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.

[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_.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[yhlee]

We share brainz. :-]

[kate_nepveu]

It's not too much to ask, surely.

[alexseanchai]

ENDER'S GAME

[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.

[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).

[bcholmes]

Oooo. Good call.

[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"

[james_davis_nicoll]

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

This.

[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.)

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

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.)

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

Got annoyed at and could not finish Little Big.

[seawasp]

You mean the one with the best reputation that I hate most? Probably a tie between Moby-Dick and Lord of the Flies.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Best in your opinion.

[resonant.livejournal.com]

*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.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

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.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

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.