well, THAT was the worst book ever!

[Elfmama]

I had already suspended disbelief that her grandfather had been a lost Viking who'd wandered ever west after the last long boat left Vinland, leaving him and a very few other people behind.........I don't remember why he kept going west, might just have been a wanderer...................but that tumbleweed broke the whole thing as it was too danged much.

I have no memory of the rest of the book................

There is suspension of disbelief, and there is hanging it by the neck until dead...

[Kaymyth]

Fantasy books by an author whose name I seem to remember as P. J. Salvatore.  The plots were good but the writing drove me crazy.

Nothing was ever 'dark'.  It was always 'negrescent'.  Nothing was ever pale.  It was 'etiolated'.  Although these books were supposed to set in medieval Europe, people were always eating potatoes, hot peppers and corn on the cob. 

R. A. Salvatore - I haven't read anything of his lately - but have a couple of books in the "to read pile" with that last name on them............

Sorry, definitely not R. A Salvatore.  If it IS him, he wrote a lot of books I've never heard of.  Typically his stories are set in a world that doesn't even exist, not medieval Europe.  He is (as far as I know) a Forgotten Realms fantasy author.

Good - because I was looking forward to the R. A. Salvatore books and would have been throwing them at the wall if tomatoes & potatoes were being eaten in Europe in the Middle Ages.  I once tossed a book at the wall when a tumbleweed (aka Russian Thistle, an import to the southwestern USA in the 19th century) blew past the American Indian female character in what is now Arizona a few hundred years too early.

I had already suspended disbelief that her grandfather had been a lost Viking who'd wandered ever west after the last long boat left Vinland, leaving him and a very few other people behind.........I don't remember why he kept going west, might just have been a wanderer...................but that tumbleweed broke the whole thing as it was too danged much.

I have no memory of the rest of the book................

Huh.  I did part of my growing up in the Southwest; I was always told as a child that tumbleweeds were sagebrush, which IS native to the western US.  Sounds like I was around grownups who committed Plant Identification Fail.

[Kendo_Bunny]

Fantasy books by an author whose name I seem to remember as P. J. Salvatore.  The plots were good but the writing drove me crazy.

Nothing was ever 'dark'.  It was always 'negrescent'.  Nothing was ever pale.  It was 'etiolated'.  Although these books were supposed to set in medieval Europe, people were always eating potatoes, hot peppers and corn on the cob. 

R. A. Salvatore - I haven't read anything of his lately - but have a couple of books in the "to read pile" with that last name on them............

The writing style definitely sounds like R.A. Salvatore... his books don't take place in medieval Europe, but in the very similar generic fantasy landscape. Also in his stories, no one has eyes. They all have "orbs". He commits even more gratuitous thesaurus abuse than Stephenie Meyer.

[cabbageweevil]

"Gratuitous thesaurus abuse" -- wonderful expression !  Something which a fair number of writers, including competent / good ones, are prone to; giving considerable annoyance to many of their readers.

I've found this tendency in, to name just a couple, Lawrence Norfolk (who I've tried, and found I couldn't get on with); and Louis de Bernieres (he of "Captain Corelli's Mandolin"): whose output I find rather highly variable as regards quality, and "enjoyable or otherwise".  Authors being quick on the draw with the thesaurus in this way, usually annoys me; enthusiastically throwing around long and obscure words strikes me as showing off, rather than being clever or original.

[Gyburc]

Stephen Donaldson is rather prone to this, at least in the Thomas Covenant series. The Mordant's Need books are better. I didn't get into the sci-fi series at all, so I don't know about those!

[iridaceae]

Stephen Donaldson is rather prone to this, at least in the Thomas Covenant series. The Mordant's Need books are better. I didn't get into the sci-fi series at all, so I don't know about those!

I believe the late John D. MacDonald once referred to it as the "look Ma, I'm writing!" syndrome.

[cabbageweevil]

Or -- the expression favoured by H.G. Wells's character Mr. Polly, with his talent for the creative mangling of the English language: "Sesquippledan verboojuice".

[Ms_Cellany]

I'm enough of a geek to immediately think, "Did he mean 'sesquipedalian' ?"

