[IronDragon]

I realize this is an old post but such wonderful memories recalling all these horrible books.
Worst book ever?

Well there have been so many bad ones I hardly know where to start. But I will start…

“The Incarnations of Immortality” series by Piers Anthony. Just horrible. I remember reading an interview given by him shortly after hurting myself on his works. He bragged that he did not use a word processor but a manual typewriter (so he could write in power outages) the keyboard of the typewriter was arranged in a logical order so he could type faster. What irked me was his boast that he never wrote a second draft of ANYTHING. He only writes one draft and that is what gets published. My thought was that it is painfully apparent that he never revises his work.

“Chrome” by George Nadar (yes that George Nadar) is technically a science fiction book but is total crap by anyone’s standards. There is no real story other than the massively gorgeous uber hero stud he-man main character falling in lust with an anatomically correct male android. There are numerous hot oil massages to supplement the plot. Or they would supplement the lot if there was one.

Just added to the list is “The Dark Highlander” by Karen Marie Moning. The book jacket describes a pretty typical set up, an immortal Scotsman haunted by the ghosts of his past, ultimate evil, druidic magic, you know everyday stuff. However the first 29 pages is nothing but a detailed description of the main characters sexual prowess, I’m not kidding page after page of the worst soft core porn imaginable.

“The Magic of Recluse” by L. E. Modesitt Jr. The main character spends page after page complaining about how boring things are. Readers of this forgettable book will surely agree.

Into the Darkness by Harry Turtledove. What if you take world war II and transpose it into a fantasy world? Where fighter places are replaced by dragons and submarines by leviathans and tanks by behemoths, and then drug out the storyline for six or seven thousand pages. The result is a good cure for insomnia.

“The Stand” by Stephen King. I read the unabridged version and almost finished it. I read the first 900 pages and was literally thirty-seven pages from the end when I realized I didn’t care. I didn’t care what happened, I didn’t care about ANY of the characters I didn’t care that I was less than fifteen minutes from being done with this gosh awful work of fiction. I put the book down and have never reopened the thing. A second Steven King book “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon” gets an honorary mention. One third of the way into the book and so far the main character has been lost for ages in thee woods. I was praying for something large and horrible to eat her and eat her now.

Other honorable mentions go to:
The Balder’s Gate series (just say no)
“I Will Fear No Evil” by Robert Heinlein (a sex change novel with way to much sex)
“Number of the Beast” by Robert Heinlein (and they called the Satanic Verses evil)”
Neveryona” by Samuel Delany ( I did admires the hero’s ability to fight evil while wearing nothing but a chain mail thong…I’m not kidding)

However the grand prize goes to:
“Wizard’s First Rule” by Terry Goodkind. Pleases please please do everyone on the planet a favor and avoid this piece of sludge. In one single book the author manages to capture EVER possible fantasy cliché in existence. There is a low born but honest main character who is destined for greatness. An elderly and immensely powerful wizard who guides our young hero. A beautiful maiden in distress in a white dress. A best friend/weapons expert who will do anything for the hero. The hero, upon learning of his destiny, spends hundreds of pages complaining abtou his great destiny and how ‘there’s no place like home.” A dragon. Hundreds of pointless quests. Of course there is a magical sword A evil villain who’s hobbies include torturing and murdering children, plotting world conquest and macramé. Of course our reluctant hero is the only person in the entire world who can stop the dastardly villain.

The three main characters spend a great deal of time biting their fingernails over the fact that each has a horrible secret and the dare not share their horrible secret with anyone else lest that person not like them anymore. “’But what would Richard think of me if only he knew my dark secret?’ Kahlan pondered.”
The book goes from bad to outright horrible when Richard (our whiney hero) is captured and tortured by a latex wearing dominatrix. It’s pretty apparent that the author is living out his own sexual fantasies here. (shudder)