"Why do we feel the need..." Topic

to finish books that are basically train wrecks? I just finished a book, read on lunch hours and breaks, on WWI aviation. To quote from the blurb about the author in the back of the book, "…is best known as the author of XXX, XXX and other novels, but he is also a well-known expert on art and the American past…Both aviation and World War I have held a special fascination for him….During World War II, Mr. YYY made documentary and training films for the U.S. Air Force."

That's all good and well, but reading the book, the author clearly has no real knowledge, nor understanding, of WWI aviation. For example, perhaps I'm just daft, but I didn't know that the British (or was it the Allies?) preferred to tarmac their airstrips. In WWI? Really? The author makes a number of statements that are actually references to WWII, not WWI. And he even stated that when Richthofen was shot down, he was flying an Albatros. Hmmm, that one even goes against the photographic evidence of the crash – the British must have faked the picture, and Richthofen has been living quietly on the dark side of the moon with Elvis since then. On the one hand, I seriously wanted to put the book down and twiddle my thumbs in preference, but I continued to read to see (A) if anything of sense would actually come out of the book, and (B) if he included anything factual in it.

The bios of pilots are full of his (inexpert) psychological assessments of them, and apparently only American pilots were decent upstanding human beings who weren't nuts, psychotic murderers or worse, and his attempts at analyzing national character quickly tire from their base ridiculousness. He throws in technical details of engines and planes, apparently to prove his expertise, and even gets some of those wrong (for example, Sopwith Camels carried single or twin Lewis guns, not Vickers, and calling some planes two-seaters when they were really single-seaters, or vice-versa). Most of his sources are tertiary, not even secondary and only a couple are primary, though he quotes documents and includes details of well known incidents that I have never seen or heard anywhere else. How does tripe like this get published? Worse yet, why did I spend three weeks reading it?

OK, rant off.

I used to read Harry Turtledove novels. I've since realised that life is too short to endure that sort of self abuse.

Ha! I came to the same conclusion about turtledove as well :)

3rd on the Turtledove. Can't see how he keeps publishing books…

Damon.

4th on Turtledove.

Or Game of Thrones….

Same on Turtledove. You reach that moment in his books where you realize that you don't care what happens to any of the characters and that maybe your own death would be the best resolution of the book. Then it is time to put it down.

Greg C.

> You reach that moment in his books where you realize that you don't care what happens to any of the characters

Actually I *DO* care what happens to them, I just don't care to know every morsel of food they eat, cig they smoke, and person they sleep with along the way. OK, I really don't care about the characters either. (Exception for the Hawaii being taken by the Japanese books, they were decent).

Also – though I still read the Honor Harrington books when the library gets them I will never buy another.

Same for me on Turtledove and agree with Extra Crispy about Game of Thrones.

To be fair, von Richtofen was flying an Albatros the first time he was shot down, so perhaps the author is merely confused?

During World War II, he made films for an organisation founded in 1947 – well at least he knows his stuff….

I used to have a thing about finishing every book I started, but about 10 years ago, I came to a decision that my time just wasn't worth wasting on a read that I am not enjoying. I do make a point that I get to a least a 3rd of the way before deciding.

That being said, I can think of a few books that it took getting through quite a bit before it got good. "The Doomfarers of Coramonde" comes to mind. Very standard, overly dramatic boring fantasy until you a third of the way in to the part of the book titled "APC". Basically, the hero's try to summon a extra-dimensional daemon (I think?) and instead get a fully crewed APC from Vietnam. Wacky hijinks ensue. Building a 'virgin' sacrifice out of Napalm for a dragon, invading hell and using thermite grenades to create "sunshine", that part is just kick A$$. The final third of the book is boring generic fantasy again, but that book is a must read for the middle part.

So, giving up on a book too soon can mean missing real good stuff.

If you ever start The Crystal Star by Vonda McIntyre, just stop though….

You reach that moment in his books where you realize that you don't care what happens to any of the characters…

I reached the point in the Honor Harrington books around boot 6.

When I used to travel a lot for work a lot of books were read right through only because any thing was better than the in flight movie.

x42

My Wife, the Librarian, uses the rule of read as many pages as 100-your age. If you don't like it by then, quit.

Life is to short for bad books and the older we get the less time we should waste on them

I used to read every book through to the bitter end out of "respect" to the author, but I've wised up since then.

I'm glad I dropped Honor Harrington after the 2nd book and I read so many bad reviews of Turtledove I skipped those altogether.

