Weird/Terrible Books - Post the most obscure, odd, and terrible written works you've even seen

[Second Missing Primarch]

I didn't read this whole topic yet but songs of Kali by Dan Simmons is so weird and scary and the Hollow man too. Let's not forget Alfie's home too.

Dan Simmons can get into some pretty gnarly territory sometimes. I still really like The Terror, though.

 

[Syaoran Li]

October Sky AKA the autobiographical equivalent of watching paint dry

Homer Hickam is a brilliant rocket scientist but he can't write a book without being long, drawn out and boring.

 

[Anja Din]

China Mieville. I picked up some of his stuff on a friend rec, and it got pretty annoying right away. Just that feeling he sat with a thesaurus looking for the most pretentious ways to say every single word. Yes, we know that one, too, it still sounds pompous as hell.

House of Leaves is a great book, but it gave me a bit of a headache trying to keep track of the subplot and subplot’s subplot as well as the main thread of the story.

 

[Parallel Moon]

Ambrosial Flesh by Mary Ann Mitchell is the weirdest book I have ever read. Seriously, it is the most WTF book I have ever come across.

Spoiler: This is the actual description on Amazon.

As a boy educated in Catholic school, Jonathan believed in the teachings of the Church. When his non-believing parents prevented him from attending Sunday Mass, Jonathan found his own way of celebrating the Lord's Day. Since the Church's dogma teaches that we are made in the "image and likeness of God," Jonathan decided to eat his own scabs in place of the Body and Blood of Christ at Communion.

Now Jonathan is an adult, and his fetishism with Communion becomes more macabre even as his religious beliefs fade. Jonathan enjoys eating other people's flesh. There are those willing to participate in his warped game. After he marries he must go back to eating his own flesh in order to stay faithful to his wife. When his wife learns of his bizarre behavior she is horrified, forcing him to destroy her--the one person he loves. This act takes him on a spiraling decline that brings him face-to-face with Lucifer. Now Jonathan must choose between his horrendous destiny or fight against the evil trying to possess him.

Yeah, so it's totally about a cannibal. Who became a cannibal because he misunderstood the the meaning of the Eucharist so he started eating his own scabs. And he REALLY likes to eat his own scabs. There are pages upon pages of descriptions of him eating either himself or other people.

Well it turns out that

Spoiler: Spoiler

it's actually Satan that makes him want to eat people. And also he is the AntiChrist or something. And he eats his own wife in gruesome detail. (Never thought about breast meat being slimy before I read this.) There is also dead people being sold for flesh. And he eats a dead frozen homeless baby that gets warmed up in a soup pot in an inner city soup kitchen. Or maybe I just imagined that? Holy fuck. And at the end he kills himself so the Devil can't win. The END.

 

[Pope Negro Joe the XIIIth]

Ambrosial Flesh by Mary Ann Mitchell is the weirdest book I have ever read. Seriously, it is the most WTF book I have ever come across.

Spoiler: This is the actual description on Amazon.

As a boy educated in Catholic school, Jonathan believed in the teachings of the Church. When his non-believing parents prevented him from attending Sunday Mass, Jonathan found his own way of celebrating the Lord's Day. Since the Church's dogma teaches that we are made in the "image and likeness of God," Jonathan decided to eat his own scabs in place of the Body and Blood of Christ at Communion.

Now Jonathan is an adult, and his fetishism with Communion becomes more macabre even as his religious beliefs fade. Jonathan enjoys eating other people's flesh. There are those willing to participate in his warped game. After he marries he must go back to eating his own flesh in order to stay faithful to his wife. When his wife learns of his bizarre behavior she is horrified, forcing him to destroy her--the one person he loves. This act takes him on a spiraling decline that brings him face-to-face with Lucifer. Now Jonathan must choose between his horrendous destiny or fight against the evil trying to possess him.

Yeah, so it's totally about a cannibal. Who became a cannibal because he misunderstood the the meaning of the Eucharist so he started eating his own scabs. And he REALLY likes to eat his own scabs. There are pages upon pages of descriptions of him eating either himself or other people.

