The Worst Book I Have Ever Read – Temple, by Matthew Reilly
By meatbagwtf • Jan 22nd, 2009 at 10:25 am • Category: Literature| Hot: |  |  | | | |
Reposted from my shelfari.com account with a few tweaks.
By writing this review, I hope to begin healing the psychological scars dealt by this atrocious book. I also hope to provide a cautionary anecdote for anyone contemplating a purchase of this item.
This is easily the worst book I have ever read in a lifetime of reading, head and shoulders below even the most mawkish of sci-fi television spinoff fiction. The plot is painfully ludicrous, involving giant mutant panthers in an ancient ruin. This story is vaguely reminiscent of Michael Crichton’s Congo, except that Congo, for all its embarrassing faults and delusions of cinematic grandeur, is still much better than this abomination. The characters are one-dimensional singularities from which no plausible humanity can be evinced. The action is told, not shown, in a manner similar to that of an overexcited, mildly autistic 8-year-old describing combat between two Pokemon, except that, unlike our 8-year-old, Matthew Reilly manages to make his laborious description of implausible activity sound both dispassionate and disingenuous. The implausible pacing and tiresome plot twists ensure that Temple
I am concerned because this book is so bad that it might singlehandedly skew the entire scale of quality by which all books are judged. The resulting fallout from this phenomenon could make The Celestine Prophecy
Some people feel this has already happened. If so, regardless of whether Matthew Reilly caused a wholesale epidemic of mass stupidity or merely contributed to it (I smell a future series on “amazingly stupid yet universally well-respected books”), he is certainly not helping the situation. Like a back-alley ecstasy dealer, Mr. Reilly makes his living by stupefying large segments of the general population. This raises some disquieting social and political questions, and makes one question whether, in some cases, modern civilized nations ought to reinstate certain archaic censorship laws. Please, think of the children!
In summary, this book is a nightmarish abomination, and should be destroyed for the good of humanity. It is the literary equivalent of Nickelback, or New England Coffee. This book eschews the comparatively ambitious goal of mediocrity, opting instead to wallow in soul-destroying awfulness.
Avoid this book at all costs, by any means necessary.
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You my friend contradict yourself with everything you had said. For god sakes you don’t even know the authors name. IT’S MATTHEW REILLY. Not Micheal Reilly. I seriously doubt you have read the whole book and if you despised it that much you would not have read it at all.
Splendid troll! Welcome my good sir!
Thank you for your correction. I shall update the post momentarily. As for the error which you have identified, I can only say that mistakes are inevitable when one drinks to the point of complete and utter insensibility and then posts on the Internet.
Your accusation that I have not read this book is, however, quite false. A few years back I found myself in a sticky situation. Due to circumstances which will no doubt bore you, I found myself alone, deliberately isolated from my so-called friends, in a small room with only a crate of awful paperback novels to soothe my overwrought CNS. Since I had to choose- either read these mass-market paperbacks or watch the Spanish TV channel (your humble correspondent knows little of the Spanish language but at that time found himself entranced by certain breathtakingly attractive women, enthusiastically participating in what I assume was either an all-day game show or some kind of South American Laugh-In), and since Robot Wars wasn’t on yet (Craig Charles rules), I began to read. There were 30 or so paperbacks and Matthew Reilly’s Temple was head and shoulders below the rest. It even trumped Kiss of the Bees by J. A. Jance, which is a notable piece of awful suspense fiction in its own right. I read each of these books cover to cover. I tried to stop, but when I did, I was alone with some grim thoughts, and the novelty of the Spanish channel began to wear thin. So I would resume reading. At length I emerged, battered but still breathing. Occasionally I still have post-traumatic flashbacks, but I have blocked out much of this. For instance, I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, screaming, half-remembering a painfully-belabored action sequence which may have involved the main characters adroitly leapfrogging an oncoming helicopter in some manner of speedboat. Invariably, the details always escape me, melting away like morning dewdrops soon after waking. The doctors say I’ve made progress.
So, Temple is without doubt the single worst book I have actually read. However, the award for worst book that I have not actually read goes to Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton, for The Last Days of Pompeii. Though fashionable, it seems hardly fair to posthumously deride an author who was merely writing in the style popular during his day, but honestly, I could only stomach a few pages of the stuff. If I was trapped in an empty room in an isolated location, I would consider giving him another try, but only if other options were exhausted.
I really ought to preface this by saying that these books are fiction. Potential future posts about bad non-fiction/reference/inspirational/business/self-help books really ought to wait until the publication of Kanye West’s upcoming book. Penned by an avowed “non-reader of books” and reportedly containing short aphorisms separated by blank pages, I predict Mr. West’s literary debut will revitalize the book publishing industry in the same manner that “Manos” – Hands of Fate breathed life into the nascent El Paso, Texas independent film scene during the late 1960s. This is unsettling, as I’ve always had respect for Kanye, but if he ever asks me, I would suggest that he stick to his true métier.
Anyways, thanks for your contribution. I look forward to scrolling past your comment the next time someone links me to digg :)
Yours, &ct.,
Meatbag
Sir I find this illegible chunk of text to be shocking. In fact it is shocking and appalling! To think that such mess of unreadable scroll would ever be uploaded to the Internet. As any writer will tell you penmanship is a must in all endeavors of the art. Did you suddenly have a spasm of the wrists whilst writing this wreview? (If that is what I may be perceive from context to be accurate). And First of all I’d very much like to address the intelligent and supremely elegant fellow who commented first, I admire you commitment and patience to try and decipher this terrible and script to find it full of perceivable wrong things that I must agree quite insults our delicate intelligence. His poor handwriting was far too much for me as I previously stated and I feel as if you must of felt the same. It is as if we are working on the same brain pattern my friend, in fact perhaps we were made for each other. Might I interest you in some wine perhaps some succulent butt sects? a/s/l plz
HAHAHAHA!! Dude, I miss you.
