What's the worst fantasy novel ever IYO?

[Priestvyrce]

Sir Apropos of Nothing, by Peter David.

I like comic fantasy and I am always happy to try a new series, but I guess that sometimes you just strike out. I didn't like Sir Apropos because I kept feeling that I was being beatin over the head with the lead's anti-anti hero status.There is only so much a person can take. The book may have goten better but I droped it in the middle. More time to read Pratchett

And thanks Julian, your're cool too.

I don't know, if it is the worse, but David did fail to really give much in way of funny; like he did with Howling Mad. The hero was just too swarmy to be likable though as the story developed I did get into it. But not enough to want to pursue the rest of the series.

 

[FicusFan]

Sir Apropos of Nothing, by Peter David.

I had forgotten about that one. It was pretty bad, and I finished it. Not only did he hit you over the head with how much this guy wasn't a hero, but he made him sleezy, nasty and a person of no value. Then it was almost like the author realized he went too far -- maybe after the main character stole from a beaten, crippled women who was gang-raped and left in a ditch to die, and he started to make him into the 'hero'. From then on the story was about adding the reluctant-accidental hero gilding.

It also makes me think of Fools Errant by Matthew Hughes. It was a literary fantasy that seemed very much a cross between JRRT and Gulliver's Travels . It was just plain boring and seemed to have no real purpose up to the point I gave up.

More recently The Year of Our War by Steph Swainston, the latest undeveloped hack to be hyped as the next big thing. She has no ability to tell a coherent story, and her dialog is terrible. She gets carried away with description and place as though it can make up for the other problems. She did a good character study of her main character, a whiny, murdering, manipulating, druggie who is also a rapist and and immortal and someone who will do anything to keep his drugs and his immortality. He was not likeable but he was interesting. But the whole book is like a cake taken out of the oven long before it is cooked -- she needs lots more work before she is ready for prime time.

Will also add the Dune Prequels though often listed as SF, some consider the whole thing fantasy. In either discipline they are just awful. I was only able to finish House Atreides which I call Polly-Anna Does Dune . Couldn't get through the rest in the first series, haven't even tried those in the second.

 

[StoneBurner]

The Fifth Sorcerous - Robert Newcomb

Cosigns

CLose thread

newcomb lost.

I lost for ever having read his garbage. He makes terry good kind look like Tolstoy.

 

[Grey Sea]

Sorry, but Robert Jordan's, Wheel of Time had me hooked; but then it seemed to go nowhere. The characters never developed, grew or changed from adolescent to adult. And my God it seemed he took twenty pages to describe a bowl-get on with it! This might have been blasphemy to his fans, but after nine books, I just expected more.

 

[JamesL]

The One Kingdom by Sean Russell is pretty bad in my opinion. One of the very, very few books I didn't actually manage to get halfway through, let alone finish. The start is awful; he introduces about 5 characters all at once and so a page in I had no idea who was who. Not a good start.

I really liked The Eye of the World but halfway through Jordan's second book and I just went cold on it completely.

As much as I like David Gemmell, I felt his novel Morningstar is pretty poor though is still much better than many authors' efforts.

Tad William's Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series I had a love/hate relationship and read it on and off for quite a while. Got about halfway through the third book and didn't make it any further. A real shame as I feel that he had so many great ideas and his writing style was pretty good but he included so much unecessary material that made the books overlong. The series is told in 4 long books and really could have been told in 3 at most.

 

[Suricou]

Alan Dean Foster's Spellsinger series: The first two books suggested he was going to make a fairly good series, but it goes quickly downhill after that. Its got good characters, but once the saveing-the-world is complete the rest of the books have no real plot. To be fair, I only read the first five.

 

[Grend gambit]

There can be only one!

I had to register for the forum to second the vote for Keeper Martin's Tale, which is definitely the worst book I've ever tried to read.

I checked several books by the author out of my library, based on some Amazon lists and reviews. I started into the book, and it was appalling. Worse, all the other books were the same story, the same writing. In some cases, the entire thing being a word-for-word copy of his own book.

The author takes it a step further and fills Amazon with fake reviews of his own book, and does the same thing in forums, it seems.

There are other books I haven't liked, some of them I dislike quite a lot. But nothing, nothing is as bad as the Ruin Mist books by Robert Stanek. The worst fantasy novel ever created, bar none. This book is the absolute zero on the scale, by which all other bad books can be measured.

 

[Ntschotschi]

Everyone knows that John Norman and his Gor series ist the worst and most detestable fantasy ever written.
It's not only bad but viciously pornographic, fascistoid, chauvinistic and outright disgusting.

 

[Jasc]

I found Norman's Gor series quite entertaining actually. I won't class it as anything superb, but it was certainly entertaining. The women slavery thing gets a bit much in the latter books, however.

 

[Priestvyrce]

I had to register for the forum to second the vote for Keeper Martin's Tale, which is definitely the worst book I've ever tried to read.

I checked several books by the author out of my library, based on some Amazon lists and reviews. I started into the book, and it was appalling. Worse, all the other books were the same story, the same writing. In some cases, the entire thing being a word-for-word copy of his own book.

The author takes it a step further and fills Amazon with fake reviews of his own book, and does the same thing in forums, it seems.

There are other books I haven't liked, some of them I dislike quite a lot. But nothing, nothing is as bad as the Ruin Mist books by Robert Stanek. The worst fantasy novel ever created, bar none. This book is the absolute zero on the scale, by which all other bad, books can be measured.

Yeah, he tried to peddle that stuff here and was finely rebuked for it.

 

[Shehzad]

Sorry guys, there might be pros and cons about various books, but I challenge anyone to read my prior submission to this thread {Gary Gygax's Gord the Rogue) with a straight face.

