posted
It occurs to me that you can sometimes learn just as much from a book that sucks than from a great one. Why didn't it work? Maybe this should be an entirely different subheading for our forum here. Might be interesting.
A book I'm thinking of in particular is Bill Baldwin's The Helmsman, which is part of a space-opera-ish sci-fi series. Parts of it I thought were fine, but the dialogue was abyssmal. Killed the book for me.
posted
Well, I couldn't get anything from "The Catcher in the Rye" other than morbid disgust for the lead character. But that was thirty years ago and I'm thirty years more sophisticated now...I've since "gotten" other works, maybe this would be the same.
(I read it as a school assignment---nothing kills a kid's interest in a book faster than being required to read it. I remember only two things out of "Anna Karenina," and two things out of "The Old Man and the Sea," for example. But I don't view them with disdain.)
posted
Even though I am a Christian, the entire Left Behind series was utter schlock. Terrible writing, stilted characters, forced plot (often not forced very hard, some books had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HAPPEN). I forced myself to read the first half dozen out of a sense of duty, but couldn't bring myself to go past that point.
Posts: 818 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
As previously stated, see the first Thomas Covenant, or whatever the hell its called. I can't remember or don't feel like looking. Anyways... the damn man character is at first a bastard, and ends up raping this nice lovely girl that I cared more about than him. That's just me though, because I think those books are very popular for a lot of fantasy fans. Taugh me what not to do with the MC though. Also, read Terry Goodkind books for how not to have your MC's preach to everyone for 3 or 4 pages sometimes. Don't get me wrong though, I love the SoT series. I want to say this: if you want to see world creating and a magic system done right, then read these books!!!
(P.S. the preachy thing doesn't bother me that much. They lecture overly much on right and wrong ect. for many books, but it bothers a lot of other reviewers more than me. Just thought I'd point that out though)
posted
Last summer I read what was probably one of the worst fantasy series ever written: The Axis Trilogy by Sara Douglass (includes The Wayfarer Redemption, Enchanter, and Starman). Oh. My. Word. It was horrible. There was sex, gratuitous violence, incest (blech!), amongst many other things. The only reason I bothered to read through all of it is that I have to finish whatever I've started no matter how horrible. That, and it was a good learning experience on how I don't want to write.
Then, much to my utter dismay, I realized that a large part of the fantasy that is out right now has all that sort of trash in it. And then I got to thinking, is this what the publishers think we fantasy fans want to read? Overly disgusting violence and smut all over the place?
I know there are, sadly enough, some people that enjoy that, but come on! There are those of us who don't want to read that stuff! What happened to "good, clean" fantasy like LoTR, The Chronicles of Narnia, etc, etc? Don't get me wrong, I have read some fantastic fantasy novels lately that were for the most part free of "objectionable content," but for every one of those, there are about two, maybe three, maybe more, fantasies filled with crap (for a lack of a better word).
It disgusts me, it really does, but there's not a whole lot I can do about it besides writing my own novels that counter those. I know that the authors that write those books are perfectly allowed to, but still! My word! Some of the stuff that goes on...
posted
I'd heard that the Covenant books featured a jerk as the main character. That's why I've stayed away from them.
BUT, having a really bad guy telling the story can work. The first half or so of the Mission Earth books by L. Ron Hubbard is told from the perspective of a totally evil man, but it works (mainly because he loses and loses and loses and we like it). I think the problem is when there are no sympathetic characters in the story to care about.
I stopped watching Seinfeld when George's fiance died licking all those cheap envelopes and got poisoned. The characters reacted so awfully that I didn't like any of them anymore.
posted
Y'know, I'm almost hoping someone will say something crass about some book or story I really like...so far, it hasn't happened. Though I don't have active dislike of the ones mentioned (that I've actually read), I admit they don't appeal to me much. (Couldn't get past the first chapter of the first "Left Behind" book, for one.)
It's early. Chances are, though, that, sooner or later, someone will bring up a book that means the world to someone else.
In my Internet Fan Fiction period, I read a lot of stuff that struck me as "hold-your-nose" bad. Plenty of good, but a lot bad. (Only slushpile readers have read more and worse than me, I suspect.) I'd rather not name names...but in nearly every example that showed up on my screen, I found something interesting or worthwhile, sometimes even fascinatingly so. It kept me going quite a ways.
