[lemming]

Hey, they had a good idea over on the Fantasy forum... we get enough "best ever" threads. So what's the WORST sci-fi you've ever suffered through (or thrown down in complete disgust)?

As I mentioned out-of-genre on the fantasy thread, I nominate The Nano Flower by Run-on Sentences Hamilton, as well as anything by Zelazny. Blech, and yawn, respectively. :cool:

lemming

[juzzza]

This may be akin to blasphemy but I couldn't finish 'Consider Phlebas' By Banks.

It was recommended by a friend and maybe I had way too high expectations. I can't criticize the writing because it was very good, I just switched off during the fat cannibal episode.

Sorry.

[fortytwo]

Starswarm~ Brian Aldiss
Extro ~ Alfred Bester
Usually I like both these authors but I suppose everyone has an off day.

[Jack Burton]

I guess I was more dissapointed than disgusted, but I'd say KW Jeter's Blade Runner novels.......!

[Rob B]

I tried and tried to get into Hamilton's The Reality Dysfunction and was b-o-r-e-d. Didn't care about the characters or the story.

[Hobbit]

Yes....big fat novels, lots of different characters....

took me a while too, but felt it was worth it in the end. :)

[Belgarion]

Dune's prequels.:cool:

[Rumfuddle]

I'm glad you, blasphemously, mentioned Zelazny. I wanted to love LORD OF LIGHT so much but I found it dense and pretentious. But not the worst sf book ever -
Zelazny's ROADMARKS is pretty awful.

Furthur blasphemy; Arthur C Clarke's 3001 THE FINAL ODYSSEY. I was grimacing the whole way through, it was so contrived and just stuck together.
2001 is excellent, 2010 very good and 2061 just nice and readable - What is it about series? Do they invariably slip downhill?

Here`s an obscure candidate ; RETURN TO MARS by Captain W.E. Johns who wrote all the Biggles books. A cliche-infected and insipid piece of pseudo-sf written in the 50's when I suppose sf was fashionable for a while or something. Dreadful stuff.

[Carmichael]

Battlefield Earth!!
Battlefield Earth!!
Battlefield Earth!!
Battlefield Earth!!


I can't believe I wasted a week and a half on that absostinkinglutely lousy waste of a perfectly good tree!!

[lemming]

Rumfuddle, augh... you mentioned Lord of Light. Yeah, I tried to read that. It included the sentence... read no further, ye of weak stomach...

"That's when the fit hit the Shan."

I put the book down shortly after, since I didn't really get the plot or the characters anyway. I have a co-worker who considers this light, escapist fiction, so I know some people grok the Z-man... just not me. Missing the appropriate neuron or something.
:)

lemming