Reading Z's thread about Spellfire made me start thinking. What is the WORST fantasy book you ever read? From cover to cover, just to prove you were a masochist. :D

Believe it or not, Ed Greenwood's drivel actually didn't top my list...it's a book by none other than Gary Gygax. I'm talking about the last book of his Gord the Rogue series (some of you may remember the first couple of books, Saga of Old City and Artifact of Evil, which were passable but not literary gems by any means). The remaining five in the series were written by Gygax after he got the shaft from TSR, and this last one was called Dance of Demons.

Gary Gygax definitely created the uber-munchkin concept with Gord. Elminster looks like a shrimp compared to this guy. He starts off as this little urchin in Greyhawk City in Book 1, and by Book 2 has grown into a quite a capable young thief (about 12th level or so - still quite believable. But at this late stage of the saga he's still human (somehow), but he's got about a gazillion innate powers and godlike abilities. :eek:

In one sequence he kills about a thousand demons (I kid you NOT) by himself, while his partner (also human) kills another thousand. All this happens in one encounter. [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img]

In another one he faces off with Nerull, also known as Infestix, also known as the supreme leader of the yugoloths (daemons), who is just about a diety, and kicks his ass. :eek: [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img]

Did I say that Gord, at this stage, is not even thirty years old? [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img]

I think Gary might have run out of ideas towards the end...the earlier books were better, and much more believable. This last one is just hilarious. [img]graemlins/laugh2.gif[/img]

Dance of Demons has to be the WORST book I've ever read - Gary must've gone completely dry on ideas and penned this for the money. No suspense, no twists, nothing but Super-Gord cutting a swathe through every single thing.

If I could compare Gord to a BG2 character, he would be similar to a character with 100% immunities to everything and with 25 stats in everything. He is now the Champion of Balance (Good and Evil are BOTH undesirable) and is IMPERVIOUS to defeat and demon lords like Graz'zt, Demogorgon, Mandrillagon and Orcus, as well as daemonkings like Anthraxus and Infestix, and the Dukes Infernal (Asmodeus and Co.) quail before his relentless onslaught.

Here are his (and Gellor's) powers at the start of Dance of Demons (the "ceremony" where the Heirophants, all the deities and demigods of Balance and Mordenkainen etc all "bestow" these gifts to make them innate abilities had me rolling on the floor in hysterics LOL!!). [img]graemlins/laugh3.gif[/img]

- can communicate by telepathy
- can move to any place with a thought
- can become mentally invisible (permanent mind shield)
- he wears shadow armor with zero encumbrance and AC -40
- also wears magic ring of 100% magic damage resistance and 100% physical damage resistance
- wears elven chain mail shirt giving 100% resistance to elements
- wears cats paws gloves, allowing wearer to fall any distance without injury, to deliver clawed blows (why bother when your sword does about 1000pts of damage anyway) and to climb like a cat
- wears girdle of planar shifting
- can transform into a massive panther at will
- regenerates about 20 hp per round (why bother when you are IMPERVIOUS to damage anyway)
- immunity to disease, poison, warding from foes, constant true sight
- PERMANENT 100% magic resistance
- he wields Courflamme, the Mighty Sword of Neutrality, which has the ability to kill thousands of demons with a thought

Here are some excerpts of one of his battles in the Abyss that will have you rolling on the floor. [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img]

"Gord raised the diamond-bright part of Courflamme, auming at the demon's outthrust head. The sword's tip suddenly spat forth a black bolt of force. The crackling ebon dart sheared off the top of the fiend's head, and the impact of it actually flipped the demon's massive body over in a somersault.

Without pausing to view his work, Gord turned and faced his next foe, now aiming the long blade as if it were a wand. Again the inky core of the weapon sent forth a blast of dark power, and another of the charging demons died. It became almost mechanical thereafter: Gord pointed the blade, willed destruction, and again another monstrous beast crashed down dead. Again, again, yet again. Soon a half-circle of twitching demon corpses formed a barrier in front of him, a wall so great that the young champion could see nothing but its stinking height." [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img]

And if that's not enough for you, Gellor, his sidekick, has certainly grown from being that raspcallion guardian of Gord's from the first couple of books. Here's an example of what he's like in combat with demons:

"Gellor brought forth his ivory kanteel, adjusted one of the golden pegs, and gently stroked the silver strings of the little harp. A ripple of beautiful notes washed outward, and the demon-beasts reacted as if they had been struck by a tidal wave.

