Books you recommend NOT to read

LARF · 24 October, 2005, 10:58:01 PM

Just wasted a few hours reading the Codex by Lev Grossman.

Absolute pap!!!!

Do not touch with the proverbial barge pole.

Any more None recommendations out there?

What shouldn't I read next?

Richmond Clements · 24 October, 2005, 10:59:18 PM

Anything by Patricia Cornwell.

Art · 24 October, 2005, 11:01:09 PM

The description sounds a bit "Dan Brown"...

Link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0151010668/103-8772689-3923846?v=glance" target="_blank">http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0151

Conexus · 24 October, 2005, 11:02:41 PM

I couldn't even get through the synopsis

LARF · 24 October, 2005, 11:41:52 PM

I wrote a review on the Amazon site but they won't use it because it makes the book look bad, I mean, come on!!!

Quirkafleeg · 25 October, 2005, 12:03:23 AM

From the first page of the except it looks well shit...

I remember getting a book out of the library The Tin Man by Dale Brown that was advertised with a big poster at the train station as the the next big thing in thrillers. It was utterly dire about a bloke that invents a bullet proof suit and fights crime (yes really). Made it to the end of the first chapter before I saw sense and took it back.

There's been some ghastly modern hi-tech thrillers... (Temple for a start) anyone know one that's acutally good.

Riptide's a good laugh but hardly brilliant

Tweak72 · 25 October, 2005, 01:05:16 AM

anything AND I MEAN ANYTHING by Brian Aldiss i have no idea why he is so revered in sci fi writing as (and im not kidding here) i could write better than him and i am pants at writting

Tordelbach · 25 October, 2005, 04:34:20 AM

Aldiss works much better as a commentator than an author (his 'Billion Year Spree' is a great (if slanted) potted history of SF) but his overlong (which might actually be the point) 'Helliconia' series has a stunning amount of invention to recommend it.

Some genre books I utterly hated, that weren't by Dan Brown:

"Credo", by Melvyn Bragg. Love his radio work, abhored this turgid drivel. The worst kind of historical fiction, where the plot is just a vehicle for the cardboard to meet every contemporary historical figure and explore every philosophical debate of the day.

"Perseus Swirl", by Julian May. Oh. My. God. I want those 2 hours back, damn you.

"Snowcrash", by Neal Stephenson. He turned out to be a great great SF author, but this highly regarded early work is a hopeless mess of a book (An Inuit assassin chases a floating citiy in his kayak? Hello, Mr. Brown? One of your villains has escaped...).

"The One Tree", by Stephen Donaldson. Can I go back and re-read one of the first three instead? Please?

"Eragon", by Christopher Paolini. Okay, the author's only a kid so I suppose it's forgiveable, but does EVERY chapter have to end with the eponymous hero getting knocked unconscious? And I'm all for Mythic Archetypes, but does EVERY character have to be from either Star Wars or LotR? Overhyped nonsense.

philt · 25 October, 2005, 06:35:51 AM

A couple

Stephen Baxter - Titan. Completely bloody spoilt by the last 20 pages were the great goddess "Coincidence" rolls her dice.
Stephen Baxter - Moonseed. Completely bloody useless. There is also a laughable ignorance of the fact that geologically speaking Scotland and Ireland are the same.
Stephen Baxter - Time, Space, Origin. Great ideas and a concept that is among the most thought provoking things I've ever read but completely pissed up against the wall. You mean she "willed" herself to live forever? Er Neanderthals?
In fact just read Voyage which on the evidence of the rest of his books was a complete bloody fluke..

Floyd-the-k · 25 October, 2005, 09:35:59 AM

Curse you Larf, there I was trying to be positive but this thread is irresistable.

Clive James' literary criticism
Anything by Tim Winton. I've read two of his novels and they are turgid, over-written rubbish
'The Road Less Travelled' by M Scott Peck. It's garbage. The gist is; life is tough and you shouldn't whinge about it, psychoanalysis is terrific, M Scott Peck even more so.
'Emotional Intelligence' in which pretty conventional 'let's be more sensitive' pieties are mysteriously extrapolated from some interesting new brain research at the very beginning of the book

Conexus · 25 October, 2005, 03:42:03 PM

Anything by Tim Winton. I've read two of his novels and they are turgid, over-written rubbish

One question Floyd - how did it take you two novels to find out someone was a rubbish writer?

LARF · 25 October, 2005, 03:44:10 PM

"One question Floyd - how did it take you two novels to find out someone was a rubbish writer? "

I was thinking the same about Philt - did Stephen Baxter do something awful to you Philt, like run over your cat, pour hot coffee over you on a train or live next door and never mow his lawn?

:-)

Conexus · 25 October, 2005, 03:51:43 PM

Oh yes, him too...

Jonathan O · 25 October, 2005, 04:08:10 PM

"nything AND I MEAN ANYTHING by Brian Aldiss i have no idea why he is so revered in sci fi writing as (and im not kidding here) i could write better than him and i am pants at writting"

BLASPHEMY! Sorry, but Aldiss is one of my favourite SF writers of all time. Report on Probability A is the best book where nothing happens. Beautifully done. As for Aldiss not being able to write, sorry but that's just ridiculous. Aldiss's prose work is some of the best in the SF field.

Anyway, poo books. Really wish I hadn't bothered with the first three Thomas Covenant books by Donaldson. Also The Vampire Lestat made me angry.

The Enigmatic Dr X · 25 October, 2005, 04:34:46 PM

Catch 22 and The Rising (Brian Keene) are the only books I haven't finished in the last 10 years.

Unlike these good folks, who aren't afraid to let their opinons be known.

Link: http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/reviews/lone_star_statements.php" target="_blank">Who'd write a book about segregation anyway?