Author's Note: This was originally posted on my old blog on Januray 10th, 2024
30/07/2024
Most Regrettable Reads of 2023
I was doing these on Twitter for a while, but since that ship is sunk now, we’re bringing it back here. I wasn’t a huge fan of 2023, and I was even less of a fan of these books. We all know what we’re here for, me foaming at the mouth as I describe all the books that personally insulted me last year, so let’s dive right in.
#5 - Coyote Moon
What you’re seeing is the cover for an omnibus collection of Buffy the Vampire Slayer novels, a thing I picked up second hand a few years ago and finally got around to reading.
It was not worth the wait.
This collection contains Coyote Moon (1998), Night of the Living Rerun (1998), and Portal Through Time (2006). All three appear to be set during season one of the tv show.
To be clear, none of these are stories I would call good, the characters and dialogue all feel just a little off, a consequence of trying to match the very specific Whedonisms with which the dialogue of their canonical show counterparts are written. On top of that they suffer from the usual semi-canonical side story problem of needing to not leave any lasting impact, lest they contradict the canon of the show.
Portal Through Time manages to at least be enjoyable, being written by someone with a genuine passion for history and who manages to avoid the historical errors of the other two stories. It’s the highlight of the collection, with its insane story of a group of incompetent vampires enacting the plot of Terminator, and the most incredible passage in the whole book:
The king finished speaking with the guards. “My men will assist you in finding Ejuk. Please report back to me when you have succeeded.”
“We will,” Giles said. “And thank you.”
“Anything for a fan," answered Gilgamesh.
Coyote Moon unfortunately lacks any such redeeming qualities. It is the story of a travelling carnival of werecoyotes, come to Sunnydale to resurrect their founder, a white guy who lived with “Indians” (The term used throughout the whole story), learned skinwalking from them, and then surpassed them to become the greatest skinwalker ever. It’s so incredibly poorly aged it became the only thing I could think about throughout the story. Incredible discomfort aside, it was competently written at least, so there’s that.
3/10 - Would Not Recommend
#4 - The Lady of the Lake
2023 is the year I finished reading the Witcher novels, the conclusion of one hell of a journey. The books start strong with two short story collections, most based on classic folk tales with an interesting twist that ties them into this particular world. I of course accidentally read them in the order they were translated, not the order they were written and originally published, so I suffered some confusion in the early parts of the series.
Then I got to the latter part of the series, and the confusion only got worse. The world inhabited by Geralt of Rivia is large, complicated, and constantly changing. Wars begin sweeping across the land early on, regularly changing up an already dense landscape of kingdoms, empires, and city states. To make matters worse, in the editions I read at least, there was no map of the world to help orient the reader. It is very easy to get lost amidst the sea of places and people who enter and leave the story on a regular basis, and made even worse by the seemingly random time jumps and framing devices.
The Lady of the Lake (Original Polish 1999, English translation 2017) is the final book in the series chronologically, with only an additional prequel book being written afterwards, and it’s where the density achieves critical mass. This book features two different primary framing devices, both of which intersect with the story being told at different points, as well as several additional frames and asides. The result is a book trying to wrap up a complicated tale while also jumping back and forth in time constantly.
In short, it’s a messy end to a messy series, and not one I can really recommend you get involved in. Go read The Last Wish and then call it a day.
3/10 - Would Not Recommend
#3 - The Rod of Seven Parts
I read another D&D novel, and this one wasn’t good either.
The Rod of Seven Parts (1996) tells the story of a halfling rogue, a halfling cleric, and their new half-ogre friend as they attempt to collect all seven pieces of the titular rod before the forces of chaos can find them and use the rod to release Miska the Wolf-Spider from his prison so he can lead an army of chaos in conquering the universe.
The setup is nothing spectacular, but the delivery is woeful. Characters are irritating, the Law/Chaos dichotomy and the many obvious and unanswered questions it raises is intensely frustrating, the worldbuilding is minimal and uninteresting, and there’s even a DMPC who resembles a less depressed Drizzt Do’Urden.
