What is the book?

[Philliph]

With the most uneventful ending you have ever read?

For me it was every book in the Wind On Fire Trilogy.

...This isn't a hate thread or anything, i just want to know if they have anything in common so future authors who view this thread don't make the same mistakes.

But i cant remember the ending to those books. just that it was extremely anticlimactic.

This thread was inspired by the movie The Forbidden Warrior.

[Warden John Marcone]

Uneventful end?  HP 4&5

[Starbeam]

Uneventful end?  HP 4&5

I don't think I'd say they were really uneventful.  Not like some books.  The most anticlimactic and obvious book ending I've read in a long time has got to be Da Vinci Code.  The entire book tries to steer you away from the obvious, which is there almost instantly, and is just no surprise in any way when it's revealed.  The Inheritance books are pretty bad, too.  Especially if you've read LotR or seen Star Wars, you can pretty much guess what'll happen.  And know that it will also be deus ex machina.  Same with the end of the Terry Goodkind series.

[Aludra]

Every book I can think of that I've read had some kind of final climactic event, wether or not it was predictable.  Except maybe F Scott Fitzgerald's stuff.  He tends to have much more plod-along very realistic to life type stories with youthful vibrant people who become old and so un-noteworthy as to stop writing about their terrible lives.

Which isn't to say I don't like his books, because sometimes I just want a change of pace and I enjoy his writing.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Probably Caleb Carr's truly terrible Killing Time.

Spoilering this in case anyone cares:

(click to show/hide)

This book has a detective who is picked up by a femme fatale who turns out to be the sister of a brilliant Lex Luthor-type scientist in a rather nasty future world, who goes around setting up scientific hoaxes like planting human skeletens in hundred-million-year-old geological deposits (which for some unaccountable reason everyone believes) just in order to laugh at the people he fools, and waves off any suggestions that he might help with this nasty future world's growing  bunch of problems with "Oh, don't bother me now, one day i'll invent time travel and go back and fix it all".

And at the end; he does. Suddenly the world is nice. No explanation as to what it was the scientist did to fix it. Book over.

[Starbeam]

Probably Caleb Carr's truly terrible Killing Time.

Spoilering this in case anyone cares:

(click to show/hide)

This book has a detective who is picked up by a femme fatale who turns out to be the sister of a brilliant Lex Luthor-type scientist in a rather nasty future world, who goes around setting up scientific hoaxes like planting human skeletens in hundred-million-year-old geological deposits (which for some unaccountable reason everyone believes) just in order to laugh at the people he fools, and waves off any suggestions that he might help with this nasty future world's growing  bunch of problems with "Oh, don't bother me now, one day i'll invent time travel and go back and fix it all".

And at the end; he does. Suddenly the world is nice. No explanation as to what it was the scientist did to fix it. Book over.

Wow.  That sounds like it's so bad I almost want to read it.

[Warden John Marcone]

...

there are books that bad?

[Aludra]

Probably Caleb Carr's truly terrible Killing Time.

Spoilering this in case anyone cares:

(click to show/hide)

This book has a detective who is picked up by a femme fatale who turns out to be the sister of a brilliant Lex Luthor-type scientist in a rather nasty future world, who goes around setting up scientific hoaxes like planting human skeletens in hundred-million-year-old geological deposits (which for some unaccountable reason everyone believes) just in order to laugh at the people he fools, and waves off any suggestions that he might help with this nasty future world's growing  bunch of problems with "Oh, don't bother me now, one day i'll invent time travel and go back and fix it all".

And at the end; he does. Suddenly the world is nice. No explanation as to what it was the scientist did to fix it. Book over.

To be honest, I don't really see the difference between the type of ending you described and the ending of The Giver.  There's no explanation in that either it just all goes blank.  So would you say The Giver also lacks a climactic ending?

[Starbeam]

...

there are books that bad?

Quite a few, and sometimes by pretty good authors.  Like Cujo by Stephen King.  Dunno bout anyone else, but I thought both the book and movie were absolutely horrible.  King himself loves them both, and in On Writing even said he wished he could remember writing it cause it must've been a fun ride.

[Warden John Marcone]

Quite a few, and sometimes by pretty good authors.  Like Cujo by Stephen King.  Dunno bout anyone else, but I thought both the book and movie were absolutely horrible.  King himself loves them both, and in On Writing even said he wished he could remember writing it cause it must've been a fun ride.

