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Azubah
Jun 5, 2007

Xenocide by Orson Scott Card.

I just couldn't go through with it, I was interested in seeing what the repercussions of the previous book would be like and instead I get some weird point of view from some Asian girl about being perfect. Nothing seemed to be happening and it's been gathering dust on my bookshelf for years now.

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Admiral Crunch
Nov 26, 2005

by Peatpot
The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom. What the gently caress, it was the most annoying and predictable thing I've ever read.

Paraphrasing:


"The dude was in heaven after he died, there was poo poo-ton of colors and one of them was yellow like a banana and one as red like a red crayon and one was blue like (guess what? No seriously it's good) like loving COTTON CANDY! HE WORKED IN AN AMUSEMENT PARK! ISN'T IT FUNNY HOW HE WOULD COMPARE THAT COLOR TO loving COTTON CANDY! So then he met a guy! OH NO FUCKIN WAY HE AFFECTED THAT GUYS LIFE IN SOME SMALL WAY! THAT WAS UNEXPECTED! But wait, there's loving four more of them! OH poo poo SON HE AFFECTED/ WAS AFFECTED BY THEM I UNEXPECTED WAYS! NO loving WAY, GOD, THAT WAS COOL OF YOU!"

Nathander
Apr 23, 2008

Leonard Pines posted:

Lord of The Rings. Two hundred pages of hobbit singing was quite enough, thank you.

I loved Lord of the Rings, but that's understandable. Tolkien went on way too long getting them out of the shire, especially with all the Tom Bombadil bullshit. It took me a few tries to get through it before I finally did.

Loose Chanj posted:

Uncle Tom's Cabin. Jesus what a pompous piece of poo poo. You'd think the sun shone out of black assholes, and that they were God's gift to the world and were so sensitive and loving it made slavery a horrible thing. Oh wait, it was anyway.

What's even better is when you find out what Stowes actual opinion on what to do with the black slaves was. While it was wrong to keep them in captivity, she essentially believed that they couldn't be integrated into American society, and thus should be sent back to live in Africa, where they'd be FAR happier. So basically, we should free the slaves, but shouldn't loving bother trying to actually make them citizens. Awesome.

WanderingKid posted:

I would have thought that at the very least the funny would have coasted you through to the end. It isn't particularly long and it isn't a difficult read so long as you don't make the mistake of thinking it is much much more complicated than it really is. If you miss details I found it better to skim past and just get the overall jist of the scene then move on rather than step back and reread meaning into everything. That isn't to say you cannot do that because it is absolutely not a work of nonsense but you will not enjoy anything when you constantly get hung up on a line and end up rereading it 5 times

See, that's part of the problem, I think. I usually love surrealistic humor, but the way he did it actually ended up taking me off guard. The few scenes I really remember enjoying were those with Dr. Benway, but ultimately those weren't enough to keep me going through the first read through. I think what really sucker punched me were the sex acts that occurred throughout the book. Usually, that wouldn't phase me, but the imagery of it was such brutal stuff that, while absurd and slightly entertaining, it was still fairly horrific and ended up ruining some of the mood for me for what I thought I was getting into when I picked the book up.

I'll probably give it another go some time, but I think it was a bit much for me the first time I tried to get through.

Crazyweasel
Oct 29, 2006
lazy

I picked up Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy a few months ago and it has been quite the struggle. After seeing No Country for Old Men I looked up a bit about the author and saw that Blood Meridian was thought to be his masterpiece, so I waited about a week and took it out of the library.

The way it is written is so foreign to me I have to read at a snails pace and try to pick up pieces wherever I can. I can read the words on the page but comprehending and putting them together is totally different. I'm still trying to find the "greatness" in the book but maybe it just doesn't appeal to me.

Rustem
Jan 29, 2008

your dong

my dong

combine them make them whole

Crazyweasel posted:

I picked up Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy a few months ago and it has been quite the struggle. After seeing No Country for Old Men I looked up a bit about the author and saw that Blood Meridian was thought to be his masterpiece, so I waited about a week and took it out of the library.

