Oh man, I thought I was the only one who couldn't stand the Red Mars books. I tried to like them, I really did, but damn...

I'd have to agree... hating the english teacher that assigned it probably didn't help either.

Dear God yes, i forgot about those books, i mean, some parts were cool, where there were actual plot happenings or sex scenes or philosphical debates, but fuck, 90% of those books was just scientific jargon, absolute drivel. i honestly couldn't care less what the fucking chemical composition of rock IRX 2700 is.

ok. i really hated reading tess of the d'ubervilles.. and any jane austen.. i'm just not into that english lit..

wuthering heights was also painful and i actually read that on my own. not school. :P

TESS WAS EVIL.

Same here...Hard to enjoy a book when you feel total hatred for the main character.

But the worst book I ever read was one for English class called "The Chrysalis" If anyone hasn't read it yet and will, I won't spoil it for anyone, but I had no clue what the hell was going on until the teacher explained it for me well over halfway through the book. And I am an avid reader.

I read a truely staggering amount, and so I have read a heaping helping of steaming crap in my time. Some I feel I must apologize for disliking though;

Vonnegut - I tried reading Slaughterhouse and couldn't. Tried reading "Breakfast of Champions" and couldn't. I've heard the man speak (at college) and even spoken with him briefly (once), but his writing style makes me want to hurl.

Phillip Dick - A skilled screenwriter can get a good script out of a Phillip Dick book, but I'll be damned if I get anything out of them but let down. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep may be the single worst book I managed to complete in college. Giving him another chance, I tried The Man In the High Castle which, so far as I could tell, started in the middle and went nowhere of consequence. Colossal waste of time. (This from a man who truely enjoys the Illuminatus trilogy, which has been called the world's longest shaggy dog joke by some.)

Pynchon - Gravity's Rainbow
Burroughs - Naked Lunch
I lump these together because they both managed to revolt me into stopping reading within 100 pages. We all go potty, guys. But I don't send my TP off to my publisher afterwards.

Steinbeck was America's greatest typist. I recognize why he was necessary, but not why I was forced to read him after the rest of the world had already internalized his wretchedly written lessons on presenting the common man. There are others who do it better. Many others.

As a writer, Hemmingway was technically perfect, but failed completely in providing a single plot or theme I could give a rat's ass about.

Faulkner. As a writer, Faulkner was a pretty fair violinist. He should have taken up drinking professionally. Pretended to read "The Hamlet" in High School. Couldn't do it.

Salinger. JD Salinger is a pretentious old fuck who should shampoo my crotch. I cannot imagine why anyone considers him relevant to anything. If he were a pop band, he would be Flock of Seagulls. Two songs, no content.

F. Scott Fitzgerald. Gatsby - It must really suck to be rich. Get over yourself.

Some books I have read that sucked I really enjoyed.

Stephen R. Donaldson has the lousiest command of the english language of any native speaking professional writer that I have ever run across. His metaphors are implausible to impossible, and he tends to use the same 25¢ word a dozen times in as many pages (ineffable is a faorite of his). His dialog is comparable to Ivanhoe translated to Modern English by Stan Lee. His settings, however, are breathtaking, and, if his plots are broadly the same old fairy tale, there is gold in the details.

Jack Chalker is a hack. I have read probably 80% of his stuff, and like it a great deal, but, in the 20 or so books of his I have read, there is one plot. Count 'em. One. Uno. Ein. All he does is keep dressing it up in different clothes. Fortunately, it's a good one.

James Joyce. "How's that working out for you?" "What?" "Being clever." No one doubts that James Joyce was Clever with a capital lever, but there is a point at which one becomes too clever to be understood by anyone else. Joyce is a memorial to exactly how far across that line one could go and still sell books. Yes, PhD theses have been written by the score on Finnegans Wake. There's a lot of eriudition out there about tapeworms too.

Alan Dean Foster. I used to love this guy when I was twelve. I've picked up some of his books agan since. Wow is he ever bad. Nuff Said about him. Christofer Stasheff is one of the same kind.

Robert Ludlam. What I have read of his stuff I have enjoyed, however, you know you've bee reading too much Ludlam when you hear of someone getting shot with a .22 and think "Man, that must've stung!"

To those of you who dissed Stephen King. I know where you're coming from and have been there myself. In 50 years, our great grandkids will have to read his stuff in high school (If they still teach reading at that point.) Cujo almost put me off of him forever too, but the Stand kept me off of him for years, because he will never write anything better. the Dark Tower series, though, comes close, but mostly on pure ghoulish ambiance.

Nostalgic, I know what you're talking about. It's Walter Mosely's foray into science fiction. I havent read it, so I can't comment on it, but it sounds like it came out about the way I would expect a hard bitten mystery writer's first attempt at sci -fi would.

