Books Worst books you've read?

[King Krávoka]

Out of all the books which I've read in 2021, the worst by far was Dante Santori's Alien Races Book, which was promoted to me by someone whose actions depended on an inability to get anyone reading it, and hosted by a hypertextual manifestation of pure evil.

The introduction is the backstory of the document's existence. Ostensibly it was a KGB field guide or research notebook on the known extraterrestrial civilizations. It's actually too short to MST, most of these entries are a single paragraph on a page, with whatever pictures the author could take from the internet as he admitted in the introduction. This illustration method heavily slants its hoax towards grays, reptillians, and statues. The microcosm of this book is its claim that it inspired Mass Effect, one of the most deliberately generic franchises in the history of science fiction.
Nothing in this book has any inspired quality, it's just a bunch of UFO cliches. Aliens infiltrate the government and kidnap people, and they exist for way too long, going way too far, and having way too few spaceships. There's an entire section dedicated to the "Council of 5", the galactic federation cliche, and it gives even less elaboration on its component races, who seem to also have the most generic illustrations in the whole book. Next is an explanation of several fortean anomaly cliches. The "DIXIT" section is a list of foreboding quotes made by alien beings, without any context to them.
At the end the book starts preaching for us to respect women and worship Diana, but doesn't explain the precepts of this monotheistic religion. It does explain that all the robes worn by religious leaders are actually done to crossdress as the goddess- as if dresses were woman's clothing in every culture, in every era, of every species. A lot of the illustrations showed naked humanoids, is all clothing a feminine or divine quality? Earlier it said that all world religions are alien disinfo, so it would be a major flaw in their vague plans if all the men actually were alluding to the true faith by accident. Kind of a feministic version of the kangz thing. Like everything in this book, the religious preaching tries to be profound, but is just vague, lazy, and unoriginal.

 

[Skallagrim]

"Worst" is a difficult concept. There are books that are obviously utter garbage as far as any element of writing is concerned, but I don't tend to read those books. Except when they're so terrible it becomes fun again, in which case "worst" doesn't really apply.

If I don't enjoy reading a book, I typically stop reading. So what's the "worst" book I've read in full? My first thought is actually of a book that's not even badly written, but which I detest because it causes loads of fools into believing terrible misconceptions. The book is Blindsight, by Peter Watts. It is completely, utterly, 100% wrong about the nature of consciousness. Now, since it's fiction, that's not a problem in itself. Edgar Rice Burroughs was completely, utterly, 100% wrong about planetary science, but that's not an obstacle to enjoying his Barsoom novels. The difference is that no sane person actually thinks that Mars is inhabited by humanoid beings. Conversely, I've often encountered people in discussions who actually cite Blindsight as "proof" (no, really, they take fiction as supposed proof!) that consciousness and awareness are useless, and somehow not required for complex, intelligent life to function.

Obviously, this is perversely wrong, and intelligence (the ability to reason) cannot exist without consciousness, because it is an functional exponent of the conscious mind. The thesis touted in Blindsight is about as wrong as the idiotic notion that "reality doesn't exist, it's all just your perception", which post-modernists tended to bleat on about in the '90s. Unfortunately, the traditional method for dealing with post-modernists[*] doesn't apply quite as neatly.

But, yeah, Blindsight is terrible -- not as a book in itself, but because of the horrible nonsense it has led so many impressionable fools to believe as it were fact.


-------------------------------------------------------------


[*] In case you're wondering: the traditional method for dealing with post-modernists is to hit them with a stick. When they complain, loudly insist that you're not hitting them, and it's "just their perception". Keep hitting them until they either admit that they can't "subjectively think the hits into non-existence" and that reality therefore must exist in an objective sense, outside the scope of their subjective perception... or until they expire from blunt force trauma. Either result solves the problem.

 

[King Krávoka]

Obviously, this is perversely wrong, and intelligence (the ability to reason) cannot exist without consciousness, because it is an functional exponent of the conscious mind. The thesis touted in Blindsight is about as wrong as the idiotic notion that "reality doesn't exist, it's all just your perception", which post-modernists tended to bleat on about in the '90s. Unfortunately, the traditional method for dealing with post-modernists[*] doesn't apply quite as neatly.

There's an expectation of the modern hard science fiction club that anything is plausible as long as it's the most pessimistic interpretation, because a livable world would be a sign of a benevolent deity, so as long as nothing is too "convenient"; you can get away with artificial/posthuman intelligences that can read your entire brain by glancing at your face, memetic weapons that instantly turn you into a nazi, and aliens who are hardwired by mathematical law to exterminate all intelligent life. ESP, runes, and demons. Occult elements are inseparable from the science-fictitious genre, and I don't mean trying to scientifically justify the existence of vampires. An author's religion contaminates everything which he writes, when he writes about restrictions on the possible, it becomes mystically embedded into the universe. In past times this meant that the stand-ins for God would preach harmony, wisdom, and respect for all. But the modern religion is centered on authoritarian pessimism, so it must be emphasized that no one can be trusted with anything. These stories say that advanced technologies must be put on total governmental control before we are subverted by the unseen menace, your search for freedom and knowledge was a mistake, those traits can only be found by sitting still. Science fiction explores an alternate possibility, and how to evade or start it, but cognitohazard fiction is about the struggle to keep the livestock on an antibiotic pipeline before it inevitably bursts, there is no exploration of what to do, it's just pornography for the elites.