Well it turns out that

Spoiler: Spoiler

it's actually Satan that makes him want to eat people. And also he is the AntiChrist or something. And he eats his own wife in gruesome detail. (Never thought about breast meat being slimy before I read this.) There is also dead people being sold for flesh. And he eats a dead frozen homeless baby that gets warmed up in a soup pot in an inner city soup kitchen. Or maybe I just imagined that? Holy fuck. And at the end he kills himself so the Devil can't win. The END.

That's weirdly similar to this guy's "Christ was a vampire" logic... And I'm guessing there's more incest involved in this case.

He Turned His Family Into An Incestuous Cult – Then Marcus Wesson Killed Nine Of The Children

Marcus Wesson had a history of abusive behavior but had never been considered dangerous – until he murdered nine of his children and grandchildren.

allthatsinteresting.com

 

[UnsufficentBoobage]

China Mieville

Oh god, I forgot this guy, his shit traumatised me so much.It is mildly interesting, but, yes, pretentiou and unnecessarily graphic. And he never ever builds on stuff you expect him to...

The only thing I liked was his work for DC, Dial H, and even then only some parts...guess they could not contain him.

 

[Anja Din]

Mmm!

wasn’t there a lolcow from South Dakota that was some Asian lady obsessed with making videos and writings about how people should eat shit on KF a month or so ago?

WHAT THE FUCK?!

It gets worse, there is an actual rpg based on Gor (No i just found it by accident on the Trove)
As for worst books i read? The Night Angel Trilogy, that was a trainwreck i couldn't look away that has a bully kid in the first book that rape other kid orphans to keep control of the group of orphans they are part of

yikes, had no idea there was a gor rpg. Are you sure it’s not F.A.T.A.L., which is pretty much the same thing? Link

 

[Zaryiu]

wasn’t there a lolcow from South Dakota that was some Asian lady obsessed with making videos and writings about how people should eat shit on KF a month or so ago?


yikes, had no idea there was a gor rpg. Are you sure it’s not F.A.T.A.L., which is pretty much the same thing? Link

Completely sure https://thetrove.is/Books/Conan RPGs/Other Sword & Sorcery/Tales of Gor/

 

[Anja Din]

Think one of hte oddest I've read is Lenore the Cute Little Dead Girl:
View attachment 1609537
Ran a series of comics from the late 90s then became a short skit on their website for a bit:

were you walking by a Hot Topic? That’s the only place I’ve ever seen those cringey goth-type characters.

Oh god, I forgot this guy, his shit traumatised me so much.It is mildly interesting, but, yes, pretentious and unnecessarily graphic. And he never ever builds on stuff you expect him to...

The only thing I liked was his work for DC, Dial H, and even then only some parts...guess they could not contain him.

he has some interesting ideas, but his “style” is just so overly dramatic and pretentious that getting through a chapter can be tedious.

i ran into this author at a horror convention once. He was dressed in character and selling his books which are pretty self explanatory. Link

 

[Surfin Terf]

Definitely not the weirdest book in this thread, not even the weirdest book I've read, but The Forever War deserves a mention because it was probably the weirdest and worst book I've read* that wasn't trying to be weird and was still taken seriously by the literati.

Spoiler: * disclaimer

I didn't read the whole thing. I had an hour to kill at a book store so I speed-read the first half of the book ten years ago

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman is a critically acclaimed science fiction novel about a war between Earth and a distant alien civilization. For some fucking reason the Earth government decides to only recruit geniuses as soldiers. In addition, they decide to use a training method that kills off like two thirds of these geniuses. Because the boot camp is so hard they also require the female geniuses to be prostitutes for the male geniuses to keep morale up (they're training on Pluto's moon so there are no local whores)...

Anyway, the alien civilization isn't actually in our solar system and the only way to reach them is through a wormhole-type thing (called "collapsars" I think). Anyway, the genius soldiers go off to strange alien worlds and fight and die and the survivors come back to Earth, but it's been years thanks to the relativistic travel and society has gone to pot with all the geniuses sent away.