[violinp]

I'm enough of a geek to immediately think, "Did he mean 'sesquipedalian' ?"

It's not just me?

[Amanita]

Me too! I went and read "Eye of Argon". Laughed my butt off, then read the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 style commentary version and laughed even harder. The sad thing about it is that underneath all the overwrought prose, there's a decent story in there somewhere. I did have a few quibbles though- If the ruler of that land is such a vicious tyrant who kills anyone who opposes him, then why do peasants throw things at him when he's out in public, according to one of the characters in that story? Wouldn't he have his soldiers kill them? And at one point in the story, the main character gets into a scuffle in the throne  room, and the king's advisor takes what sounds like a serious wound. But later, we see the king and his advisor again, and the guy is just fine, no sign given of his earlier injury. Hello, continuity error!

[artk2002]

I think that the inclusion of different languages may, indeed, be a cultural thing rather than a showing off thing. There was a time when knowing a bit of Latin, French and German was par for the course, especially for educated people in Europe. You run into it all the time (especially French) if you read anything written before, say, 1930s-ish.

I agree, mostly based on the fact that Agatha Christie included a lot of (Belgian) French in her Poirot books (maybe others, I haven't read most of her stuff).  When I first tried reading those books as a kid, I had to give up - all the untranslated French threw me off.  Now I can at least guess at what he's saying in context and it's not typically germaine to the plot.

(I also think she's a bit overrated, but certainly not in the "worst" category!)

It is absolutely a cultural thing. Particularly in the Sayers stories. These are two people educated at Oxford and they would throw in comments in multiple languages as a matter of course.

There's a bit in a song by Gilbert and Sullivan poking fun at the inclusion of remarks in other languages ("Young Strephon is the kind of out" from Iolanthe.)

[Nika]

Stephen Donaldson is rather prone to this, at least in the Thomas Covenant series. The Mordant's Need books are better. I didn't get into the sci-fi series at all, so I don't know about those!

Ew, Thomas Covenant. My uncle gave me the first three a few years ago. Didn't take too long for me to toss the book away from me in disgust. Never even opened books two and three.

Anti-heroes can be interesting. I enjoy heroes who aren't always nice. But when your hero is so reprehensible that you want the bad guy to win since he couldn't possibly be as evil as the hero, then you have a problem.

[Elfmama]

Me too! I went and read "Eye of Argon". Laughed my butt off, then read the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 style commentary version and laughed even harder. The sad thing about it is that underneath all the overwrought prose, there's a decent story in there somewhere. I did have a few quibbles though- If the ruler of that land is such a vicious tyrant who kills anyone who opposes him, then why do peasants throw things at him when he's out in public, according to one of the characters in that story? Wouldn't he have his soldiers kill them? And at one point in the story, the main character gets into a scuffle in the throne  room, and the king's advisor takes what sounds like a serious wound. But later, we see the king and his advisor again, and the guy is just fine, no sign given of his earlier injury. Hello, continuity error!

Continuity errors, even major ones, can sneak into all sorts of writing.  I'm thinking about MZB's Two to Conquer.  In one scene, a man and a woman are cuddled up in bed; she is specifically described as sleeping with her head on his shoulder.  Another man enters the room; the first man wakes up, leaps out of bed, and has an entire conversation with the intruder before the woman wakes up.

I don't know about you, but if my shoulder-pillow jerks out from under me, I'm going to wake up immediately!

[cabbageweevil]

I'm enough of a geek to immediately think, "Did he mean 'sesquipedalian' ?"

It's not just me?

I take it, that's what Mr. Polly was trying to say -- his formal education had ended at an early age. Subsequently, he loved reading; but for trying to handle the reading matter that came his way, he was pretty much on his own.  He had a thing about botching words to end them in the "oose" sound; another nice one of his, was "eloquent rhapsodoose".

[Miss Misery]

The Beverly Hills Diet (1981) by Judy Mazel. Basically its Mazel's raging eating disorder trying to pass itself off as a diet. There were actually papers posted in medical journals about this book and one paper said it was the first time an eating disorder -- anorexia nervosa -- was marketed as a cure for obesity.