Vellum by Hal Duncan and The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson
everynametaken Send a noteboard - 06/09/2009 08:16:12 PM
Vellum
What was at least an interesting idea to begin with soon spiraled into a hard-to-follow novel with no cohesion or consistency. I finally gave up around two-thirds of the book and never picked it up again. This book was a piece of garbage. The worst part was that it had so much potential but failed to live up to it.
The Years of Rice and Salt
Again, an interesting idea looking at a possible alternative history in which the Plague wipes out Europe and most of it doesn't survive leaving China, India, and Africa (if I remember correctly) to continue their expansion and growth into the New World rather than the Europeans.
The book went from interesting to downright boring in no time flat. I forced myself through to the end but I found more enjoyment from the fact that I had finished and would never have to turn another page rather than from the story. No one should waste their time with this piece of junk. Sadly, it still remained highly recommended on WOT. I have no idea why, it sucked.
What was at least an interesting idea to begin with soon spiraled into a hard-to-follow novel with no cohesion or consistency. I finally gave up around two-thirds of the book and never picked it up again. This book was a piece of garbage. The worst part was that it had so much potential but failed to live up to it.
The Years of Rice and Salt
Again, an interesting idea looking at a possible alternative history in which the Plague wipes out Europe and most of it doesn't survive leaving China, India, and Africa (if I remember correctly) to continue their expansion and growth into the New World rather than the Europeans.
The book went from interesting to downright boring in no time flat. I forced myself through to the end but I found more enjoyment from the fact that I had finished and would never have to turn another page rather than from the story. No one should waste their time with this piece of junk. Sadly, it still remained highly recommended on WOT. I have no idea why, it sucked.
But wine was the great assassin of both tradition and propriety...
-Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings
-Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings
So...what books DON'T you like?
06/09/2009 04:57:28 AM
- 1874 Views
I have a couple I really disliked
06/09/2009 05:28:38 AM
- 1280 Views
Some examples
07/09/2009 08:25:37 PM
- 1082 Views
You think Battlefield Earth is bad, try reading his Mission Earth series. *NM*
08/09/2009 02:09:22 AM
- 643 Views
I read those in high school. I liked them. Stupid comic escapism. *NM*
08/09/2009 02:18:31 AM
- 686 Views
I read them when I was in high school too...at least the first 3 or 4
08/09/2009 02:47:12 AM
- 1195 Views
Re: I read them when I was in high school too...at least the first 3 or 4
08/09/2009 04:18:07 PM
- 1233 Views
Re: I read them when I was in high school too...at least the first 3 or 4
08/09/2009 06:26:00 PM
- 1154 Views
No, thanks. I think all my masochism got spent on Terry Goodkind
*NM*
08/09/2009 07:25:41 PM
- 667 Views

Political polemics, for one. Utopian novels, for another.
06/09/2009 05:29:54 AM
- 1085 Views
I don't have enough hours in the day to detail this or something even worse
06/09/2009 05:45:35 AM
- 1240 Views
Oh, a lot of things. But I wonder.
06/09/2009 07:00:34 AM
- 1230 Views
Re: Oh, a lot of things. But I wonder.
06/09/2009 07:05:51 AM
- 1174 Views
Oh plenty
06/09/2009 09:37:23 AM
- 1201 Views
I hated Wuthering Heights more than Jane Eyre, but I hated Jane Eyre, too. *NM*
06/09/2009 02:54:49 PM
- 708 Views
I like all books I have ever read.
06/09/2009 12:09:51 PM
- 1247 Views
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer. In Ye Olde English, it's harder to translate than ancient Greek. *NM*
06/09/2009 05:07:49 PM
- 683 Views
The Canterbury Tales are not Old English. They are Middle English.
06/09/2009 05:59:59 PM
- 1273 Views
Indeed, translating old english, and reading middle english are very very different
06/09/2009 07:11:13 PM
- 1160 Views
As I'm translating some ancient Greek right now, I call bullshit on that. *NM*
06/09/2009 08:45:46 PM
- 644 Views
I was going to, but I felt I had already been pedantic enough. *NM*
07/09/2009 02:34:04 AM
- 698 Views
The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
06/09/2009 05:58:39 PM
- 1185 Views
Catcher in the Rye and Heart of Darkness, among the "classics." *NM*
06/09/2009 08:15:12 PM
- 676 Views
Vellum by Hal Duncan and The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson
06/09/2009 08:16:12 PM
- 1236 Views
Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
06/09/2009 08:24:07 PM
- 1147 Views
I liked a Portrait of the Artist, personally, though the (lack of real) punctuation grated *NM*
07/09/2009 12:18:50 AM
- 610 Views
I didn't mind Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog...I mean Man
07/09/2009 02:40:14 AM
- 1130 Views
What?
06/09/2009 08:28:17 PM
- 1317 Views
Oh, and maybe it was lost on me, but I never got much joy out of War and Peace
07/09/2009 12:22:48 AM
- 1069 Views
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell.
07/09/2009 12:54:41 AM
- 1209 Views
Don't flame me for saying it....
07/09/2009 04:49:40 AM
- 1265 Views
One last one: Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley *NM*
07/09/2009 07:44:48 AM
- 679 Views
Have you ever seen the mini-series?
07/09/2009 05:42:45 PM
- 1188 Views
Never have I seen such good acting in such a dreadful movie/mini-series.
07/09/2009 05:44:47 PM
- 1084 Views
I love really really bad TV movies sometimes....they make for lots of laughter
07/09/2009 06:06:38 PM
- 1060 Views
Actually, you might like it. As in, think it's good.
07/09/2009 06:11:14 PM
- 1117 Views
I had a couple of issues with the book that I could easily see being removed from the movie
07/09/2009 07:01:40 PM
- 1052 Views
A Confederacy of Dunces.
08/09/2009 06:13:59 AM
- 1179 Views
Crap. That's two people now.
09/09/2009 01:42:40 AM
- 1066 Views
Hitchickers guide to the galaxy and The Good earth by Pearl S. Buck
09/09/2009 01:07:01 AM
- 1154 Views