The critic Edmund Wilson once said something along these lines: No matter how awful some work or some type of work may seem to us, if somebody finds value in it, we must take them at their word. (You wouldn't know it from his review of "The Lord of the Rings," but he once argued for that position as I've misquoted it.)
posted
You know, I read the first 50 or so of Elantris, and... well, it really didn't do nothing for me. I know OSC loves this book to death. Anyone else have better luck than me with this book? Should I give it more of a chance? I know our beloved moderator likes the book, I already read that post. But what about anyone else?
[This message has been edited by Leaf II (edited October 21, 2005).]
posted
The 39 Steps. School assignment. Awful. Characters of no dimension at all, flat prose, just bad, awful, dire.
Stephen King: Hearts in Atlantis. Brilliant book, one of his best.
A few years later he brings out Dreamcatcher, which is a complete turd of a book.
Another Stephen, this time British SF author Baxter. Raft, his debut novel. Stunning. The best movie I've ever read. CGI was invented in order to bring this book to the silver screen. But, again, the same author later did Voyage, an utter turgid novel cry-babying about how we could have gone to Mars in the mid '80s. Whatever. Gave up after 200 pages. Talk about dead prose, man, but it made '39 Steps' look like the pinacle of literature!
Hey, I got another one? What about guilty pleasures? Books you know you shouldn't like and are otherwise embarrassed to admit that you do?
I'll go first:
Chick-lit -
- I simply love Jane Green and Lisa Jewell.
Also -
Piers Anthony's Bio of a Space Tyrant. *shrug* What can I? I really liked it...
posted
A comment in another thread reminded me of another couple of books I absolutely hated: William Golding's "The Inheritors" and "Lord of the Flies." Again, a school assignment...but at least this time, ones I might've picked up on my own sometime later.
"The Inheritors": I didn't buy into his portrait of Neanderthan Man. I don't think something that stupid would have lasted long enough to get to that point, whether Homer Sapiens was on the scene or not.
"Lord of the Flies": again, something I didn't buy into. If a gang of [British] schoolkids were trapped on an island, I'm not so sure the descent into barbarism would've been inevitable...and if they did, I don't think they'd've developed the rites and rituals in the manner they did.
(My memory is hazy in the details...it was, mmm, close to thirty years ago when I read them. But my dislike of them remains with me.)
Lets see... nearly anything published by TSR usually stinks it up pretty bad (I used to like R. A. Salvatore, but after 9087 Drizzt books, it got a little lame).
Any of the Rama books after the first one were horrible. ACC should be ashamed!
In school we had to read Margaret Atwood (growing up in Canada isn't all good ). She is a man-hater, and as such, her books suffer for it. Handmaiden's Tale was a joke.
Huxley's "Brave New World" sucked, I thought. 1984 is a vastly superior distopian novel. Huxley was so caught up in that drug nonsense, it bogged down his book.
Jordan's last 345 books have all sucked. The first 3 WoT books were good, but now they are horrible.
posted
I like the way you think anyone whose sociopolitical views differ from your sucks! You're cool. Posts: 1750 | Registered: Oct 2004
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Cat's Eye and the The Robber Bride were terrific!!
True, I also had a problem with The Handmaid's Tale as it had none of her razor-sharp humor. (Actually, it had no humor at all, which made it a very dull read.)
Her volume of stories Wilderness Tips is one of the best collections I've read -
- and her latest novel, Oryx & Crake, is one of the funniest science fiction novels I've read. Yes, that's right, it's SF (though both she and her publishers would vehemently deny that!) It was criminally ignored by the SF community which, bizarrely, had fawned over her much earlier and inferior SF novel, the aforementioned The Handmaid's Tale.
Totally agree about the 'Rama' sequels - cringingly bad! The last volume ought to have been titled Rama Vaguely Hinted At.
Also his 'novel' The Hammer of God. As the critic John Clute pointed out is was more a collection of notes-towards-a-novel than an actual novel itself. Besides, the 'hammer' never fell. Should have been called A Slap on the Wrist from God.
[This message has been edited by Paul-girtbooks (edited October 24, 2005).]
posted
Oryx and Crake is definitely SF (though it's also more than SF), and it's very good. The reader has to work at it, but that's no bad thing. If Ursula LeGuin writes SF, then so does Margaret Atwood. The Blind Assassin also contains some serious homage/pastiche to pulp SF.