The Bible was written by committee, some of whom were on hallucinagens at the time. Of course it's a lousy read. Also one of the two most pernicious books of all time, (the Qu'ran is the other), but that's a different argument.

Foucault's Pendulum, Umberto Eco

The very definition of tedious.

I thought about listing that one, but I've only read it once, and I know that it took me a couple of reads to actually get to the plot of Name of the Rose. Flip side is that I read Focault's Pendulum in 94, so I am unlikely to return to it.

I could go on about bad authors too, but this thread is about the worst BOOK.

So, hands down:

Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard.
What a piece of shit. It's only about 5 times longer than it needed to be. It reminds me of the style of writing you saw in (what?) the early 1900s? When they were paid by the word.
The hero is called "Johnny (good boy) Tyler"????

I later learned that he aspired to be histories most prolific writer, which explains the extreme verbage of the book in that everything is described in excruciating detail.

I was about to say, damn, I read Player Piano by Vonnegut and loved it. I read it for my 11th grade English class and actually enjoyed it. The main character has a cool name -- Dr. Paul Proteus.

Worst book? Let's see...I've read some shitty Dragonlance books. Most of them are above average, but Vinas Solamnus, Darkheart, and Weasel's Luck are all pretty crappy.

-Lasereth

Wuthering Heights sucked. I hated Jane Austen 'til I was forced to read it 20 times. It's intracacies are amazing, I just don't give a shit about any of the characters.

Stephen King is for highschool detention.

oh yeah, Walden sucked too.

I have to agree with redmars and battlefield. Also those Donaldson white gold weilder books.

Plato - The Republic and Colleen McCullough's Caesar.

logic behind my choices:

plato's republic
this is a book I read to fall asleep. It has not yet failed me. While I am an avid and quite fast reader (3-400pg novel in about a week and a half, 30 mins a day avg) I simply cannot stand to read this waste of paper. The characters are ludicrous, and plato seems to jump between first, second, and third person without warning. Dialogue uses unneccessarily long and obscure words. There are also no " marks (cant remember their names atm) anywhere in the book, making it very confusing to read if you havent previously put the book down at the end of a chapter.
Also, in order to understand most if not all of this book, it requires the reader to re-read almost every line of dialogue to make any sense of it.
The only people i would ever reccomend this book to are insomniacs.
I have been attempting to read this book off and on for about 2 years now, and i am only on page 21

Colleen McCullough's Caesar, a novel

This is THE slowest and most boring book i have ever attempted to read. Even slower than the republic. After reading the INCREDIBLY detailed descriptions of EVERYTHING [the cutlery, the materials used to construct the soldier's tents, the germanic people's matted, twisted hair (think unkempt dreads)] i find myself nowhere. Page 2. Now come the characters which i cannot care about, even the characters i am somewhat familiar with (brutus, marc antony, etc). Dear god. Unlike the Romans, this book marches to nowhere. slowly. every time i attempt to read this book i am fast asleep within half a page.

I was very interested in the Roman legacy and culture before attempting this book, but now i find myself not caring at all.

PLEASE, PLEASE do not buy, borrow, steal, or otherwise acquire and read these books, unless you are either a masochist or an insomniac.

and so ends my longwinded (ah, the irony) rant on the sheer amount of bollocks contained in the pages of these two tomes of trash. sorry for the long post.

I watched LOTR when it first came out and couldnt wait for the next film, so i bought the book. now. i'm not saying its a bad book or story, i loved the film, but i just couldn't get into it.

And the the fifth harry potter book sucked!

I enjoyed Anne Rice's vampire chronicles up until Memnoch the Devil. I've tried to read it 3 times and each time I put it down halfway through, unable to finish it, and I'm the kind of person who <i>must</i> finish every book I read.

Way of the Peaceful Warrior

Ugh....total CRAP

THe Grapes of Wrath. I had to read it for 11th grade English. I know its a classic and everything, but everytime I picked it up to read I fell asleep within like 2 paragraphs. I did finish reading it. It was very depressing (Stienbeck always is) I didn't feel like I got anything out of reading it. Bleh

"the Wars" by timothy findley

It's Canadian liturature, so it doesn't matter that its a horrid piece of gay porn

dean kuntz needs to be dropped from something tall onto lots of sharp pointy things.

wind in the willows??? i love that... :( maybe that's because i used to watch those claymation videos when i was a kid... soo cute... i just don't understand.. :-/

and i though the Scarlet Letter was bearable... :-/ whatever... if you think those are bad, RUN AWAY SCREAMING FROM:

the Woman Warrior, Catcher in the Rye, The Invisible Man, The Great Gatsby, Brave New World, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Catch 22, Slaughterhouse 5,

and Mutiny on the Elsinore (by Jack London) just takes the frickin CAKE!!!