 

[edgeworthy]

Has anyone read any of the Stars and Stripes Trilogy by Harry Harrison?
If you haven't, then don't, for the love of god don't. They are generally regarded as the definition of a Wank, and are so badly written that you feel that you want to rip one of your own arms off just so that you have something to throw at the author.

Edit: There is a review of it here. I would advise against reading it, on health grounds.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

This book is so bad, it's good. It's like watching a train wreck in slow motion and you can't look away.

For those who don't know, Warcraft's storyline is rather... poorly told. It didn't start out that way. Warcraft started out as games, and then there were tie in novels that fleshed out the backstory that you had heard about in the games. Then came the novelizations of the game's plot, but overall you just needed the games to understand the story. But then, with World of Warcraft, we started getting major story moments happening not in the game, but in the tie-novels. This started with The Shattering, where two racial leaders (one of whom was a major character in Warcraft 3) were killed off, and a character ascended and became the new Warchief of the Horde. If you didn't read the tie-in novel and only played the game, you were confused by what was going on. And then from that point one, you had to pretty much read the novel (or someone else's summation of it) to understand the Warcraft plot, because the game keeps referencing major events that took place in the books.

Now, Christie Golden is not a bad writer. She doesn't really decide the story. Warcraft's storyline is ultimately decided by game designers throwing ideas at each other, and also probably the marketing department. So when the Warcraft storyline jumped the shark with orcish Hitler escaping from the Nuremberg Trials and time travelling to his alien homeworld to prevent the heroes from defeating the Horde, Christie Golden wasn't responsible for that. She was just the one who had to make the tie-in novel that connected point A to point B. She does the best she can.

Christie Golden couldn't really win this one. It's just conceptually stupid. By this point, the heroes of almost every faction in the setting have killed hundreds of people on the spot who did lesser things than what Garrosh did. There is a line of like a dozen major characters who have a personal vendetta against Garrosh and want him dead. Presumably every faction in the setting practices capital punishment. There is no uncertainty about the deeds Garrosh had committed. And yet, when the heroes storm his bunker in Berlin and corner him, they don't just immediately kill him? They have to put him on trial? Since when did we ever put villains on trial in Warcraft? We just axe them and move on.

It's pretty entertaining seeing almost everyone get character assassinated in this book. Some highlights:

• Garrosh needs an attorney. Who is going to be his attorney? Baine Bloodhoof, the son of Cairne Bloodhoof, a man he killed way back in the Shattering (one of the two major characters who were killed off in that novel). Why is Baine going to defend a man he hates? Because the ghost of Cairne shows up in front of Baine and says "son, you need to defend my murderer and prevent him from getting hanged at his trial!". So Baine is like "okay dad" and actually does it. Bear in mind, that the Horde got started in the first place because an ancestral "ghost" (actually a demon in disguised) showed up to one of his descendants and told him to form a horde and commit genocide against his peaceful neighbors. The Horde has been (unsuccessfully) trying to avoid a repeat of that, and Baine should be pretty aware of that story. Furthermore, Cairne was not "forgive and forget" kind of dude. Ghost dad saying these things should make Baine very suspicious.

Garrosh kills Cairne in The Shattering. Drawn by Glenn Rane.

• Baine's defense of Garrosh is: "yeah, Garrosh did everything he is accused of. He started an unprovoked world war. Nuked a city and enslaved the survivors. Tried coercing third world countries into becoming his vassals. Erected a totalitarian police state and his criticizers killed (or captured them and had them used as live target practice for his troops). Marched into a holy temple, killed everyone there, unleashed ultimate evil and made a deal with the devil, and desecrated the valley. Also, we literally went into his mind and saw that he was fantasizing about wiping out humanity. BUT! People can change, so we should forgive him and give Garrosh a chance to become a better man too."
• Trying to make a point as to why Garrosh should be forgiven, Baine brings in Alexstraza, Queen of the Red Dragons. She was captured by the Dragonmaw Orcs and raped "forced pregnancy" and watched as her children were then enslaved and used as expendable soldiers by the Orcs. And Alexstraza says "I'd forgive those orcs too". EDIT: I found the line.

(Baine): "I have a final question. If one of the selfsame orcs who so tormented you, who killed your children while they were still in the shell, were to come to you today and ask your forgiveness... what would you do?"

The great Life-Binder's smile was small at first, but it grew. Alexstrasza looked over to where Go'el and his family were seated, and held his gaze. Whe she spoke at last, a light semmed to shine from her, so bright was her spirit.

"I would forgive him, ofcourse." She said it to Baine as if he were a child, as if it were a simple, obvious answer.

There were no further questions.

BTW, this is what Alexstraza did to that orc when she broke free of her chains. Does that look like the face of forgiveness to you?

• At the end of the book, after Garrosh escapes, the Celestials (the deities of the Pandaren who put on this trial in the first place) straight up say "nah, we were going to acquit Garrosh anyway", and then the heroes ask "why even have a trial in the first place?". The celestials respond by saying "It was not merely Garrosh Hellscream who was on trial. We were judging all of you!"
• Also, there is a subplot with Vereesa Windrunner. She was widowed and made homeless when Garrosh nuked Theramore. Now she is trying to figure out what she's going to do with her two young sons. Vereesa's estranged sister, Sylvanas (who is evil zombie hitler and has done everything Garrosh did and more, but is strangely not on trial) approaches Vereesa and say "sister, let me kill you and your two sons and raise them as undead, and then all of you should come live with me in my sewer city where we commit Unit 731 style live experimentation upon our prisoners to make bioweapons!". And Vereesa seriously contemplates doing it. WTF?