I started Handmaid's Tale but managed to mislay it somehow. I will Get Around To It someday.
In general enjoy Atwood - "manhater" or no. I particularly like her response to an interview question. She waas asked why her main characters tended to get killed. Her answer was along the lines of "the story isn't over until everyone in it is dead".
As for books that suck - well, the only book in the last ten years that I've thrown away because it was so bad as "Magic", by Tami Hoag. The POV bounced back and forth between the two protagonists about seven times in succession, sentence by sentence, and that, coupled with cliched description and what looked like it was going to be an utterly obvious plot, actually made me physically throw the book away.
Going further back, I recall reading one of L E Modesitt's "Recluce" stories (I can't remember which - I think it was the first published over here). The back cover went on about the fantastic and innovative approach to magic, and the detailed writing. The "fantastic and innovative" approach seemed to be that chaos/black magic was actually "good" and order/white magic was actually "evil". Well, you could have knocked me down with a battering-ram. And the detailed writing mostly appeared to be about the main character selling an inordinate number of chopping-boards at markets. I like detail and verisimilitude in my fantasy, but, really...
posted
Has Kevin J. Anderson written anything good?
I literally cringed when I saw him writing those sequels for Dune. As much as I loved that series I couldn't bring myself to even read the cover.
I'm not sure I can put my finger on why he's bad (and it's been awhile so he might be better). He writes a lot of fan fiction that gets published somehow. For that one Star Wars trilogy he wrote, the climax happened, like, in the middle of the second book! Maybe he can't structure a story. It was kinda shallow too, if I remember right.
posted
I always liked Lord of the Flies. I agree it's a bit of a stretch for a 'what if' novel, but I didn't think it went TOO far. I mean, those kids get to remake themselves and their views or morality completely. Deep down I think they know nobody's ever going to come for them. There might not be any people left anywhere else, as far as they know. They'll never have to face an adult to explain their actions and face the consequences. If you think that won't lead to violence, yep, even murder, I respecfully submit you're mistaken.
Still, it may be a better book to teach than read. There's lots to talk about. I can understand the problems some folks have with the book. Technically its SF too, ya know.
posted
One further note on "Lord of the Flies": Somebody (and I don't remember who or know what page it referred to) mentioned that Golding put the moon through the most impossible convolutions, having it rise after sunset and set before sunrise, and manipulating its phases along the way.
Compare that to the elegant and careful use of the moon in "Lord of the Rings"...
posted
Yeah, but LotR wasn't a heavily symbolic novel like LotF was. Might be apples and oranges. Still, I get your point.
Posts: 91 | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
I suspect that after Margaret Atwood's reaction to the SF community's excitement about HANDMAID'S TALE (she refused to be honored, insisting that it wasn't science fiction and that she doesn't write that kind of stuff), the SF community decided to ignore any further "science fiction" she wrote.
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posted
Beth, you need to lighten up. This is a thread about books we don't like, and I was... nah, nevermind.
I just rememberd another book I though was rotten, (this one will get me lynched here, I just know it).
Ready?
Here goes!
RINGWORLD. For all the talk of Niven as a great writer, I say "Ba-Humbug!" Niven had an awesome IDEA, but his execution of that idea was mind-numbing. His characters were horrible, as was the overall story. Niven had a good idea, but not a good novel.
Contrast this to the wonderful Kim Stanley Robinson (not including the dreadful "Martians"). The Red / Green / Blue Mars books were superb. Robinson is super-intelligent (like Niven) and can convey ideas and stories in a very well thought out way (unlike Niven).
Which Asimov story was it, where there was a secret, super-important document which turned out to be the Declaration of Independence? THat was a pretty crummy story as well.
Now, lets hear it! Tell me how wrong I am!
Ronnie
[This message has been edited by rcorporon (edited October 24, 2005).]
posted
Ah, "Ringworld." I remember it fondly...but I agree about its flaws. Niven never did have much flair for characters and occasionally situations. And there seems to be an absence of so-called "working stiffs" from much of his work---people do things, but they don't work for a living.
