Bored Stiff

[digitaldiscipline]

Not actually bored at work. To the contrary, I'm busy as fuck (covering for people who are out, fighting various fires, and passing along all manner of exciting news).

No, the title is a riff on that of a book I've been poking at, Scared Stiff, (Ramsey Cambell).

I think that this collection of Mr. Campbell's "erotic horror" stories is going to join a short and non-illustrious list - that of books I will *never* finish, once I've started reading them.

That list, in more or less the order I started reading them:
The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
Underworld, Don DeLillo
Shardik, Richard Adams
Blade Runner 2, K.W. Jeter[1]
Scared Stiff, Ramsey Campbell

What do all these books have in common? They bored my tits off.

Dishonorable mentions go to Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver, Jonathan Littell's Bad Voltage, William Gibson/Bruce Sterling's The Difference Engine, and K.W. Jeter's Noir[2] for being books I wish I'd never read, but finished anyways.

Clearly, cyberpunk doesn't have a lot of middle ground; it's either awesome, or awful.

[1] - Worst book I've ever tried to read
[2] - Worst book I've ever read in its entirety

Comments

[the-yellow-king.livejournal.com]

How highly interesting. I've never read Shardik.
Whyfor did The Silmarillion bore you?
BTW, email me your address. A Christmas present popped in my lap that I think should belong to you.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Silmarillion had two problems - one, it was the first Toklien I ever picked up. Two, I was twelve.

I don't want to read fourteen thousand years of elvish history, kthxbi.

[ivy]

Once you get through the first 150 pages it's not so bad... but I had to *make* myself do it. And I was 25 or so. [grin]

[etcet.livejournal.com]

There's one further problem - I don't give a damn about Tolkien's worldbuilding.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I happened to find Shardik as a result of enjoying his cameo in King's Gunslinger series. Since I enjoyed Watership Down so much, I gave it a try. I gnawed on that book for -years-. I think I'm halfway, two-thirds of the way through. Damningly, I don't give a damn how it ends.