Vereesa, don't you want your sons to learn the art of carving up captives and cobbling together body parts into flesh golems that will be used to invade more kingdoms and capture more people to experiment upon? Surely their father would be looking upon them with praise!

So... yeah, this was probably one of the most "memorable" books I've read. It was thoroughly entertaining in how nightmarishly nonsensical it was. 7/10 would read again

 

[prinCZess]

If I don't enjoy reading a book, I typically stop reading.

Spoiler

I wish I could manage this, but I have slogged my way through a great number of blaagh-worthy books on a sheer, stubborn principle that I need to read it, or else I'd be wasting it or...I dunnow, not getting my money's worth (even if the book was free or cheap as hell or borrowed)...It's a weird thing and I wish I didn't have it.

That said, the list of books I'd label as 'worst' and actually voice active dislike for is pretty short, I think. There's a lot of series and authors I've hit upon that I've learned not to go back to, but I'm usually capable of seeing why someone might enjoy them or at least shrug and just chalk things up to different tastes.

The one glaring exception I can think of being 'Cryptonomicon' by Neal Stephenson. It is, without competition, the worst book I've ever read and one I WILL express active dislike for. Perhaps this would be different if it weren't marketed as a novel and interesting story on the surface featuring conspiracies, world war two, treasure-hunting, and all kinds of exciting what-for in the book description. Had a much younger-prinCZess come in with the knowledge that Stephenson wasn't a novelist so much as a super-nerd who wrote diatribes with fiction-veneers in the vein of Ayn Rand, perhaps this would be a different story altogether. But she did not have that benefit, and just saw the enticing promise of an 1100 page epic of historical adventure-novel...that then morphed into a nightmare, 1100-page long festival of descriptions of programming code languages and LITERALLY PAGE-LONG explanations of how one of the main characters EATS HIS CAPTAIN CRUNCH CEREAL.

I was betrayed. Tricked. Backstabbed. Bamboozled. And I refuse to accept any sort of 'responsibility' for it when the book was marketed in such a way. At least back-page summaries of Ayn Rand books and most any other 'ideology and personal ideology-expression via fictional vehicle' stuff I can think of has the decency to MAKE THAT CLEAR. Maybe that belongs more on the publisher, but after slogging my way through 1100 pages of Stephenson's stuff because despite everything I couldn't stop, I have not felt charitable towards the man.

*breath
breath*
Phew. And that's the rant about 'worst book' that I always have in my back pocket for these convos.

 

[ATP]

Any Hegel works ? i once try few,but after few pages resigned - dude clearly wrote in a way that only he and God could undarstandt what he try to say.

 

[Skallagrim]

Spoiler

Spoiler

I wish I could manage this, but I have slogged my way through a great number of blaagh-worthy books on a sheer, stubborn principle that I need to read it, or else I'd be wasting it or...I dunnow, not getting my money's worth (even if the book was free or cheap as hell or borrowed)...It's a weird thing and I wish I didn't have it.

That said, the list of books I'd label as 'worst' and actually voice active dislike for is pretty short, I think. There's a lot of series and authors I've hit upon that I've learned not to go back to, but I'm usually capable of seeing why someone might enjoy them or at least shrug and just chalk things up to different tastes.

My decision to stop reading usually kicks in when I realise there's something that just makes the experience unpleasant to me. There's a lot of books, I love reading, I can't read them all, so I don't waste time with books that waste my time.

The one glaring exception I can think of being 'Cryptonomicon' by Neal Stephenson. It is, without competition, the worst book I've ever read and one I WILL express active dislike for. Perhaps this would be different if it weren't marketed as a novel and interesting story on the surface featuring conspiracies, world war two, treasure-hunting, and all kinds of exciting what-for in the book description. Had a much younger-prinCZess come in with the knowledge that Stephenson wasn't a novelist so much as a super-nerd who wrote diatribes with fiction-veneers in the vein of Ayn Rand, perhaps this would be a different story altogether. But she did not have that benefit, and just saw the enticing promise of an 1100 page epic of historical adventure-novel...that then morphed into a nightmare, 1100-page long festival of descriptions of programming code languages and LITERALLY PAGE-LONG explanations of how one of the main characters EATS HIS CAPTAIN CRUNCH CEREAL.

I was betrayed. Tricked. Backstabbed. Bamboozled. And I refuse to accept any sort of 'responsibility' for it when the book was marketed in such a way. At least back-page summaries of Ayn Rand books and most any other 'ideology and personal ideology-expression via fictional vehicle' stuff I can think of has the decency to MAKE THAT CLEAR. Maybe that belongs more on the publisher, but after slogging my way through 1100 pages of Stephenson's stuff because despite everything I couldn't stop, I have not felt charitable towards the man.

*breath
breath*
Phew. And that's the rant about 'worst book' that I always have in my back pocket for these convos.

