what's the worst SF/F book you ever read and why?
the spectre of vonda mcintyre was brought up in another thread. while being an award winner (hugo award?) and having a fan-base which would no doubt lambast me to no end, none of that detracts from her having written the worst sci-fi book i ever read, 'the crystal star,' which was an 'expanded universe' star wars novel.
where do i start with how bad it was? the thing that sticks out most is the abyssmal characterization, having han solo's internal thoughts revolve around fifty syllable words, made worse because i'd never heard the words before myself. i don't think a single character rang true with what i already know about them.
the book was just boring. it had maybe two decent side-ideas as background filler. i'm sure we can all point to a book and ask, 'what was the point of those secondary characters other than to waste space to pad an otherwise bad novella-length story?'
afair, what information she gave turned out to have utterly predictable conclusions. the ending, however, just came out of left field, introducing the true villian in the last chapter. having no indication that what happened was coming, it just pisssed me off. (i think there may have been a mention of the villian being behind some giant doors for the purposes of some cult religious practice, but the way it was done totally didn't make me even the slightest bit interested in finding out what it was or what was going on. it turned out to be some blob-thing (wow, how exciting) and some very heavy-handed and yawny religious gobbledegook which came off as more crap to add to the pile to hide the true horrendousness taking place.)
had it not said 'star wars' on the cover, no one would have bought it, me included, though fortunately i spent a whopping fifty cents on it in a garage sale (and i should have gotten my money back). this was at a time, though, when you could have put a label saying 'mynock spit' on a jar of vaseline and moved a million units, so we all got suckered. in fact, i think this stinker of a novel is infamous for being so terrible. stay away at all costs!
ever been driving a stick shift and accidentally went to go into fourth gear and put it in first and hear a terrible noise, then when you look in the rear-view mirror you see all the traffic behind you swerving out of the way to avoid the metal things you've just dislodged from underneath your car? now imagine you could bottle that feeling and drink a case of it with a beer bong, and you barely know what it's like to read this book. (another appropriate example would be waking up after a bender to discover you've pisssed in your laundry hamper at some point during the night, puked in your wife's new gucci purse plus she's highly irate with you because you said something about her niece and how good she looks in tight jeans.)
the spectre of vonda mcintyre was brought up in another thread. while being an award winner (hugo award?) and having a fan-base which would no doubt lambast me to no end, none of that detracts from her having written the worst sci-fi book i ever read, 'the crystal star,' which was an 'expanded universe' star wars novel.
where do i start with how bad it was? the thing that sticks out most is the abyssmal characterization, having han solo's internal thoughts revolve around fifty syllable words, made worse because i'd never heard the words before myself. i don't think a single character rang true with what i already know about them.
the book was just boring. it had maybe two decent side-ideas as background filler. i'm sure we can all point to a book and ask, 'what was the point of those secondary characters other than to waste space to pad an otherwise bad novella-length story?'
afair, what information she gave turned out to have utterly predictable conclusions. the ending, however, just came out of left field, introducing the true villian in the last chapter. having no indication that what happened was coming, it just pisssed me off. (i think there may have been a mention of the villian being behind some giant doors for the purposes of some cult religious practice, but the way it was done totally didn't make me even the slightest bit interested in finding out what it was or what was going on. it turned out to be some blob-thing (wow, how exciting) and some very heavy-handed and yawny religious gobbledegook which came off as more crap to add to the pile to hide the true horrendousness taking place.)
had it not said 'star wars' on the cover, no one would have bought it, me included, though fortunately i spent a whopping fifty cents on it in a garage sale (and i should have gotten my money back). this was at a time, though, when you could have put a label saying 'mynock spit' on a jar of vaseline and moved a million units, so we all got suckered. in fact, i think this stinker of a novel is infamous for being so terrible. stay away at all costs!
ever been driving a stick shift and accidentally went to go into fourth gear and put it in first and hear a terrible noise, then when you look in the rear-view mirror you see all the traffic behind you swerving out of the way to avoid the metal things you've just dislodged from underneath your car? now imagine you could bottle that feeling and drink a case of it with a beer bong, and you barely know what it's like to read this book. (another appropriate example would be waking up after a bender to discover you've pisssed in your laundry hamper at some point during the night, puked in your wife's new gucci purse plus she's highly irate with you because you said something about her niece and how good she looks in tight jeans.)