 

[Brys]

Crossroads of Twilight by Robert Jordan - no plot advancement whatsoever - and 800 pages of it! I could have just stopped at book 7, waited until the final book came out, and then I'd still not really have missed anything.
Wit'ch War was pretty bad as well - absolutely terrible characterisation, poor plot and one of the most predictable books I've ever read.

The Elder Gods by David Eddings - it wasn't horrible, as such, but it wasn't good in any way either. The whole idea wasn't good in the first place, the writing was poor, the plot was poor and the characterisation was worse than usual from him. Still, not quite as bad as the two listed above, and just about readable.

 

[Severn]

Ricardo Pinto

The Standing Dead

Yup, and it just about killed me too.

I loved the first book 'The Chosen' and I was eagerly awaiting number 2. And it arrived, and I carried it with great anticipation to the counter, and I took it home, and started to read...

alas

Mental picture: main character hiding in jungle, main character's love interest turning into bloated, poisonous whinger, main character still hiding in jungle, endless descriptions of jungle, love interest whining, hiding in jungle, whining, fighting, more description of jungle.

Why did I finish?

Because I bought the dratted thing. And I wanted it to improve! I thought, how much hiding and whining in this freaking jungle can there be? Something's got to happen.



K

ps - I've read this entire thread, and I'm loving this site. Thank you Kirby.

 

[vgunn]

There are some guidelines that I have established in order to come up with a list for the worst fantasy novels.

-- Disregard any books that are self-published or vanity press material. Its similar to making the claim that a certain b-movie is the worst ever, hardly when there is little expectation to begin with. Yes, Stanek's Ruin Mist books are horrid in nearly every aspect -- but were not a series put out by a reputable publisher.

-- Disregard any books that are linked to a previously published RPG or computer/boardgame setting. This means all Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Warhammer, Magic, or other should be left off the list. The tie-in is subject to creative limitations/restrictions that the author must adhere to. Yes, the Gord novels were awful. However within the scope of the setting and the time (1980s) they were written, did anyone expect it to be different.

-- Disregard all novelizations. Again similar to above, movie tie-in books are limited since the author must work with the information provided by the studio or screen writer. The Chronicles of the Shadow War by Claremont falls into this category as he was working under the requirements/limitations set forth by George Lucas.

Disregard YA novels. Reading a book designed for a specific age audience will often in up with simplistic results -- should you expect anything else? Eragon was not written for grown-ups, same with the Potter series and other of similar ilk. Not the author's fault the novels crossed-over to adult readers.

Disregard tongue-in-cheek fantasy. Again what does the reader think they will get when picking up a Pratchett or Anthony novel? Its light, fun and often poorly written -- but how could anyone expect anything else?

I'm not say any of the above cannot be just plain bad, however the books probably should not be considered for the list. So with that said, I present six for review.

1. A Shadow on the Glass -- Ian Irvine
2. Tehanu -- Ursula K. Le Guin
3. The Magic of Recluce -- LE Modesitt Jr.
4. The Ill-Made Mute -- Cecilia Dart-Thornton
5. The Fifth Sorceress -- Robert Newcomb
6. Baker's Boy -- JV Jones

 

[Beleg]

Loved Tehanu, Bakers Boy and thought Magic of Recluse was okay'ish. Haven't read the other three and have no intention too, either.

 

[Yobmod]

I agree with all these:

1. A Shadow on the Glass -- Ian Irvine

3. The Magic of Recluce -- LE Modesitt Jr.
4. The Ill-Made Mute -- Cecilia Dart-Thornton
5. The Fifth Sorceress -- Robert Newcomb
6. Baker's Boy -- JV Jones


Except:

2. Tehanu -- Ursula K. Le Guin,

which i thought was good, and my favourite of the Earthsea books. In fact the Other Wind was much worse. Also you said to disregard YA books; Earthsea is YA....

 

[vgunn]

2. Tehanu -- Ursula K. Le Guin,

which i thought was good, and my favourite of the Earthsea books. In fact the Other Wind was much worse. Also you said to disregard YA books; Earthsea is YA....

Very interesting. Two posts with positive reviews of Tehanu. To me it was a huge disappointment -- plodding, banal and overtly feminist. A complete letdown after the great work done in the first three books. I actually thought the Other Wind was a great deal more satisfying and a return to her earlier writing.

Also you are correct. Thanks Yobmod for pointing that out.I knew the trilogy was YA, but thought that Tehanu was not. So I must remove it from the list. I will replace with the Ill-Made Mute by Cecilia Dart-Thornton.

BTW -- I think a similar post should be started (or may have already). When good authors write bad books. Really I like JV Jones and Cecilia Dart-Thornton, just not the two books mentioned.

 

[Erfael]

Loved Tehanu, Bakers Boy and thought Magic of Recluse was okay'ish. Haven't read the other three and have no intention too, either.

I agree with Beleg on all counts. While Baker's Boy wasn't the most inspired book, the villains and Bodger and Grist were just classic.

 

[Duanawitch]

Hmmmmm...

I personally found it incredibly difficult to make my way through James Clemen's Banned and the Banished series...all those Wi'tch Fire, Wi'tch Storm things. At the end of book two I threw it down, annoyed I'd wasted sooooooooo much time on it. For a start what is that pretentious apostrophe in witch all about? How does it change pronunciation or meaning in any way? But, more seriously, I was left feeling that I'd written these novels myself. When I was 14 and believed in my own skills as a fantasy writer. Thankfully, no more.

 

[Severn]

Confession:

I bought Ian Irvine's book...oh dear.

Gave it away a few days later. Weak writing - and I truly think there is a lot of potential there, but often potential just isn't enough.

The Baker's Boy series is great...I think the tried and true high fantasy formula works well; it's a chancy thing and I guess it depends on personal taste too.

K