, etc.)
Hey, I consider #3 and #5 the best books of the WoT series.
--
Christian 'naddy' Weisgerber na...@mips.pfalz.de
See another pointless homepage at <URL:http://home.pages.de/~naddy/>.
-- currently reading: Greg Egan, Permutation City --
Jeff Caird
> Stevens R. Miller wrote:
>
> >>>By these rules, I'm allowed to say that the Five Worst SF Novels were:
> >
> >>> The Number of the Beast
> >>> God Emperor of Dune
> >>> Startide Rising
> >>> Rama II (or whatever it was called)
> >>> Dragonflight
>
I've read Number of the Beast" and while most of it is pretentious bollocks, it
ain't all that bad. Some of the stuff in it made me laugh, and other stuff made
me think "What the fuck?" Only give it 6/10 though.
Try reading "The Gnole". (Can't remember the authors). It some eco story, and I
got about 150 pages through it, and haven't picked it up since (3 years
ago!!!).
It was utter bollocks.
--
Jefferson Caird
E-Mail se...@dmu.ac.uk
WWW http://www.cms.dmu.ac.uk/~se2dn/ (Mine)
WWW http://www.cms.dmu.ac.uk/~se2dmg/opr/ (Band HomePage)
Sea Wasp
Michael Chary <ma...@po.cwru.edu> wrote:
>
>Mark Chu-Carroll <m...@lusitania.watson.ibm.com> wrote:
>>Russell Martin <rma...@interlog.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>I can't think up five, but the worst sf novel I ever read has to be a Star
>>>Trek novel called _The Price of the Phoenix_, by Sondra Marshak and Myrna
>>>Culbreath. Now, I'm not saying that just because it's Star Trek -- I have
Tastes vary. I found _Price_ and _Fate_ to be two of the best ST
novels I've ever read. Not two of the most CANONICAL, mind you; Marshak
and Culbreath started from a set of premises and then built on them,
something that created essentially a slowly but increasingly divergent
universe. This is one of the reasons that the final "Phoenix" book
was never published; Paramount and company refused to permit any
continuing characters outside the regular series cast.
>>>read a few books based on that series that were pretty good, e.g. by John
>>>M. Ford and Diane Duane. But this one... I swear, you can read entire
>>>pages at a time and have no idea what the hell's going on, even though it's
>>>set in a universe, and involves characters, most readers will be familiar
>>>with. I plodded through to the end just to see if something, anything, was
>>>going to make sense eventually, but it never did.
???
I don't even see what was so bloody hard about it. There were
essentially three basic premises/problems in the book. Two of them
stemmed from one of the classic "problem tech" devices in ST -- the
Transporter, and its potential for misuse, and the third was a
psychological concept, the "alpha/beta male" premise.
Now, whether you ACCEPT all their premises isn't the point;
UNDERSTANDING them is. And I never had any trouble understanding what
was going on. I didn't always AGREE with Marshak and Culbreath's
views on their subject, but I thought they handled their ideas
well.
What puzzles me in
>>>particular is that it came out in the 70s, when major sf writers like Joe
>>>Haldeman and David Gerrold were doing Star Trek books, but I have no idea
>>>how this ever got into print!
One reason would be that they were at the time MAJOR fan forces.
Not, obviously, that I agree that they were nearly as bad as you make
out, but their fan position certainly helped.
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Josh Kaderlan
Gharlane of Eddore <ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu> wrote:
>
>And the Master strikes again!
>
>Stevens, you're one of the folks he *WROTE* that book for!
>....you just don't realize it yet.
>
>The point you missed was that what was happening in the foreground was NOT
>what the book was about; "THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST" is a lecture on the
>art and science of writing, superficially couched as fiction. It's an
>instructional manual that Heinlein left behind for the people who could
>appreciate it, with a reading list and homework assignments.
>
it. Gak.
Interesting theory (if a bit twisted -- not that I'd expect any less
from you). How'd you come up with it?
If we accept your explication, then tNotB becomes one of the worst
in-jokes ever. Not that in-jokes are necessarily bad; but I have a
problem with in-jokes couched as mass-market paperbacks. That's a rotten
trick to play on the reading public, without giving some kind of
warning. And if Heinlein was really trying to do what you say (I'm not
entirely convinced), then he was too subtle for his own good. It must
have given great joy to those few who figured it out -- but it pissed the
rest of us off.
