I mentioned that Twilight might possibly the worst book I've ever read, some people took issue with this, and sent in their choices...
From: Zach
Date: Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 11:58 AM
Subject: Worst book I've ever read...
To: briggsb@bbspot.com
There was a series of "spy" novels called "The Specialist" that I sampled in the late 80's. I read exactly one, think it was #11 in the series. The worst kind of macho horseshit, terrible characters, even worse dialogue. But they were actually inspired comedy when my high school girlfriend, a natural and semi-professional comedian, would read it aloud adding her generic foreign accents.
But the worst was actually "Ghost" by John Ringo. I admit, I couldn't get through it; I read it halfway, skipped a bit further through it and gave up near the end. It's the only book I've ever put into recycling, instead of the donation pile.
Ringo's written a lot of really impressive military scifi, and has invented some nearly unprecedented visions of alien invasion, but this book is a contemporary terrorist-drama that exposes him as a paranoid nutbag, and makes "The Turner Diaries" look like "The Communist Manifesto." It's got it all: a ridiculous, right wing former sniper super soldier with a penchant for sexual domination, saving kidnapped blond liberal college chicks from utterly cartoonish slavering terrorists. While unsophisticated and juvenile in the extreme, it contains enough disturbingly rough sexual imagery to make it utterly inappropriate for the age level that would be able to stand the complete lack of original story and character appeal. There's also lots of absurdly one sided violence, plus great detail is given to the villains mentally extemporizing on what they'll do to the infidel women, and what the hero would like to do, and in some cases does. As well, it's so
degrading to women that I can't even begin to describe how low it goes. The reviews on Amazon I've read support this, and oddly even the author admits he skipped over the sex parts when he's re-read it.
I no longer buy anything just because I liked stuff by
the same author. Books are too expensive, and I'll never get back that
afternoon. And even my high school girlfriend wouldn't be able to make it entertaining. Maybe if we made it a musical...
And...
From: William
Date: Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 2:32 PM
Subject: Worst Book Ever
To: briggsb@bbspot.com
The Awakening, easily. My 10th grade English teacher loved the book, and assigned it to the students as a reading assignment. It's the only book I've been completely unable to force myself to finish, and I've read some really awful books. The basic plot is some woman in the 1800s decides she wants more out of life, so she moves to a big city, becomes a slut, then kills herself because she can't find acceptance. That's a great moral, just kill yourself if you don't like how life is going for you, that's how you really rebel against society. I ended up writing my report about how awful the book was, and how I'd punch the author in the face if I had the chance. Too bad she's been dead for over a century, man I want to sock her in the jaw.
And...
From: René
Date: Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 9:49 AM
Subject: Worst book ever
To: briggsb@bbspot.com
I suppose your mailbox will be flooded now you've asked your readers to tell you their choice for the title worst book ever. That's a hard one - I think we all have many books we love to hate.
My choice: anything by Clive Cussler. Honorable mention for two authors with great ideas and no writing talent at all: Terry Goodkind and Jean M. Auel.
Good luck wading through your in-box. And you can bet there will be a joker who nominates your own book. Don't get angry, my advice is to hope the joker is correct and you sell just as many books as Cussler.
And...
From: Marcus
Date: Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 8:18 AM
Subject: Worst Book & Best Book to Come
To: briggsb@bbspot.com
The contenders are:
In the field of Contemporary Fiction, it is The Story of Love, which is actually three plotlines combined into one book, which follows a young girl, an old man, and a piece of literary tripe called "The Story of Love," which happens to be the favorite book of the young girl's mother and the old man. Now the mystery of the characters' backstories was enough to keep me going till the end, where the book dissolves into a bunch of goo. The print of the page is such that it looks like the font rebelled and refused to put more than a few lines per page. It's THAT bad.
In the field of Science Fiction / Fantasy, I present The Summer Tree by Gay Gavriel Kay, which follows the stories of five people from Earth (who are only moderately interesting) who get invited/snatched to Fionavar where all hell's about to break loose. What kept me going through this was the fact that ALL the secondary characters from Fionavar are terribly interesting, but I couldn't care two cents about the main characters - partly because I couldn't tell them apart, despite the fact that two of them are women. I also couldn't tell who the demihumans were in the universe because instead of straightforward terms like "elf," "dwarf," or "blugbatter beast," they were "lios alfar," "svart alfar," and "blugbatter alfar." The main characters also seem to have precious little with advancing the plot, and are more spectators, which would be fine if they weren't the "divine hand of prophecy." The steaming turd about this book is that this was first of a trilogy. Shudder.
And...
From: Tom
Date: Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 1:36 PM
Subject: worst book I ever read?
To: briggsb@bbspot.com
Planet of the Apes. Read it as a teenager and hated it. Then read it later again because I had blessedly forgotten it. Hated it again.
And finally...
From: Michael
Date: Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 12:43 PM
Subject: Worst Book Ever
To: briggsb@bbspot.com
Shadow Moon
Proof that George Lucas lost it long ago. This sequel to Willow destroys all the good things about the movie, just like Star Wars Ep. 1-3 did to the originals.
So send me more suggestions for worst book ever.
From: Eric
Date: Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 5:04 PM
Subject: BB-Question
To: briggsb@bbspot.com
I've been a fan of your site since the beginning. But now, with the BBook
coming out, I've got a stupid question to ask that's been bugging me for
years. I've always pronounced your site bee-bee-spot. Is that right? If
so, how do you pronounce the other BB-sub-entities such as "BBlog","BBlooper", and now: "BBook"?
Is it "bee-bee-book"? "bee-book"? "buh-book"? Just "book"? Something
else?
I feel like I'm the only BB-Geek that's in the dark on this.
The site is pronounced Bee-Bee-spot. In everything else the second 'B' is silent. A lack of consistency that would make any Red Dwarf creator or Star Trek series producer proud.
The winner of the 2003 and 2006 Geek Limerick contest has volunteered to write a weekly limerick for BBspot. Seth also has a new book
out that you should take a look at...
Seth has been sending over limericks for many weeks without any Mailbag. Thanks to him you've got many to enjoy now...
