Books I haven’t been able to finish

Way, way back in 2009, I wrote up a blog post about all the books I’d started that year but hadn’t managed to finish. In general, I only finish about a third of all the books I start, sometimes because the book fails to hold my interest, other times because something in the story actively turns me away. It’s hard to keep up with your reading goals when you don’t finish two out of three of the books you try to read.

Still, sometimes the reasons why someone doesn’t like a book can be more interesting than the reasons why they do, so I figured it was worth dragging up this old post and putting it up for you guys. Enjoy!

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I don’t like to be negative on this blog, but I thought I should make mention of this here. I set out this summer with lofty reading goals, but so far I haven’t met any of them. I’ve started plenty of books, but for one reason or another, I just haven’t been able to finish them.

Now, I’m not saying that these books are intrinsically bad—in fact, several of them are considered classics. My reasons for not being able to finish them probably say more about me as a reader than anything else.

Still, I think it’s worth it to go through and examine why I put down each of these books before finishing them. Perhaps you’ll find this information useful, perhaps you won’t. Either way, here goes.

Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay

This epic fantasy novel started out really well. The first section of the novel was just awesome. It immersed me in this beautiful, complex fantasy world and introduced me to a cast of interesting characters right away. Better yet, the intrigue and drama were deliciously intense. I loved it.

There was some sex in these scenes that made me uneasy, but not enough to put down the book. It fit in well with the rest of the story, and even if it was a bit unnecessary, at least it wasn’t gratuitous.

My favorite part was the global story arc, which was introduced at the very end of this section. An evil wizard has conquered the proud land of Tigana and, in revenge for the death of his son, has cast a spell on the minds of her people, ripping out the knowledge of their ancient heritage. Only a handful of people survive unaffected, and they are on a quest to kill the wizard before all of the previous generation dies away and Tigana’s heritage is erased forever.

The second section was all about Dianora, a Tiganan courtesan of the wizard who originally wanted to kill him, but now finds that she can’t do it because she loves him… kind of. It’s complicated. This section was basically nothing but a montage of flashbacks—hundreds of pages of flashbacks and internal commentary. I read it, but as the story slowed down, my reading slowed down as well.

For the third section, Guy goes off with one of the side characters on a quest that has practically nothing to do with the overall story arc. It felt like a giant tangent, and I lost that sense of progress that had been driving me. I meant to finish this book—I really did—but days passed without me reading it, and eventually I decided to stop renewing it and just return it to the library.

Oh, and there was some really explicit sex in the third section. It weirded me out.

Dayworld by Philip Jose Farmer

I’ve heard Farmer’s name bounced around in sf circles, so I decided to pick up one of his books from the used bookstore. This one looked interesting: it was about a society in which people are frozen six days out of the week, to reduce the strain on natural resources or some other such reason. The story is about a “daybreaker,” a guy who breaks the law and lives each day under a different identity.

I consciously decided to put this book down after Farmer started getting preachy with his views about sex. On one of the days, the main character is involved in a polyamorous relationship that involves group orgies. Farmer tries to portray this arrangement as healthy and acceptable. Needless to say, that’s when I threw the book across the room.

Before this point, however, Dayworld already had a number of strikes against it.

The characters all felt flat and unlikeable. The main character is basically a con artist and a womanizer. I saw few redeeming qualities in him at all, and never felt that I could relate to him. The only character I did like, Farmer killed off in the middle of the book. None of the other characters were compelling enough to hold my interest.

Because I didn’t like the main character, I didn’t care about his conflict. Honestly, I wanted him to get caught—he deserved it, the scumbag. I was rooting against him the whole time, so the plot twists just didn’t work for me.

Farmer spent a lot of time trying to get his world-building across, but I never got a sense of expansiveness or immersion. Too few concrete details, I suppose. Farmer was all about abstract concepts, the history of the place, the way the society operates, etc. But really… his concepts alone just weren’t that compelling—certainly not as compelling as psychohistory or the Bene Gesserit.

With all of these issues already pulling me out of the story, when I hit the sex and the preachiness, I knew I wouldn’t be finishing that one.

Colony by Ben Bova

This one I should probably reconsider. I read the first two chapters, enjoyed them, but never got around to reading further. I would probably enjoy the book.

The problem with this one was that the ideas just… didn’t feel all that new. The main character is supposed to be a genetically engineered perfect human, struggling to fit in to society. That was probably an original idea when the book came out in the 70s, but it’s been rehashed over and over since then.

That’s probably the main reason why I got bored with this one—that, and the lack of anything truly compelling. The viewpoint character in the first chapter was a slutty reporter who gets the dirt on the main character by slipping into his bed. I never really liked her, and because I wasn’t immersed in his viewpoint from the beginning, I didn’t feel attached to him.

The Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman

Again the issue here was sex. Lots and lots of it. More than I could stand, more explicit than I cared to read. I had the same issue with The Forever War—I actually returned that book to the bookstore and didn’t read it for another several months.

However, with Forever War, the relativistic battle scenes in space were just so compelling that I couldn’t stop thinking about the book. Eventually, I caved in and picked it up at the library—and found that after the first few chapters, it got a lot better.

With Forever Peace, there just wasn’t anything as compelling to me as the space battles in Forever War. When the sex became more than I could handle, I stopped.

Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson

I hate to say anything bad about Brandon because he’s a personal friend of mine. His Mistborn books are some of the best fantasy novels I’ve ever read. He’s a great storyteller, a knowledgable writer, and a great mentor.

That said, I had a number of issues with Warbreaker, many of which are probably personal to me, not particular to the story.

First, the info dumps were too difficult for me to swallow. Almost every time Sanderson stopped to reveal something about his world or his magic system, he seemed to stop the action to give me a textbook explanation. Most of the time, these were no longer than a short paragraph, but they were frequent enough to jar me. I found myself thinking “why should I care about this? Keep the story moving—I’ll figure this out on a need-to-know basis.”

I’ve already mentioned my issues with the sex in the book. My issue wasn’t that it was there, my issue was that the characters didn’t seem to treat it in an honest way. Siri was more nervous about the dress she was wearing than the fact that she was going to shack up with the God-king in a few hours. That just didn’t ring true to me.

The humor also made some of the characters feel inauthentic. The mercenaries were little more than caricatures; I felt that Sanderson was imitating Schlock Mercenary and doing a poor job of it. What’s more, because the overarching story was fairly dark (a forced political marriage in order to push back an inevitable war for just another year), the humor often felt out-of-place. Sometimes, it worked—I enjoyed Lightsong and felt that his sarcasm enhanced his character—but most of the time, it was jarring.

The Subtle Knife by Phillip Pullman

On this I have to plead guilty of letting my own personal sentiments get in the way of enjoying the story. I read The Golden Compass and LOVED it… right up to the last five pages. I HATED the ending of that book—SO dissatisfying, as if the author had stuck out his tongue at me and said “neener neener neener! I’m not going to give you the ending you want—better read the next book!”

UGH. I hate that.

So I came at this book a little prejudiced. I read the first page with a judgmental eye, thinking “nope, no hook on the first page. Oh, and there’s an unnecessary adverb, and there’s a said bookism, and there’s a…” etc.

Still, I didn’t let that stop me from reading on, and after the first chapter, I was interested in the story. I just wasn’t… I don’t know, interested enough. The book stayed in my car, I got busy with other things, and eventually just dropped it.