[accidental snippage]
>or the characters need to be ham-handedly moved from one place to
>another, up pops a "Black Hat." And every single time a "Black Hat"
>pops up, we get a name for the creature... and every one of the names
>is an anagram for "ROBERT A. HEINLEIN," or for "BOB HEINLEIN,"
>or for "GINNY HEINLEIN," etc.
>
But then the last portion of the book is a complete non sequitur --
there's no "Black Hat" to cause the characters to run into Lazarus Long
and his merry crew. IMO, if Heinlein was really trying do what you say,
then he completely destroyed the effect by linking tNotB with the Future
History, and then fouled it up even further by keeping those characters
around for both *The Cat Who Walks Through Walls* and *To Sail Beyond The
Sunset*.
>I'm not sure it's his greatest book, but it's certainly the biggest,
>most wonderful, delightful, incisive, and *aware* practical joke
>ever played on the reading public.
>
What was the quote from the notebooks of Lazarus Long about practical
jokers? Something about staking out on an anthill being the minimum
punishment?
--Josh
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Bubu accidentally fired up the game at 'Level 5: Brian De Palma On A Bad
Day' once, and I got skinned alive by a pack of mutant cannibal Cub
Scouts before I'd made it ten feet."
Bruce Bethke, *Headcrash*
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary S Dennis
makers of Harlequin Books briefly spawned a line of alleged SF books called
Laser Books. Some PR type was giving them away free at a con in Toronto, so
I attempted to read a couple. Cloned Kelly Freas covers (face in upper
left corner, sci-fiish landscape background), paper-thin plots, third grade
reading level. The only plot I can recall was a straight When Worlds Collide
ripoff. The name Thomas F. Monteleone comes back to me as the most prolific
of the contributors - no idea what other work he's done.
Analog or some such publication did a wonderfully scathing review of the
first 10 or so of these (about 2 months' output I think) under the title
Repent, Harlequin...
There was another thing just about that awful from the 60's or 70's that
featured interplanetary pursuit of some giant noseless mutant Napoleon of
Crime type around the Solar System with atom guns and whatnot. My memory
refuses to dredge up the title or author but I recall it being mentioned
here the last time we played Worst Books Ever...
The Gormenghast stuff by Mervyn Peake has hung onto my personal Fastest
Loss of Interest trophy for something like 25 years.
I dunno if it belongs in this group, but Shardik managed to lose me inside
of about 50 pages, and I VERY rarely abandon books midstream!
--
/Gary Dennis (g...@soliton.com)
Soliton Associates, Rochester NY
speaking for myself, not Soliton
Sea Wasp
Steve Miale <mi...@muddy.kesmai.com> wrote:
>In article <lex.967....@interport.net>,
>Stevens R. Miller <l...@interport.net> wrote:
>>BWalm...@wolf.demon.co.uk (Benedict Walmisley) writes:
>>>Number of the beast - Heinlein
>>Hurrah! Benedict, if you visit New York, I shall buy you an ale.
>Heresy! "Number of the Beast" is on a level with the Bard compared to
>"I Will Fear No Evil."
And even IWFNE is somewhere above "To Sail Beyond the Sunset"; the latter
is the ONLY Heinlein book I had to FORCE myself to finish. All the others,
even the worst of the others, still had the Heinlein power to keep me
reading even while I was saying "this sucks. I'd rather be watching
Beavis and Butthead". Heinlein's power to keep me reading wasn't even
enough to keep me on TSBTSS; only my determination to finish it did that.
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Mark Bernstein
: Nevertheless, I think the book can be judged as trash on its own merits. The
: most common complaint is the seemingly endless rangling over who is going to
: be captain of the car. To me, it was as interesting as listening to four
: year-old children argue over who will be in charge of the treehouse. Now,
: even without recourse to his other books, this was not only boring, but it was
: disappointing. That's because the issues surrounding the debate made the
: determination of who would command, and what it meant to agree to accept
: command, more important than it would be in a treehouse.
See Mark's mileage. See Mark's mileage vary.
To me this was the *most* interesting aspect of the book. Why? Because at the time
I read it, I was living as one-fourth of a household that consisted of two married
couples, all of us reasonably competent, all of us strong-willed. It seemed to me
that he captured the dynamics of such a situation rather well.
: Yet Heinlein's characters seem also to be impossibly competent
I know any number of people who are highly competent in one or more areas, and
still capable of acting like fools in certain circumstances. I didn't always
*like* the four of them, but I never completely lost my suspension of disbelief.
(Oh, and I'd certainly include myself in that "any number of people".)