I thought Cujo was pretty cool.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

To be honest, I don't really see the difference between the type of ending you described and the ending of The Giver.  There's no explanation in that either it just all goes blank.  So would you say The Giver also lacks a climactic ending?

I'm not familiar with it, I'm afraid.

I've thought of another one, though; Robert Gleason's Wrath of God.

(click to show/hide)

The author of this one was clearly very impressed with having an incredibly tough granny, or maybe elderly aunt, as a small child, because the book is basically post-holocaust My Incredibly Tough Granny vs. Tamurlaine's Hordes.

The Incredibly Tough Granny, with the help of a friendly Native American shaman working Native American magic on the former site of a Superconducting SuperCollider, summons three heroes from the past to help her fight the hordes; Stonewall Jackson, George S. Patton, and Amelia Earhart.  (Also a carnivorous Triceratops egg which is hatched by her pet bald eagle.)

Two of these heroes are going to go back at the end of the book and one is going to stay in the future.  Now, just how much tension do you think there is going to be in guessing which ?

(click to show/hide)

[Aludra]

I'm not familiar with it, I'm afraid.

I've thought of another one, though; Robert Gleason's Wrath of God.

(click to show/hide)

The author of this one was clearly very impressed with having an incredibly tough granny, or maybe elderly aunt, as a small child, because the book is basically post-holocaust My Incredibly Tough Granny vs. Tamurlaine's Hordes.

The Incredibly Tough Granny, with the help of a friendly Native American shaman working Native American magic on the former site of a Superconducting SuperCollider, summons three heroes from the past to help her fight the hordes; Stonewall Jackson, George S. Patton, and Amelia Earhart.  (Also a carnivorous Triceratops egg which is hatched by her pet bald eagle.)

Two of these heroes are going to go back at the end of the book and one is going to stay in the future.  Now, just how much tension do you think there is going to be in guessing which ?

(click to show/hide)

The Giver is an award winning children's book.  It's only like 90 pages or so.  Definitely worth the hour to 2 hours it'll take to read it.

[Starbeam]

I'm not familiar with it, I'm afraid.

I've thought of another one, though; Robert Gleason's Wrath of God.

(click to show/hide)

The author of this one was clearly very impressed with having an incredibly tough granny, or maybe elderly aunt, as a small child, because the book is basically post-holocaust My Incredibly Tough Granny vs. Tamurlaine's Hordes.

The Incredibly Tough Granny, with the help of a friendly Native American shaman working Native American magic on the former site of a Superconducting SuperCollider, summons three heroes from the past to help her fight the hordes; Stonewall Jackson, George S. Patton, and Amelia Earhart.  (Also a carnivorous Triceratops egg which is hatched by her pet bald eagle.)

Two of these heroes are going to go back at the end of the book and one is going to stay in the future.  Now, just how much tension do you think there is going to be in guessing which ?

(click to show/hide)

Holy cow.  I'm trying my hardest not to laugh out loud cause this office is silent.  But that's just...wow.

I thought Cujo was pretty cool.

I was about 13 when I read it.  Mother and kid stuck in a car cause of a rabid dog just didn't seem all that scary.  And the movie was one of 2 I can remember turning off and never finishing cause it was so boring.  The other was around the same time, Nightmare on Elm Street 6.

[LizW65]

Several of PN Elrod's Vampire Files novels have very abrupt endings, but I wouldn't consider them anticlimactic.  I can't honestly think of anything I've read recently that fits that description.

[meg_evonne]

Probably Caleb Carr's truly terrible Killing Time.

Spoilering this in case anyone cares:

(click to show/hide)

This book has a detective who is picked up by a femme fatale who turns out to be the sister of a brilliant Lex Luthor-type scientist in a rather nasty future world, who goes around setting up scientific hoaxes like planting human skeletens in hundred-million-year-old geological deposits (which for some unaccountable reason everyone believes) just in order to laugh at the people he fools, and waves off any suggestions that he might help with this nasty future world's growing  bunch of problems with "Oh, don't bother me now, one day i'll invent time travel and go back and fix it all".

And at the end; he does. Suddenly the world is nice. No explanation as to what it was the scientist did to fix it. Book over.

Well, that's one way to settle your absolute last time to provide to the publisher.  LOL