Date: 2013-01-16 02:49 am (UTC)
eagle: Me at the Adobe in Yachats, Oregon (Default)
From: [personal profile] 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.

Date: 2013-01-16 04:26 am (UTC)
mishalak: Mishalak reading a colorful book. (Reading Now)
From: [personal profile] 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.

Date: 2013-01-16 02:50 am (UTC)
yhlee: wax seal (Default)
From: [personal profile] 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.

Date: 2013-01-16 03:39 am (UTC)
kate_nepveu: sleeping cat carved in brown wood (Default)
From: [personal profile] 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_.

Date: 2013-01-16 04:59 am (UTC)
yhlee: Animated icon of sporkiness. (sporks (rilina))
From: [personal profile] yhlee
We share brainz. :-]

Date: 2013-01-16 05:26 am (UTC)
kate_nepveu: sleeping cat carved in brown wood (Default)
From: [personal profile] kate_nepveu
It's not too much to ask, surely.

Date: 2013-01-16 04:33 am (UTC)
mishalak: A fantasy version of myself drawn by Sue Mason (Nice)
From: [personal profile] 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.

Date: 2013-01-16 10:39 am (UTC)
zeborah: Zebra against a barcode background, walking on the word READ (read)
From: [personal profile] zeborah
If we include the classics, Wuthering Heights OMG.

Date: 2013-01-16 11:50 am (UTC)
yhlee: Animated icon of sporkiness. (sporks (rilina))
From: [personal profile] 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).

Date: 2013-01-16 04:46 am (UTC)
morpheme: (Default)
From: [personal profile] morpheme
Neuromancer. Can't stand its style-over-substance hipper-than-thou-ness.

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

Date: 2013-01-16 04:46 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] auriaephiala
Anything by Henry James or Joseph Conrad.

Date: 2013-01-16 05:45 am (UTC)
elliemurasaki: Felicia Day as Charlie Bradbury on Supernatural, caption "dance like no-one is watching" (Default)
From: [personal profile] elliemurasaki
ENDER'S GAME

Date: 2013-01-16 01:42 pm (UTC)
bcholmes: (splodin’)
From: [personal profile] bcholmes
Oooo. Good call.

Date: 2013-01-16 07:59 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] 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.

Date: 2013-01-16 02:08 pm (UTC)
filkerdave: (Default)
From: [personal profile] 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"

Date: 2013-01-17 04:23 am (UTC)
beckyzoole: (reading)
From: [personal profile] 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.)

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