The way it is written is so foreign to me I have to read at a snails pace and try to pick up pieces wherever I can. I can read the words on the page but comprehending and putting them together is totally different. I'm still trying to find the "greatness" in the book but maybe it just doesn't appeal to me.

Read maybe All the Pretty Horses then come back to it, its worth working through.

Black Trombone
May 9, 2007

I say, do f. that s. squarely in the a., old fruit.

leefy greans posted:

Totally. Which is why I'd suggest the Blamires book over _Ulysses Annotated_ for a first attempt. I took a Joyce class, too, and I found myself returning to _Ulysses Annotated_ less and less as I progressed the book. There are some helpful references and such, but overall I found that it was too much trees, not enough forest. Not even trees -- the bumps on each mushroom of each individual tree. Which, sure, is interesting once you've gotten your bearings, but my first time through I just wanted somebody to throw me a bone and tell me what was fricking happening.

I thought Ulysses Annotated was really helpful and added a lot to my reading experience. It was the book of footnotes assigned by the professor whose course I took, so I don't know how helpful other books are, but I think I would have missed out on a lot as far as symbolism and national issues if I hadn't had that book. I also would have been really irritated if I didn't know what he was talking about when he was throwing out random, bizarre, or now-obscure allusions. I guess it just depends on what you're looking for when you're reading, though.

talktapes
Apr 14, 2007

You ever hear of the neutron bomb?

Crazyweasel posted:

I picked up Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy a few months ago and it has been quite the struggle.

I'm reading Blood Meridian right now and it doesn't start picking up until slightly over halfway through. There are some good plot twists that happen in the first half, but McCarthy spends an unbelievable amount of time describing the environment and traveling. I keep a vocab notebook to jot down definitions of words I don't know when I read, and five solid pages back-to-back are from Blood Meridian. It's getting really good, though.

The only book I've tried to read recently that I completely gave up on is House of Leaves because it's pointless, boring and not scary at all. If you look at Pale Fire by Nabokov it does basically the same thing House of Leaves tries to achieve on an intellectual level except it's much shorter, entertaining, well-written, rewards the effort you put into it, and doesn't rely on artsy layout bullshit. Actually, I don't think House of Leaves counts for this thread, because I have absolutely no desire to finish it and don't feel it has any literary merit, so on that note:

Never finished Gravity's Rainbow (hell, barely got into it) but I still want to tackle it eventually, even though I hated it right off the bat. I have a hard time getting into Pynchon's style due to its density and overall weirdness. I did read The Crying of Lot 49 in school (which I didn't exactly enjoy but found interesting), but the sprawling nature of his books is a major turn-off for me. He's like Joyce - I understand he's a great writer, but it doesn't do anything for me as a reader.

Hobo Camp
Aug 8, 2006

No problo, Rob Lowe.
The Brothers Karamazov. I tried, I really did.

Harry Potter. gently caress that piece of poo poo.

Marķa by Jorge Isaacs. However, I've been meaning to give it a second chance cause I tried to read it so long ago.

egon_beeblebrox
Mar 1, 2008

WILL AMOUNT TO NOTHING IN LIFE.



Most of the books Stephen King has published since Hearts in Atlantis have been, at best, skimmed through quickly. At worst, I'll get twenty pages in and give up on it, like I did with Duma Key.

I really wish I'd been sensible enough to give up on Cell. It started out brilliant, and the further into it I got, the more I hated King.

ohthatdan
Jan 10, 2007

...Soldering Iron...
Like a few previous posters, I felt that the story within a story in House of Leaves was severely distracting. I finally got through it however when I completely ignored all of Johnny Truant's sections in the book, so I was basically just reading the Navidson record. I know I told myself that I would go back and re-read just those Truant parts at a separate time, but I really have no desire to do so. I did think the Navidson record portion of the book was pretty good after I cut all that crap out.