Stephenson can be very, very annoying. He wants to talk about his ideas, and he wants to do it at length. And his writing can get pretty into the navel-gazing, too. That said, I do think he's written several very interesting books. Snow Crash and The Diamond Age were both well done, but then with Cryptonomicon and the Baroque Cycle he got into a really self-indulgent period. It can be argued that he never left that period, but I liked Anathem. However, that might just be because the ideas explored in it appeal to me, and not because it's actually a real "return to form".

Any Hegel works ? i once try few,but after few pages resigned - dude clearly wrote in a way that only he and God could undarstandt what he try to say.

I sort of treated the question here as being about fiction. If we start listing non-fiction, I've got a lot of suggestions. As writing style goes, Nietzsche is like Hegel, but more so. And although he's a terrible writer in a very different way, Heidegger has them both beat when it comes to crappy, unreadable writing.

They are all paragons of lucidity, however, when compared to the insanity of Foucault or Derrida. (Yes, I do in fact despise post-structuralism, why do you ask?)

 

[ATP]

Tried to read Nietzche and Foucault.All i get,is they they are were smart,and i am not,becouse could not undarstandt their writing.
Fictions - Astronauts by Stanisław Lem,when he was still commie beliver.Basically,future with humanity happy in big soviet state going to space.His books after that was good.

 

[Laskar]

The one glaring exception I can think of being 'Cryptonomicon' by Neal Stephenson. It is, without competition, the worst book I've ever read and one I WILL express active dislike for. Perhaps this would be different if it weren't marketed as a novel and interesting story on the surface featuring conspiracies, world war two, treasure-hunting, and all kinds of exciting what-for in the book description. Had a much younger-prinCZess come in with the knowledge that Stephenson wasn't a novelist so much as a super-nerd who wrote diatribes with fiction-veneers in the vein of Ayn Rand, perhaps this would be a different story altogether. But she did not have that benefit, and just saw the enticing promise of an 1100 page epic of historical adventure-novel...that then morphed into a nightmare, 1100-page long festival of descriptions of programming code languages and LITERALLY PAGE-LONG explanations of how one of the main characters EATS HIS CAPTAIN CRUNCH CEREAL.

I was betrayed. Tricked. Backstabbed. Bamboozled. And I refuse to accept any sort of 'responsibility' for it when the book was marketed in such a way. At least back-page summaries of Ayn Rand books and most any other 'ideology and personal ideology-expression via fictional vehicle' stuff I can think of has the decency to MAKE THAT CLEAR. Maybe that belongs more on the publisher, but after slogging my way through 1100 pages of Stephenson's stuff because despite everything I couldn't stop, I have not felt charitable towards the man.

*breath
breath*
Phew. And that's the rant about 'worst book' that I always have in my back pocket for these convos.

...
Cryptonomicon is my favorite book. Or it was, until Anathem descended from on high and challenged it for the throne.

Cryptonomicon really is an adventure story, but it's also a bildungsroman, a story about four young men coming of age. And it's a particular kind of coming-of-age story because at least one of the characters is a grown-ass adult who never matured. Ok, so, in the WWII setting, Lawrence Waterhouse was so heavily autistic that he can't really function as an adult. In the first few chapters, he wanders into the crash scene of the Hindenburg and doesn't understand what he's seeing, except for flames and people running around. When he is conscripted and the Army gives him a test to find out what he's good at, he looks at a simple mathematical formula (Boat is floating upstream at X miles per hour, river is flowing downstream at Y miles per hour, how long until it reaches its destination) and mistakes it for a trick question, and thinks so hard about the problem that he derives a few minor improvements in the science of fluid flow that his professors are happy to read about. But since Lawrence doesn't answer the question, the Army concludes that he's incapable of basic math, and puts him in a marching band.

Lawrence's story is about breaking out of that shell. He used to treat mathematical models as interesting puzzles, and played with them like a kid who won't stop playing with his toys. He's not really normal by the end of the book, but he's interfaced with the real world enough that he can find a wife and outsmart superiors who are using him to their own ends.

His grandson, Randy Waterhouse, isn't as autistic. But he's still an ideas guy in a relationship with a woman who is waist-deep in the liberal arts academia crowd, and he was taken advantage of in the past because he didn't understand people or the practical application of the ideas he was working on. It's that same pattern of a kid who never grew up, just grew older and more obsessed with his toys until he's thrown into the deep end. There's a scene later in the book where Randy meets up with some nerd-friends whose toys include trading card games, obsolete technology, and airliner wreckage. He realizes that he can still talk shop with these guys, but he's not really one of them anymore. He's grown up.

The first time I read Cryptonomicon, I loved it, but it was mostly because I enjoyed Neal Stephenson's digressions. I came back to it after a few years, and the whole plot is so much easier to follow when you know where the story is going. But I also recognized myself in the nerd characters, and realized that I'd gone through a similar maturation process. The book really resonated with me, but I can see why it would turn other people off.

Now, the Baroque Cycle? That one's a turd. Not sure if I'm going to finish those books. There's a lot of really interesting history and some fun characters, but the journey they're going through is trash.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Hmm, much like @Skallagrim I had some trouble with this one because if I don't enjoy a book I take it to the used book store and find something I'll like.

However pernicious, woke teachers are everywhere and so I'll nominate the book JT by Jane Wagner. This is a "classic" of the "We're forcing kids to read this drek" variety beloved of second-rate second-grade teachers everywhere. Admittedly my views are somewhat tainted by the teacher involved.