The book was made to tie in with the game module releasing at roughly the same time, essentially making it a 348 page marketing brochure. Maybe that’s why it’s so thoroughly unimaginative.
1/10 - Would Not Recommend
#2 - At Home With Books
Here’s a book I never for a moment imagined I would end up hating so passionately, At Home with Books: How Booklovers Live with and Care for Their Libraries (1995).
This coffee table book claims to be full of advice on how to care for and organise books, and while it does have some, it’s rather brief, with most of the book being given over to pictures and write ups of personal libraries. It should also be noted that the libraries on display are likely to be completely unattainable for the average bibliophile, requiring as they do an enormous amount of both space and money. To illustrate, the Duke of Devonshire is one of the featured entries, another is someone’s climate controlled vault of a library built into a castle like folly attached to their actual house, while another collector has two libraries, one in each of their mansions.
This book is not, as it promises, going to help you build your own personal library, it’s a collection of pictures of other people’s libraries that you could never hope to emulate unless you’ve already inherited a collection of rare first editions and a manor to keep them in.
That’s annoying, but not really worthy of the spot this book occupies in our rankings. This book has earned the dishonour of being the second worst thing I read this year almost entirely because of Laurie Mallet. Here’s her book wall:
Yes those are real books, no you can’t read them, no one can anymore
This psychopath has painted the whole library white, much like the padded cell she belongs in. But the true crime here is what she’s done to dozens of actual factual books. Here’s the passage:
Nothing is trompe l’oeil here. The white books are real books, painted white. They have authentic spines and bindings. They can be moved or stacked. The only thing unreal about them is that they cannot be opened or read. They were treated with a resin that made them solid, and painted with the same white paint that covers the wall and the bookshelves. These are closed books, containing, in effect, recollections of reading.
I cannot imagine the alien malevolence that must inhabit a person to be able to do this. For someone who supposedly loves books to not only waste valuable shelf space on non-books, but also to render dozens of books unreadable and pretend it’s a great artistic statement.
My life has been made permanently worse for knowing this exists.
1/10 - Would Not Recommend
#1 - A Murderous Yarn
A Murderous Yarn (2002) follows protagonist Betsy Devonshire as she collects rent on the apartments she’s shocked don’t just generate free money, tries not to run a cross stitch store into the ground, and drops fat stacks on her friend’s boyfriend’s hobby car. She also allegedly solves crimes.
Over the course of 243 baffling pages Betsy does nothing of particular note, other than getting into the world’s least thrilling car chase. She has no real motivation for investigating the murder that is allegedly the central premise of the book and she doesn’t do any real investigating, she just kind of trundles along making occasional observations until the police show up to arrest the perpetrator, as they’ve figured it out without her (That’s when she gets in a very brief and very lacklustre chase).
There are other reasons this is the worst book I read this year, like giving a character a single POV chapter so he can fight with his boyfriend, an event over which much ink is spilled but has absolutely nothing to do with the mystery at hand, it’s not even a red herring! There’s also the protagonist being every terrible landlord I’ve ever had, the generally meandering nature of the book, and the weird Minnesota brain thing everyone has going on.
However the main reason that I think all copies of this book should be fed into the burner of a Stanley steamer remains that it’s a murder mystery novel in which the protagonist’s input isn’t required for the mystery to be solved. The police talk to her briefly before moving in to nab the killer, but only to hear her observations about what they already know to be true. It’s like if a murder mystery took place next door to a coffee shop AU.
Oh and there’s also a *free* cross stitch pattern in the back of the book, which as someone who does cross stitch I can tell you isn’t that great either.
Just an all around nothing of a book.
0/10 - Would Not Recommend
Thanks for taking a trip down memory lane with me, next time we’ll do the same but with books that are actually worth reading. Stay safe and happy new year!