Oh, and the Asimov novel is "The Stars, Like Dust---" His second novel. He had to rewrite and start over several times at (book) editorial direction---then add that bit (was it the Declaration or the Constitution?) at further (magazine) editorial request. In Asimov's memoirs, he mentions the novel as his least favorite because of all this.
posted
Between the post above and this, it occurred to me: All I can really say about a novel in this context is that it failed to please me. The ones I've mentioned must have pleased someone else---I mean, somebody bought them...
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posted
Yeah, I don't think Niven compares to Kim Stanley Robinson (although his A Short Sharp Shock - or whatever it was - kinda sucked). Ringworld struck me as pulpy. Robinson's Mars books (and Antarctica) were wonderful.
Posts: 91 | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
I started reading David Brin's Uplift stories with Startide Rising, the second book. I liked it a lot so I read The Uplift War, the third book. Then I went back and read the first book, Sundiver. Oh, it was atrocious. It was basically a poorly done murder mystery set on a spaceship, complete with the "detective" hiding information from the readers and the big reveal scene where everyone is gathered together and the truth is revealed. Plus, the MC is constantly referring back to some event that had happened years before where he set up some sort of psychological other self, but he never goes into detail and we never know why he did it. And it was important to the plot. Blech. I've decided to pretend that it doesn't exist, and Startide Rising is the first book of the series.
I can't believe I just did that. I love Harry Potter. But I'm angry. I feel cheated.
I've gotten several friends (including my girlfriend) into the Potter books. What I loved about them is that they reminded me of why I loved reading in the first place. I rediscovered the joy of reading! You find yourself smiling all the way through them, such a pleaure are they to read -
- and then along comes 'Order of the Phoenix'...
Sure, it came out, like, three years ago or something, but there was other stuff I wanted to read and I was kinda saving it up.
So this summer I began reading it aloud in bed to my girlfriend, who had already read it, late in the evenings before we would both settle down for the night.
This little routine went on for several weeks. Eventually I stopped just over half-way through it.
Why?
I was bored. It sucked. Nothing happens! And to think, I thought Baxter's novel 'Voyage' was turgid!
The problem is that 'Phoenix' has no central storyline, no place toward which it moves: no philosopher's stone to be retrieved, no chamber of secrets to be discovered or triwizard tournament to conquer. No nothing! Just a series of snippets, vignettes. A patchwork quilt of nitpicking little incidents. Dozens of them - hundreds!
In the UK the b-format edition is over 760 pages. I quit around 425. The UK mass-market pocket paperback edition is 930 pages.
Come on!
Who on earth writes a 930 page children's book in which nothing terribly involving happens for over 400 pages!
If Rowling had only been moderately successful then there is no way her publishers would have allowed her to release such a leviathan.
The whole Potter phenomenon started to gather momentum between books 3 and 4. It's no coincidence, then, that the first three were relatively short. Book 4's length didn't bother me, precisely because the book had a central storyline.
Where's the story in 'Phoenix'?
The whole thing cries out Editors, people! Editors, please! Quickly!! Chop, chop!!!
[This message has been edited by Paul-girtbooks (edited November 10, 2005).]
posted
Actually, Paul-girtbrooks, I completely agree with you on that one. You hit it right on the nose. For a while, all I knew was that I didn't like HP 5 and here you've summed it up nicely for me.
I, frankly, felt the same way about HP 3 despite the fact that so many people name that one as one of their favorites. The ones I liked most were The Chamber of Secrets and The Goblet of Fire. The first, of course, was good as well.
Posts: 107 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Look at it this way: the anticipation for the last Harry Potter book(s) has been at such a high level that the actual book can't live up to the hype.
Try to look at it as if it were either (a) a new book without a rep or famous author, or (b) part of a series that hasn't gotten near the attention.
posted
Precisely, which is why the pointless first two chapters at the beginning of Half Blood Prince annoyed me. What kind of editor would publish that? If I had submitted something with two chapters that related to practically nothing else in the book, I think that I would have had a hard time getting published. At any rate, I don't think that Phoenix was bad because it didn't live up to my expectations, it's just as Paul-girtbooks said: it lacked a central plot line. I can pretend that Phoenix was a new book by a new author, but if I did that, my assesment would still be the same: it's just not that good. New author or no, a book still needs a central plotline.
