What's the worst fantasy novel ever IYO?

You know I am real picky and often don't like or find faults with a lot of the books I read, but most don't fall into the 'worst book ever written' catagory. I was just on-line at Amazon and they reccomended a book for me that I had already read and it did fall into this group.

it is called Slayer by Karen Koehler. It was once a self-published book, but some fool no name publisher came along an published it. She has come up with this dark industrial/goth Vampire book. It is very cliched about vamps and a secret conspiracy with the Vatican. She has gobs and gobs of pointless violence - characters behaving in ways that are cool, and dark, but with no reason or real motivation. She also pulls a whopper by relocating the pilgrims (English) to New York (New Holland, Dutch) and apparently gets some Japanese Samuri stuff wrong (from other criticism I have seen).

There is a brief flashback in the book that is written well and shows she has some talent, but for the larger story she throws it away to be hip, cool, and create these obvious movie-type visual bites, rather than to tell a decent story. It appears she also has written a couple of sequels and another standalone. All I can say is : 'Danger, Will Robinson, Danger'.
 
Now I'm on a roll. I just thought of another vampire book that I also think is self-published, but am not sure. It is The Guardian by Beecher Smith. It is just generally awful until then end when the humans finally catch on that there is a believable vampire danger, and he I kid you not, has a couple of his police characters talk about issuing crosses to all the men (?) on the force. And one character asks what about the Jews - and the other character says, 'no problem, they won't mind using the crosses'. Talk about stupid, lacking in creativity and anti-semetic.
 
Anything by Anne Rice.

Adds on:

If any author suddenly thinks they're SO GOOD they can forgo editing it's proof otherwise. Having been forced to read Interview with a Vampire for school one time, I can attest to the sloppy, iney-miney with the rules of vamps, lack of interest storyline I had been forced to read. You either stick to the rules or when you invent your own, you stick to those and EXPLAIN them right. You don't hope the audience will know what you're talking about.
 
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"Urshurak" by the Brothers Hildebrandt. They actually wrote a fantasy novel to cash in on the success of their Tolkien calendars, which in turn were cashing in on the revived popularity of 'The Lord of the Rings' in the late 70's due to the emergence of Dungeons and Dragons. Need I say that the story was god-awful?

The artwork was good, though... :rolleyes:
 
Heresy said:
Anything by Anne Rice.

Adds on:

If any author suddenly thinks they're SO GOOD they can forgo editing it's proof otherwise. Having been forced to read Interview with a Vampire for school one time, I can attest to the sloppy, iney-miney with the rules of vamps, lack of interest storyline I had been forced to read. You either stick to the rules or when you invent your own, you stick to those and EXPLAIN them right. You don't hope the audience will know what you're talking about.
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I did a gothic fiction course at university many years ago, and we were going to end with Interview with the Vampire, but the lecturer changed his mind having got round to reading it - saying it was badly written. I whole heartedly agree.
 
I love Anne Rice's vampire books, although "Interview..." is the first, and the worst. They get much better after that one, when they're all written from Lestat's point of view.

But anyway, they're not even really Fantasy.
 
The Dragon Reborn by Robert Jordan, or any of the Wheel of Time books, fantasy at it's worst
 
The Worst Fantasy in my humble opinion . . .

All three of the Shadow books by George Lucas were an abomination in mine eyes. I read them all in the vain hope that they would improve. Unfortunately, the warp and weft of the plot just kept unravelling.

I've only read the first four of Goodkind's Sword of Truth series, and I must say that I found the first two enjoyable in a summer popcorn blockbuster kind of way. But Blood of the Fold and Temple of the Winds both invented new definitions of the word atrocious.

I also didn't like Dragon Weather by Lawrence Watt-Evans. It seemed more like a teen boy's fantasy life (the main character hides in a brothel whose occupants are more than willing to sample their wares free of charge). Anyway, it was just a sloppy fantasy rewrite of The Count of Monte Cristo.

I had to stop with Runelords book One about halfway through. It was extremely boring, and I just about lost it when he ripped off Ozymandias . It absolutely boggles my mind that it's going to be made into a movie.
 
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To single out one would be an injustice, I don't know if these are the worst, as there defintely is a surplus, but I was most appaled by these:

1. Blood of the Fold, and Pillars of Creations by Goodkind, were awful. I don't care about best-seller lists, and fanbases, he has released one solid book in is entire career IMH0, and that book is still debateable.

2. The Fifth Sorceress, and The Gates of Dawn by Robert Newcomb

This may be the worst fantasy series released in the last 10 years, no small feat.

3. Silvefall by Ed Greenwood, Even though I am not a huge fan of most WOTC releases it doesn't even seem it was written by a professional writer that has been around as long as Greenwood.

