Unfinished Fiction

[Hagelrat]

Ok, I am curious as to what books people have totally failed to finish.
I don't mean the ones you bookmark for 6 months - 6 years later when you are in the mood, but the ones you start to read and know unequivocally that you will never ever pick up again.
I have three so far this year.
The Gargoyle - I got sick of the gross descriptions of burn treatment by page 32 and dismissed it.
The Laurentine Spy - Looked like my kind of read, totally not. Ditched it about halfway through.
The Long Journey to Rneadal - Feel a bit bad about this one, wanted to like it really found it impossible to engage with. Eventually after it had stalked my reading, making me feel guilty for a month or two, let myself off the hook and called it a day. I have a "not a review" drafted to post for this one.

Your turn, doesn't have to be from this year, can be something school tried to make you read when you were 8 or whatever.

[Magnus Bergqvist]

I have the following:

Stranger in a strange land (Robert A. Heinlein)

Book of lost tales II (Swedish transaltion) - J.R.R. Tolkien. It makes Silmarillion look like an easy to read masterpiece, which it is not.

There was one more, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was.

/Magnus

[dirtbag]

Not really to the subject material of the forum, but

John Ringo's Ghost figured it would be a decent techno thriller, only book I have ever tossed in the recycling, and I only read about 50 pages.

Anything I decide is a read once is turned into the local used bookstore, this book was so bad it was a complete waste of paper and ink.

[Chimaera]

Not really to the subject material of the forum, but

John Ringo's Ghost figured it would be a decent techno thriller, only book I have ever tossed in the recycling, and I only read about 50 pages.

Anything I decide is a read once is turned into the local used bookstore, this book was so bad it was a complete waste of paper and ink.

I agree wholeheartedly. Lurid garbage; not even good as pornography, really.

[Hagelrat]

Magnus - I confess I never finished simirillion, lotr was ok though.
dirtbag - I do charity shop books or pass them on sometimes, but I hang on to a lot intending to re read. Totally on target for the thread.
Chimaera - I don't think porno counts because of the lack of substantial text, even if you are reading the articles. :saeek::grin:

[Archaelos]

Terry Goodkind - Wizard's First Rule

I'm sure there's one or two more, but it's rare that I don't finish a book and that's the only one I can think of at the moment.

[Origen]

John Ringo's Ghost figured it would be a decent techno thriller, only book I have ever tossed in the recycling, and I only read about 50 pages.

Anything I decide is a read once is turned into the local used bookstore, this book was so bad it was a complete waste of paper and ink.

On the recommendation of another friend who posts on this forum, I pushed through that book, and then the two after it. In my opinion, he laid on the BDSM stuff in Ghost way too thick. He calms it down in the two books after that. My favorite was actually the third, Choosers of the Slain.

Ringo is like Laurell K. Hamilton. When the clothes start coming off, I start turning pages.

[Origen]

Oh, and speaking of unfinished books and Laurell K. Hamilton: Micah:

http://www.amazon.com/Micah-Anita-Blake-Vampire-Hunter/dp/0515140872

Three times as many 1s as 5s on Amazon.com. It is a fantastically bad book. Nevermind that it's a fragment, or an incomplete work that Laurell probably tossed off on a weekend binge and never went back to rework it.

Oh no! It gets better. One of the characters in the book mourns the fact that women have never accepted him because ... his penis is too big.

I think I actually threw the book across the room at that point. It was a paperback, so nobody was harmed.

[Hagelrat]

Origen - I loved the first two or three anita blake books, and the one where she heads off with edward wasn't bad, but the others, well y'know the Ravenous Romance girls are my dealers in erotica/romance if I want it, I went to LKH for UF. Twas not to be. It's a shame because she is quite obviously a very good writer, she just started churning out utter dross somewhere along the way.

A book I finished, but then threw across the room in disgust (alarming the cats) was twilight. Utter drivel. There is only one way to deal with Edward & Bella :shoot:

[Hagelrat]

Archaelos i haven't tried a Terry Goodkind book since I was at school. I didn't finish that.

[Chimaera]

I don't think porno counts because of the lack of substantial text, even if you are reading the articles. :saeek::grin:

Porno ain't all pictures, dude. Although some prefer to call the written stuff "literary erotica". Whichever -- Ringo's stuff isn't even good at that, IMV.