This sort of scene with the geniuses coming back to Earth and discovering that society has changed is a recurring motif and the main point of the book. Some of the unpleasant surprises that they find include a global economic recession that makes jobs so rare that people start paying other people to give them jobs (I'm pretty sure that that's what was going on, as I mentioned I read it a long time ago but I remember that the hero's mother had a job and that someone was paying her so that they could have her job but that she had to pay someone else for the job in the first place) and everyone turning gay because of overpopulation. It was all so fucking stupid.

Anyway, the book was intended as a commentary on the alienating experiences of soldiers in Vietnam. It won a bunch of scifi awards, but it frankly seems like the only reason it won was because people were looking for a critical scifi take on the Vietnam War and this filled that need. I don't remember whether the writing style was any good, I was too distracted by the horrible story.

 

[Vecr]

Definitely not the weirdest book in this thread, not even the weirdest book I've read, but The Forever War deserves a mention because it was probably the weirdest and worst book I've read* that wasn't trying to be weird and was still taken seriously by the literati.

Spoiler: * disclaimer

I didn't read the whole thing. I had an hour to kill at a book store so I speed-read the first half of the book ten years ago

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman is a critically acclaimed science fiction novel about a war between Earth and a distant alien civilization. For some fucking reason the Earth government decides to only recruit geniuses as soldiers. In addition, they decide to use a training method that kills off like two thirds of these geniuses. Because the boot camp is so hard they also require the female geniuses to be prostitutes for the male geniuses to keep morale up (they're training on Pluto's moon so there are no local whores)...

Anyway, the alien civilization isn't actually in our solar system and the only way to reach them is through a wormhole-type thing (called "collapsars" I think). Anyway, the genius soldiers go off to strange alien worlds and fight and die and the survivors come back to Earth, but it's been years thanks to the relativistic travel and society has gone to pot with all the geniuses sent away.

This sort of scene with the geniuses coming back to Earth and discovering that society has changed is a recurring motif and the main point of the book. Some of the unpleasant surprises that they find include a global economic recession that makes jobs so rare that people start paying other people to give them jobs (I'm pretty sure that that's what was going on, as I mentioned I read it a long time ago but I remember that the hero's mother had a job and that someone was paying her so that they could have her job but that she had to pay someone else for the job in the first place) and everyone turning gay because of overpopulation. It was all so fucking stupid.

Anyway, the book was intended as a commentary on the alienating experiences of soldiers in Vietnam. It won a bunch of scifi awards, but it frankly seems like the only reason it won was because people were looking for a critical scifi take on the Vietnam War and this filled that need. I don't remember whether the writing style was any good, I was too distracted by the horrible story.

You might like (at least a bit better than the current one) the original version first published in a magazine way back in the day, if you can get your hands on a photocopy or something. In it, I'm pretty sure the main character does not return to earth, and without the weird sex stuff, apparently. It's still about Vietnam, though.

Spoiler: On the Ending

Apparently, humans attacked first, though just a far away mining ship or something, and the aliens thought humans were (possibly after killing their creators) zenocidal death robots (made of meat) because they were not telepathic, and they assumed that all intelligent life must be telepathic, like them. Pretty much the same as Ender's Game, but without the Hive Queen.

 

[Surfin Terf]

You might like (at least a bit better than the current one) the original version first published in a magazine way back in the day, if you can get your hands on a photocopy or something. In it, I'm pretty sure the main character does not return to earth, and without the weird sex stuff, apparently. It's still about Vietnam, though.

Spoiler: On the Ending

Apparently, humans attacked first, though just a far away mining ship or something, and the aliens thought humans were (possibly after killing their creators) zenocidal death robots (made of meat) because they were not telepathic, and they assumed that all intelligent life must be telepathic, like them. Pretty much the same as Ender's Game, but without the Hive Queen.

Maybe I would. I feel like there wouldn't be that much left to it in that case, but I do remember the one thing that I actually liked was the part where they attacked the alien scientific base. Like, the hypnosis part was silly, but the death bubbles were neat.

 

[Brahma]

Maybe I would. I feel like there wouldn't be that much left to it in that case, but I do remember the one thing that I actually liked was the part where they attacked the alien scientific base. Like, the hypnosis part was silly, but the death bubbles were neat.