When the sounds from the enchanted strings of the instrument struck, fully a dozen of the massive monsters were bowled over, while a half-hundred of the lesser scavengers were blown away, some actually torn to pieces in the process." [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img]

And here's a final excerpt to blow you away (literally):

"Side by side, the two heroes strode across the endless leagues of the foul layer that was the entry to the Abyss. In a short time, thanks to their innate force, they came to the towering bluffs that housed the gateways to the next twenty tiers of the agglomeration of planes that formed the depth of evil called demonrealm, the Abyss. A few hundred lesser demons were there to contest their entry, prevent them from going on, but those malign guards died in vain, swiftly and without great effort from the pair. A clear and bright melody from the kanteel, some dark and deadly lightnings from the rejoined sword, Courflamme, and none stood to oppose them." [img]graemlins/crazyeyes.gif[/img]

Ferkin' hysterical. I might use it if I run out of toilet paper. [img]graemlins/laugh2.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/laugh3.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/evilhaha.gif[/img]

If they can sell that crap then I am dedicated to becoming a writer [img]smile.gif[/img]
No matter how tired I am there is no way I would be creating a pair of Uber masters ;)

Well, call me controversial, but one of the worst books I have read recently was “Legacy of the Drow – Collector’s Edition” by R.A.Salvatore.

Where do I begin when trying to describe the tedium of this book……hmmmm, well lets start with the characters. If they were any more two-dimensional, they would disappear when viewed side on. Most of the action seemed to revolve around some elf called Drizzly Turban and some woman named after a French soft cheese. There were some other players, but they were either stereotypical villain types or annoying archetypes like the idiot barbarian and the stroppy dwarves.

Then there is the action. Sorry if this is a spoiler, but the book basically follows this structure.

1) Drizzly fights against overwhelming odds….and wins [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img]
2) Drizzly moons about over the French cheese woman
3) Drizzly and the other characters go somewhere else
4) Return to step 1)

A couple of other nitpicks to finish with. Drizzly’s swords - I can’t remember what they were called exactly, but I think they were named Ticklestick and Sausage Slicer or something like that. This threw the whole saga off balance as it was obvious that he would be able to slaughter whole legions of opponents as they rolled about on the ground, helpless with laughter at such absurdly named weaponry.

Finally, the big bad was some demon or other. If this epitome of evil had been any more stupid, it would have had trouble getting a daypass from the Hellish Home for the Feebleminded, let alone menacing anything with and IQ greater than single figures.

I could think of some more to say, but that would be overly iconoclastic, so I’ll just finish this now ;)

Hmmm...I take it you're a Gygax fan, Mousie? :D :D :D

Ooooooh yes, give me all the cheesy, fantasy-by-numbers crap out there. If it's mildly *cough*erotic*cough* so much the better. Come to think of it (nudge, nudge, wink, wink ;) ) I seem to remember some really dire fantasy from way back in the dim mists of time. I think it was all about some barbarian called Gor........ [img]graemlins/crazyeyes.gif[/img]

Ooooooh yes, give me all the cheesy, fantasy-by-numbers crap out there. If it's mildly *cough*erotic*cough* so much the better. Come to think of it (nudge, nudge, wink, wink ;) ) I seem to remember some really dire fantasy from way back in the dim mists of time. I think it was all about some barbarian called Gor........ [img]graemlins/crazyeyes.gif[/img] </font>[/QUOTE]DON'T TELL ME YOU READ THAT WHEN YOU WERE A KID TOO!!!! :D :D

Actually, wait a minute...I read those when *I* was a kid, and that was only 15 years ago, so how old were you...? [img]tongue.gif[/img]

If I am correct, the hideousness that is John Norman's Gor series first dragged itself out of the cesspit of the author's imagination in the early 1970's. Even I was a kid back then :D

The WORST book??

