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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.
If I was going with writing that I think is actually dreck but other people love and respect I think it would be Neuromancer.
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.
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.
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_.
I read very few books that I hate, fortunately, so I'm definitely going with _Tess_.
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"
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.)
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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As in the book which people generally thought the world of, but I personally loathed? The Yiddish Policemen's Union. It was one of those books where I read 100 pages (really depressing 100 pages) and said, "Nope." My mother told me life was too short to waste on books one doesn't like.
The other, and I know exactly why it was totally inaccessible to me, was Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky. It hits every bad trigger for me with the focus on betrayal. Couldn't finish it...not even to get beyond the trigger-bashing parts. Interestingly enough, Al Reynolds' Chasm City is also about betrayal, in part, but it didn't hit those same triggers for me. (And I generally like Vernor Vinge's work.)
The other, and I know exactly why it was totally inaccessible to me, was Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky. It hits every bad trigger for me with the focus on betrayal. Couldn't finish it...not even to get beyond the trigger-bashing parts. Interestingly enough, Al Reynolds' Chasm City is also about betrayal, in part, but it didn't hit those same triggers for me. (And I generally like Vernor Vinge's work.)
*shudders*
I loved A Fire Upon The Deep, and have re-read it many times. A Deepness In The Sky - loved parts of it, but I've only read it once, and can't open it again. Even thinking of it makes me cringe.
I loved A Fire Upon The Deep, and have re-read it many times. A Deepness In The Sky - loved parts of it, but I've only read it once, and can't open it again. Even thinking of it makes me cringe.
Got annoyed at and could not finish Little Big.
OMG, I heard it was so good and I couldn't not get through more than a third.
I loved the first few chapters of MOBY-DICK. Then they started sailing, and I bounced off the next chapters and haven't yet gone back. I'm told that it starts to get good again toward the end, but I've not bothered to fight through the middle to find out.
Many other people loved M John Harrison's light, but after they all inexplicably failed to turn into cats, it was no good. I was really excited when I thought they were all gong to turn into cats.
I don't know about "best", but I have very conflicted feelings about the Harry Potter series. I can appreciate their merits, and I can see why my wife loves them, but there are bits that I have a lot of trouble with because they remind me too much of things from my school days.
I think the closest I've ever come to walking out of a movie was in OotP, when Dolores Umbridge showed up. I don't think a fictional story has ever made me feel quite that homicidal.
I think the closest I've ever come to walking out of a movie was in OotP, when Dolores Umbridge showed up. I don't think a fictional story has ever made me feel quite that homicidal.
I always liked the review Stephen King did of the book where he said "I wish I could dream up a character as evil as Dolores Umbridge."
I hate The Great Gatsby, but adore Murakami, who thinks Gatsby is one of the all-time greats. I couldn't stand The Sound And The Fury, but worship Marquez, who cites it as a great inspiration. I loathed Tess Of The D'Ubervilles, and -- no, wait, that one's actually just bad.
It's not in your genre... but I think I'll go with Bruce Cuming's Korea's Place in the Sun. It's an excellently-written history of modern Korea. It is well-cited, clear about its theses, elegantly written, and often assigned for students. It is also willfully blind, occasionally deceitful, patronizing towards many of its subjects, and made some predictions about the future that turned out to be not just wrong, but a strange mix of tragically and hilariously wrong.
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell. I keep thinking I should read it again. I couldn't possibly hate it. I should purely love it.
P.
P.
That's what I was going to post.
Didn't manage to finish it. Take another look now and then, get fed up after half a page and quit.
Didn't manage to finish it. Take another look now and then, get fed up after half a page and quit.
That depends upon your definition of best" - if popularity is a large part of the equation then Dune wins handsdown - I think it's wretched claptrap that's exactly as ill-done, misogynist, and dull as everything else Frank Herbert wrote.
If you're actually talking about quality, then pick any book by Octavia Butler -Dawn is a good example, it's well done, I wanted to like it, but it was so full of loathing for humanity that I simply couldn't enjoy it and after trying to read the next novel began to actively dislike it. A good friend suggested its one of the better novels about colonialism (from the PoV of the colonized), which I entriely agree with, but that's just as clearly not Butler's PoV.
If you're actually talking about quality, then pick any book by Octavia Butler -Dawn is a good example, it's well done, I wanted to like it, but it was so full of loathing for humanity that I simply couldn't enjoy it and after trying to read the next novel began to actively dislike it. A good friend suggested its one of the better novels about colonialism (from the PoV of the colonized), which I entriely agree with, but that's just as clearly not Butler's PoV.
I've bounced hard off the first few pages of Dune every time I try to read it. Something about the style just makes it unreadable to me. But I don't know if I consider it objectively good.
Doesn't this answer imply that you have dutifully read everything of Mieville's, decide it is all in some way "best", and yet you hate all of it?
Someone once memorably called Heinlein's STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND the "worst-written great book" he'd ever read. I tend to nod my head pretty emphatically at that. I think it is a powerful and important and affecting work; I also think it's snide, ass-backwards, misogynistic, purblind, illogical, narratively ramshackle monument to the author's impenetrable self-satisfaction.
I sat down one night in my early 20s and read almost half of it. I vividly remembering enjoying most of what I was reading. Eventually, complete exhaustion caused me to stop, so I slept and finished it when I got up. The second part included everything about the founding of the Church of All Worlds. My reactions to that half of the book ranged from disdain, to boredom, to active dislike. I barely finished it, and while I liked the first part enough to say that I don't hate it, but I'll also never read it again. I also suspect that I'd dislike the first part more if I reread it now.
As an adult, Tigana. I wanted so much to like it, but, no. And I felt so cheated for wasting my time reading it
As a child/young adult, *spit!* Rebecca. When the librarians were trying to convince me I didn't really like science fiction, Rebecca was one of the books they were always shoving at me. I tried more than once, but I never made it through the horrible thing.
As a child/young adult, *spit!* Rebecca. When the librarians were trying to convince me I didn't really like science fiction, Rebecca was one of the books they were always shoving at me. I tried more than once, but I never made it through the horrible thing.
Rebecca was assigned reading for the summer before I entered high school (there was a list of worthy volumes, most of which I have forgotten, and I have no idea what du Maurier was doing on there with Profiles in Courage and The Boys of Summer). We never talked about the books in class, either.
I've never managed to finish The Last Unicorn. The constant shifts in diction and register and level of irony just pulled the rug out from under me-- I couldn't get emotionally invested or even figure out whether I was supposed to be.
If you're talking about classics, I've never been able to get through _Little Women_ because it makes me want to throw up, although I loved many of Alcott's other books.
A more rfecent case: I loved everything else by this author, and I loved the first 90% of this book, but I will not reread The Exiles by Hilary McKay, because
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
The ending involves the Grandmother's cherished books in her library being burned completely. That totally squicked me on several levels.
A more rfecent case: I loved everything else by this author, and I loved the first 90% of this book, but I will not reread The Exiles by Hilary McKay, because
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
The ending involves the Grandmother's cherished books in her library being burned completely. That totally squicked me on several levels.
Edited 2013-01-16 04:52 (UTC)
Quite a lot of Christopher Priest. I reread a few of his books recently and came to the conclusion that although I can see that these are good books, by some literary standard, I can't stand them and I'll likely never pick up one of his books again. The real year of all of them seemed to be 1971.
Actually, The Inverted World is a pretty good choice. It's a technically well-written SF novel with a cool premise (except that it has an illogical and disappointing ending that seemed to come from a failure to commit to said premise). And some people seem to regard it as an underrated classic. But it didn't really click for me.
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