Elderling
Feb 17, 2007

ohthatdan posted:

Like a few previous posters, I felt that the story within a story in House of Leaves was severely distracting. I finally got through it however when I completely ignored all of Johnny Truant's sections in the book, so I was basically just reading the Navidson record. I know I told myself that I would go back and re-read just those Truant parts at a separate time, but I really have no desire to do so. I did think the Navidson record portion of the book was pretty good after I cut all that crap out.

While I think it is important to feel free to skip around in books as much as you want--it shouldn't feel like a chore--I don't understand all the House of Leaves hate. I postponed looking at it for quite a while because nearly every single mention of it (outside actual House of Leaves threads) on SA was disparaging, and three or four people would always chime in to say "Yeah, gently caress that book." Saying the format is distracting is fine and not even really criticism. After all, you said you thought the rest was pretty good, and that just means you didn't feel like making an effort to get into it, which is perfectly legitimate--I've never been able to finish Ulysses for the same reason, though I keep a copy in my room and start over again occasionally (one day, when I have time and less distractions, I'll get it done). But the majority of the criticism is always, always, always the same--in this thread it appears as

quote:

pointless, boring and not scary at all.
and

quote:

and I'm sure he thought he was being incredibly clever. It's to bad because I was looking forward to reading it.

Why are people so eager to call out beautiful things that take a little time to appreciate? House of Leaves is no masterpiece, but there's definitely beauty in its story, its layout, its structure, and its imagery (both in the images he describes and in the "artsy layout bullshit".) if you just take a little time to look. But people on Something Awful love to let as many people as possible know that they're brilliant literary detectives--in their majority, they dislike House of Leaves because they can tell that the author is "smug," and "self-satisfied," and he must have thought he was "being incredibly clever" (of course, these readers can immediately tell that although he thinks he's being clever, he's really not). The crime of thinking you're smarter than you really are, evidently, means that everything you do is garbage.

The first page of the thread contains a similar comment about The Poisonwood Bible, which I haven't read, and honestly from the plot descriptions I've heard it doesn't sound like the kind of thing I'm into. But comments about how smug and falsely clever the author is just make me think that maybe the author really is clever--Danielewski, regardless of whether or not you think his work has literary merit (or to put it differently, whether or not you think he's worth reading), is certainly one of the cleverest writers I've found in a long time. Do you think Nabokov was born writing Lolita? I'm sure he must have written his fair share of artsy bullshit before he took up English, of which I imagine few things are translated or well-known.

Anyway, this post is probably misplaced, but it's something I've been thinking about more and more when I cruise TBB, CD or NMD. Elitism is fun and all, but I think it's horrible and sad to mock people for trying to do something different and making money at it. And I would bet money that if Mark Z. Danielewski had been a goon and posted the preliminary drafts of House of Leaves on Something Awful the vast majority of his critics on SA would absolutely love him.

galumphing lummox
Aug 30, 2006

Elderling posted:

The first page of the thread contains a similar comment about The Poisonwood Bible, which I haven't read, and honestly from the plot descriptions I've heard it doesn't sound like the kind of thing I'm into. But comments about how smug and falsely clever the author is just make me think that maybe the author really is clever--Danielewski, regardless of whether or not you think his work has literary merit (or to put it differently, whether or not you think he's worth reading), is certainly one of the cleverest writers I've found in a long time. Do you think Nabokov was born writing Lolita? I'm sure he must have written his fair share of artsy bullshit before he took up English, of which I imagine few things are translated or well-known.

Well, I haven't read House of Leaves, so I can't really speak to that. As far as Poisonwood Bible goes, though, I just didn't feel like the narration that was devoted to wordplay was anything special. In the novel, there's friction set up between one daughter who's a "typical teenager," superficial and ill-at-east away from her suburban comforts, and the mute daughter, who uses her chapters for word games and puns and cynical observations about the rest of the family. It's been a few years since I've read it, so I may be forgetting something. But I don't think we were supposed to take the mute daughter to be very unreliable; even the more clearly limited points of view from the other daughters are reliable to the extent that they're presenting true information. So is the mute daughter supposed to be a parody of literary wankery? Don't know, but I don't think so. The other characters seemed pretty broadly drawn to me, so I wasn't willing to extend that readerly goodwill toward Kingsolver.