I'm not sure - I've read a lot a very bad things in my search for new authors read - and I've subsequently sold the books so I've (luckily) forgotten a lot of them. But here are a few notable examples:

Death Gate Cycle - Weis & Hickman (good start - awful finish)
Piers Anthony - Bio of a space Tyrant (and others) (I liked Xanth - bought some other books by him [img]graemlins/nono.gif[/img] )

P.S I have G.G.'s Dance of Demons on my shelf - but 'thanks' to Memnoch I'm probably never read it [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Worst book ever?
Artemis Fowl by Eion Colfer
It is about this genius/criminal mastermind/millionair who attemps to steal the greatest treasure in the world.The timeless tyreasure of the fairies!And he is only 12 years old.There a whole lot of weird things in the game.Goblins are like ghosts and can blow fireballs from there mouth.And dwarves can eat them and inhinge there jaw and blows rocks from the butts. And there is an army of elves called the LEPrecon Special Forces.The kid easily defeats a troll.It's probably the dumbest book I have ever read.

I wasn't able to think of a piece of swill i hated enough to call my worst reading experience ever, until Piers Anthony was mentioned, I will grant that the first one or two books in any series of his (that I've read) are usually interesting, and good, if a little heavy on sex, but the worst book i've ever read was by him (well two of them) in his incarnations of immortality (the whole series except for death and time could easily qualify for my worst) but the concepts of good and evil as incarnations are my most hated, no surprise that they are also the last.

(I've found his writing tends to degenerate into nothing but meaningless dribble and blatant and pointless sex scenes after a few books)

Madame Bovary (Flaubert) got me crying out loud... That was so boring... Real torture... And the worst thing is that we have a copy, so I have to hide it behind other books. Just looking at it is torture. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Most books that I don't like get dropped after the first couple chapters... but one I actually finished was Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. The reason I finished it was because it had some brilliant elements in it, and was groundbreaking for the cyberpunk genre, but alas... it was also hopelessly pathetic in it's attempt to be edgy (pretty much exactly why I don't like all the lame WB series like "The Badge") and had a LOT of seriously implausable/unbelieveable plot elements... and a bad ending to boot.

The bible.

Okay. I had to think about this one for a while. I guess I haven't read that many fantasy novels that I haven't liked in some way, probably because I'm a big sucker for the genre. Any sword/sorcery type fantasy book or movie will interest me at least a little, no matter how bad. Example: I watched Black Knight. Twice. And liked it. :D

That being said... ;)

I think R.A. Salvatore's The Spine of the World is the worst fantasy book I've had the pleasure of reading. Where to begin... well let's just say that the book tries to be all dark and brooding. This is a rather severe change of direction from the other Drizzt novels, which is not a bad thing necessarily and on the contrary the series did need a change of pace from the light-hearted {instert monster name} slaughters that we've been used to, but Spine of the World does a crappy half assed job at it, which is a bad thing.

The first half of the book is basically Wulfgar (who is returned to the mortal plane after being tortured by demons and whatnot) being a drunken idiot and wallowing in his own self-pity. It seems Salvatore wanted to show some of the darker emotions that being a hero can entail, but he definately went over the top in this novel. No Wulfgar can't just be an alcoholic, he has to be an alcoholic to rival any other alcoholic! He drinks bottles upon bottles per day and destroys entire bars in his drunken barbarian rage. Lame-o. To make things worse, Salvatore relentlessly spouts out his cheesy moralistic views at the start of each section via Drizzt's personal thoughts. Bleh. In the Dark Elf trilogy, these journal entries from the mind of Drizzt were a great insight into his character, but in Spine of the World, Salvatore/Drizzt comes off as even more preachy and prudish. If you look on Amazon.com you'll see that this book scored the lowest user-ratings of any of the Drizzt novels. There is a good reason for it too. Bleh again.

This novel could have been pretty decent, but Salvatore isn't the best writer for this sort of thing. He should stick with his happy go lucky drow taking on dragons in his sleep.

Sad thing is, I still buy every Drizzt book that comes out [img]graemlins/funnysad.gif[/img]

How did I forget this one - Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany.

Horrible soulless monstrosity [img]graemlins/1puke.gif[/img]

No Johnny, we're talking fantasy books here.
Oh, so were you...

The wordt book I have ever read all the way through? (I was trapped on a transpacific airliner) was Crossings, by Judith Krantz. Horrid, horrid. Worst fantasy? R.A. Salvatore's Streams of Silver I loathe Artemis Enteri. Talk about a munchkin! Besides, his name means "Gut of the Moon." [img]tongue.gif[/img] Dishonorable mention: Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn.

