A Book I Wish I’d Never Read
I should have known better than to think that I’d enjoy Piers Anthony’s attempt to bring FURTHER CLOSURE to his Incarnations of Immortality series. Cos, y’know – he’d already released the last book twice already.
Once in 1986 with For Love of Evil (Evil/Satan, dur) and again in 1990 with And Eternity (Good/God) – so when this came out (self-published, btw, and apparently he didn’t spend any of his Xanth money on editors) my initial reaction was “Oh, FFS AGAIN?!” because he’d already played me with “NO THIS TIME IT’S REALLY THE END GUYS!” before.
BUT, of course I still had to read it.
Because I’m an effing stubborn ass completist and it takes A LOT for me to give up on a series.
So, one day a few years ago, I decided I’d spend the afternoon knocking this one out, just so I could (figuratively) close the book on this series.
Aside: That’s not to say I don’t still love the first few books (particularly Gaia, Death and Fate), but really – done should be done, dude.
Anyway. I started reading.
This book is supposed to follow Nyx, the Incarnation of Night. It does, but it takes a really roundabout way of getting there, with stops in Magic Dildo Town and Pedophilia Station.
So, yes. I pretty much just skimmed it after the Magic Dildo made an appearance and couldn’t tell you more after that.
I wish I didn’t even know about Nyx’s Magic Dildo.
For realsies.
Okay, guys – what do you wish you’d never read?
There’s this one book called ‘Still Alice’ that is as boring as bat shit, but I kept on thinking something interesting was going to happen. It didn’t. Also, when I was younger, I read Virginia Andrews’ ‘Flowers in the Attic’. Ugh. Never again.
Weird, I’m pretty sure I just saw someone else talking about Still Alice the other day!
Well, whoever it was, I know you won’t enjoy it. It’s literary fiction. *gasp* It was just really badly written and the characters were barely two-dimensional…so yeah. Just the writing I guess was what put me off. I tried reading her second novel, hoping for an improvement – nope. Just as bad. I put it down after about thirty pages.
Oh, ew. No thanks.
I appreciate the warning. <3
Why would he self-publish? That seems so strange to me. Your description of the book is hilarious.
I don’t know! I mean, it has an air of legitimacy cos he used his Mundania Press to put it out, but that’s really just his own press, so…
I wish I’d never read George “Dubya” Bush’s memoir. Yes, I read it. I don’t know what I was expecting. An apology? An admission of wrongdoing? SOMETHING. ANYTHING. Instead, I got a poorly written, half-plagiarized piece of crap. Shame on me for expecting anything else.
Ohhhh, big props to you for getting through that.
“Magic dildo town” pretty much win the internet.
I’m sitting here trying to think what I wished I’d never read and I’m drawing a blank, because even if something’s terrible, usually I can mock the living hell out of it and that redeems it to some extent. I think the only things I can think of are some of the plays I’ve had to read for our play selection committee every year. Some of the plays people submit for consideration for our season are SO TERRIBLE. No, not the ones they write themselves. Actual published plays. And I have to read the whole thing, so I can have an intelligent discussion about why we shouldn’t choose it. “This one is homophobic,” I’ll say. “As we’re in theater, putting on something homophobic kind of alienates 3/4 of our patrons.” Or, “This one uses the ‘n’ word, and not even ironically. I don’t know that that’s a good idea since we’re not in pre-Confederate-war-south times.” Or “This one seems to have been written by a 5-year-old who accidentally dropped acid.”
…and now I kind of want to read something by an accidentally baked five year old.
I know it’s wrong. Just as long as it’s not MY five year old.
I wonder how long I have to wait til Magic Dildo Town starts bringing the crazy search terms?
Every time I see “Magic Dildo Town,” my brain starts playing “Funky Town” as background music. I may just have that stuck in my head all day… XD
OH THANKS FOR THAT, NERIJA!
YOU’RE WELCOME, BWAHAHAHA!
Hmm… I’m drawing a bit of a blank, too, on books I wish I’d never read. Thing is, I can actually think of one, but it’s nothing to do with the book’s merits. When I was sixteen, I read Wolf-Woman, by Sherryl Jordan. It was a well-enough-written story, though the love interest angle felt cliche — another one of those lowly character falls for the popular character, be it a prince, chief’s son, etc. But overall, like I said, it was a fine story, if a bit depressing by the end.
Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the story’s discussion of religion triggered some kind of guilt complex that didn’t really go away until my junior year of college. I know I can’t blame that entirely on one book, but it still brings back bad memories.
So, I guess I’d qualify this as a book I wish I hadn’t read at that time…I would be interested in revisiting it now, with a clearer vision.
You know, I think that’s an interesting point you bring up.
Part of the reason I have so many unfinished books on my Currently Reading list right now is because I can tell that they’re things I probably WOULD like, but that aren’t grabbing me at this point in time.
I should have a one person Read-A-Thon where I attempt to finish as many of those books as I can in one day.
Yeah, I have a bunch of books I’m half-way through, but haven’t picked back up for a while. I should probably get on that as well…
Your description of this is hilarious!
So you’re saying NOT to pick up a copy of this if I can help it?
Far be it from me to discourage someone from FINISHING a series! If you’ve already read the first seven and you’re also a
stubborn asscompletist, read it so we can talk trash about it together! If you haven’t and are interested in the series, you can read the first books and stop at any time.Um…on second thought – just don’t.
Wow, I had no idea he’d put out an 8th one of these. I really liked the first 6 and was okay with the 7th. Of course, I was in high school, and the idea of a female deity back then weirded me out too much to accept it. I had also read the Xanth series (gave up on that one in college after one of the bizarre phoning-it-in ones like Color of Her Panties or something, deciding I was too old for that nonsense) and though the Incarnations books were so much better.
I remember liking Death, Fate, and Gaia the best and feeling kind of awful about liking Evil, though now I don’t remember why. Probably that high school religion thing again. *shrug*
So this 8th one is that bad? Let me guess: filled with puns? self-important?
I liked Evil, too. In fact, thinking back on it, it may have been the best one of the bunch.
This one isn’t filled with a bunch of puns, but it’s very self-important and full of a bunch of weird sex (ie- Magic Dildo Town).
Ugh, just skip this one. Leave your memories of the others intact and don’t sully them with this garbage.
Magic Dildo Town wasn’t a joke? Ugh. No thanks. I’ll take your advice and leave it be.
Um, it wasn’t an actual TOWN, but there WAS a magic dildo that a young girl first used to “prepare” herself for a much older lover AND THEN passed on to a “frigid” wife to help her get over her fear/disgust of sex.
BARF.
INDEED!
I mean, good grief. That’s just juvenile and ridiculous. Leave that stuff for the therapist.
When I finished reading Lord of the Rings at age 10, I scoured my local library for as much fantasy as I could get my hands on. And that was how, at the tender age of 11, I had the misfortune to pick up one of John Norman’s GOR novels.
So… disturbing…
That sounds like a challenge.
“Challenge” isn’t quite the word I’d use to describe the Gor novels. “Wildly sexist male rape fantasy” might come closer. Though I’m given to understand that the early books are more of a fun rip-off of the John Carter series, the one I got hold of was ugly, odious stuff.
Ohhhh, yeah, I’ll skip those, then. Although I do <3 Barsoom (and got my oldest to read some of them this summer. WIN!).
Maia by Richard Adams. Watership Down was the only decent book he ever produced, and I spent my senior English Major Author research paper proving why he shouldn’t be considered a Major Author.
This book is the worst. I couldn’t get through the whole thing. I was 18, and I remember thinking “This reads like a dirty old man’s filthiest fantasy. He tries to throw in some espionage and intrigue, but there are so many characters in the book that it’s impossible to keep any person straight. Think I’m exaggerating? My copy (yes, my personal copy and the reason I now read books before I buy them) has a list of over 80 characters to help the reader keep them straight (and probably the author as well). Over 80. Over 80. And those were the important characters. The minor characters weren’t listed there.
Allow me to say that I curse Richard Adams for ever writing this book. The. End.
Oh, oh, oh – sometimes I can deal with books that have LISTS of major characters, but only if it’s something I’m really into.
I would have to say Freedom by Jonathan Franzen is a book I wish I hadn’t wasted time to read. About 2 years ago, my short-lived family book club (my mum, sister, aunt and cousins) chose this book (someone had heard it was on Oprah’s book list) and I was the only one to finish. I told anyone who hadn’t started it to not even bother. I’ve seen some reviews that people loved it, but I really did not enjoy it at all (unfortunately, I still remember bits of it every now and again!). Based on this book, I said I would never look to Oprah’s book list as a primary source.
Hee, I’ve had that on my TBR for forever, but maybe I’ll just drop it now.