How much of my ill-will toward the book was projection? Some, definitely; probably more than I'd care to admit. I read it my first year in my MA program, when I felt like I was really coming into my own as a reader, but still dealing with lots of insecurity and uncertainty as a writer. I haven't looked at the book since, and maybe I should. Still, I find myself put off by books where stylistic flourishes and wordplay and experimentation are used seemingly for their own sake, where the intended effect is basically for the reader to set the book down and go, "Wow, [x] can write," without feeling like s/he knows that much more about the characters or the story. This is subjective, sure, and I'm not at all averse to writing some people find meandering and self-indulgent. (You'll notice I started a thread on Virginia Woolf...) As for me, I didn't care for the book. Oh well. I can see your points, though, and I think it's good to examine why we respond to art the ways we do.

galumphing lummox fucked around with this message at 00:04 on May 12, 2008

ohthatdan
Jan 10, 2007

...Soldering Iron...

Elderling posted:

While I think it is important to feel free to skip around in books as much as you want--it shouldn't feel like a chore--I don't understand all the House of Leaves hate. I postponed looking at it for quite a while because nearly every single mention of it (outside actual House of Leaves threads) on SA was disparaging, and three or four people would always chime in to say "Yeah, gently caress that book." Saying the format is distracting is fine and not even really criticism. After all, you said you thought the rest was pretty good, and that just means you didn't feel like making an effort to get into it, which is perfectly legitimate


Actually, reading your post I do want to clarify some things that I should have done to begin with. First off, I will actually say that I should have posted I really enjoyed the Navidson Record rather than saying it was "pretty good". There were points where I was genuinely terrified with what was about to happen next. I also felt that the layout of the book aided that, such as spacing out words fewer and fewer on pages to compliment a tense moment. However, I just couldn't really get into the Johnny Truant story, mostly because I was honestly more driven to conclude the haunting Navidson Tale. I got a good chunk under my belt reading both before I just skipped the Truant portions at the time because I was completely satisfied with the main story. I do understand that the tales run parallel, furthering Johnny's disorientation as The Navidson Record goes on, but I just found myself more drawn towards the Navidson stuff, and its effect on me rather than Johnny. I also shouldn't have used the word crap, so I'll change that to "not as much to my liking".

ohthatdan fucked around with this message at 00:47 on May 12, 2008

talktapes
Apr 14, 2007

You ever hear of the neutron bomb?

Personally I didn't find the Navidson Record scary, and the Johnny Truant sections were really annoying due to the run-on sentences. The Whalestoe Letters were kind of interesting but a small part of the book. I count Borges and Nabokov as two of my favorite authors, and House of Leaves reads like a pale echo of their style with none of the depth and a heavy reliance on gimmicky structure.

quote:

But people on Something Awful love to let as many people as possible know that they're brilliant literary detectives--in their majority, they dislike House of Leaves because they can tell that the author is "smug," and "self-satisfied," and he must have thought he was "being incredibly clever" (of course, these readers can immediately tell that although he thinks he's being clever, he's really not).

Look, just because I dislike a book or anything else in general doesn't mean I look down on people who do, and I personally never said or even implied any of this so please don't put words into my mouth. I know you didn't single me out in particular but I'm definitely in your audience. Also, House of Leaves is in the "Hall of Fame" thread so it obviously has some sort of following on this board. You're entitled to your opinion, just like everybody else here.