JT is the story of a bad kid in Harlem, the titular JT who's ten years old. He steals a radio out of a car in the first page, steals from his neighbors, and cripples his family's budget by buying large quantities of food on his mama's credit line. There's a supposed upside in that JT comes to care for a battered, one-eyed alleycat he takes care of proving that deep down, he's a good kid, and in fact the book goes out of it's way to emphasize that nothing JT does that's wrong is his own fault, it's all because he's been born into a poor family and kept down by the system, not that we see the rest of his family stealing everything that's not nailed down. Nothing's ever JT's fault and it's never his responsibility for his own actions. JT really cares about the cat though... except that in the climax of the story he can't decide if he wants to save a radio he stole or the cat so I guess he didn't really care that much either.

Spoiler

Yeah, he gets the cat killed of course.

Being as I was required to read it and provide a book report, I made no bones about the fact that I saw no reason "cares for a stray cat, but not enough to pick it over a stolen radio" should offset "steals repeatedly from his neighbors and family" and made my despise for JT, and especially the story's habit of making sure everything JT did wasn't really his fault known which set off my extremely woke second-grade teacher, and she not only treated me quite harshly for daring to have an opinion that contradicted the narrative, she continued to punish me repeatedly and nitpick everything I did, even changing rules for things like test scoring specifically to spite me for the entire rest of the school year. I did not have such a woke teacher again until college, fortunately, but it made for an incredibly miserable year, and it was all JT's fault.

 

[Captain X]

I also tend to just stop reading stuff if I don't like it, and since I'm usually borrowing a book from the library, I don't have that pesky sunk cost aspect there to keep me reading. So for the most part, I can only really give a partial answer to this by saying the OG "The Hunt for Red October" book. I just found it completely boring to read and lost interest. This isn't to say that I find Clancy boring in general, as I liked "The Sum of All Fears" and "Red Storm Rising," and the latter was a pretty long story which followed a pretty wide cast of characters.

The runner up in my case I actually did read all the way through, because the sunk cost thing did kind of play into it a bit. I had actually ordered original edition hardcover copies of the Thrawn trilogy from that jungle website, and because I was going for the OG hardcovers, I had to get them used (or new old stock at best) from the small businesses listed as options, and ended up getting each of the three books from a different company. One of them sent me "The Courtship of Princess Leia" by accident. When I contacted them about it, they sent me the book I had actually ordered, and when I went to ask them about returning the wrong one they'd sent me (still in the shrink wrap and everything), as per how such exchanges are normally handled, they apparently didn't want to deal with it and just told me to keep it as a gift. So since I now owned this book, I figured I might as well read it.

I'm honestly kind of jealous that someone got paid for their fan-fic, especially since it really isn't very good fan-fic, because the characters only kind of sorta resemble themselves, and it revolves entirely around one of the dumbest "romance" plots I've ever bothered to read. That kind of thing is entirely normal for most fan-fic, actually, and this one even includes a self-insert character and not one, but two fantasy amazon warrior races.

The plot basically involves one of these amazon warrior races showing up at Coruscant with an offer to join the New Republic, which is apparently a pretty big deal since these people managed to hold the Empire at bay. This is a bit complicated due to them being a matriarchal society (being amazons, after all) ruled by a monarchy, neither aspect of which lends itself to getting along with within the Republic, because, you know, monarchy, and the fact that they act like your average man-hating feminists by just refusing to respect any male leaders. Apparently the only reason they even approached the NR was because of Leia's leadership of it, which brings up the other complication to this proposal - the queen wants Leia to marry her son, because she still recognizes her as a princess in spite of her planet being destroyed and leading the NR as an elected official. Leia is taken aback by this, but doesn't reject it out of hand, in part because she is immediately pressured by other NR officials to agree to it because these amazons are so militarily powerful and would be a great asset in the continued conflict with the Imperial remnants.

Our old buddy Han Solo, was of course not happy with any of this, and proceeded to act like a jealous teenager that just made me cringe so hard reading. The other thing is, apparently in spite of what we saw in the movies that culminated in Han and Leia being a canon 'ship and seemingly together at the end of the trilogy, this book insists that it's actually still an open question, and makes it seem like Leia is actually pretty charmed by the prince who is undoubtedly the author's self-insert. This results in Han straight-up kidnapping Leia in the hopes of taking her on some romantic getaway on a supposedly uninhabited planet he won the deed to in a card game, because that's something a normal person would do, and totally cute we swear because they actually love each other. Actually the author does seem to have some self-awareness there for a bit, but then just drops it and goes back to this stupidity.

The prince finds out about this not long after it happens, and gets Luke Skywalker to help him track the couple down because the queen mother is kind of a crazy bitch, and he's worried about what her reaction will be. Luke uses the Force to track them down, and it turns out this uninhabited planet is not what it appears to be, and is actually laid claim to by some Imperial warlord, complete with a garrison on the planet itself which was marooned there some time ago. Marooned, you ask? Yes, because there are apparently some kind of crazy female dark Force users down there the the Emperor was so worried about making it off that planet, he forbid anyone from landing there again, lest these women get a hold of a ship and make it off of this planet, and he left some forces in orbit to enforce this, with troops on the ground to try to keep things in line down there. And Han ends up crashing the Millennium Falcon there - oops. To make matters worse, Han ends up getting himself captured by the Imperial garrison, who, being marooned and all, have actually come to be under the command of these dark Force users (called the Nightsisters) rather than the Imperial warlord that's in orbit, because they like being alive. Leia, on the other hand, has fallen in with another, much more primitive race of amazon warriors who call themselves witches due to their own limited Force abilities, which actually somehow involved the use of charms and casting spells, or something like that (it's been a while since I read it, and I can't be arsed to go back and look now).