--
Mark Bernstein
m...@arbortext.com
Scott Jeter
> In article <4ilc5c$7...@news6.erols.com> Stan Barton <sba...@erols.com> writes:
> >gwis...@uoguelph.ca (Loki) wrote:
> >>In ashen ink, mort...@ufcp.com inscribed:
> >>: Okay, this is a reversal of the "5 canonical sf books" list.
> >>Anthony, Piers *
> >Come on now... Anthony's "Macroscope" was okay.
> Yes, but his sequel, "Macaroniscope" signalled the end of of the Giant Pasta
> trilogy. (God, I love this group.)
In all fairness, "Macroscope" WAS ok, but it is almost the only work by
Anthony that I have ever liked enough to recommend and reread. BTW it is
NOT part of a series, and thus is more enjoyable and possibly better
written. Truth is, much of Anthony's series could be better if he would
condense them into single books. The ideas are fine, mostly original,
but they get 'padded' beyond all reason when he makes them series...
------
scott jeter
bje...@odin.cbu.edu
------
Andrew Hackard
>Time has drawn a merciful veil over the titles, but in the early 70's the
>makers of Harlequin Books briefly spawned a line of alleged SF books called
>Laser Books.
[...]
This is the line that originally published (and mangled) Piers Anthony's
_But What of Earth?_ as a collaboration...which he hadn't authorized. It's
all rather amusingly told (without benefit of names) in the corrected new
edition of BWOE?, and told in an abridged version (but one that names names)
in _Bio of an Ogre_.
--
"All men must die, it was their single \ HEY SENATOR EXON!!!
common heritage. But a book need never \
die and should not be killed; books were \ Shit, piss, cunt, fuck,
the immortal part of man." -- Hugh Farnham \ motherfucker, cocksucker, tits!
Mike McLain
name). It is a 160 page soliloquy on what it's like being the last man on
earth.
Basically, it's boring.
And so is the book.
Mike McLain, mcl...@primenet.com
****************************************************************
A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take
the shot from the weapon. Breach man's mind. Who knows who
might be the target of the well-read man? Me?
Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 451
****************************************************************
Mike Gannis
"THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST":
::or the characters need to be ham-handedly moved from one place to
::another, up pops a "Black Hat." And every single time a "Black Hat"
::pops up, we get a name for the creature... and every one of the names
::is an anagram for "ROBERT A. HEINLEIN," or for "BOB HEINLEIN,"
::or for "GINNY HEINLEIN," etc.
jek...@cac.psu.edu (Josh Kaderlan) replied:
:But then the last portion of the book is a complete non sequitur --
:there's no "Black Hat" to cause the characters to run into Lazarus Long
:and his merry crew. IMO, if Heinlein was really trying do what you say,
:then he completely destroyed the effect by linking tNotB with the Future
:History, and then fouled it up even further by keeping those characters
:around for both *The Cat Who Walks Through Walls* and *To Sail Beyond The
:Sunset*.
"Destroyed the effect"? When Heinlein's characters suddenly realized:
"Oh, shit! We're in a *Heinlein* universe!" I was rolling on the floor
laughing. Scared the hell out of the cat.
Stevens R. Miller
>Stevens R. Miller <l...@interport.net> wrote about _# of the Beast_:
>>
>>(Oh, I should add one more reason: I was in Naval Officer Candidate School at
>>the time I read it, and spent my days listening to lectures that more-or-less
>>explained why the book's approach to leadership in practice was such a crock
>Could you summarize some of the ideas from the lectures?
That's a really good question, Nancy (and have I mentioned how much I value
your involvement in this group?). However, the answer to your question is,
"no, I can't summarize them." The reason is that they dealt, at length, with
the fact that the concept of command is in continuous tension with the concept
of initiative. Rather much of the time, the tension is small. But when one
feels that one has been commanded to act in extreme contravention of what
one's initiative (something the military truly values, no matter what else
Alda said on M*A*S*H) suggests, a paradox ensues. Dealing with a paradox
can't be done very well by summary. (But, perhaps this meta-summary has given
you an idea of what our classes were about.)
>On the other hand, the Navy doesn't have to deal with starting a
>hierarchy from scratch.
That's a good point, but I think the book fails to prove its own point,
because the characters so quickly adopted a simulacrum of the naval scheme.
They did have to build one from scratch, but they chose to build one that was
based on an existing design. That design doesn't suffer rotating captains
very well, but Heinlein wrote his book as though it could. He should have
known better, but then he'd been out of the Navy for about fifty years when he
wrote it, so maybe he just forgot.