“meatbagwtf” – precisely what one would say while pointing at your cranium, with some punctuation to go with it.
Now Sid, that’s hardly an insult as it barely makes any sense. Next time, if you can’t come up with a convincing argument as to why you dislike the author or his opinion, just keep it simple and just call him a fag or something.
Reilly’s novels are indeed fairly ridiculous in plot and truly terribly written, but I do find some of their qualities redeeming. He never fails to invent excitingly outlandish settings and there is rarely a dull moment. In a word, they tend to be fun – much more than can be said for The Lost Symbol, which bored and irritated me like nothing ever has before.
thats all bullS#@t.If matthew reilleys books were so crap then how did his newest book get best of the year, you nagging fag.
My word, this guy is a joke. OK maybe you read a book and you dont like it! Why not just say that? Instead of all the drivel that had to be spouted! My god he must love the sound of his fingers hitting the keyboard.
meatbagwtf – if these books were free and you had the choice of thirty, why did you carry on reading it? Surely there was a dictionary you could have read instead?
If i buy a book and i dont like it, ill offer it to my family and friend members and if they wont have it i give it to charity. So, if i had found a book and i didn’t like how it was written id put it straight back into the box!!!!
Dont sit here trying to convince us that your opinion is anything but trash.
I have to agree with the writer, reilly’s (yes for all you cretins out there that believe reilly can write, I deliberately chose lower case for it’s name) books are marketed at adults but they are so juvenile in execution that you can’t help but think they are written for kids
I started reading the Temple the other night as my well meaning (and Australian) wife picked it up for me. This is my first Reilly book — and I was a bit concerned with the direction it was going. I had assumed that since Reilly sells a lot of books that he must be a good writer. Silly me!
I don’t know if this is the worst book I’ve read — but it definitely ranks with up high on the list of the worst books I stopped reading because it was painful.
I note that Matthew was 23 when he wrote it — and I assumed that the poor, ‘on the nose’ style was due to his youth and inexperience. However, after reading of 1) a bullet that hits a rope holding a stone that will seal a chamber when it falls, b) a spiked helmet spun like a frisbee across the ground to stop the stone from closing, c) once the hero slides under the stone he merely kicks the helmet out of the way and the heavy stone slams shut, 4) a cannon fuse lit by a flaming arrow (on purpose), 5) an arrow with a rope attached shot into a wall hard enough that 6) the hero can slide across the courtyard on a belt thrown over the rope while 7) he fires a pistol at the bad guys finally 8) landing on a horse behind the monk ready for the getaway. All in about 10 or so pages.
I assume Matthew’s target audience must be about 8 years old. The funny thing is that if this were an Errol Flynn movie (or Indiana Jones) it would work — however as a book (at least for me) it doesn’t — at all.
I think I will throw this book away rather than sell it on at the used bookshop — just doing my part.
Hmm — another search I initiated took me to the Facebook group “The First Matthew Reilly book you read and why.”
There are many fans there — mostly young (under 20′s it appears) — so I guess that makes sense. I hope they graduate to better books and don’t get hung up on MR’s books. From all evidence the rest of his writing is consistent with that found in the Temple.
Not for me Matthew.
Hey buddy, you are a super massive FAGGOT. Matthew Reilly not michael, is a great author. So pull your head out of your arse and delete these comments!
Sometimes I think that Matthew Reilly himself pops in here once in a while with pseudonyms to use the word fag and demand some kind of unnecessary justice be levied against this criticism.
…Omg…LOL this is the funniest thing I’ve read since the ‘rock, paper, scissors’ debate, (I know, rock, paper, scissors? wtf?). Anyway I don’t think the book was as bad as you make it out to be, sure there are some points *cough-the-whole-book-cough* where he gets a little too excited with the drama and action and the “Oh my gosh it’s a mutated panther/crocodile!” but on a whole I found it an enjoyable read.
I think everyone has their own preferences and if you didn’t find it enjoyable, that’s fine, half a million other people would agree with you on that, but don’t kill it for everyone else who likes the book. It’s understood that there are many who don’t like Matthew Reilly’s books and that’s fine, but by posting this up you’re just creating some unwanted tension, people have there own preferences, if people like reading something like “an overexcited, mildly autistic 8-year-old describing combat between two Pokemon” then who’s to say they can’t. Thing is, no matter what you do there is going to be different ideas out there that will clash with your own of what is good/bad, right/wrong, logical/illogical or what is stupid or not. What I’m getting at here is that, like what you like, hate what you hate, but at least try to see the situation of others’ eyes because if you keep doing what you’re doing nothing will get resolved.
Anyway thanks for the entertainment,
Bye X3
Shika XD
P.s. people who were curious about the “Rock, paper, scissors” debate here it is>>>>
“I understand that Scissors can beat Paper, and I get how Rock can beat Scissors, but there’s no fucking way Paper can beat Rock. Paper is supposed to magically wrap around Rock leaving it immobile? Why the hell can’t paper do this to scissors? Screw scissors, why can’t paper do this to people? Why isn’t notebook paper constantly suffocating students while they take notes in class? I’ll tell you why: because paper can’t beat anybody; a rock would tear that shit up in two seconds. When I play rock, paper, scissors, I always choose rock. Then when somebody claims to beat me with their paper I can punch them in the face with my already clenched fist and say, ‘Oh shit, I’m sorry. I thought paper would protect you!’”
Lol it still cracks me up XD
you are a punk matthew reilly is the best auther ever