Meanwhile, Luke and the prince end up randomly finding an old Jedi academy ship half-sunk into a swamp, but soon end up getting captured by one of these witches themselves. As it turns out, these witches go out and hunt men, either to keep as slaves, or to marry, the latter aspect being what really makes me think the author is just sharing his fetish with us (and to think he got paid for it, and his work officially becoming a part of the EU ).

Also, it turns out that this planet was were rancors were from, and these witches actually tame them and ride them around like Carthaginian soldiers on some very tooth-and-claw-filled elephants.

Anyway, the witch that kidnapped Luke and the prince totally wants to make Luke her husbando and the prince her servant, but Luke ends up just repeatedly letting her down as gently as he can while sharing the Jedi gospel. This actually ends up playing into the local politics, because as it turns out, the Nightsisters are actually witches from this primitive amazon tribe who have turned to the dark side.


Shocking Revelation!

Meanwhile, the Nightsisters have been using spare parts from other ships that have crashed on the planet to repair the Millennium Falcon, and it ends up coming to blows between them and the witches. Han also gets rescued from them at some point, though I forget the details. I say this because I remember him being involved in a plot to get his ship back, and even a plan to use the Imperial warlord's ship to get them into orbit using its tractor beam, because I think there might have been a dampening field or something that kept even the fully repaired ship from flying into space for some reason.

Things also come to a head between the witches and the Nightsisters, who try to use the Imperial garrison to wipe out the witches because reasons, but thanks to Luke and Leia, they are able to repel the attack. I might be mixing up details here, but I honestly don't care. The upshot is that the Nightsisters are dealt a severe blow (or are maybe even all killed), and everyone that wants to leave the planet now can.

The witch that wanted to be Luke's waifu eventually accepts her place in his friend zone, and ends up falling in love with the prince instead. The prince has had a thing for her all along, as he likes those strong, commanding women (totally not the author's self-insert guys ), and decides to marry her instead of Leia, who has herself finally decided to official decline his hand in marriage. The Queen is very unhappy with this because not only did the royal Leia reject her son (I think Leia uncovered some kind of weird political plot as part of this), but now he wants to marry some primitive peasant on top of this, and I honestly can't remember how that turns out except that I think these people take their ball and go home.

In the meantime, this ordeal was apparently just the thing to make Han and Leia realize that they are indeed the One True Pairing (and not all that shit they went through in the movies), and they finally make it official by getting married. The End.

I guess the disappointing thing for me is that not only did the author get paid for this and this book end up in the official "canon" of the EU, but aspects of it have actually managed to survive in the official Lucasfilm/Disney canon, such as the Nightsisters themselves, and apparently the fact that the witches of some planet rode around on rancors (thanks Book of Boba Fett), and that just makes me salty. I mean, I'm a way better writer than this guy, dammit.

 

[TheRejectionist]

Turtledove series (NOTE ; I read them before he becoming woke) are usually the worst and if you are REALLY INTERESTED just pick the audiobooks.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Turtledove series (NOTE ; I read them before he becoming woke) are usually the worst and if you are REALLY INTERESTED just pick the audiobooks.

Yeah, Turtledove has a weird ability to change too much and yet not enough at the same time. I recall trying to get into his "darkness" series and realizing a few chapters in that it was literally history unchanged completely even though this was a world of magic and sea dragons replaced battleships.

My realization of how little he was willing to make the history "Alternate" as opposed to just vague aesthetics like "Artillery pieces replaced by mages" came about when there was a logistics snarl because the different flying carpets couldn't travel through the same magic zones, so they had to move supplies from one magic carpet to another exactly the same place and time people had to move supplies from one rail gauge to another in real life. It was like reading an "Alternate History" where the PoD was that George Washington was named Robert Washburn. Ie. absolutely nothing changed but the spelling.

 

[TheRejectionist]

Yeah, Turtledove has a weird ability to change too much and yet not enough at the same time. I recall trying to get into his "darkness" series and realizing a few chapters in that it was literally history unchanged completely even though this was a world of magic and sea dragons replaced battleships.

My realization of how little he was willing to make the history "Alternate" as opposed to just vague aesthetics like "Artillery pieces replaced by mages" came about when there was a logistics snarl because the different flying carpets couldn't travel through the same magic zones, so they had to move supplies from one magic carpet to another exactly the same place and time people had to move supplies from one rail gauge to another in real life. It was like reading an "Alternate History" where the PoD was that George Washington was named Robert Washburn. Ie. absolutely nothing changed but the spelling.

He did some good stuff. Primarily stand alones as said.

 

[Skallagrim]

The runner up in my case I actually did read all the way through, because the sunk cost thing did kind of play into it a bit. I had actually ordered original edition hardcover copies of the Thrawn trilogy from that jungle website, and because I was going for the OG hardcovers, I had to get them used (or new old stock at best) from the small businesses listed as options, and ended up getting each of the three books from a different company.

