New contest!
Yes. Another one. Already. Don’t even pretend you’re not just giddy with childlike excitement.
This one is easy. If absolutely every one of you don’t enter, Steve’s ninja-zombie-assassins are going to come after you and Nick will blow up your shoes. You may be able to take the beard off the terrorist, but you can’t take the terrorist out of the beard…. wait… that doesn’t work… Crap! You get the idea. Just be afraid.
We were looking at our list of Like, Mediocre, and Hate books (and our new category Like…and Hate). There is a big disparity. We can’t help but feel the need to set the universe in balance (It IS our duty as Gods to maintain order, and stuff).
So what does that have to do with you and the contest? Easy. Become an official follower of the blog, post here that you have done so, and recommend a book to us that you think we will hate and want us to tear apart. Also, don’t be obvious and recommend the sequels to Twilight, or you know the drill… ninja-zombie-assassins and bombs.
This contest will end in one week from today. More than enough time for you to find the BEST worst book.
What do you get out of the deal? Other than the pleasure of knowing we chose your suggestion?
Well, Nick will buy and send you a hard cover book of your choice.
So start suggesting!
Comments
Kindling by Mick Farran (I think, been a while since I read it) – had to read it all to do a review myself otherwise I'd have never finished, and well… the author is not so keen on brown people with religious beliefs.
For a moment, in my pain-pill haze, I saw Tom Lloyd's name and was confused. “Why is Tom saying he hates his own books…”
Well I follow you through the RSS feed. That good enough?
Absolutely the worst waste of time I've ever read was The Lightstone (EA Cycle) by David Zindell.
Shows exactly what fantasy should not be.
I have to nominate Fallen by Lauren Kate. It has such a pretty Goth girl cover but the inside just made me want to hit my head against a wall.
And I get you through google reader.
I am a follower (google).
I haven't read any crappy books, but the book I liked the least was Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves. It was just to weird and the story just didn't make sense to me. I know LOTS of people LOVED it. But It just didn't cut it for me.
Thanks for the contest =)
I started to follow you on august 3th, when Brandon Sanderson raved about you on facebook. I emidietly ordered “I am not a serial killer” and a lot of books has followed, now I need more bookshelves! I even ended up sending Dan Brown one kilo of Norwegian chocolate this Easter.
I cheek the blog for new books every day 🙂
One of the most horrid books I have read is “The Caterpillar's Question” by Piers Anthony. I am ashamed to say i finished it out of a morbid curiosity.
Follow on google reader. Also have it on my iGoogle 🙂
I haven't read any horrible books recently, as I only read books recommended by elitists like your selves 😛 (*wipes off nose*)
I subscribe through Google Reader.
Try The Dark Tide by Dennis L. McKiernan and/or The Redemption of Althalus by David Eddings. (Both some of the worst fantasy ever written).
But you don't have to take my word for it.
Oh, ok… I nominate Outrageous Fortune mostly because its the only book I've tried to read recently that I couldn't get through. I can normally pull myself through anything but this was just to weird and lacked cohesion in my opinion.
I follow your blog on my google RSS feed. And I love it, but that goes without saying.
I humbly suggest “The Fifth Sorceress” by Robert Newcomb to be read & shredded (both here on the blog, and then in the nearest wood chipper). You should have fun with that one. Just don't hold it against me for suggesting it.
Kevin J. Anderson has written one of the worst books ever ever to emerge from the eldrich ichor of tortured Calliope… excuse me. I nomenate Saga of the Seven Suns for being a list of the coolest ideas ever crammed into a story line to horrible to be funny. A seven book saga with six seconds of character development.
Ok. Can't help but add my $.02 here.
“Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West” by Gregory Maguire
The Broadway play may be popular, but this novel is pretty awful (the play and novel are pretty different). You guys would completely revile it.
The Lovely Bones could be the worst book written in the past 40 years.
I follow on My Yahoo.
I suggest Rhapsody by Elizabeth Haydon. I'm feeling sadistic today. I couldn't find any discernible character motivation (or a plot, really). Have fun!
I'm a follower, have been since Sanderson linked to you back when you did Warbreaker.
As long as old books are okay, the beginning of the Stones of Power series (the first two books) by David Gemmell is really bad. 3-5 are actually good, but the first two aren't great. And those are the most recent bad books I've read.
I check numerous times a day for new posts, and I always read them as soon as they've been posted. The more the merrier, Mr. Elitists!
I think the worst book I ever picked up is Kushiel's Dart, by Jacqueline Carey. I'll be honest, I only picked it up because the girl on the cover had a sweet tattoo. And this was a few years ago, when I insisted on reading one book at a time, cover to cover, no matter what I thought about it.
I don't do that anymore.
