The worst book you have read

[Chrischa]

I just finished it last night and it was so bad it deserves an honorable mention here; the tears of Artamon by Sarah Ash. Very clumsily written, one-dimensional characters, and three huge books of unnecessary plot lines that result in all the problems raised during the entire series being solved in the one-to-last chapter, by a character finally doing what she was able to do since the second half of the first book. Granted, she didn't have the necessary information then, but she still pieced it together halfway the second book, and then spent the rest of the time humming and haring and making promises. This skill, by the way, she was able to learn within two weeks even though it took her teacher half her life to learn.

I'll give you an example of the sort of things you find in this book; the emperor stands on a hillside overlooking his palace and sees his daughter play in the garden. Then he notices a wolf which runs out of the forest towards his daughter, intent on attacking her. He kicks his horse to go and save her, they run down the hill, the distance is long enough for the horse to be run nearly to death by the time they arrive, and still he gets there in time to run the wolf through just as it is "poised for the attack".

Uh... right... so a wolf studies his prey, decides the time is right for attack, runs from his cover, and then hangs around for fifteen minutes making ominous growling sounds so that a larger predator has the time to come and finish him off? Please...

So if you ever want to read the polar opposite to Robin Hobbs' books, try this one out. I'm going to wash out my mind now by re-reading the Soldier Son trilogy.