Books with terrible endings??

[world in progress]

^ Nah, Gateway is a minor classic IMO - and the revelation at the end that

(spoilers obviously)

the protagonist's shipmates are still and will always be in the act of dying while he deals with his survivor's guilt is a brilliant device that melds the personal and the scientific to produce a metaphor that only SF could give us.

The ending is memorable, and in a good way.

 

[Sibeling]

I see what you mean. The ending is memorable, but what is the idea of it? You can be whiny throughout the whole book and let your mates die, and get away with it.
I was so annoyed by that guy that I wished it was he dying by bits, and that everyone else had survived. Maybe I really should try to look at it as a metaphor and not as a story, then it all fits into place: Life is cruel and not the most deserving survive.

 

[ebony heart]

uuummmm my fave book of all time Black Beauty GINGER DIED!!! SHE FRGGING DIED!!!!!! now that's a terrible ending cuz
******DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NEVER READ THE BOOK SPOILER WARNING!!********








even though beauty is happy and free and loved and all, all he friends like either died or left!!

 

[hedgeknight]

You're right bookfan - it is The Seventh Gate that has the sucky ending. My bad.
-g-

 

[Riselka]

I'd have to add the book "Liar's Oath" to this list. It's the second half of Elizabeth Moon's "Legacy of Gird" duology prequel to "The Deed of Paksenarrion".

I quite liked the first half, "Surrender None", and thought it would make an excellent motion picture (maybe starring Sean Bean as Gird), but the second half is just a bore. It relies was too heavily on backstory from the rest of the series, and the ending is the absolute pits.

Just when she's got you all primed up for a rip-snorting battle sequence at the end, it just fizzles out completely, the battle gets pre-empted, and turns into what I think is really a non-ending - absolutely nothing happens except two people riding out on horses into the wild blue yonder. If you hadn't already read "Deed", you'd have absolutely no idea what Moon was getting at with that scene - you'd just be sitting there scratching your head and going "Huh???".

The ending just seems like she completely ran out of ideas, so she decided to just cop out on writing much of anything.

Maybe that's why she's never attempted another work of fantasy and has stuck to sci-fi ever since.

 

[Somebloke]

Perhaps the biggest letdown in a fantasy series that I have ever come across is a series called Kung Choa (or somesuch). It's an epic 13-part series set 200 years in the future, where the world has been turned into the ideal confusian society. The books cover some 80 or so years of history, concerning the final collapse of the empire that had been built.

The final book was one of the worst rush-jobs I had ever come across. In a couple of pages, major characters were killed off like flies (for little or no reason) other characters that we had slowly seen being built up over entire books suddenly became bit-players, and-despite the rush- the author suddenly needed to include new plot-lines about alien spiders and alternate dimensions. It was truly a horrible way to finish the series.

 

[Trey Greyjoy]

Hey bloke, I just want to clarify. Was it the Chung Kuo series by David Wingrove? I read the first 3 but kind of lost track of them.

 

[Talysia]

It does sound like the Chung Kuo series by David Wingrove. I remember reading some of them myself, but not the last few books. From the descriptions on here, maybe that's a good thing.

 

[Somebloke]

Yes, Chung Kao. I found most of the series good, in a George R.R. Martin "I'll kill off any major character I want" sort of way, but like I said, the last book made "The Dark Tower" finale look epic by comparison.

 

[Trey Greyjoy]

lol, thats sad. I had hoped one day to go back to them. What you said is reiterated on wikipedia about the ending. Strange!

 

[Somebloke]

lol, thats sad. I had hoped one day to go back to them. What you said is reiterated on wikipedia about the ending. Strange!

Oh. And I forgot the world being taken over by plants about halfway through the last book.

Just why is never explained.

 

[Pyan]

The final book was one of the worst rush-jobs I had ever come across. In a couple of pages, major characters were killed off like flies (for little or no reason) other characters that we had slowly seen being built up over entire books suddenly became bit-players.

Yes, I've noticed that happening in more than one series, recently. I've just finished Dread Empire's Fall, by Walter Jon Williams, and the last eighty pages of the third in the trilogy, Conventions of War, read more like a film outline than a fully-fledged novel. It's as if he had a maximum number of pages allowed by the publisher, and suddenly noticed that he was running out of space (pun intended!) Shame really - I enjoyed it very much up to then, but feel somewhat cheated by that last segment.

 

[Pyan]

(Sorry for the double post, but for some reason it won't let me edit.)

But perhaps that's better than, say, the Wheel of Time, which reads to me as if Robert Jordan has no idea how he's going to finish the series, but just keeps writing in the hope that a solution will present itself!

 

[Somebloke]

(Sorry for the double post, but for some reason it won't let me edit.)

But perhaps that's better than, say, the Wheel of Time, which reads to me as if Robert Jordan has no idea how he's going to finish the series, but just keeps writing in the hope that a solution will present itself!

I've heard somewhere that the next book will be the last.

How is that even possible?

 

[Urien]

"I've heard somewhere that the next book will be the last.

How is that even possible?" Somebloke

...and then the mighty hand of god appeared in the desolate city and lo, the nuclear weapon did detonate with a jolly big bang.

THE END

I've heard epics can be ended that way.

 

[Pyan]

Just as long as they can adjust their hemlines, pull their braids and fold their arms under their breasts first.

 

[Somebloke]

...and lo, the forces of light did run out of switches. And there was a great weeping and gnashing of teeth...

 

[Somebloke]

"I've heard somewhere that the next book will be the last.

How is that even possible?" Somebloke

...and then the mighty hand of god appeared in the desolate city and lo, the nuclear weapon did detonate with a jolly big bang.

THE END

I've heard epics can be ended that way.

And yet still kinder to ol' Flagg than The Dark Tower.

 

[Sketti]

the end of Fool's Fate by Robin Hobb. I shall never forgive her. It ruined my favorite series of all time.

 

[Somebloke]

the end of Fool's Fate by Robin Hobb. I shall never forgive her. It ruined my favorite series of all time.

Why? He finally got Molly!

Are you one of those crazed, evil people that think he should have ended up with the Fool?