(yeah and those stupid kiddie-saves-the day books really ARE lousy..)

Sword of shannara- terry brooks was "created" by a publisher to cash in on lotr fans- granted, he has gotten a bit better, but not by much...

Thomas covenant, unbeliever- what a great steaming pile of horseshit- what high fantasy THE MAIN CHARACTER IS A RAPIST!
even if you can ignore that the guy spends half the book essentialy curled into as ball trying to ignore what is happening to him- in context i could accept that for a while but it never ends.......

Native Son - by your guess is as good as mine.... ugh terrible book. Technically speaking it was okay, but I have problems with books where you have no relation/empathy towards the main character.

On the Road - Jack Kerouac (sp?) Hippies... Supposidly a book about freedom, but the main character just wanders around picking cotton. Stupid.

One thought, at what point do you decide to put down a book that's terrible? Do you stick through to the end just hoping for something salvagable? If it's for a assignment for school I can see trudging through it, cause you have no choice, but when your reading it on your own time what makes you stop?

Better question... What books have you started, but never finished?

As mtsgsd said, Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard... though I better hide now, or the Scientologists will get me :eek:

Atlas Shrugged.

That came to mind as soon as I saw the topic of the thread before I even read the first post. It's just a preachy piece of crap that goes on forever.

The Shipping News.

Man Dies of Reading.

You'll get the reference if you also suffered my pain. :)

Any of the "newer" Conan books, especially those written by Robert Jordan.

I laughed my ass off at the book and I don't even know why.

"I'd rather walk than snap my heel off on that rind of a bike."

yup, couldn't agree more. I even agree, for the most part, with what she's preaching, and I still wanted to say, "Okay, I get it, now let's just finish the stupid story so I can be done with this book!"

Tom Clancy generates the same preaching to the choir fast forwards from me, but at least his books are a bit more exciting.

I also really hated a book I read last summer, can't remember the name, but it was the new one in the Clan of the Cave Bear series (I had not read the others) It's about this caveman couple who are smarter and better looking than anyone else among the cave dwellers and they are so in love, etc.. I had read alot about it in the media and thought I'd try it out. It was boring and sucked alot.

i did not enjoy wuthering hieghts what so ever, it was a hellacious slow painful read, and i had to write essays about it. i think school contributes to ruining possibly good reads.

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner.
When a major character is getting castrated...and you don't know it because its GD stream-of-consciousness and you don't know what the HELL's going on...that's a problem.

Plum Island by Nelson DeMille. It's about 450 pp., and I read every page because I wanted to see how bad it could get. Answer: very, very bad: awful storytelling, a main character/narrator you want to punch in the teeth, a plot the most empathetic person on earth couldn't care less about, and absolutely awful, awful prose. Definitely worth checking out if you'd like to see how bad American fiction can get.

I've read some real crappy stuff, but...
 

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The only book I've ever burned to make the world a better place. If you see a copy, please follow my example.

Atlas Shrugged. Got halfway through it and I Shrugged. Didn't want to read what was probably gonna be a five-hundred page prologue.

Aw, man...I really liked that one...made me use all the knowledge I had to relate to everything.

I'll have to agree with you on this...LOTR remix for the Sword of Shannara

And the Thomas Covenant series...oi, how depressing.
I actually got through the first few thinking he might do something productive.
But "The One Tree" has got to be the worst (longest fuckin' boatride in the world)

However, I would have to say that Robert Jordan's latest book in the "Great Wheel" saga
is one of the worst one I've read most recently.
Now THAT one is tedious, details about EVERYTHING but the plot goes nowhere. (talk about filler)

Catcher in the Rye.. Oh my @#)($ that book bored the hell outa me.. its just so boring, and repetitive... i hate school books, but this one,.. cuz sucked

the octopus or maybe the iliad

The Celestine Prophecy. I can only stomach so much new age bullshit before I vomit. Horrible story, horrible character developement, very weak touchy-feely concepts. I had friends who tried to live by it for after the first two months they read it. It was frightening. After some deprogramming they finally figured it out. I recommended some Dianetics. :D

Jonsgirl is Right On! She knows. "The Hobbit" was Sooooo freaking boring! Yikes!! Thank gawd the current LOTRs movies are way better than the books were! The special effects are worth sitting through. And admit it, the delicious Dane rocks. He's Hot PERSONIFIED!!!!!

But c'mon, what's all the fuss about "Altas Shrugged"....although the movie "The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand" was interesting and worthy enough in an ethnocentric and sort of - form follows function way...seriously....Check it out.

Personally, I highly recommend ANYTHING Herman Hess has written - ever. He has such deep insight in the struggles and the human condition and magic - so deeply inbedded within that his books give you knowledge you will never forget.

Anne Rice's The Vampire LeStat. Started it, put it down after about 70 pages.