the worst book I have ever read, is anything by jane austin, I have ever ready, kate chopin's the awakening is a close second. as far as fantasy I will have to post later to answer that one. I have a novel in mind though I can't remember the specifics of it.

Let me guess ... they all had an affair with Elminster .....</font>[/QUOTE]They already have, in previous books. :D :eek:

Easy, its The Hobbit.

Let me guess ... they all had an affair with Elminster .....</font>[/QUOTE]They almost all end up naked at some point, and for no reason, too. But no, we only see Elminster once in this novel.

It's just the way he write. One of the sister is a mage, got all of her protection dispelled, gagged, tied, had her wrists broken, was put in a big bag with rocks, thrown in a river, and she survived, but he does not even tell us how. One scene she is drowning, the next, she is at a ball, (wearing so little clothing that even today she would get arested for public indecensy, unless you consider wearing some jewelry the equivalent of being fully clothed) so I guess those kind of life threathening things are so common it's not even worth explaining, right?

I hate his "spells" too. He often write things like "And the extra powerfull demi-god/dragon/beholder charged, but was instantly incinerated by magical energies." What is that spell, exactly? It would be no problem, but he always pull off things like this, and we never even see the characters casting protection spells, ever. It get annoying when it's the 50th time something get destroyed by an unknown invisible spell. Most of the time, the characters are just walking while things blow up and get desintegrated around them. If he's so lazy he can't even spend some time to have his characters cast actual spells, he might as well stop writing.

<font color="cyan">Lol!!

'kin awesome answer mate!

Not being anti-religious or nothing, just from the humour side!</font>

[ 01-16-2003, 02:00 PM: Message edited by: Lavindathar ]

I thought the Lord of the Rings Trilogy was extremely boring. I was 12 when I read them, but I was 13 when I read the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and I loved those books, so I don't think my age was really a factor. Also, any conanical text(i.e., the bible) likely won't be a good book to read, unless you're a member of that faith.

This is probably not really the "worst" book I've ever read, but I can't really think of which of the many quite bad books I've read was the worst. And this one dissapointed me the most, it really did... So, by default more than anything, I'm going with God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert.

I'm a massive fan of the previous three books, although I haven't read Heretics or any of the preludes yet, so I don't know if the first three are just isolated in their brilliance. But God Emperor was bad in oh so many ways. It seemed to lose all plot for large sections of the novel, simply going on about how worried Moneo was and how mentally torn Idaho was again and again... I like the fact that it is ambigious as to who are the real "good guys" of the novel, yet I'm not entirely sure if thats deliberate or not. I think Herbert may have been writing in favour of Leto, all the signs were there that he wanted us to dislike Leto's opponents - particularly Siona. But then I found Leto written with such an air of overconfidence and patronising self-importance I was rooting for the bad guys throughout.

The book fails where all the previous Dune novels most noticeably succeded - it doesn't mix the in-depth description of a phenomenally complicated world with a gripping plot. The plot is slow and moves instead to accomodate the description, not for its own beneifits. Yet still, at the end of all of this, the world is not as brilliantly laid out as before. Mostly through the character Leto's reluctantce to explain anything and instead his disturbing habit of expecting people to believe him because of what he is. If I had a penny for every time some kind of exchange came up along the lines of:

Objector: Lord Leto, I have no confidence in your, or your "Golden Path". I think that things should be done a different way.
Leto: If only you knew what I knew... which I won't tell you. The Golden Path is the only way forward. You must trust me, for I am Leto.
Objector: Now I trust you completely and would risk my life for you. I know the Golden Path is the only way forward because I know I am stupid in comparison to your greatness.

And thats how it goes! Thats why I feel frustration with Leto! He's written so badly that he never justifies his own actions. I wouldn't mind this were it not for the fact that every "reasonable" person in the book comes round to agreeing with him due to no more persuasion than being told by him that they should (and without the use of the voice, either...). It just lacks sooo much in the way of believable plot it hurts at times to read it...

Totally disagree with you about David Eddings' books, especially if you are including the Belgariad!!

For me, the worst series of Books was the Wheel of Time series. I just totally gave up on the series after book 3 (or maybe 4). Talk about a series that just TOTALLY loses your interest! *yawn*

While there are many "great" bad books and authors listed here my vote has to go with Mouse. I was talking about this book with someone at work and he also agreed. For being such a hotshot writer and award winner Delany's writing really sucks (IMO). I only finished reading the book because I kept thinking "This book is supposed to be great. He's supposed to be such a great writer. It has to get better." It finally did when I closed the cover.

[ 03-03-2003, 08:36 PM: Message edited by: antryg ]

When i was travelling in Europe i stayed in this one place on this Greek Island. Anyway i opened up one of the drawers and their was this romance novel in it. I had just finished reading Whirlwind by James Clavells so i thought what the hell as i didn't have any other books.

Oh man it was probably one of the worst written, boringingly plotted pieces of %$* ever.. what garbage.. don't even remember the name..

hehehe.. and it wasn't even very romantic or erotic.. so what i did was in every spare scrap of white space in the book.. the margins, inner and back cover, empty pages between chapters etc etc.. i wrote some penthouse forum type of stuff about the characters in the book.. basically filled in all the blanks that the author had left out.. The parts where the author just left off with a "..and the wind blew the candles out as they embraced.." .. i kept the candles lit .. hehe :D

Anyways after i was done i left the book in a different drawer at a different place in Amsterdam.. :D