UncleNaughtyFingers
Apr 29, 2008
The Three-Martini Playdate: A Practical Guide to Happy Parenting by Christie Mellor
Guess you can call it a self help book or something.. I don't have children myself but after seeing this parenting book reviewed in an issue of Playboy or Maxim or Stuff I figured that it might make a cute gift to all my friends who have been having children lately
This book on parenting seems to be written by some stuck up pretentious socialite, the book covers more(from what I remember of it, and I only made it through about half way) how your child should know his/her place and stfu while mommy(books written from a female pov) entertains her friends and gets drunk.. theres even a recipe for some kind of lemonade that a child could drink/make and "makes an excellent cocktail when mixed with gin", thats not a direct quote but its right around the lines, the author kinda of suggests that the kid go around serving alcohol to the people of your party
While I couldn't stand this book, I'm glad I decided to read it first before I started to give it away to friends who where having kids because if they ever got around to reading it they would have thought that I would have supported the views of the author... which I don't(least half way through the book when I decided to stop)

bison wings
Jan 30, 2007

Santa's greatest accomplishment was convincing the world he didn't exist

Admiral Crunch posted:

The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom. What the gently caress, it was the most annoying and predictable thing I've ever read.

Paraphrasing:


"The dude was in heaven after he died, there was poo poo-ton of colors and one of them was yellow like a banana and one as red like a red crayon and one was blue like (guess what? No seriously it's good) like loving COTTON CANDY! HE WORKED IN AN AMUSEMENT PARK! ISN'T IT FUNNY HOW HE WOULD COMPARE THAT COLOR TO loving COTTON CANDY! So then he met a guy! OH NO FUCKIN WAY HE AFFECTED THAT GUYS LIFE IN SOME SMALL WAY! THAT WAS UNEXPECTED! But wait, there's loving four more of them! OH poo poo SON HE AFFECTED/ WAS AFFECTED BY THEM I UNEXPECTED WAYS! NO loving WAY, GOD, THAT WAS COOL OF YOU!"

are you serious, dude? really? I'd never accuse Mitch Albom of having great prose, but that's not why you read his books. He's a modern day philosopher more than a writer, and the deeper meaning is actually more important than the narrative.

But all that aside, hate him if you want, I don't care that much. I was just taken aback because you're really the first one in this thread to lose his poo poo over a book and it wasn't even for a controversial reason. You just didn't like his metaphors.

WoG
Jul 13, 2004

bison wings posted:

are you serious, dude? really? I'd never accuse Mitch Albom of having great prose, but that's not why you read his books. He's a modern day philosopher more than a writer, and the deeper meaning is actually more important than the narrative.

But all that aside, hate him if you want, I don't care that much. I was just taken aback because you're really the first one in this thread to lose his poo poo over a book and it wasn't even for a controversial reason. You just didn't like his metaphors.
Yeah, I'm wondering why he read it in the first place. I haven't, because his description is exactly what I'd expect.

Cosmonauticus
Feb 5, 2007

by Peatpot

Garth Algar posted:

Bukowski's Run With the Hunted. I didn't get that far through it and quite liked his poetry but what i did read i enjoyed less and less until i reached this story where he's being given head by an ugly old woman and it feels like shes going to draw blood and he's praying to god he wont cum. It was something along the lines of that. Finito. The first book i've willingly put down with absolutely no regrets.

Try Post Office if you haven't already. It's bukowski for beginners.

Toph Bei Fong
Feb 29, 2008



ohthatdan posted:

Actually, reading your post I do want to clarify some things that I should have done to begin with. First off, I will actually say that I should have posted I really enjoyed the Navidson Record rather than saying it was "pretty good". There were points where I was genuinely terrified with what was about to happen next. I also felt that the layout of the book aided that, such as spacing out words fewer and fewer on pages to compliment a tense moment. However, I just couldn't really get into the Johnny Truant story, mostly because I was honestly more driven to conclude the haunting Navidson Tale. I got a good chunk under my belt reading both before I just skipped the Truant portions at the time because I was completely satisfied with the main story. I do understand that the tales run parallel, furthering Johnny's disorientation as The Navidson Record goes on, but I just found myself more drawn towards the Navidson stuff, and its effect on me rather than Johnny. I also shouldn't have used the word crap, so I'll change that to "not as much to my liking".

I had this exact same experience with the book. The Navidson Record was just far more interesting and suspenseful than the sections about Johnny going crazy, having weird sex, getting into fights with huge Polish guys, and after the first couple Johnny sections, I just started skimming. I just couldn't get into him as a character, and found myself utterly uninterested in anything he said or did. Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.