It's part of a rough trilogy. The second one is set on earth and otherwise unrelated to the first. The third picks up the story of the soldier from the first.

It gets strange. In a pseudo-ontological way.

Spoiler

Basically it ends with a revealthat we're living in a simulation where some kind of Godcan change the laws of physics at will

All that said, I enjoyed it when I read it as a teen. There's a cute love story underlying the whole

 

[Miriam Margoyles]

Anything that Shaun Hutson farts out. He's like a shitty James Herbert. I initially enjoyed Slugs and Spawn but as I read more of his work it became apparent that he recycles character archetypes, plotlines and has a weird, inexplicable fascination with the soft spot atop the heads of babies - across three books there are characters being described prodding this area or desiring to and it's disturbing (this guy has a daughter, btw - was he leaning over her crib most nights fighting the urge to plug a finger into her cranium?)

He relies heavily on shock content to provoke an emotional response from the reader. Yeah, horror authors utilize disturbing content all the time in their books to get a reaction but he just puts no finesse into it. Baby/child getting murderd or harmed? Yeah, just chuck it in there with a gratitutous description.

There's a scene in one of his books where he describes a baby being shaken by its despairing mother. It's awful, because you can tell he researched what happens to babies that are shaken but it has such a weak, cliche build-up that doesn't do the scene justice. The rest of the content in that particular book doesn't do that scene justice.

I think the most unforgiveably mediocre piece of rubbish among his pile has got to be "Twisted Souls" - holy shit that one was an imaginatively bankrupt rush job. Even the title tells you how much of a shitshow it is.

Shaun Hutson is weird, because the violence in his books is always gratuitous, but also described in weirdly out of place clinical language which renders a lot of the horror really underwhelming, because he's not so much writing the emotive, visceral body horror of someone being mutilated as he is obviously referring to medical documents for research. And you can tell. Someone will get shot in the face, for example, and Shaun will make a point of telling you exactly which bones were destroyed and give their proper medical names, which is both inelegant and not scary.

On that note, he also has an autistic fixation on firearms - if someone ever pulls a gun in a Shaun Hutson book, don't worry, because Shaun is on hand to tell you exactly the make and model of the aforementioned firearm, even if you didn't care, or it adds nothing to the scene.

He's very basic and workmanlike as a writer, and I wouldn't read him if anything else was available, but I must confess to having a bit of an affection for him, because despite being a bit of a real life Garth Marenghi, he seems thoroughly unpretentious, comes across like a nice man in interviews and is apparently very good to his fans.

 

[Yellow Rose Of Texas]

I remember reading a very horrible hunger game inspired novel that was trying to be hip and very edgy in highschool.
(Recalling it from memory) Something something the world is about to end and only a few people knew it and they have to gather some artifact to some alien to stop it from happening etc.
All characters in the book are horrible/bratty/annoying people that kills innocents,majority of these characters are even minors if I recall.
(There's even a hint about characters having minor sex or some disgusting shit.)
Having bunch of reference(Like characters playing Cod Bo2)that age like milk didn't help the experience either.
Worse part is it has a sequel I believe,it left such a bad taste in my mouth I completely stop reading all kinds of novel for a couple of years.

 

[Elderly beef taco]

Malsum by Gerald John O'hara is a wild ride. It's jaws but with evil indian curses and a possessed deer. It's horribly bad at times and weirdly competent at others, haven't seen a copy in ages. I regret giving mine away.

On a weird note, I'm haunted by memories of what i assume was a mystery novel i saw in a second hand store over 20 years ago... the cover had a realistic bobcat wearing a backpack and a ballcap, walking on all fours, going under a cliff edge with a snarling black panther above it. I swear there was a tagline about how "Billy Bobcat didn't make it to school" and the title was The Blood Panther. I have never seen another copy and it's nowhere online.
The book was a softcover, if anyone has ever seen this let me know.

I've read so many bad books over the years. A few I can't find much info on now but if anyone here wants i can ramble about them. Should have kept them back when i had them, but they were bad enough i didn't think to hold onto them.