The Dragon lance Series,
They were Generic, Stale and lacking in intensity and just about any feeling at all,
I never even finished reading them all
RA Salvatore was pretty bad too,
Just about anything that TSR or lizards on Toast have put their sinister claws upon gives me the trembles.

which dragonlance series, do you mean chronicles, legends, or preludes or any of the other miniseries involved, personally I felt that the character developement of chronicles was probably the best of any T$R book I've ever read, despite the fact that they took a generic party and in the words of Tracy Hickman, Raistlin had hourglass eyes "because it was cool" they later developed that into a great story arc.

Mouse, I totally forgot about Dhalgren until you mentioned it here. I agree with your assessment totally! Talk about mindless and the countless sex scenes had me wondering if I picked up a porn writing by mistake.

Weis & Hickman, Salvatore, and Eddings writings want to make me cry because they are so poorly crafted. Oh, wait, I used the word "crafted." Can't use that in the same sentence as those authors.

Those “dragons of autumn twilight” and “dragons of Winter something”
I have forsworn any Book by TSR and Lizards on toast now.
I just found them to stale and bad compared to other books, I do agree, They are probably the best of anything touched by TSR, But compared to other authors like Gene Wolfe or Moorcock or even Robin Hobb They are bad.

Well couple books are so terrible, that it's better that I don't even mention about them... Please... Don't read following books...

Murder in Halruaa
Richard Meyers
Forgotten Realms

The Farseer: Assassin's apprentice
Robin Hobb
all three books...

None David Eddings books...

nor Michael Moorcook's

[ 12-16-2002, 05:16 PM: Message edited by: Olli Kalma ]

Anything by T$R.

I have to agree with mouse though, I couldn't get through anything by Delany...and I tried believe me. I thought "surely something thats won awards like this has got to be better than this!"

I actually take offence to that.

I actually take offence to that.</font>[/QUOTE]Well, it's MY opinion, what do you want me to do ? Lie about it ? There are probably a lot of people who take offense to it, but it's still MY opinion. And i didn't say it to shock people, i atually read the bible, I had too, they made us read in gradeschool. I never read more nonsense, sorry dude, that's how i feel about it.

I don't know what i was thinking when i bought David Eddings' 'Redemption of Althalus'. To be fair to the author, The first chapters are funny and well thought out, but it quickly degenerates into ridiculously childish events. The whole book seems to be written for 10 year olds and Eddings cant help but throw in every far fetched outcome his overly imaginative mind can conjure.
I shudder at the thought that i wish i still had the book, if only to post a few of the more laughable plot developments.

Favourite book? It's not actually a sci-fi in the full sense of the word but rather a genre that i call sci-freak'n-ecstasy. Grant Naylor's Red Dwarf and Better Than Life go down in history as my all time favourites. Pure insanity. [img]graemlins/crazyeyes.gif[/img]

Ooooooh yes, give me all the cheesy, fantasy-by-numbers crap out there. If it's mildly *cough*erotic*cough* so much the better. Come to think of it (nudge, nudge, wink, wink ;) ) I seem to remember some really dire fantasy from way back in the dim mists of time. I think it was all about some barbarian called Gor........ [img]graemlins/crazyeyes.gif[/img] </font>[/QUOTE]DON'T TELL ME YOU READ THAT WHEN YOU WERE A KID TOO!!!! :D :D

Actually, wait a minute...I read those when *I* was a kid, and that was only 15 years ago, so how old were you...? [img]tongue.gif[/img] </font>[/QUOTE]Hey! What was wrong with the Gor series?? hahaha I remember picking those up from the local library after school, i thought they were ok...haha :D But then again, I wasn't very old at that the time.

Personally, the worst book/s i've read are the Forgotten Realms series. Always full of cheesy characters who never die and have little depth. However, i've always thought the Dragonlance saga was excellent, true, Weis and Hickman's writing ain't as polished as other writers but their books were part of my life as a kid and i still enjoy reading ( most ) of the newer books. But mine is a biased opinion. haha [img]smile.gif[/img]

I jusd read Silverfall, Stories of the Seven Sisters, by Ed Greenwood. There was probably enough cheese in that book to feed every starving childrens in the world for a year... ;)

<font color=orange>OH MY GOSH! I'm agreeing with Eisenschwarz on something! TSR books suck big ones! And really so does the Vaunted R.A. Salatore. Yuch!!! PSST!!! PSST!!! But the all time WORST book I've ever read is Baldurs Gate. That was terrible! The Baldurs Gate Cheat book had a better story in it!
</font>

Let me guess ... they all had an affair with Elminster .....

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