Books you really, really **HATE**

[Slartibartfast]

Originally posted by Happy Monkey
Heh. I love Larry Niven, but he can't invent slang to save his life. "Tanj" and "Tanstaafl" are amusing acronyms, but far too unpronouncable to be believable as slang.

Then again, I like "Smeg" and "Frell".

Okay, I know the word smeg from watching so much Red Dwarf I saw a clip from a convention where the cast is on stage taking questions. A little girl asks them 'what does smeg mean?', and the cast collapse off their chairs onto the floor and try to crawl offstage.

'Gimboid' is my Red Dwarf favorite, 'smeghead' is in second place.

What is 'Frell'?

Niven to me recollection has only ever used two invented slang words in his stories. My opinion is we should be thankful for that, because they are pisspoor slang.

Edit: Oh, he also coined 'rishathra'

[Happy Monkey]

Originally posted by Slartibartfast
What is 'Frell'?

It was used in "Farscape", which was peculiar at times, but fun. And the characters cursed up a storm in their alien languages - and it all sounded authentic.

[DanaC]

I will confess that I DID like The Raj Quartet (series of romancy type books that the PBS series "The Jewel in the Crown" was based on, but I honestly don't think they count as romances. The story is too richly detailed for that. And besides, it's British.)

.......We*do* have romance ye know.....

I cant believe the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever made it into this list! I lurved that sequence. I thought it was like......Tolkien for grownups...Now theres a book I really thought was overhyped. Lord of the Rings... I read about a third of it before I gave it up as a bad lot. The few female characters are mystical and unknowable ( I have heard Tolkien since described by one of his proteges as a mysogonist and that toally fits with my reading of LOTR ) and I felt pretty excluded by the authors vision.

[elSicomoro]

I enjoyed "Galapagos." That was the last book I read before completing "The Last Juror" 2 weeks ago.

I had to read a biography on Napoleon in my college European Civ class that was just awful...my God, talk about a snoozer.

[Lady Sidhe]

"The Marriage Art"

I picked it up, actually, because I flipped through it in a used book store, and it pissed me off so much that I had to buy it so I could write comments in the margins. This is the most chauvanistic book I've ever read. I swear, it makes the bible (on women) look positively LIBERAL!

[Radar]

Anything by Michael Moore, Rush Limbaugh, or Ann Coulter

[Kitsune]

I found this book while swimming up and down the fiction isles at my local Borders:



In seeing this, I'd love to know what gets rejected by publishers.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally posted by Kitsune
In seeing this, I'd love to know what gets rejected by publishers.

Stuff that people wouldn't know everything about by seeing the cover.

[wolf]

Originally posted by Kitsune
I found this book while swimming up and down the fiction isles at my local Borders:

In seeing this, I'd love to know what gets rejected by publishers.

That is scary, but truly no scarier than the MOUNTAIN of books based on D&D ... I have NONE of those, but I do have a couple of the books based on the ShadowRun games (I think that was the only time I actually fell for the books-based-on-a-game genre, I only bought the first one or two, because I was trying to get a better feel for the game world to prepare a scenario for my gaming group).

I often suspect that the books that don't get published are the ones of such awe-inspiring quality that they remind editors of their own lack of writing ability.

[SamGrey]

Speaking of bad fantasy, has anyone here read any of the Gor series by John Norman. It is supposed to be a fantasy series about a professor who ends up on a alternate world of sorts.

I read a copy of Rogue of Gor many years ago, and I have never been found a book more poorly written. It honestly reads like some dysfunctional thirteen year old boy's fantasy interspersed with philosophical tirades on the "inherent submissiveness of women".

It is probably the only book that I can say that I truly hate.

Scarily enough, one of the books was made into an equally bad movie.

[DanaC]

Sam, frighteningly enough there are bunches of people who live out a Gor fantasy. There are sites about it online and conventions.....and people living it 24/7....until they get sick of being someone's toy.....

[SamGrey]

*shudders and looks at google in utter disbelief*

To use those novels as the philosophical basis of your lifestyle.....wow....I don't know whether to be sad or terrified.

[Pie]

Originally posted by Happy Monkey
Heh. I love Larry Niven, but he can't invent slang to save his life. "Tanj" and "Tanstaafl" are amusing acronyms, but far too unpronouncable to be believable as slang.

All right, I'm being a pedant, but TANSTAAFL was coined by Robert Heinlein, in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TANSTAAFL

- Pie

[OnyxCougar]

Originally posted by Slartibartfast


Okay, I know the word smeg from watching so much Red Dwarf I saw a clip from a convention where the cast is on stage taking questions. A little girl asks them 'what does smeg mean?', and the cast collapse off their chairs onto the floor and try to crawl offstage.

'Gimboid' is my Red Dwarf favorite, 'smeghead' is in second place.

Have the whole series on disc. Even the smegups, hosted by Patrick Stewart. And the US Pilot (Which really really blows. Don't bother.) I used to have a t-shirt with the cast from season 5 on it that said "In space, no one can hear you smeg."

And I like smeeeeeeeeeeeg heeeeeeeeeeed. (Kryton).

[DanaC]

I loved that show. I watched it when it was aired first time. Such a pity about Craig Charles and the rape charge. He was cleared of all charges but not before he'd spent a fair amount of time on remand in jail ......kind of broke the show's flow to have such a gap between series...