Zosoforum

We already have a thread to share books that you like, which is well and good. However any discriminating reader will inevitably pick up a book that they don't like. What are some books you have attempted to read and found to be a waste of time? Of course you are welcome to disagree if someone denounces a book that you like, so long as you are polite and make arguments in good faith.

I'll start:
- Neuromancer; which is well-known because of Nick Land but I found to be impenetrable.
- The Conquest of Bread; often recommended to new Anarchists but wholly outmoded in today's industrial society.
- Minecraft: Guide to Redstone; obsolete when it was published by Mojang in 2017. Effectively gamer bait.
- The Servile State by Belloc; I found its argument that labor protections would reinstate serfdom to be completely specious.

I didn't find Neuromancer particularly impenetrable, but it being so foundational to cyberpunk does mean you have probably seen most of the ideas in there done better elsewhere. If you want a Gibson novel I'd recommend Idoru over Neuromancer since that seems much more topical with the way AI has been adopted in the mainstream

Poe Dameron: Free Fall, a 2020 SW novel about the pilot character from Disney's SW sequel trilogy. One of the first times I remember consciously refusing to finish a book and putting it down because of just how badly the prose was crafted. Not the story itself–plenty of modern Star Wars novels are Tumblr fanfic quality–but the actual mechanics of the prose. It was just incredibly sloppily written.

"It had started as a lark. A lark fueled by anger, if Poe was being honest with himself. The argument with his father had hit the same notes as many earlier ones. The slightest suggestion of Poe becoming a pilot—of leaving Yavin 4 and following in the footsteps of his mother, Shara Bey—was met with an immediate rejection. A spark of emotion Poe only saw in his father in moments like that one. The rest of the time, Kes Dameron was sullen, isolated, and distant. This time, harsh words were exchanged. Poe was reminded of his inexperience and youth. Tears. Yelling. Shut doors and a growing canyon between the two Dameron men."

It's very choppy and just tells you things very clumsily, and some of it strays into fanfiction-quality Purple Prose.

Certainly not the worst of the Star Wars library but certainly one of the most crudely written imo

I dislike Hitchhiker's Guide and everything in that vein, such as Spaceballs or Monty Python. Not my kind of humor, rather boring, usually beloved by obnoxious people.

Neuromancer liked to freely invent terms without explaining a jot to the reader, expecting him to use context and inference or just wait until the narrative deigned to mention it again. In that sense, the obliquity is seemingly intentional.

Another that occurred to me. Has anybody ever read a book, thought it prudent or interesting to dip into the sources, and found that the former was nothing but mere reformatted recitation of the latter?

This is execrably common online, even before LLM generation, but particularly disappointing in something which, if nothing else, represents a great deal more effort and pomp in its very coming into existence.

This has happened to me with many pop science books which are usually, at best, simplified, inferior copies.

Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Baigent and his fellow authors which was later used as inspiruation for The Da Vinci Code. Not only does is their thesis that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a child who became the ancestor of the Merovingian kings completely unconvincing, when reading the book it becomes impossible for you to believe even that the authors believe it themselves. The authors go out of their way to include outlandish conjecture of all kinds even when it doesn't contribute to the central argument, such as the idea that the Franks were descended from Trojans. Even if you are into schizoteria please read something else.

The Conquest of Bread is not just outdated but was also coal in its own time. The avant garde of leftslop!