what is the most annoying book you ever read?

[tobl]

what is the most annoying book you ever read? Not necessarly bad but annoying

 

[Danny McG]

There's a few, what annoys me is extended dream sequences in a book that you have to read to pick up the plot clue... In real life I always tune out when somebody starts with a "I had a weird dream last night...."
So annoying when I have to read one

 

[tobl]

There's a few, what annoys me is extended dream sequences in a book that you have to read to pick up the plot clue... In real life I always tune out when somebody starts with a "I had a weird dream last night...."
So annoying when I have to read one

you would hate this one then. i neverread the book, but read a critic that said most of the story occurs in a dream lolo seven volumes, in search of lost time by marcel proust

In Search of Lost Time - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Venusian Broon]

A few spring to mind.

I hated the ending of Niven and Pournelle's Footfall. Not that it didn't make some sense to end it where it did. But it was just far too abrupt. I did feel cheated.

Then there was Peter F. Hamiltons Reality Dysfunction. Which really annoyed me because there is no indication on that thick fat tome that it's actually part one of trilogy. I was a struggling student at the time who couldn't afford extravagances like trilogies (Well. I say trilogies. I think Hamilton just writes a couple of million words, then his publisher just chops it up into three equal size 'books'.) I eventually got round to finishing off the story, but I'm still in a strop with him and refuse to read anything else by him.

(Okay, it's really his publishers fault, I suppose, but the trilogy is okay, not brilliant, IMO. So I don't think I'm missing out much, in case someone chirps in. Still many other authors for me to read before I perhaps dip a tentative toe back into his work.)

But one author, who I do enjoy and love his ideas is Alastair Reynolds. Yet his Revelation space series...

..I think Redemption Ark is by far the best of the bunch - the strongest work I've read of his, some great tight writing and ideas, yet there are two set pieces that could have been amazing, yet he glosses over them in a couple of lines. It's so disappointing. It feels as if these were editors cuts, maybe. Would be interested to know if that was the case.

But then the next book, Absolution Gap....he kills off the story, and all the best characters from RA and goes off on a wander somewhere else. It has its moments and probably would have been better as a standalone in a different universe. It just feels that he didn't really know how to bring his story to some sort of conclusion. (Actually my guess is that he is a bit of pantser, given the work I've read. Generally his endings seem, to me, to peter out)

 

[Karn's Return]

Annoying? I could put a list in.


Anything by Shakespeare is a given for me. Then Catcher in the Rye, A Wrinkle in Time, and pretty much any volume of the Shannara series. What I really didn't like with Shannara was how gleefully Terry Brooks just removed and introduced new characters all over. :| Not as bad as Martin but damn...

 

[Bick]

But then the next book, Absolution Gap....he kills off the story, and all the best characters from RA and goes off on a wander somewhere else. It has its moments and probably would have been better as a standalone in a different universe...

This is the same exact example I would quote for the same reasons. Sets up a great premise in books 1 and 2, screws it all up in book three.

 

[Bick]

Not as bad as Martin but damn...

And here's another example I can hitch my wagon to: A Storm of Swords. Let's enter world of three dimensional, complex, characters we've spent 1000 pages getting to know, whose motives we care about, and then suddenly and unnecessarily kill a heap of them willy-nilly. Nuts! It was at this stage I realised he was following his nose, badly, rather than executing a coherent plan; also probably the reason he can't finish the series.

 

[BAYLOR]

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole . Reading it was very painful .

 

[tobl]

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole . Reading it was very painful .

try reading saramago

 

[Bick]

try reading saramago

Do you mean the Nobel Laureate, Jose Saramago, by any chance? I thought his book Blindness was excellent.

 

[Danny McG]

I would say the Manifold books by Stephen Baxter....same character names but different circumstances and plots

 

[Karn's Return]

And here's another example I can hitch my wagon to: A Storm of Swords. Let's enter world of three dimensional, complex, characters we've spent 1000 pages getting to know, whose motives we care about, and then suddenly and unnecessarily kill a heap of them willy-nilly. Nuts! It was at this stage I realised he was following his nose, badly, rather than executing a coherent plan; also probably the reason he can't finish the series.

I'm not of the sort emotionally to get into a grimdark epic like ASoIaF. When I first tried to start it I was getting out of the hospital after surgery and I was an absolute wreck, couldn't get past Bran being tossed out the window, and I never turned to the series since. Also avoided GoT show, too, despite family trying to convince me to do the contrary.

 

[Bick]

I would say the Manifold books by Stephen Baxter....same character names but different circumstances and plots

I've only read the first one, Time. Do you suggest I stop there?

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I Will Fear No Evil by Robert Heinlein, because it was a really lousy SF novel by one of the greats in the field.

The Gripping Hand by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, because it was a poor sequel to a fine novel.

A lesser known one, at least among SF fans: Plus by Joseph McElroy. Apparently the author is a "literary" author and not an SF author. Maybe I was just not intellectual enough for it. As I recall, it was just the thoughts of a disembodied brain in orbit, with no plot at all. (Not that I necessarily mind that; I liked Report on Probability A by Brian Aldiss, which has no plot.)

Speaking of SF by authors not normally associated with the genre, I thought Doris Lessing's Canopus in Argos: Archives Re: Colonized Planet 5 Shikasta Personal, Psychological, Historical Documents Relating to Visit by Johor (George Sherban) Emissary (Grade 9) 87th of the Period of the Last Days (to give it the full title as shown on the cover of the first edition) read like SF by somebody who hasn't read much SF.

 

[Danny McG]

I've only read the first one, Time. Do you suggest I stop there?

If you continue you'll get really vexed. You know how, after a few chapters, you can anticipate which characters will react in a certain manner?

In the other books they have different personalities.
I was like "what?" and "why?" and eventually gave up (while muttering and swearing to myself)

 

[Mad Alice]

Im not sure of the title. Its still up in a tree somewhere if anyone wants to check.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole. Reading it was very painful .

Usually if books annoy me I don't finish them and, if I am lucky, mercifully forget their contents and often even their titles, so it would be difficult for me to choose the very worst among them. But because this one was a classic and I am interested in the period when it was written I stuck with Otranto to the bitter end. And an unpleasant experience it was, too. It may have the distinction of being the most improbable and disjointed book I have ever read all the way through.

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

you would hate this one then. i neverread the book, but read a critic that said most of the story occurs in a dream lolo seven volumes, in search of lost time by marcel proust

In Search of Lost Time - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It "takes place" in memory, not in a dream. If you want, it's like a long, long flashback as the grown up narrator retells his childhood, his youth, and so on. But really it takes place in the village of Combray, in Paris, in the seaside resort of Balbec, etc. And it's beautiful. (I've read the first three of the seven volumes. I'm taking my time about it.)

 

[dask]

Vathek by William Beckford.

 

[Ursa major]

Vathek by William Beckford

The second of three stories in one of the books I own to appear in this thread (the other being The Castle of Otranto).

The third story is Frankenstein. I rather hope that story does not appear here as an anti-recommendation (not that I would dispute the anti-recommendations for the other two).