At this point, my reaction amounted to "??????????????????????"

Surely the Thrawn trilogy can't qualify as the worst book he's read?

One of them sent me "The Courtship of Princess Leia" by accident.

...but at this point, it suddenly began to make a lot more sense.

I'm honestly kind of jealous that someone got paid for their fan-fic, especially since it really isn't very good fan-fic, because the characters only kind of sorta resemble themselves, and it revolves entirely around one of the dumbest "romance" plots I've ever bothered to read. That kind of thing is entirely normal for most fan-fic, actually, and this one even includes a self-insert character and not one, but two fantasy amazon warrior races.

The plot basically involves one of these amazon warrior races showing up at Coruscant with an offer to join the New Republic, which is apparently a pretty big deal since these people managed to hold the Empire at bay. This is a bit complicated due to them being a matriarchal society (being amazons, after all) ruled by a monarchy, neither aspect of which lends itself to getting along with within the Republic, because, you know, monarchy, and the fact that they act like your average man-hating feminists by just refusing to respect any male leaders. Apparently the only reason they even approached the NR was because of Leia's leadership of it, which brings up the other complication to this proposal - the queen wants Leia to marry her son, because she still recognizes her as a princess in spite of her planet being destroyed and leading the NR as an elected official. Leia is taken aback by this, but doesn't reject it out of hand, in part because she is immediately pressured by other NR officials to agree to it because these amazons are so militarily powerful and would be a great asset in the continued conflict with the Imperial remnants.

Our old buddy Han Solo, was of course not happy with any of this, and proceeded to act like a jealous teenager that just made me cringe so hard reading. The other thing is, apparently in spite of what we saw in the movies that culminated in Han and Leia being a canon 'ship and seemingly together at the end of the trilogy, this book insists that it's actually still an open question, and makes it seem like Leia is actually pretty charmed by the prince who is undoubtedly the author's self-insert. This results in Han straight-up kidnapping Leia in the hopes of taking her on some romantic getaway on a supposedly uninhabited planet he won the deed to in a card game, because that's something a normal person would do, and totally cute we swear because they actually love each other. Actually the author does seem to have some self-awareness there for a bit, but then just drops it and goes back to this stupidity.

The prince finds out about this not long after it happens, and gets Luke Skywalker to help him track the couple down because the queen mother is kind of a crazy bitch, and he's worried about what her reaction will be. Luke uses the Force to track them down, and it turns out this uninhabited planet is not what it appears to be, and is actually laid claim to by some Imperial warlord, complete with a garrison on the planet itself which was marooned there some time ago. Marooned, you ask? Yes, because there are apparently some kind of crazy female dark Force users down there the the Emperor was so worried about making it off that planet, he forbid anyone from landing there again, lest these women get a hold of a ship and make it off of this planet, and he left some forces in orbit to enforce this, with troops on the ground to try to keep things in line down there. And Han ends up crashing the Millennium Falcon there - oops. To make matters worse, Han ends up getting himself captured by the Imperial garrison, who, being marooned and all, have actually come to be under the command of these dark Force users (called the Nightsisters) rather than the Imperial warlord that's in orbit, because they like being alive. Leia, on the other hand, has fallen in with another, much more primitive race of amazon warriors who call themselves witches due to their own limited Force abilities, which actually somehow involved the use of charms and casting spells, or something like that (it's been a while since I read it, and I can't be arsed to go back and look now).

Meanwhile, Luke and the prince end up randomly finding an old Jedi academy ship half-sunk into a swamp, but soon end up getting captured by one of these witches themselves. As it turns out, these witches go out and hunt men, either to keep as slaves, or to marry, the latter aspect being what really makes me think the author is just sharing his fetish with us (and to think he got paid for it, and his work officially becoming a part of the EU ).

Also, it turns out that this planet was were rancors were from, and these witches actually tame them and ride them around like Carthaginian soldiers on some very tooth-and-claw-filled elephants.

Anyway, the witch that kidnapped Luke and the prince totally wants to make Luke her husbando and the prince her servant, but Luke ends up just repeatedly letting her down as gently as he can while sharing the Jedi gospel. This actually ends up playing into the local politics, because as it turns out, the Nightsisters are actually witches from this primitive amazon tribe who have turned to the dark side.

Shocking Revelation!

Meanwhile, the Nightsisters have been using spare parts from other ships that have crashed on the planet to repair the Millennium Falcon, and it ends up coming to blows between them and the witches. Han also gets rescued from them at some point, though I forget the details. I say this because I remember him being involved in a plot to get his ship back, and even a plan to use the Imperial warlord's ship to get them into orbit using its tractor beam, because I think there might have been a dampening field or something that kept even the fully repaired ship from flying into space for some reason.

Things also come to a head between the witches and the Nightsisters, who try to use the Imperial garrison to wipe out the witches because reasons, but thanks to Luke and Leia, they are able to repel the attack. I might be mixing up details here, but I honestly don't care. The upshot is that the Nightsisters are dealt a severe blow (or are maybe even all killed), and everyone that wants to leave the planet now can.