4. Eragon by Paulini - Most overhyped, blatantly derivative abomination printed in some time. I'm not surprised that it's thsi terrible, howeevr I find it thougth provoking that it is so popular. The quintessential example of what's wrong with epic fantasy.

5. The Landoverr series by Terry Brooks - Give me a break.

6. Dune prequels by Kevin J Anderson and Brian Herbert - I love Dune. All Dune! As long as it's written by FRANK Herbert.

7. David Eddings novels - Beligariad was actually okay (thats a mild okay), however apparently Eddings loved it so much every novel that has since been released has essentially been Beligariad.

8. Xanth series by Piers Anthony - If one more person compares this with Pratchett's phenominal Discworld series, I'm going to throw up.

9. The Dragon and the George by Gordon R. Dickson- I know it's a classic but an English Wolfe named Aargh was just to much for me.

10. Prince of Shadows by Curt Benjamin - Every other word in the text is Sesho.

11. War of Light and Shadow and Alliance of the Light by Janny Wurts - I don't care if her new book is getting pub. I read a lot of titles many would consider long winded, hwoever if I do indulge in such works I would love something to actually occur in them that is not derivative of every other fantasy series. A Wizard's tower, inhabited by magic users who cannot directly interfere hmmmm...the Istari?


Fantasybookspot.com
 
Possible the worse trilogy or series that I have ever read was by Valery Leith called Everien:The Company of Glass, The Riddle Night and The Way of the Rose . It was one of those trilogies that had an interesting premise, yet each book became more confusing and dense that the main story became lost. Plus, she continuely digressed to so many side stories that when you were just getting into the story, she veered off into another direction.
 
I personally found the Darksword Trilogy to be rather bad. I bought it at a yard sale, and read maybe two chapters. I then put it away. A couple of years latter I found it in a closet and did not remeber reading it. I tried again and put it away again, part way through the first book. I found all 3 again in a closet and needed something to read and forced my self through it. In my opion it was not worth it.
 
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Poo

Something by David and Leigh Eddings. It was so bad, I read a handful of pages and stopped. The title has been burnt from my memory. :p
 
David Wilbanks said:
Something by David and Leigh Eddings. It was so bad, I read a handful of pages and stopped. The title has been burnt from my memory. :p
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Altamaltus or something like that?? I finished with Eddings after his second trilogy of Belgariad, The Mallorean.
 
The Redemption of Althalus. I think I even mentioned it earlier in this thread.

Eddings was one of the first authors after Tolkien that got me into Fantasy, and he gets respect..but this was painful in the extreme (despite a good start). It just went on and on, written in the worst style ever, and all the characters sounded exactly like all his old characters, word for word. They made the same endless jokes, while travelling around instantly with an omnipotent goddess, defeating the villains with ease.
 
I've been resisting naming a worst novel for weeks, but so many other peole have mention Redemtion of Anthalus, that i thought i may as well join in.

Its a VERY BAD BOOK!
And not only cos of the repitition of characters and plotlines from every other Eddings book. I think a discerning reader that had never heard of the belgariad would hate this book.

Like others i hated the complete lack of real danger, the insipid jokes, and bad writing.
Further criticisms include the random pairing up of the characters (the Priest and the Witch? It made a mockery of both their beliefs and was ripped of from the belgariad). Also Anthalus didn't seem to get much redemption, he starts of as a heartless thief and murderer, and is forced to fight evil by being imprisoned for hundreds of years. He showed no remorse and the supposedly good godess didn't blink twice.
Oh, and why did the godess even exist? The good god and evil god were supposedly perfectly matched, but with the godess on the side of good, how could they possibly have lost? You would expect Eddings of all people would be able to construct a better pantheon, he does in every book he writes!
 
Robert Stanek's "Stinker Martin's Tale" -- or maybe it was called "Keeper Martin's Tale." Cold sweats take me, just with the thought of that travesty of a novel. I don't know if I can ever recover.

Runner up would be Old Boy Rob Newcomb's Gates of Dawn. Bleh, that book was puke incarnate. In fact, anything that Newcomb writes just plain sucks.
 
Although I would defend a few books on the list so far, there is one person who has come up often that I would agree with.

Terry Goodkind

This "fool of an author" is writing at its worst. A lot of what starts with a capital letter and ends with a period in his book is not a sentence. Heck, they're not ever complete thoughts. Add his poor writing, his lack of style, and his ability to write infinitly for the sake of money: the result is paperweights.

I used to shelve them on by bookshelf just because they looked good. Now I am even embarassed to do that.

o - eye cannot spel - i no that
 
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