What is

[james_davis_nicoll]

The best book you hate?

Comments

[eagle]

A Case of Conscience. I take it on faith that there's something good about this book, but I considered it the worst SF novel that I'd read in the last 10 years.

[mishalak]

I am not sure that is what James is aiming at. I think he means a book that you consider well written, but hate anyway. I think I am going to go with something by Cordwainer Smith myself. I can tell he is a good writer with interesting ideas and I cannot stand his writing.

If I was going with writing that I think is actually dreck but other people love and respect I think it would be Neuromancer.

[james_davis_nicoll]

I think he means a book that you consider well written, but hate anyway.

This.

[yhlee]

Does it have to be sf/f?

Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Multiple English majors explained to me that it was a wonderful novel, and that may be so, but I feel like the time I spent reading the damn thing could have better been spent burning as many copies as I could find.

I'm trying to think of an sf/f novel I hate as much, but my unreasoning hatred of Tess fails to be outdone.

[kate_nepveu]

Hee! I became known principally for how much I hated _Tess_ (and Tess) in a summer program I did. When I complained about how all the characters were AWFUL, the lead teacher looked surprised and said she'd been focusing so much on the beauty of the landscapes that she hadn't been thinking much about that. I didn't see how she could avoid it.

I read very few books that I hate, fortunately, so I'm definitely going with _Tess_.

[james_davis_nicoll]

I just wanted Tess to knife wossface during the carriage ride at the beginning and Angel (was that his name?) to be painfully torn to pieces by his own hypocrisy.

[yhlee]

We share brainz. :-]

[kate_nepveu]

It's not too much to ask, surely.

[mishalak]

I think I saw part of a PBS production of that... I hated it as much as or more than Downton Abbey if I remember rightly.

[zeborah]

If we include the classics, Wuthering Heights OMG.

[yhlee]

I failed to get past p. 5 something like two or three times because I loathed the people, and gave up. My dad bought it for me "because girls like this sort of thing," having somehow forgotten that I inherited his taste in classics (Treasure Island, Les Misérables).

[morpheme]

Neuromancer. Can't stand its style-over-substance hipper-than-thou-ness.

However, I love all of Gibson's recent works.

[auriaephiala]

Anything by Henry James or Joseph Conrad.

[elliemurasaki]

ENDER'S GAME

[bcholmes]

Oooo. Good call.

[oh6]

Pretty much has to be Nineteen Eighty-four. Obviously a good book, but I'd rather go to the dentist than read it again.

[filkerdave]

Hmmm...tough one, since I often can't be bothered finishing "good" books if I hate them. Especially if they hit the point of "I don't care what happens to any of these people"

[beckyzoole]

Oh, man, I love Wuthering Heights and Tess of the D'Urbervilles!

You know how there's fascination in a good train wreck? I watch these people destroy their own lives, and know that they cannot help but do so because of who they are, and it fascinates me. Sure, I wouldn't act as they do, and I wouldn't want to be friends with them -- but I have known people just like them.

But most of all, books like these inspire me to try and figure out what self-destructive actions I unwittingly take because of who I am.

But! This does not answer the question!

In general literature, the best books I hate are everything Faulkner ever wrote, and much of Henry James. The stories are good, the writing style turns me off.

In SF, probably David Weber's Honor Harrington series. I loved it at first, loved the whole concept of "Horatio Hornblower in Spaaaaaaace!", and liked the characters. But this HH has become too perfect. I am angry at David Weber for turning a series I liked into a Mary Sue. (My husband disagrees with me and still loves it, though.)