Steve

Same on Turtledove. You reach that moment in his books where you realize that you don't care what happens to any of the characters and that maybe your own death would be the best resolution of the book. Then it is time to put it down.

Totally agree GenWinter, that's why I dumped all my Turtledove books (even some unread ones) last time I cleaned up my collection.

I got forty or so pages into a Turtledove book. At that point, I got the feeling that while I was pretty interested in the destination, the driver was irritating the crap out of me.

A 300-page book is a substantial investment of time (unless you are one of those mutants who can read as fast as they can turn the page), the author owes ME something.

Because Barnes and Noble Lied and Trees died!

I excused Turtledove's writing for a few series. His ideas are pretty good. However, you learn to either despise or not care about his major characters.
Any writer who can make Custer boring…
He's not stupid. I suppose he sells a lot and makes a lot of money. But not from me anymore.

I got 30 pages into Thomas Covenant and then realized it would get no better. So I stopped.

Did none of you enjoy the Videssos Cycle? I did the first time, but it didn't bear up under a second attempt to read it.

Nothing else of Turtledove's worked for me. I think I realized this with Agent of Byzantium.

Thomas Covenant was dire but I remember plugging ahead for what was it, three books?

OP: anyone writing about the 1WW should know his stuff from original sources. I have no answer to "why do these kinds of things get published". Injustice in the universe.

The Camel did have one or two Lewis machinguns on the top wing, either as a RNAS version, or night fighter version. If he blanket said that Camels did not carry Vickers gun(s) he was wrong, but if he said the night fighter Lewis-armed did not carry a Vickers he was correct.

Richthofen was a psycho. All fighter pilots who kill numerous enemy pilots are psycho. That's how fighter pilots are. "The war" ruins them for the rest of life. Manfred was one of the lucky ones….

As others have noted, I used to read a book through to the end. I stopped that years ago. There are too many good books out there to waste time reading crappy ones. I have no problem throwing a book in the discard pile and picking out a new one.

"Most of his sources are tertiary, not even secondary and only a couple are primary, (…)"

Was the research done off of Wikipedia? ;-)

"You reach that moment in [his] books where you realize that you don't care what happens to any of the characters"

I've noticed that a few authors of serials kill off (the likeable and often more interesting!) supporting characters, seemingly unnecessarily. I chalk it up to the author not knowing what to do with the SC plotwise, & so they die. Maybe we should just treat all characters in books as "Redshirts"… ;-)

If I no longer care what happens, I quit the book.

I always feel a bit guilty if I don't finish it.

I used to feel guilty too, but then I realized that books are tools. There is some information in them. You might not need all of it. Sometimes not getting all of it might be damaging.

But sometimes you need to focus. You may only read 1000 books in your life and there is a lot of crap out there.

I use to feel that if I bought the damn thing, I'd finish the damn thing.

No more. Life is too short to waste on truly rotten writing. If it becomes obvious that the author doesn't give a rip about the story, then why should I.

Some that have been thrown over the side: Turtledove (real early; really annoying characters), Honor Harrington (about book 3; superwoman became a real pain in the butt), Game of Thrones (7 books? Really? and you need ANOTHER book just to keep track of the damn plot(s) (assuming there are such things) Character and plot development courtesy of Brownian Motion…).

One thing that makes it easier is that I very rarely buy books new anymore – usually I buy them used, either on line, or I search used book stores to just get lucky.

I agree about the Game of Thrones books, I forced myself to plough through the first one last year. I picked up the second one last week read it for two nights then decided life is too short for such poor writing. Shame as I was given the first four as a present but I'm sure someone in the charity shop will appreciate them.

Do you feel guilty when you don't finish a bottle of paint before it dries?

"Guilty?" Heck no, mad at the universe for messing with me….

I was reading Sven Hassel's Monte Cassino last year and forced myself to finish. I kept wondering when the book would get good. I should have known when the USMC invaded Sicily that the book would be garbage, but I kept going. I have another one on my shelf that needs to accompany Monte Cassino to the trade-in shop.

Also, I have started to read a modern book called Horse Soldiers twice and cannot get past about 1/3. It is an era I personally am very interested in (US Special Forces in Afghanistan in October 2001), but the author quickly has me not caring what happened. Maybe third time is a charm, eh?

That's what happened with Wheel of Time books for me. I liked the characters at first. Was pretty tired of them after a while. No idea what happened to them since, and I'm not curious.

Xanth books were more drastic. They were fun, then they just got like anybody (myself included) gets after too many running jokes. I went from interested to distaste, without stopping at disinterested.

andy