Here's one for ya… Seed of the Elven God, by Thomas Shoemaker. The title itself is bad enough, but the book itself is worse. Hawaii is a fairy island, a vampire's castle becomes the basis for Castlevania, a goblin king gets compared to a high school football team. And it's not modern day. Wow. Just wow.
I'm a google-reader.
MYRREN'S GIFT by Fiona McIntosh. The initial idea isn't terrible, but everything else is.
Runes of the Earth by Stephen R. Donaldson, for having only about 15 pages of plot in a 500 page novel (with a glossary almost as long) and not an interesting moment until the last half of the last page.
P.S. I also got linked here from Sanderson. You rock as much as he does!
I just realized… are you guys masochistic, or you just torturing the new people? Do you really want to read the worst garbage we can come up with? Besides, wouldn't we prefer to have you recommend a *good* new author or series? Meh. I you want misery I'll try to come up with something!
I found this site a few months ago- followed till exams started(they finished today). Few novels i have ever seen can compete with the headaches inspired by these novels:
Shadowmarch by tad williams
the thiefs gamble by juliet e. mckenna
Google reader.
The worst book currently damaging American culture has to be:
The Summoner : Book One of the Chronicles of the Necromancer by Gail Z Martin
Major non content offense: having better art than the book deserves, enlarged font to make the book appear to be of epic fantasy in scope, being shelved next to GRRM (possibly by writing with a pen name, or getting published for that reason)
I feel bad even giving it a nonrecommendation.
I follow the blog through Google reader, and have been thinking a little while on this one. I'll mention a couple that I thought were bad. Awful? Perhaps. The worst books (IMNSHO) are those that seem to have a lot going for them, but just… fail somehow. On those lines, Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler had a decent main character (with a problem/ability to learn to overcome/use), and an interesting setup, then goes nowhere for a while before a coincidental meeting suddenly wraps up the plot… and to which there is apparently a sequel that I've never read. Also, there is the Age of Discovery series by Michael A. Stackpole. It starts off with an interesting world with the ability to become a magic use through excelling at your given occupation. However, as the books progressed, the whole thing just kept falling apart more and more, especially as characters get more powerful and a larger cast comes in.
On a final note, I would consider nominating the “new” Dune books, but I would feel obliged to read them before nominating them, and I haven't brought myself to do so yet.
I am an avid reader and I have a pretty high tolerance for crap, mostly because once I start a story I really want to know how it ends so I am willing to wade through all kinds of bad writing just to find out.
That being said the book, “Rusalka” by C.J. Cherryh shut me down. It's one of the few books that was so utterly boring that I stopped reading it.
Oh, and you guys know I follow. I've been stalking the blog for some time 🙂
The worst book I have read in the fantasy genre in the past 5 years would have to be A Shadow in Summer by Daniel Abraham. After reading the prologue, I thought I had found a winner, but nothing else in the novel lived up to it. There were some great ideas presented, but they were forgotten in exchange for focusing on characters I wished would just die already. Halfway through the book it felt like I was reading a soap opera and by the end, little to nothing had happened to advance the plot I can only hope appears in this novel's sequels. Very dissappointing.
Ah yes. Reading the “new” Dune novels (Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson) are like slow suicide. Killing your fathers greatest work for money. Frank is probably cursing his son from beyond the grave…
And i follow through my iGoogle Page.
Alright, sorry about the delay in posting the winner. We pooled all the names together, and randomly selected one of them.
Seth is the winner, with The Lovely Bones. We hate him already.
Mwahaha. I hate that book. Have fun!
Ha, ha! That book was horrible. You guys asked for it though.
Do game tie-ins count? If so, I'll nominate “Baldur's Gate II, Shadows of Amn” by Philip Athans. And not just because it totally destroyed the game experience. As a novel, it was just horrid. Can't believe I finished it.
I have a couple if you'll accept them. 🙂
I actually couldn't even finish Stephen King's The Stand. Hated every character but maybe one.
Here's one that's kind of split, The Gone-Away World. Some love it, while others loathe it or couldn't finish it. I'm thinkin' it might be a Books we like…and hate.
-Bryce
seaklos(at)gmail.com
There are a few real stinkers I have read in my time that I would not wish on my enemies, however, since you seem to have this fetish for pain I will point your litery senses to these real science fiction turds I paid good money for.
1: Earth Factor X by A.E. Van Vogt
2: To Hold Infinity by John Meaney
I would greatly enjoy reading your review of The Black Jewels Trilogy by Anne Bishop. I think it is sold as an omnibus volume now, so you might not be able to get your hands on just the first book…..
Anyway, the main female protagonist of the series is the epitome of a Mary Sue. She is, quite literally, dreamed into existence by the male protagonists of the series. Unparalleled cosmic power and a pathological inability to cook!
The series does include assassins and the undead. If that helps.