The Best and the Worst

This week on the MSHP Blog Tour, our assignment is to list our top ten most loved and hated books. Touching on the unreadable, a trip through those books I have read and hated, tried and failed to read or just downright hated with a capital Hate.

Ok, I will start with an easy one. The number one loathed author on my list, an author that makes me question the world. Question how such a mouldering heap of putrid wank ever made its way off an editor’s desk without being carried away like flotsam down the brown tunnel.

The writer that claims the dubious honour of being number one in this list of literary mediocrity is Jack Higgins, his book, “The Keys of Hell”. Everything about this book I despise. My main issue with this fucking book is it’s like a boomerang, I lend it out, it is returned on time. I drop it on the bus, it is handed to me before I get off. I pack it into the box of books as I move and somehow it survives pristine. It’s like cancer or a genital wart in many respects. I never know when the bastard thing will come back and when it does its very presence gnaws at my body and haunts my dreams.

It brings together several members of his “cast” of equally tedious tropes. A nation state desperate to hold onto control by crushing any faith movement within their borders, a priceless artifact that one pursuer wishes to use as an icon, as a rallying point for rebellion. One group wishes to avail themselves of the value that the item holds as an object d’art and the third wish to destroy it and use it as a means to lure out and murder their opposition, a plot that is so mind numbingly dull that even Lucas has stopped using it.  

The  book appears to rely on you having read many previous books by the author to give any sort of character depth or power because they are completely plastic, like cheezwizz, they are close to characters but somehow not quite right. The air of artificial hovering like the stench of a tannery, existing in the background yet somehow the most prominent smell in the room: overpowering any immersion or engagement. 

Yet despite the fact that I suspect the bowel movement diary of Michael Moore to have a deeper plot and more character driven events and character development I did find the book oddly gripping. In the same way that watching videos of fist sized cysts being squeezed empty of pus on YouTube is engrossing. I found myself reading in morbid curiosity: can this book get any worse, can it disappoint me anymore? Can it plumb the depths of failure any more thoroughly? The answer to all these questions is yes. Ex Secret agents that only drink Non Vintage Krug, the social and political issues of Albania portrayed as simply as communist versus theist and “He who controls the Madonna has the power” I mean that worked in ‘allo allo’ but the fallen Madonna with the big boobies’ and its copies were plot points for a farce not a tool for use in an attempt at a serious thriller.

Now moving to a book that is on this list of negatives purely because of it’s affect on me as a reader, it’s a book by Gav Thorpe. “Way of the Warrior” piece of science fiction writing set in the warhammer 40’000 universe. I love the book for what it did, what it stands for and what it tried to be but as a reader I hate it. It is frustrating and rather than naturally easy to read much like I find most books, each page in this is a struggle; a struggle as I try to understand a mindset completely foreign to me, Thorpe placing me in the situation of seeing the thoughts, desires, dreams of someone, that I have no way to understand, no common goals or links. Even those emotions that I do recognize feel foreign and off kilter. As a piece of literature the books in this series are books I love as a scholar, as a student of science fiction and as a writer, but as a casual reader relaxing and enjoying a book for its entertainment value Its bloody hard work.

The next book is a book of disjointed voices, images, views, a mix of characters, character types and stories. It uses the written word, the spoken word, and reported accounts in first, third and second person. It was described as an “artifact” rather than a simple portfolio by the Academic who inspired the formation of the pieces that make up the body of work, it’s a book that hasn’t been published and I know it well. It’s mine, because it’s so bloody stressful and I spent so much time writing it that I began to hate it because of the amount of time I have insides the book. It became my life and began to suffocate me after a while I do begin to fall out of love with my projects because they are such an emotional struggle. It’s like having a child.

I cant write a top ten list of my most hated texts because really they blur, they become forgotten. If a text does not grab me does not have any pull or hook I become indifferent too it and the author has failed because it has become forgotten. And those to me are my worst books, the forgettable, the books that I cant even recall the cover or indeed a single line. Not that they are horrifically bad books because those I remember but merely the OK books.

My top ten books generally need no explanation, but I will provide a short synopsis because I do not want to wax lyrical about them in fear of over-hyping them and you not seeing what I see.

My top book is a series it is the Caiaphas Cain series by Sandy Mitchell. It is part memoir, part military, history, part flash man, and part black adder. A Political Officer’s Memoir edited by an Inquisitor, all classified and very very funny. In the grim darkness of the future there is only war and still the war-machine produces real people, real  heroes, and real humor.

Second is probably The Hitchhikers Guide series.  Read the book, watch the film, the show and the radio show and then build the real story from all the conflicting accounts. It is a challenge but worth it.

The Johnny series, by Terry Pratchett, the first book I found where teen lit dealt with adult themes and images, well worth reading for that alone, a book for a teen that faces the truth of growing up, friends, girls, life and death but with aliens, ghosts, time travel and so many very clever puns. The time traveling trolley owner called Mrs Tachyon being my favourite.

From there we go to the Lost Fleet series, by John G Henry, an amazing classical war story. The master of the fleet, a beautiful engrossing series that happens to be in space. It feels real, the combat is real and it doesn’t treat the reader as stupid with magic technology. The tech breaks, needs fuel and so do the people. One for readers with a military mind.

From there it’s hard but I would mention the Discworld series, the Horus Heresy series and oh probably Terry Brooks Knight of the Word, with maybe the world of Harry Potter Fanfiction having some of my favourite books, seeing other very talented writers playing in someone else's sandbox. I adore so fanfiction and multi author worlds are amazing for me, seeing different writers lay their style onto other characters is amazing.