Terry Goodkind - Wizard's First Rule

I'm sure there's one or two more, but it's rare that I don't finish a book and that's the only one I can think of at the moment.

Agreed again. Goodkind sucks.

On the recommendation of another friend who posts on this forum, I pushed through that book, and then the two after it. In my opinion, he laid on the BDSM stuff in Ghost way too thick. He calms it down in the two books after that. My favorite was actually the third, Choosers of the Slain.

Ringo is like Laurell K. Hamilton. When the clothes start coming off, I start turning pages.

*shudders*

I don't know man. I trust your judgment, but I don't think I can dig into another Ringo book after "Ghost".

[Origen]

Origen - I loved the first two or three anita blake books, and the one where she heads off with edward wasn't bad ...

That would be Obsidian Butterfly, the last book worth reading by Laurell K. Hamilton. Read everything up to that. Read that book.

Then, stop.

No, I mean it. Stop. I know. You love the characters. You want to know what happens to them. You're thinking, okay, the next book sucked. But she's gotta be lagging, right?

She comes back, right?

No. She doesn't. You will throw down book after book in pure, utter disgust. I mean, everyone likes some porn now and then, right?

What Hamilton doesn't understand is that she writes BAD porn. She basically shaped the genre of urban fantasy, and then grew disgusted with her own success. (Or so it seems to me.)

Invent your own ending for her characters. I guarantee that even if you are unimaginative, drunk and stoned, you will come up with something better than what she wrote.

[Kalzazz]

Obsidian Butterfly is worth reading? Ill admit, I couldnt finish that one, that one killed any enthusiasm for LKH partway through it

Uhm, other than that the only book I couldnt finish reading (and remember stopping, not just losing it partway) was Orson Scott Card's Speaker of the Dead . . . somehow that book partway through was doing Nothing, Nothing at All, for me

Oh yeah, and Tom Clancy's uh, Teeth of the Tiger I think, passionate gods was it horrible

[BlueNinja]

Dune. I got about a hundred pages in, put it down, and never touched it again (nor am I likely to).

I did finish Wizard's First Rule in high school, and got partway through the second book before deciding that Goodkind was a hack.

I stuck out until #11 or 12 of Anita Blake, then decided to never again read anything by LKH.

I can't think of anything else I never managed to finish.

Magnus: Why didn't you finish Stranger?

[Kalzazz]

Dune! I read and enjoyed Dune. I read and enjoyed all of Kevin J. Anderson's prequels (my friend thought it would be best for me to read in order, so I read the prequels first)

I couldnt get through the book that came after Dune, though may try again sometime

[Magnus Bergqvist]

Magnus: Why didn't you finish Stranger?

I found it boring, and it was a kind of SF that I felt hadn't aged very well. The translation might have hurt the book.

/Magnus

[Hagelrat]

I read Dune and one of the prequels which I found enjoyable enough but I was not drawn to trying to finish them all.

[Archemedes]

Hmmm...unfinished books, let's see:

Any Anita Blake / Meredith Gentry Novel: I tried reading the first one, got hung up on a small minute detail and put it down. My boyfriend is a huge fan, and hearing what he says about the graphic sex, I'm not even tempted.

The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King: I pushed on once the hero of the book gets mauled by lobsters but completely lost interest.

Any Tolkein novel: I have tried and tried to read his work, but it's just...I really can't put into words how much his writing rubs me the wrong way.

The Chronicles of Amber series by Roger Zelazny: Nothing wrong with the author really, just had a friend who was such a die hard fan he literally pushed me to read it. He burned me out on the who idea before I cracked open the book.

[BlueNinja]

Any Anita Blake / Meredith Gentry Novel: I tried reading the first one, got hung up on a small minute detail and put it down. My boyfriend is a huge fan, and hearing what he says about the graphic sex, I'm not even tempted. The first few Anita books, up to Obsidian Butterfly, are alright - though there's a little sex, it takes second place to the plot. After that, it's worse than internet porn.

The Chronicles of Amber series by Roger Zelazny: Nothing wrong with the author really, just had a friend who was such a die hard fan he literally pushed me to read it. He burned me out on the who idea before I cracked open the book. The Amber novels are great enough you should ignore his pushiness and read them anyway. ;)