What is the WORST book you ever read?

[Spelca]

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]

[Thoran]

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.

[johnny]

The bible.

[Darkman]

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.

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]

[Mouse]

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

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

[Legolas]

Originally posted by johnny: The bible.

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

[Attalus]

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.

[Morgeruat]

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.

[Albromor]

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.