Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Not the worst thing I ever read by far but I recently finished Bradbury's Martian Chronicles and thought it was terrible.

I'm tempted to name every book written by Ayn Rand, but for an allegorical philosopher her writing isn't that bad. Most philosophers can't write worth a damn. Now if we're talking about logical integrity or something of that nature, then that's another story.

As for fiction, Exodus, by far.

dogma wrote:I'm tempted to name every book written by Ayn Rand, but for an allegorical philosopher her writing isn't that bad.

Do you think she's better than C. S. Lewis?

Manchu wrote:Not the worst thing I ever read by far but I recently finished Bradbury's Martian Chronicles and thought it was terrible.

"What about Ray Bradbury?"

"I'm familiar with his work."

Well, the streak ends here. I loved the Martian Chronicles. I wouldn't recommend it, as it's wildly uneven, dated, and ends on a really dumb note, but there are some fun ideas in there.

Anything by lovecraft.

Polonius wrote:Well, the streak ends here.

Or does it?

I loved the Martian Chronicles. I wouldn't recommend it, as it's wildly uneven, dated, and ends on a really dumb note, but there are some fun ideas in there.

That is my exact opinion of the Illustrated Man! My judgment of the Martian Chronicles is relative to that collection.

Manchu wrote:Do you think she's better than C. S. Lewis?

Not by a long shot. As much as I hated Chronicles when I read it (it was at a point in my life when I was militantly anti-Christian) I can reflect on it and know that the ideas are what offended me, and not the writing style. If nothing else the man presented a convincing fairy tale, whereas Rand wrote a philosophical treatise with characters that I would more readily compare to Plato's Republic than a work of moral fiction; where "moral fiction" is how I would characterize Chronicles.

Of course, I've never fully read any of Lewis' other works, so my opinion is going to be fairly myopic.

I know someone's going to go mad about this, but "The Tempest" by Shakespeare. I know it's a play, but I read it, and it was absolutely horrible. I'm not a Shakespeare fan at all, but the Tempest is probably the worst piece of drivel I've ever seen printed onto paper.

@dogma: Really? I thought Lewis was a bully stylistically. Less so than Rand but still.

Manchu wrote:

Polonius wrote:Well, the streak ends here.

Or does it?

I loved the Martian Chronicles. I wouldn't recommend it, as it's wildly uneven, dated, and ends on a really dumb note, but there are some fun ideas in there.

That is my exact opinion of the Illustrated Man! My judgment of the Martian Chronicles is relative to that collection.

It's probably just when you approach stuff like that. I was just binging on classic sci-fi in high school, and I was less discriminating then. The more I think about it the more deeply flawed a book it is. Of course, IIRC, it was originally just a pile of short stories that they tried to tie together, with varying succeess.

But if you didn't like "There will come soft rains," than you've got problems.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Manchu wrote:@dogma: Really? I thought Lewis was a bully stylistically. Less so than Rand but still.

I read the Narnia books as a kid, and didn't get that it was allegory until somebody pointed it out.

Now, I was raised catholic, so maybe I just accepted all the christ imagery without even noticing it.

the North American Free Trade Agreement (and of course GATT as it has some items tied to that). It made me just want to hang myself, and by that I mean hang everyone else, especially its draftsmen, and purge the Earth with Holy Fire. I never really got better now that I think about it.

"Worst" books that I have finished and have not purged from my memory (I've read quite a lot of books that could be considered terrible, but I don't remember a lot of them):

+ Going to have to agree with LotR and the Hobbit. Although the general story I quite enjoyed, the writing style I did not.

+ Pride and Prejudice with Zombies - I really, really wanted this to be good and my wife got it for me as a present but it is, I am afraid, fairly bad with zombies horribly shoe-horned into the story.


Books that I have started reading and given up on:

+ Harry Potter and the cash cow - Not sure which ones I started reading (I think it was a couple of the earlier ones) but the writing style literally made my head hurt.

+ The Da Vinci Code - started reading it and really could not get into it at all.

Manchu wrote:@dogma: Really? I thought Lewis was a bully stylistically. Less so than Rand but still.

Its been a long time since I've read either author, so you may be right.

