THE SEA TYRANT

My coworkers have now learned that if I am presented with a horrible book... I will indeed read it. I owe this one to the flea market divings of one such person, who apparently claim it was inspired with http://www.seacaptaindate.com/. Usually romances are sucker punches because the ratio of bad-cover-to-bad-book is freakishly high, but this really presented a special challenge.

The Sea Tyrant by Peter Freuchen

Okay, seriously. The first thing I saw was Captain Haddock beating the crap out of TinTin. And a woman in a fur rug begging for mercy... and love, I guess. That's what the tag line says. So that's my guess: vintage pulp smut of Captain Haddock beating TinTin and refusing beautiful damsels his affections.

What I Got:

... I learned something from this book. If you are a Captain on a whaling ship, your job was to punch everyone in the face. Everyone.

Your sailing recruiter? Beat him and throw him below decks to die.

Your new, eager sailing recruits? Rumble with all of them and nearly kill one with a chair.

Someone offer you tea? Call them a wimp and punch them.

The native woman you're trying to rape not complying? Beat the everliving hell out of that wench with a knotted rope.

Your crew worried about the storm? Hit them until they are unfit for duty.

Have a bad dream? Wake up and punch everyone in arm's reach.

The mail boy not have a letter from your wife? Push him to the floor.

Mutiny? Not when you can punch your whole crew into submission!

Someone took your goddamn chair? Elbow them down.

That woman who removed all her cloths and draped herself on your bed? I don't think so, you hussy- I'm not that kind of man. I'm noble, so I'm going to beat you out of my cabin and leave you naked and bleeding on the deck.

That stupid crewmember who ran you too close to the reef? Punch him into the effing ocean.

Cover Execution:

9/10

Captain Haddock is, indeed, a dick. +9

Not actually a romance novel, but a violent, angry adventure with an unsympathetic hero and a lot of blubber. - 1

PS: The weirdest thing about this book is it was written by the author as based on his experiences on a whaling ship. I'm never getting near a whaling ship. Ever.

THE CAT'S FANCY

Well. You know what they say... third time's the charm?

The Cat's Fancy by Gwynn E. Ambrose

Expectations:

You know, I'm not even sure anymore. The last two guesses were so far off, I'm actually afraid to presume this book could be as normal as I suspect it will be. A) Written by some crazy cat lady. B) Probably a romance C) Bad. I could make wild speculation as to this cat actually being a demon or this cat transforming into a handsome, droll gentleman to woo unknowing human ladies but I'm keeping this simple. A, B, C will be true.

Please, God. Let that be all.

What I Got:

A, B, and C completely true. What's more offensive, the book was actually... boring. Boringly bad. Clever cat sees his lady-keeper lonely and unloved and starts orchestrating an inter-apartment romance with a single hot guy. With excruciating points of the cat-lady baby talking at the cat and painting through the misery of her singleness. When I'm reading a Cat Fancy book and actually wishing for magical hi-jinks or at least a laughable sex scene- you know it's dull times.

Cover Execution:

2/10

This cover tells me nothing other than there's probably a cat in this book. And someone crazy who uses pink leopard-print pattern. Maybe Snooki wrote it.

THE LAST STAND OF THE DNA COWBOYS

Some co-workers of mine purchased this book for me to add to my Horrible Reading List. (Either as a kindness or in effort to incite pain, most likely the latter). At first glance, I wasn't to horrified, really the art is reasonable - but perhaps a bit... ludicrous. Let's see.

The Last Stand of The DNA Cowboys by Mick Farren

Expectations:

Space cowboys, and some kind of bard...and a lady. They ride lizards on faraway planets, and are visiting a lovely futuristic city. Probably to cause a ruckus. That's what cowboys do. In ... space.