It's a fun book, no doubt, and approaching it like, say, a Stephen King novel, rather than something by James Joyce or Thomas Pynchon makes it a lot easier to stomach.

edit: italics are not spoilers... :doh:

Wolfgang Pauli
Mar 26, 2008

One Three Seven
I had pushed myself into finishing The Fountainhead, and afterwards I tried to start Atlas Shrugged. Bad idea. When I realized that not only was it crap on the same scale of The Fountainhead, it was the same crap exactly. Returned it to my uni's library the same day I checked it out.

I Wish I Was
Dec 11, 2006

I saw this at the bookshop and thought of you.
Battlefield Earth is the only book I've never finished. I finish books; it's just what I do. I guess I'm an eternal optimist, hoping that even if it's crappy right now it will get better, and I'm a sucker for needing to know the ending of a story. I don't walk out of movies, either.

But goddamn, I tried Battlefield Earth when I was 12 or so, and couldn't get through it. Picked it up again when I was 19 or so, figuring that maybe I just wasn't mature enough when I tried the first time. Nope; still couldn't get through it. Then again when I was in my late 20s, figuring it couldn't have possibly been as bad as I remembered. Third strike, it's out.

unleash the unicorn
Dec 23, 2004

If this boat were sinking, I'd give my life to save you. Only because I like you, for reasons and standards of my own. But I couldn't and wouldn't live for you.
The Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind


Alright here comes a pretty generic fantasy novel...
WHAT THE gently caress IS THIS PEDOPHILIC CANNIBALISM BULLSHIT :barf:

teddust
Feb 27, 2007

The Once and Future King by T. H. White:

I really enjoyed reading stories about King Arthur when I was young, so I thought I'd give this a try a couple years ago. I ended up bored out of my mind, to the point where I actually fell asleep at work while reading it.

Gazhole
Jun 20, 2007

Them's some nice boots. Fo' thirty dollars yo' knows they's real leather
The most catastrophic failure to finish a book was "The Reality Dysfunction" by Peter F Hamilton.

1200+ pages of hard science fiction complete with technology based in actual science, and explained using actual scientific terminology. I love sci-fi but this was just too much.

I got about a hundred pages into it and my brain imploded with boredom. Less than 10% of the total book finished, i really should try to read it again just to save face.

The Gunslinger
Jul 24, 2004

Do not forget the face of your father.
Fun Shoe

unleash the unicorn posted:

The Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind


Alright here comes a pretty generic fantasy novel...
WHAT THE gently caress IS THIS PEDOPHILIC CANNIBALISM BULLSHIT :barf:

I've posted this one every time these threads come up but I really can't reinforce enough just how truly awful an experience that book is. I hear the series just continues to get worse and worse too(Evil Chicken, torture/rape, etc). A friend of mine insisted that I check it out as supposedly it was the first original fantasy series in years. Excluding for a moment the torture porn and other disgusting fetishes of the author, the actual characters and story are boring and formulaic at best. The first 50 pages are the only good part of the book and everyone else should stop right there.

The 9th Axiom
May 7, 2008

The Gunslinger posted:

I've posted this one every time these threads come up but I really can't reinforce enough just how truly awful an experience that book is. I hear the series just continues to get worse and worse too(Evil Chicken, torture/rape, etc). A friend of mine insisted that I check it out as supposedly it was the first original fantasy series in years. Excluding for a moment the torture porn and other disgusting fetishes of the author, the actual characters and story are boring and formulaic at best. The first 50 pages are the only good part of the book and everyone else should stop right there.

Interesting you say this! I have similar feelings about book as well as the book from which you derive your name. I could NOT finish it... OMG walk through a desert more and make less sense plz.

Then again, I KEEP hearing the rest of the trilogy is incredible, so I plan on attempting again soon.

Admiral Crunch
Nov 26, 2005

by Peatpot

bison wings posted:

are you serious, dude? really? I'd never accuse Mitch Albom of having great prose, but that's not why you read his books. He's a modern day philosopher more than a writer, and the deeper meaning is actually more important than the narrative.