Posts: 107 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
In the first Harry Potter book (the only one I've read), I thought that first chapter, with (as I recall) characters celebrating Harry Potter's birth, had absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the story. I thought the story began with the second chapter. If I'd'a been critiquing it, I'd'a advised Rowling to cut it.
But to give Rowling the benefit of the doubt, the first novel had to be considered as part of a series. That first chapter might have some bearing on the rest of it.
posted
I liked the last Potter book. I admit that I'd lowered my expectations because it was going to have to be predictable. There were certain things that had to happen before the final book (Dumbledore's death, the conflict between Potter and Malfoy coming to a head, for two). Now I'd not been able to predict much of what she'd done before which made the mystery that much more compelling which made her books a better read. So, if you look at this book like the penultimate act in a damn good story, maybe you can forgive it certain things. Since this is the set-up for the last book, I'm going to reserve my final judgement until I read the last book.
Posts: 91 | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
Allow me to mention a movie instead of a book. It's a movie that I love, but I love it despite all of its huge, gaping flaws.
The Matrix Trilogy.
Nevermind that the acting was so horrible; the writers hardly had any control over that. I am convinced that, had the casting agent gotten the best actors on the planet (which is FAR from the truth), they still would have looked horrible, because the dialogue was SO bad. There isn't a believable line of dialogue in the entire trilogy. From Morpheus's ridiculously overwrought speeches to Neo's horribly stilted lines (which may have at least something to do with Keanu Reeves, but the lines themselves are also bad). Mix that in with all the incomprehensible technobabble (did anyone know what the hell the architect was talking about in part 2?), and you've got terrible dialogue which leads to completely unbelievable characters. The bad writing does much more to harm the believability of the characters than the fact that they can fly and dodge bullets.
That being said, the premise of the movies was cool enough and the special effects interesting enough to make them good movies.
posted
It's interesting that some of you have cited HP books 5 and 6 as being too long, or boring, or having no central plotline, because while (for the most part) I sped through these books rapidly, not wanting to put them down, I found much of book 4 to be boring. Essentially book 4, to me, was half good and half mind numbingly boring. Does no one remember Hermione's quest to start up SPEW, the organization for ending the oppression of house elves? It went nowhere. It was pointless. Honestly I'm looking forward to the 4th movie that's coming out recently, because if they successfully add all the important stuff and leave out the half of the book that was boring, it might potentially be better than the book.
It's true about book 5 though. It really lags out until Harry finally arrives at the school something like 300-400 pages in.
As for book 6. Personally I found it to be a page turner. I think I finished it in 2 days.
posted
After finishing my last post quasi-defending HP, I came up with a book that I thought sucked.
I've read through the first 5-6 of the Sword of Truth books by Terry Goodkind, and while in general I tend to enjoy them, I almost stopped dead in the series in (book 4 was it?) The Soul of Fire. The problem that was at least half of the book, (and a good chunk of the beginning. Perhaps the first third of the book) takes place in a region we haven't seen before as readers yet, with completely new characters, and a new POV character that, frankly, was boring. It takes probably 300-400 pages before the reader gets any indication how this has ANYTHING to do with the story of our main heros.
And the real annoying thing is, that when all is said and done, it doesn't really matter. Honestly, I think you could take out this new POV character (Fitch for those who've read it) and in the end, not a whole lot would change from our main characters' perspectives.
I was slightly dissapointed with a later book The Pillars of Creation for the same reason, the ENTIRE book (minus maybe the last 100 pages) was about a new character. The difference was that I liked this character. The character you knew from the beginning would end up mattering to our heros, and she does. So once I stopped expecting the next chapter to start back with my old familiar heros and really got into hearing this new character's story, it was a good book.
But in general, I find that approach very annoying. I don't read, "The Story of John the Wizard - book 8" to find out what happens to someone I've never heard of for 800 pages and then at the end have them meet John. I read book 8 because I want to find out what happens to my old friend, the hero, after the conclusion of book 7, and after an entire novel of reading, I still don't have an answer for that.
posted
Well, I hate to make a post that, essentially, contributes nothing to the thread, but I just can't resist posting something about Goodkind's series whenever I have the chance.
First of all, I have to say that at one time I recommended The Sword of Truth series to every fantasy reader I knew. I never considered it particularly well-written (in fact, Goodkind's writing sometimes makes me cringe), nor did I find the storylines very engaging or original, but I had just fallen in love with the characters and, to me, that made the books worth reading.
