The worst book you have read

[Albertosaurus Rex]

Well, the title is perfectly obvious I think: what is the worst book that you have ever read?

My answer would probably be Prophecy by Vance Moore. Yeah, you probably haven't heard of it. It's a Magic: The Gathering novel. Some years back, I read a lot of them. Most are mediocre-to-okay, some are pretty good (specifically, those by Jeff Grubb) and those by mr. Moore are downright terrible. Mercifully, he hasn't written much.

Also high on this list is the Dutch novel Decartes' Dochter (Descartes' Daughter) which is just plain stupid. Every character is an idiot and the authors appear to think that references to monkeys and castration are automatically funny.

[Nuytsia]

This is hard - I try to forget those books!
I guess I probably didn't get past the first few pages in the worst book I ever read..... so it would be a bit unfair to label it based on that.... not that I can recall what book/s I would give that label to!

[Manephelien]

The worst book I ever read and managed to finish was "Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus" by Mary Shelley. It was obvious the author was barely out of her teens when she wrote it, and for some reason it was also obvious that she wrote with pen and ink rather than typing, something about the convoluted structure of the language. Also, the author had a moral in mind when she wrote her book, and kept hitting the reader over the head with said moral throughout the story. The idea was interesting, but the execution, at least to modern eyes, lacking.

[Nuytsia]

Heheh now you make me want to read it!

[Farseer]

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig - I read it when I was seventeen and I remember it as "the worst book ever"! May have to go back and have a re-read one day just to make sure it deserved the tag...

[Albertosaurus Rex]

Really? I thought it was heavygoing at times but the ideas were interesting. Although the sequel "Lila" is better. Better as a philosophical book that is, because there is much less focus on the novelistic aspect.

[Nuytsia]

I remember that book 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' being in my grandparents library and the title caught my eye so I'm sure I at least read some of it but I can't for the life of me remember much about it. God knows how young I was - maybe 10 ????

[Farseer]

Hmmm...looks like a re-read is in order. I most definitely remember reading it during a rather turbulent episode in my life so I could have measured it against negative, external events rather than for its literary value . I shall report back!

[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.

[Nuytsia]

Chrischa again you amaze me with the amount of a book you are willing to read even if you don't like it !
The author can't accuse you of not giving them a fair go that's for sure.