 

[Coffee Druid]

Malsum by Gerald John O'hara is a wild ride. It's jaws but with evil indian curses and a possessed deer. It's horribly bad at times and weirdly competent at others, haven't seen a copy in ages. I regret giving mine away.

On a weird note, I'm haunted by memories of what i assume was a mystery novel i saw in a second hand store over 20 years ago... the cover had a realistic bobcat wearing a backpack and a ballcap, walking on all fours, going under a cliff edge with a snarling black panther above it. I swear there was a tagline about how "Billy Bobcat didn't make it to school" and the title was The Blood Panther. I have never seen another copy and it's nowhere online.
The book was a softcover, if anyone has ever seen this let me know.

I've read so many bad books over the years. A few I can't find much info on now but if anyone here wants i can ramble about them. Should have kept them back when i had them, but they were bad enough i didn't think to hold onto them.

I had some time to kill so I tried looking up that book. Is it Saber-Toothed Tiger from the Spinetinglers series by M. T. Coffin? The cover has a realistic saber toothed tiger wearing a ball cap.

Spoiler

Spoiler: Plot summary

The neighbor of Alan Evans goes missing after Alan sees a trio of menacing-looking cats outside the neighbor's home. Now, the cats are after Alan, and he must fight back by taking feline form himself.

Browsing old kids horror books makes we realize they just don't make them like they used to anymore. Besides Goodebumps reptrints, I don't see the wacky, colorful and cheesy scary books written for kids on the shelves now. I kinda miss them.

 

[SITHRAK!]

China Mieville. I picked up some of his stuff on a friend rec, and it got pretty annoying right away. Just that feeling he sat with a thesaurus looking for the most pretentious ways to say every single word.

Late, but as a long-term Jack Vance fan, Mieville’s pretentious faux-Vancian style annoys the shit out of me. His ideas are pedestrian at best and he compensates by trying to imitate one of the greatest wordsmiths of the English language. I hate it.

In another thread I mentioned a very weird book I found as a kid that was all about marketing a cola to black people that would sterilize them for life. I have been desperate to find a copy for decades, or at least to find some evidence that I didn’t just hallucinate the whole thing. Any takers?

 

[Elderly beef taco]

I had some time to kill so I tried looking up that book. Is it Saber-Toothed Tiger from the Spinetinglers series by M. T. Coffin? The cover has a realistic saber toothed tiger wearing a ball cap.

Spoiler

View attachment 7518072

Spoiler: Plot summary

The neighbor of Alan Evans goes missing after Alan sees a trio of menacing-looking cats outside the neighbor's home. Now, the cats are after Alan, and he must fight back by taking feline form himself.

Browsing old kids horror books makes we realize they just don't make them like they used to anymore. Besides Goodebumps reptrints, I don't see the wacky, colorful and cheesy scary books written for kids on the shelves now. I kinda miss them.

Sadly it is not. This book was definitely aimed at adults, as i recall.

That book looks like something I'd have read as a kid though, kinda reminds me of the one with the lunchlady who made hybrid bugs and also used bug meat in her meals (this was related to kids being super obedient?).

 

[2mm and 99 others]

China Mieville. I picked up some of his stuff on a friend rec, and it got pretty annoying right away. Just that feeling he sat with a thesaurus looking for the most pretentious ways to say every single word. Yes, we know that one, too, it still sounds pompous as hell.

House of Leaves is a great book, but it gave me a bit of a headache trying to keep track of the subplot and subplot’s subplot as well as the main thread of the story.

I like the Bas-Lag trilogy, or more like Perdido street station and The Scar. Hated the commiefaggotry of Iron council, but still better than his alternate London books, City&City and, gods spare me from such overcomplicated crap, Embassytown.
I even tried (and gave up) to make an amateur translation of the 4th Bas-Lag book, This Census-Taker (for me and maybe some other fans, so I could understand the book myself), and man, no wonder nobody tried to translate and publish it officially in almost 10 years it's out. I needed translator for every damn sentence, but since even native English speakers seem to have problem, I don't have to feel bad about myself?