I'd still recommend the first four books (Soul of the Fire was actually the fifth book, AstroStewart) to fantasy readers, but beyond that, I think the series has just fallen apart. Richard and Zedd were my two favorite characters in the series, and in the later books you very rarely get to see them, let alone get any information from their POV. Plus, Richard has become a pretentious jackass who is more inclined to preach for pages at a time, as Leaf II made note of, than actually do something.
And it's not just Richard anymore...it's as if Goodkind himself feels like he has such elaborate ideas that he has to explain, in detail, EVERYTHING to his readers (then clarify, then re-explain, then, just to be sure, tell them one more time). I really can't even think of any specific examples, but it has made me stop dead in the middle (actually, a little closer to the beginning) of Chainfire. I honestly don't know if I'm going to be able to finish this book.
In addition to all this, nothing ever happens. It's been the same villain for...what? Eight books now? And the man is still alive. Little minor bad guys have been disposed of along the way, but, come on...enough is enough. Kill Jagang and end the series, or kill Richard and end the series. One way or the other, I'm ready for it to be finished. Pre-Soul of the Fire, I thought Goodkind actually had a story to tell. Now, I think he's just milking the series.
Hmm...maybe this is a contribution to "Books that stuck."
posted
Idunno about that. While it's true that Lucas is way worse when it comes to writing romantic dialogue, I don't recall the audience in the theater ever bursting out laughing at a character's death scene, which they did when Trinity died. That was some amazingly bad dialogue right there. It was supposed to be sad, but it was like an old cliched movie where the person is in the process of dying for hours and hours, just talking and talking... and talking... and, not quite dead yet, still talking...
Maybe we can say they're tied in badly-written-ness... it could be a word. This late at night when I'm this tired anything could be a word. =P
posted
I liked the Matrix too, don't get me wrong, but that one scene just went whoop, over my head. Of course, those who know me aren't surprised by this.
posted
The architect was explaining the function of the One. The Matrix had a problem - the human mind kept creating bugs and causing it to crash. The One was a self-correcting measure. He comes in the first time, chooses the men and women to found Zion and the resistance to the machines, teaches them some stuff then dies. Then the One returns, leads the resistance against the machines, goes to the architecht for the lecture, chooses to return to the source, then returns for another iteration. This guides the bugs in the system (the minds that refuse to be enslaved), controls the damage it does, and teaches the machines more about the human mind so they can improve the prison. This time, because of Trinity, he didn't go back to the source. He went through the other door to save her and try to save humanity as well.
Posts: 91 | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
o.k, several things here are not making sense. first of, this is a DISCUSSION. we are supposed to pick a topic and stick with it for at least five posts. (I know I am doing the same thing here. I am a hypocrite sometimes. doing this to get us back on track.) the only time I have seen this is with the Harry Potter five series. and that was just to dis it, wich you never want to do if the writer is filthy rich. and another thing: NEVER DIS GEORGE LUCAS! sure, His latest three bombed but never forget the clasics that make four of them. (the first and second dont count.) Harry Potter five may have bombed in storyline and about every other aspect of the book, but what killed it for me was WHO WAS KILLED!!!!! I cannot believe that she did that! never seen the matrix or trinity, but I can understand the "long-winded-speech-just-after-you-stab yourself-or-do-whatever-it-takes-to-die" thing. three words: Antony and Cleopatra. it took every person who did die over ten minutes to. that killed what was otherwise a violent and well-written play.
Posts: 240 | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
Well, I can't say something is bad---that'd be an absolute and there are bound to be people who would disagree. I'd have to say "I didn't like it," or "I hated it," which would be my opinion of it, clearly marked out.
I liked Lucas's latest "Star Wars" trilogy---just not as much as I liked the first one in the seventies---or as much as I liked "The Lord of the Rings" movies---which I didn't like as much as I liked the book. It's all a relative thing.
The last movie I went to the movies to see that I didn't like was "Pearl Harbor"---which I consider three hours of my life I'll never get back, and had to go home and watch "Tora! Tora! Tora!" on DVD again to get the taste of "Pearl Harbor" out of my mind. But I'm sure there were those who did like it---certainly I read a few positive reviews, and unless they got under-the-counter money for it, I'm sure they were telling the truth...