Its also probably a side effect of growing up reading Plato, Aristotle, and the other classical philosopher instead of fiction. The first "legitimate" book I ever read, or at least the first one I remember reading, was Metaphysics. That's got to warp my perception.

Worst book is too hard, there are so many... Worst fantasy has to be something by Terry Brooks, especially the first Shannara book.

How that guy never got busted for plagiarism is fething beyond me!

Oh and Stephen Donaldson gets a mention because my Dad recommended the Covenant books to me when I was about 11.. It cabbaged me somewhat, but i rather enjoyed them when i started again at 24.

The Alchemist and any of Henrik Ibsen's plays, namely Hedda Gabler and A Doll House. All of which were rather dull.

The Jester by James Patterson. The guy is searching for his wife, then just so happens to find her locked in a dungeon and catches her during her dying breath then she doesn't come up for the rest of the story and he starts banging some random chick. A big guy is going to kill him but for no apparent reason they both start laughing so he doesn't die, then later his friend doesn't return from battle only to show up hours later covered in blood making some stupid joke. It just stopped being vaguely plausible very quickly and the main character was completely unrelatable.

Remembered a really bad 'book'. Wanted by Mark Millar is atrociously bad, has like one good idea in the whole thing (the preacher villian bloke), read a couple of the 'nemesis' comics and they were terrible also.

I only read a couple of the Narnia books but 'the screwtape letters' (Lewis' most famous non narnia book) is one of my favourite books. Also his scifi trilogy starting with 'out of the silent planet' are incredibly good as well. He is an underrated writer for sure.

Well if you want to talk about boring, I could never finish O'Reilly's book on BIND, or the book on SMTP and POP3....those put me right to sleep. Oddly enough I can finish the Unix books I buy though. For some reason those are slightly more interesting.

I'm also part of the "LotR is not very good" crowd developing here. However, I love the Hobbit.

I didn't enjoy the colour purple much when I read it.

LoTR was sadly too long. It'd be perfect for people who want to get immersed in it, but so much could have been edited out or placed into companion books. The movies and the general story are great.

But the worst was "The House of Mirth" for AP Language & Communication-American Literature. I do not want to know the subtle nuances of American high society at the start of the 20th century. I was flabbergasted as to how some of my classmates liked it. So glad I don't have to deal with that thing anymore.

A Lesson Before Dying.

After seeing it discussed so much on Dakka I decided to check out the Bible, don't know what you lot saw in it but the was no Sci Fi at all in that sucker.

Even the Koran had more sex and a happier ending!

The old testament is a good read, the new testament less so.

notprop wrote:After seeing it discussed so much on Dakka I decided to check out the Bible, don't know what you lot saw in it but the was no Sci Fi at all in that sucker.

Even the Koran had more sex and a happier ending!

The bible's sex is sneaky, remember the phrase "A child is born in between his mothers' feet" and then reread the thing. I don't know about you, but the ending was pretty good; Jesus came back and kicked all sorts of ass.

Little known fact: In a previous life, Ayn Rand authored the Bible.

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:Little known fact: In a previous life, Ayn Rand authored the Bible.

Nonsense, Jesus never blew anything up.

halonachos wrote:

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:Little known fact: In a previous life, Ayn Rand authored the Bible.

Nonsense, Jesus never blew anything up.

His Dad did...

Worse book I read and finished I can't remember what is was called or who it was by. Which is good as there is little chance of inflicting it on some poor soul by accident.

It involved the drippiest heroine ever who was part of a time travel team that went back amongst the Border Reavers in the 16th Century. She falls for the dishy reaver son of the bossman who is basically a thug, and the yokels outsmart the timetravellers with drippy's help.

The style was to describe in excrutiatingly banal detail everything the author had researched about life in the 16th century.

Whereas a bit of research would been helpful when a bunch of mercs go on a rescue mission armedwith apparently rubbish East European Ak-47's that don't work at the crucial moment. Yeah right! they were notorious for the tendency to jam! Oh and the mercs were not well trained so giving them poor Ak-47's was a really bad idea

halonachos wrote:
Nonsense, Jesus never blew anything up existed.

There fixed that for you