But all that aside, hate him if you want, I don't care that much. I was just taken aback because you're really the first one in this thread to lose his poo poo over a book and it wasn't even for a controversial reason. You just didn't like his metaphors.

The thing is I read that book because i read Tuesdays With Morrie and I liked it. It was a really cool book, and I enjoyed reading it. Then someone mentioned this book and said it was good. The weird thing was, with this book, it seemed just overly sappy and predictable and frankly boring. I guess I probably wouldn't have minded as much if I had gone in with no expectations.

Phillip The Wise
Oct 10, 2006

by Eris Is Goddess
Battlefield Earth. What a disappointing book. I picked it up some months after I read "Dune" and, excited by all the accolades on the front pages (one by Robert A. Heinlein!) eagerly delved into it--only to become increasingly dissatisfied with and disgusted by its unbearable lameness.

Sionnach
Dec 9, 2004

Resident of Raloo

Hellequin posted:

Atlas Shrugged, a friend recommended it to me (before I knew who Ayn Rand was), I got twenty pages in before I realized it was a massive pile of poo poo.

Agreed 100%, got quite a way in hoping that something interesting would happen. It was the most uninteresting monotonous tome I've ever picked up.

Add to that Price and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Utter pap.

I have to disagree with Hedrigall about Altered Carbon, it was a bit unusual but quite good fun.

The Gunslinger
Jul 24, 2004

Do not forget the face of your father.
Fun Shoe

The 9th Axiom posted:

Interesting you say this! I have similar feelings about book as well as the book from which you derive your name. I could NOT finish it... OMG walk through a desert more and make less sense plz.

Then again, I KEEP hearing the rest of the trilogy is incredible, so I plan on attempting again soon.

I never post to defend The Dark Tower because the truth is that there are many problems with the series and I can see how people would be turned off by it. That being said, I think the first 4 books are excellent and well worth a read. There are some very well narrated audiobooks of the series as well, you might wanna check those out instead. I found it very hard to get through Wizards and Glass but the audiobook made it much easier and more enjoyable. I think most people go into it expecting the usual King stuff but its really like a bizarro fantasy world with modern time elements mixed in. Also keep in mind King was on every drug known to man when he started it :)

Calenth
Jul 11, 2001



The Gunslinger posted:

I've posted this one every time these threads come up but I really can't reinforce enough just how truly awful an experience that book is. I hear the series just continues to get worse and worse too(Evil Chicken, torture/rape, etc). A friend of mine insisted that I check it out as supposedly it was the first original fantasy series in years. Excluding for a moment the torture porn and other disgusting fetishes of the author, the actual characters and story are boring and formulaic at best. The first 50 pages are the only good part of the book and everyone else should stop right there.

My sister in law has an edition of one of Terry Goodkind's books with a misprint of "Copyright Robert Jordan" on the copyright page. I'm convinced someone at Tor did it deliberately.

I've never managed to read Goodkind, mostly because every time one of my friends tries, they end up rushing into the room a few hours later screaming about how they can't believe how horrible some passage is and they have to read it to me.

Noctone
Oct 25, 2005

XO til we overdose..

Sionnach posted:

I have to disagree with Hedrigall about Altered Carbon, it was a bit unusual but quite good fun.

I'm a bit puzzled as well, as I had the completely opposite problem of finding it hard to put the book down.

I Am Fowl
Mar 8, 2008

nononononono

Leonard Pine posted:

Lord of The Rings. Two hundred pages of hobbit singing was quite enough, thank you.

Tried Fellowship twice, had similar problems. I'm trying to work up the courage to try again, but I'm failing at it.

I can't seem to get through my collection of Robert E Howard's Solomon Kane stories. They're superb pulp and I like it, but I just can't seem to get through it, it's strange.

FrakkinCylon
Apr 25, 2008

My folks went to Caprica and all I got was this frakking avatar.

Mr. Fowl posted:

Tried Fellowship twice, had similar problems. I'm trying to work up the courage to try again, but I'm failing at it.




