What Was the Worst Book of 2013?
By far, the worst book I read in 2013 was
Dark Dawning by
Auguste Dinoto, a paranoid and offensively sexist libertarian screed that imagines an oil shortage turning the United States into a dystopian police state controlled by the "Oil Appropriations Committee".
In just over a hundred and eighty pages of execrable prose, Dinoto manages to demonstrate that he is terrible at naming characters, has no understanding of government or economics, didn't do any research concerning the underlying science and technology the book's plot hinges upon, and harbors some rabidly sexist and moderately racist views. In many ways, the sexism is the most glaring defect in the book, as every woman falls into bed with the protagonist, grateful to be blessed with his mighty, manly penis. At least as soon as they give up reading those women's magazines that give them silly ideas like "women should be treated as equals and not as disposable sex toys".
Everything about this book is bad. The writing is awful - riddled with typos, grammatical errors, and simply terrible prose. The characters are badly written, cardboard cartoonish cut outs - the villains are mustache twirling caricatures, the women are sex fantasy fulfillment props, and the hero is a horrible, lazy, drunken lout who is somehow able to convince every woman in the book to have sex with him. The science in the book is laughable, and the ridiculousness of the science is only exceeded by the ridiculousness of the politics and economics. The only redeeming quality of the book is its relative brevity, and the only thing I can say about that is that it wasn't short enough.
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If this book was a comedy/satire, then the plot sounds like it would have worked just fine. I can't imagine keeping a straight face while reading anything like what you describe about this book, LOL.
ReplyDelete@Lizzy: If the book was intended as satire, then the satire was extremely well disguised.
DeleteWow; tell us how you REALLY feel! :) I don't know if I'd have been able to make it through this title - when I read books that focus on the attraction women have to a certain man's virility and sexual prowess, especially those written extremely badly, I picture a dirty old man in a basement.
ReplyDelete@Julie: If I had to make a guess, I'd say probably not a dirty old man in a basement, but rather a frustrated middle-aged guy who has never actually had sex with a woman who wasn't inflatable.
DeleteYour worst book sounds worse than mine (which is saying something!). It sounds horrible from the writing to the overall production quality of it. I won't lie, I would have probably given up if I were in your shoes!
ReplyDelete- Farhana @ Digesting The Words
@Farhana Chowdhury: I received the book as a review copy, and since I had agreed to review the book, I pushed through despite its general terribleness.
DeleteI completely understand. I hate when it seems like the author did not do any research for the topic they are writing about. Coupled with bad writing just makes this sound like a horrible book.
ReplyDelete@April: The number of outlandishly inaccurate things that the author included in the book is too long to list (although I do talk about several in my full review of the book), but the first one that i noticed was the "15.5" magnitude earthquake that sets up the political crisis that leads to the dystopian government. A 15.5 magnitude earthquake would almost certainly destroy the Earth, but all it does in the book is drain the oil out of the Middle-East.
DeleteWow, that book sounds not good at all...
ReplyDeleteBecky B. (Bibliognome): It is really a terrible book in every way that it is possible to be terrible.
Delete@Kate Midnight Book Girl: Well, according to the book, the only reason you have the idea that you should have basic civil rights is that you've been reading "women's magazines" that have poisoned your mind until you can be freed from such silly ideas by the manliest of manly men's penises.
ReplyDeletenot to sure I would like this book either.
ReplyDelete@Rev. Kim Justice: I don't see how anyone would like this book. Well, other than the author, and he's pretty clearly a frothing at the mouth paranoid conspiracy theory buff.
DeleteOil Appropriations committee... hee hee -
ReplyDelete@ParaJunkee: What's worse, is that the evil OAC is headed up by "Alib Deeds", which I think is supposed to be some sort of insult directed at "Liberals".
Delete