The witch that wanted to be Luke's waifu eventually accepts her place in his friend zone, and ends up falling in love with the prince instead. The prince has had a thing for her all along, as he likes those strong, commanding women (totally not the author's self-insert guys ), and decides to marry her instead of Leia, who has herself finally decided to official decline his hand in marriage. The Queen is very unhappy with this because not only did the royal Leia reject her son (I think Leia uncovered some kind of weird political plot as part of this), but now he wants to marry some primitive peasant on top of this, and I honestly can't remember how that turns out except that I think these people take their ball and go home.

In the meantime, this ordeal was apparently just the thing to make Han and Leia realize that they are indeed the One True Pairing (and not all that shit they went through in the movies), and they finally make it official by getting married. The End.

Even though it's pretty poorly written and full of some really weird cases of 'author appeal', I still rather like The Courtship of Princess Leia. It's a product of the often quite weird Bantam era, which I love because it went off in all sorts of directions. I prefer that to the approved-by-committee approach, which tend to produce unform mediocrity at best. I prefer the hit-and-miss they went with in the '90s.

The worst thing about the book, in my opinion, is the terrible (mis-)characterisation that is used to even set the whole plot in motion.

Besides the poor writing, your other complaints are -- at least in my view -- a bit mediated by the fact that most f them do end up getting called out in the book itself. Hapes is clearly terrible, and is deliberately a parody of itself (see: their ludicrous anthem). Ta'a Chume gets called out for her bullshit, and I got the impression that the whole point was "no matter what these matriarchs claim, societies run by women are just as flawed as any other". That there's two matriarchal societies involved ends up working, because Isolder (the author expy, who is supposed to look exactly like Fabio, by the way) ends up gtting engaged to Teneniel. Ta'a Chume hates that, but can't effectively go against it because Teneniel is formally a princess, and of a matriarchy to boot.

Of course, if all of this got published now, we'd probably judge it differently. But for '90s pulp, it gets a pass from me. But that might be because I read The Crystal Star first. Talk about terrible characterisation!

I guess the disappointing thing for me is that not only did the author get paid for this and this book end up in the official "canon" of the EU (...)

I'd actually call this the best thing to come out of the whole book. Subsequent authors re-purposed a lot of concepts from this book, and made them work way better.

 

[prinCZess]

I actually always had a soft-spot in my heart-cockles for the Hapes Consortium and the witches. They seemed like fairly...fair...additions to the Star Wars universe because...I dunnow, 'advanced matriarchal mess of a society' was an interesting contrast to have floating about in imagination-space against the Empire, and 'primitive matriarchal mess of a society' an interesting contrast to what the Jedi Order seemed like at the time and a curious thing to see Luke bounce off of. I am certain it doesn't hold up in the writing department since I read it in my preteens, but...still!

Also: Turtledove peaked with the end of his WorldWar series with alien intervention during WWII. And I'd agree that much of the rest of his work, while sometimes interesting, goes way too hard on just rewriting history with serial numbers filed off (Confederate Hitler! being perhaps the most blatant one). While that makes it fun to spot the 'real history' he's alluding to...It makes for bad 'alternate history', and sometimes it's too couched to be recognizable enough to serve as a learning aid...And more often it's so blatant it's just boring (as said: Confederate Hitler).

 

[Simonbob]

There have been a few, most of which I have forgotten.

The one's I'd bring up here, mostly because I still have them, is the A Galaxy Unknown by Thomas DePrima. The first was bland, a bit silly, but just barely readable. I was quite bored at the time, so I kept buying and reading them, finally quitting in horror at Book 7.

If I was going to explain them, it starts with Hero Chick getting into silly adventures, and being impossibly good at what she does. Ok, that, in of itself isn't too bad.

However, well..... Ok, I think it's the end of the first book where the bad guy/pirate lord catches her, and uses this experimental super thing to make her immortal and super hawt. Before she escapes and steals the battleship the pirates have stolen.

The entire series has insanely stupid, well, everybody who isn't the Hero Chick. The pirates are Super Powerful, and pretty much always win with perfect intel, despite being a bunch of barely controlled murderous thugs, whenever they're onscreen. Except the moment Hero Chick turns up, then she wins.

And then, being Hero Chick, she gets promoted to whatever role the next book needs, and is perfect at that, too. All the while, it's just agressivelly bland, I just..... didn't care. I quit, and I never bothered to go back even to re-read the first ones.

Look! Here's a guy smuggling ULTRA RARE ALIEN TIGERS! I, being the Hero Chick, ahem, I mean, Commanding Officer, must now take them, they are illegal, but I just filled in the paperwork so they're mine now.

Rest of the book has her wandering in civilan areas with them, then she has to go to shipboard duties, and they're just forgotten.


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I'm going to stop here.

 

[ATP]

i once read one of late books of Tom Clancy,forget title.Basically - world is almost taken over by bad nazis using video games when user could kill black and jews.
Entire world shuddered,armies and secret agent coud do nothing,but then group created to fight in cyperspace save it - or,to be precise,two person - crippe jew and latin woman from USA.
So bad,that funny.

 

[Skallagrim]

i once read one of late books of Tom Clancy,forget title.Basically - world is almost taken over by bad nazis using video games when user could kill black and jews.
Entire world shuddered,armies and secret agent coud do nothing,but then group created to fight in cyperspace save it - or,to be precise,two person - crippe jew and latin woman from USA.
So bad,that funny.

Yeah, at some point, Clancy's plots just devolved into complete nonsense. (His geopolitical assumptions took a weird turn, too.)