If you can get past Bombadil, it picks up a little. Even more when they enter Moria.

That's one thing PJ and Bakshi got right - Tom Bombadil, as amusing as he is to the drooling fanbois, is totally unnecessary to the story.

BrianWilly
Apr 24, 2007

There is no homosexual terrorist Johnny Silverhand
Never finished the Silmarillion. Just couldn't bring myself to care. And I'm That Guy who sped through LotR in something like four or five days thinking it was the greatest thing in the universe.

Oh, and The Last Herald-Mage trilogy by Mercedes Lackey, aka the Emo Adventures of EMOBOY in the world of Wild Unforgiving Emo. It is, to put it lightly, not really what I expected. "Why can't they just leave me alone?" "Why am I so different!?" "What's wrong with me?" "The less I feel, the better off I'll be!" "I wish I could die!" Well, technically, I made it through two and a half books before putting it down. There's less than two hundred pages of the last book left and I simply cannot continue.

gfarrell80
Aug 31, 2006

Magic Hate Ball posted:

Catch 22 - I liked it the first time, but not the second time and certainly not the third time. And then I realised I was only a third of the way through the book.

Heheh, I liked Catch 22 and I'm sorry you didn't make it through, that is a pretty amusing and true criticism though.

Hobo Camp posted:

The Brothers Karamazov. I tried, I really did.

I'd say at least try to read "The Grand Inquisitor" chapter, and "Pro and Contra", if you didn't make it to those.

Add me to the people who couldn't finish Ulysses, Dune, and LOTR.

Agentfortune
Jan 30, 2007

Now you see it, now you don't...Now you do again.. ha ha!

Magic Hate Ball posted:

Catch 22 - I liked it the first time, but not the second time and certainly not the third time. And then I realised I was only a third of the way through the book.


I found Catch 22 surprisingly difficult to get into and as yet have still not finished it. I really didn't like it much. I'm going to try again!

Calenth
Jul 11, 2001



BrianWilly posted:

Never finished the Silmarillion. Just couldn't bring myself to care. And I'm That Guy who sped through LotR in something like four or five days thinking it was the greatest thing in the universe.

It takes a couple tries. It's best to view it as a collection of manuscripts and short stories, or even as a collection of encyclopedia articles, rather than as a book. Skip around in it for parts that look interesting.

The two most accessible parts are the introductory gods-forming-world bit and the Tale of Beren and Luthien. Once you've read it it really does make the LotR much more enjoyable -- for example, you understand why the light from Earendil's star, caught in the Phial, would wound Shelob, descendant of Ungoliant; or why Gandalf shouts out those specific words on the Bridge of Khazad-Dum.

But yeah, it isn't a book you finish reading, tolkien never finished writing it! Parts of it really aren't in a readable state, despite Guy Gavriel Kay's added work.

Calenth fucked around with this message at 18:50 on May 16, 2008

The Gunslinger
Jul 24, 2004

Do not forget the face of your father.
Fun Shoe

Calenth posted:

My sister in law has an edition of one of Terry Goodkind's books with a misprint of "Copyright Robert Jordan" on the copyright page. I'm convinced someone at Tor did it deliberately.

I've never managed to read Goodkind, mostly because every time one of my friends tries, they end up rushing into the room a few hours later screaming about how they can't believe how horrible some passage is and they have to read it to me.

It starts out tame enough but there are some hints as to what is coming even early on in the book. I should've picked up on it sooner than I did is all I can say without going into spoilers but honestly, I would be doing people a favor by spoiling the book so they could avoid it.

People about LOTR posted:

stuff
I could never get into LOTR personally, I stopped about 300 pages into the first book. He spends pages upon pages describing in ridiculous detail everything about the surroundings and when he introduces a character you get their whole family history. I just got tired of it quickly, didn't see an actual story underneath any of it and gave up.

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User
May 3, 2002

by FactsAreUseless
Nap Ghost
I literally could not read Faulkner's Light in August. I was supposed to for school but I'd fall asleep after reading about half a page. And I tried a dozen times too.

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