What's the worst book you've read (either recently or ever)? One that makes you wonder just what that publishing house was smoking when it gave money to the "writer" and wasted all that paper and ink on printing? I won't name the title, but the worst I've read in years was a Sci Fi book that committed almost every writing mistake I can think of, from technical points like screwing up the POV through gratuitous ego boosting of the author to being just plain boring. (Imagine a hard-science Sci Fi book without well-developed science and theories.) It starts off En Medias Res, then just as the reader starts to get interested in the character and wonders how he ended up in that predicament, the chapter ends. (Fair enough, build a little suspense.) The next chapter starts off with a 3 page "historical dissertation" on a random event that happened centuries ago just to show that the author had thought out the entire universe and its history, then the narrative flashes back to 10 years ago in the character's life, talking about a completely unrelated incident. (The incident never did directly tie in to the plot.) The entire book ends up being a series of "historical dissertations" from the last 800 centuries with random flashbacks of the main character's life, which I guess is supposed to give an idea of how the character ended up being such a boring jerk. Actually, everyone in that universe is a self-serving creep. (The 500-600 pages of background life story was completely unnecessary.) The only vaguely interesting character is a 60-70 year old pedaphile. (And the pedophilic aspect is not handled well at all! Grooming a 6 year old to be a decent concubine when she turns 13?!?) Throw in several passages where the author slams the 20th century Earth for being so backwards (the book takes place 800 centuries later - how many people would really remember what life was like back then?) and lots of snide remarks about Earth in general which seem to be designed to boost the author's ego because only he can see the greater truth and you've got an inkling of how dreadful the book is. Oh, and it's the length of an unedited Stephen King book, but with less color and description. BTW: Only about 50 pages in the entire book dealt with the actual plot of the book and how the character got into and out of the current predicament, not that the resolution was very clear, nor did it resolve very much.) I'm very tempted to put the book by my computer, so everytime I think I'm not good enough to get published, I can look at that piece of cardboard. If it can get published, anything can. So, what are your "pieces of inspiration?"