--
Stevens R. Miller http://www.interport.net/~lex/
Ahasuerus the Wandering Jew
> [Gharlane wrote:]
> >I'm not sure it's his greatest book, but it's certainly the biggest,
> >most wonderful, delightful, incisive, and *aware* practical joke
> >ever played on the reading public.
> >
> What was the quote from the notebooks of Lazarus Long about practical
> jokers? Something about staking out on an anthill being the minimum
> punishment?
"A 'practical joker' deserves applause for his wit according to its
quality. Bastinado is about right. For exceptional wit one might grant
keelhauling. But staking him out on an anthill should be reserved for the
very wittiest."
Adam Lou Stephanides
>Mark Chu-Carroll <m...@lusitania.watson.ibm.com> wrote:
>>Russell Martin <rma...@interlog.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>I can't think up five, but the worst sf novel I ever read has to be a Star
>>>Trek novel called _The Price of the Phoenix_, by Sondra Marshak and Myrna
>>>Culbreath. Now, I'm not saying that just because it's Star Trek -- I have
>>Goodness, this brings back absolutely *awful* memories. >
>>I first read this book in something like 6th grade. It gave me absolutely
>>*awful* headaches - but I finished it, because at the time, I was very proud
>>that I had *never* not finished a book that I decided to read.
>I would try to describe how bad this book and these authors are, but I
>must confess that I never would havebelieved it myself if someone had
>tried to describe it to me, so what's the point? I mean, this is the book
>that would have made Guttenberg smash his press with an axe had he known
>where it would read. The Yoko Ono of science fiction.
I'm going to have to try and read this...
--Adam
Stevens R. Miller
>[Heinlein was playing a trick on you, to make you think.]
Gharlane, that's a remarkable and fascinating suggestion. I could live
without this next bit, though:
>...for the readers who didn't quite know how
>to read yet, he provided a surface story that would bore and aggravate
>them so much that they might go try reading some of the many wonderful
>OTHER books, by other writers, that he pointed out.
I think this is a bit unfair. I read the book with reasonable assumptions in
mind. He may have exploited them masterfully, but that doesn't mean I didn't
know how to read.
Nevertheless, your thesis is very interesting.
>Take another look at it some time, and try to read it as a long lecture
>on the art and science of fiction writing, with a stunning example of
>How Not To sitting right there in the foreground as a constant reminder.
I will! And thanks. This posting is the first about Heinlein's writing that
has truly shown me something new, without asserting the (in)correctness of a
perceived philosophical assertion therein.
Stevens R. Miller
>Gharlane of Eddore <ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu> wrote:
>>The point you missed was that what was happening in the foreground was NOT
>>what the book was about; "THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST" is a lecture on the
>>art and science of writing, superficially couched as fiction.
>But then the last portion of the book is a complete non sequitur --
[Rising to Gharlane's defense] But that would fit the suggestion perfectly!
The worst SF cliche of all is, "but then the aliens landed and explained it
had all been a dream." Last-minute introductions of crucial facts are ruled
out of classic SF by the unwritten laws of the genre. Yet, hack writers use
them all the time. I'd say Gharlane's theory comports with your observation.
Geez, this is a refreshing thread!
Graydon
: They did have to build one from scratch, but they chose to build one that was
: based on an existing design. That design doesn't suffer rotating captains
: very well, but Heinlein wrote his book as though it could. He should have
: known better, but then he'd been out of the Navy for about fifty years when he
: wrote it, so maybe he just forgot.
I didn't recognize anything particularly 'naval' about that scheme, and
I've been on exercises where command rotated every six hours and things
kept right on chugging. Given the size and nature of that group, I can't
think of anything else that would have produced an undisputed final
captaincy.
--
saun...@qlink.queensu.ca | Monete me si non anglice loquobar.
Jan Six
> What? You didn't like _The Three Stigmata of Palmer
> Eldritch_? Tastes really do differ ...
>
> The author's name, in code so you don't have to remember
> it, is Horselover Fat.
That's Horselover R. Fat. The R stands for Relatives ;-)
______________________________________________________________________
Jan Six |"It is a hypothesis that the sun will rise in the
| morning. This means we don't _know_ it will rise"
Jan...@uku.fi | - Ludwig Wittgenstein
|
It's my real name.|"Actually, now that you come to mention it..."
Honest. | - Nikolaus Copernicus
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