Being a reader can be painful. We've all been there. You look so forward to a book, and then it arrives and...
The Silmarillion: The Lord of the Rings was my favorite book when I was young, and I waited and waited for the new book by J.R.R. Tolkien. The day finally came, and I rode my ten speed to a little bookstore and plunked down the money for a hardcover. Feverishly excited, I couldn't even wait to get home. I pedaled to a nearby patch of woods, and started to read. Oh my God, this wasn't really a novel. It was like a history book. Dismayed, I read on, and I slogged through the whole damned thing. Did I like it? No, not at all.
The Number of the Beast: I also loved the work of Robert A. Heinlein when I was a boy. His books thrilled, taught, enlightened me. Plus, many of them had a lot of sex in them. It was heady stuff for a lad of my tender years. Health problems prevented Heinlein from publishing from 1973's Time Enough For Love to 1980's The Number of the Beast. Perhaps the publisher, Fawcett, knew of the novel's gaping shortcomings, and published it as a trade paperback. I was trembling with excitement when I bought it, and then I was astonished (and not in any John W. Campbell-inspired way) at how sloppy and embarrassing it was. Old Heinlein did some interesting things after The Number of the Beast, but that was truly the beginning of the end for me.
Palm Sunday: I loved Kurt Vonnegut when I was a teenager. His work doesn't much appeal to me today, but then I was a huge fan. I once more paid for a hardback when I certainly couldn't afford to do so. It was Palm Sunday, a collection of autobiographical essays. I was appalled at how boring, pointless, and self-indulgent it was.
Son of Rosemary: Ah God, I loved the early Ira Levin books. The guy wrote suspense with exquisite precision. He was insidious, and all of them are classics: A Kiss Before Dying, Rosemary's Baby, This Perfect Day, The Stepford Wives, and especially The Boys From Brazil. I even read some of the plays. So what if Sliver wasn't up to the incredibly high standards Levin had set for himself. He was doing a sequel to Rosemary's Baby! How could it be a disappointment? Uh, easy. Son of Rosemary is so bad, so ingeniously awful, so maddening. It's like Ira Levin sold a title and then crapped out something that resembled a novel, then took the money and ran. Never to be heard from again.
These four books top my list. And I read them all. Every wretched page of them. I do not possess the patience to do that nowaways. Then, I mostly finished what I started. These days if I hate something half as much as I did these books, they are gone out of my life. Note that all of these were published decades ago.
The Silmarillion: The Lord of the Rings was my favorite book when I was young, and I waited and waited for the new book by J.R.R. Tolkien. The day finally came, and I rode my ten speed to a little bookstore and plunked down the money for a hardcover. Feverishly excited, I couldn't even wait to get home. I pedaled to a nearby patch of woods, and started to read. Oh my God, this wasn't really a novel. It was like a history book. Dismayed, I read on, and I slogged through the whole damned thing. Did I like it? No, not at all.The Number of the Beast: I also loved the work of Robert A. Heinlein when I was a boy. His books thrilled, taught, enlightened me. Plus, many of them had a lot of sex in them. It was heady stuff for a lad of my tender years. Health problems prevented Heinlein from publishing from 1973's Time Enough For Love to 1980's The Number of the Beast. Perhaps the publisher, Fawcett, knew of the novel's gaping shortcomings, and published it as a trade paperback. I was trembling with excitement when I bought it, and then I was astonished (and not in any John W. Campbell-inspired way) at how sloppy and embarrassing it was. Old Heinlein did some interesting things after The Number of the Beast, but that was truly the beginning of the end for me.Palm Sunday: I loved Kurt Vonnegut when I was a teenager. His work doesn't much appeal to me today, but then I was a huge fan. I once more paid for a hardback when I certainly couldn't afford to do so. It was Palm Sunday, a collection of autobiographical essays. I was appalled at how boring, pointless, and self-indulgent it was.Son of Rosemary: Ah God, I loved the early Ira Levin books. The guy wrote suspense with exquisite precision. He was insidious, and all of them are classics: A Kiss Before Dying, Rosemary's Baby, This Perfect Day, The Stepford Wives, and especially The Boys From Brazil. I even read some of the plays. So what if Sliver wasn't up to the incredibly high standards Levin had set for himself. He was doing a sequel to Rosemary's Baby! How could it be a disappointment? Uh, easy. Son of Rosemary is so bad, so ingeniously awful, so maddening. It's like Ira Levin sold a title and then crapped out something that resembled a novel, then took the money and ran. Never to be heard from again.These four books top my list. And I read them all. Every wretched page of them. I do not possess the patience to do that nowaways. Then, I mostly finished what I started. These days if I hate something half as much as I did these books, they are gone out of my life. Note that all of these were published decades ago.
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