What I Got:

Exactly what I was expecting, and SO MUCH MORE. The plot feels like the author NEEDED, with a sense of desperate abandon, to cram as much "cool shit" into this book as possible. There's the space mercenary cowboy with blasters...SEX.. the space minstrel cowboy with a space guitar...SEX... the space "religious" type cowboy...SEX ... and a loose woman who proceeds to sleep with all of them THREESOMES. The space mercenary army of men and mutants. RAPE The religious group. TANTRIC SEX ... The space scientists. TIGHT SPANDEX The crystal city. HOOKERS. Cloning people TO BE SEX SLAVES. Luckily most of the capslock topics happen in an offscreen or non-descriptive manner. It just felt like it was written by a guy doing drugs and writing for an audience of pubescent males. Oh, also there's some kind of great psychic void eating the world and at the end, everyone dies. Sorry, spoilers.

Cover Execution:

9.5/10

Seriously, this is pretty much a scene from the book rendered exactly. The only thing that keeps it from being a 10/10 is there's no way to imply SEX is happening offscreen somehow. Could have also used some lasers.

PS: Also-

Butterfly women.

Orgies.

Cyborgs having some kind of plug-in sex.

Space truckers.

Ninjas.

Midget assassins.

Drugs.

DNA Mutants.

Dimensional travel.

Tanks.

Getting drunk all the time.

Complete lack of plot direction or character arc resolution.

oh and,

Apocalypse of the Universe.

I WISH I KNEW GERMAN pt2

Seriously.

SPAWN (God Dammit)

Clearly the last baby book wasn't frightening enough. I was prepared to tackle a more terrifying baby book. This wretched paperback beat me once before... (I was too fearful of the cover. LOOK AT IT), so I dug it out of my "horrible book box" and decided to man up and try and read SPAWN (again).

SPAWN by Shaun Hutson

Expectations:
Super mutant evil huge babies. That capture men and put them in jars, who scream in terror for escape- knowing the lopsided baby has nefarious, evil plans for it. LET'S DO THIS, HORRIBLE BOOK. BRING IT ON.

What I got:
God dammit. Again. This time I got through a few chapters; and as soon as the main character, weeping fearful tears- suckles a reanimated fetus by cutting his nipple... I just lost it. There's only so much "burying dead babies in a field and Frankenstein-ing them to life and cuddling them" I can take before my nerves shatter, and I am overwhelmed in disgust and horror.

Cover Execution:
??/10
If, indeed, later in the book the undead babies grow huge and capture men in jars- this could be spot on. I will never know. This time I threw the book in the garbage- to rid myself of it forever. Babies prove themselves yet again to be my greatest fear, and I cannot face them. In time, perhaps I will overcome their paralyzing goos and gaas, flailing tiny limbs and need for suckling human fluids... but not today.

WHEN HARLIE WAS ONE

So, it was time to stop reading any book that claimed to have anything to do with cats. Now was the time to tackle literary BABIES; probably my least favorite thing other than perhaps, literary monkeys. This hideous cover delight was a birthday present- so I felt compelled to read it. Steeling myself for the worst, I entered baby HARLIE's world.

When HARLIE Was One by David Gerrold

Expectations:
I first assumed this was a book about quilting and babies. Then I realized this was one of those covers from the 1970s when pastel bookcovers with earth-tone pattern were totally groovy... and that was actually some kind of representation of a chip board. This made me feel better, because robot babies aren't actually babies and aren't as scary. They tend to be particularly intelligent and usually turn on their human creators. Unless they also look like babies and then they are even more terrifying. This book must be about a rampaging killer cyborg baby! Oh God what have I done?!

What I got:
Oh. Well. Firstly, HARLIE is not actually one. It's more like ... 8 in developmental years. So, not a baby. Also, a supercomputer that takes up a whole room. So, it clearly isn't a baby. Whew. The plot revolves around a painfully reserved scientist having very long, very deep conversations with a computer, who is mastering the process of being "human". HARLIE the computer spends about a chapter discussing love, another discussing rationality, and a few more discussing morality. The best part is when the computer learns to get high by dumping its memory with artistic and irrational logic and starts spouting poetry. I'm actually going to say the book was a bit tedious, but interesting. If you like having conversations with computers all in CAPS LOCK. BECAUSE HARLIE TALKS IN CAPS LOCK.

Cover Execution:
1/10
Seriously? There were no babies, and you can't tell me that pattern looks a thing like a circuit board. No babies at all. And the book was far from horrible. I escape this adventure relatively unscathed.

I WISH I KNEW GERMAN

So I could read these books.