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What's your story?
Jul. 31st, 2008 09:53 amLike films, some books fall into the 'so bad they're good' category, like, for example, the wonderfully titled Conrad's quest for rubber (also alternatively titled "Conrad's rubber adventures"), which is about as bad as time-travel adventures can be whilst having a title that I simply had to have on my bookshelf.
There's actually a special section on my bookshelf for truly terrible literature which I simply can't bring myself to throw away. Stuff like The Hard Corps and The Vampire Diaries.
Some time ago, I made the rather basic error of reading some Dean Koontz books. Entirely my own fault, I know, but I do have this tendency to just read anything which is presented to me which has led to me reading some really good stuff, and also some truly awful tosh. The thing about Koontz is that he's a natural storyteller. He has the skill (shared with people like Dan Brown) of setting a dramatic scene in such a way that you simply cannot stop reading; you desperately want to know what is going to happen next, and that's where the kicker come in because what happens next is always, always bollocks.
It's a remarkable talent. To create characters and situations which unfailingly grab the reader firmly and then to ensure a letdown is a skill in it's own right, and I read three or four of his books in a state of some wonderment at the fact that he could hook me and then disappoint me every single time - a bit like a girl I went out with back at university.
Think about this got me interested: who is your favourite bad author; someone whose work you go back to despite knowing that you'll just end up feeling let down and even slightly soiled by their work, but, like the burned fools finger, you just keep going back?
There's actually a special section on my bookshelf for truly terrible literature which I simply can't bring myself to throw away. Stuff like The Hard Corps and The Vampire Diaries.
Some time ago, I made the rather basic error of reading some Dean Koontz books. Entirely my own fault, I know, but I do have this tendency to just read anything which is presented to me which has led to me reading some really good stuff, and also some truly awful tosh. The thing about Koontz is that he's a natural storyteller. He has the skill (shared with people like Dan Brown) of setting a dramatic scene in such a way that you simply cannot stop reading; you desperately want to know what is going to happen next, and that's where the kicker come in because what happens next is always, always bollocks.
It's a remarkable talent. To create characters and situations which unfailingly grab the reader firmly and then to ensure a letdown is a skill in it's own right, and I read three or four of his books in a state of some wonderment at the fact that he could hook me and then disappoint me every single time - a bit like a girl I went out with back at university.
Think about this got me interested: who is your favourite bad author; someone whose work you go back to despite knowing that you'll just end up feeling let down and even slightly soiled by their work, but, like the burned fools finger, you just keep going back?
