Crappy Endings

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Just finished The Diamond Age, and I must say, the ending was really non-concluding. Did anything meaningful actually happen in the end, or was the whole book a waffle towards nothing in particular? I hate books that leave things up to the reader's interpretation, a solid conclusion is usually the best part of a book.

Comments? Rants? Examples?

 

I remember reading The Still by David Feintuch. It took me a while to get into it, but I did. The book was going really well, but the ending was dire. I couldn't believe it. I'm with you in thet, if you dont conclude a story well, then you've wasted the potential gained from the build up, and let down all the readers. I hate crappy endings.

 

Bram Stoker's Dracula. A fricking HUGE disappointment after all that thought-play; I had expected some grand final, but instead it was flat as a pancake.

My site has a small review about it, though.

 

Alistair Reynolds "Absolution Gap" had the worst ending in the history of worst endings bar none.

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Five pages from the end, the entire human race is facing anhilation at the hand of the Inhibitors with no hope of survival. Five pages later the Inhibitors have been defeated and the entire defeat of them is crammed into a few hundred words told in flashback.

Bloody awful.

 

The Elder Gods: Book One of the Dreamers by David Eddings and Leigh Eddings. The end makes everything that happened before that pointless. Mind you, the rest of the book isn't all that good either but the ending is idiotic beyond belief.

Spoiler: O.K. so we have the good army and the evil army setting up to fight, they have the first two engagements - the bad guys have managed to outsmart the good guys and have them trapped - and then one of the good gods causes a volcano to erupt and instantly wipe out the entire evil army? Good grief, the entire book to that point has been about the good gods building an army and then it is resolved by a VOLCANO?

 

How about the Serpent war saga by Raymond E. Feist. One of the biggest litterary disapointment for me.
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So he uses 3 books to set up this large scale invasion of Midkemia by the bad guys. The end is coming and the bad guys are marching on the city of krondor, where the good guys are hoping to hold them off. I'm sensing a really great battle....a worthy climax to 4 books. No. Instead a magician turns up, waves his hands and makes it all better. WTF! Call THAT an ending?

 

@Takara - Actually, I don't feel that ending was so bad, because a lot of battles come in between, but it have been a while, so I cannot really recall the ending.

IMHO, the book with the worst ending the 'the Bible,' I mean, everyone dies, and some who dies, returns to live in a golden city. What the heck is that?
j/k

Actually, that book is my favourite book in the Bible, great material to use in a PnP campaign.

 

@ Takara
Actually, I liked the ending of the Serpent War Saga... I thought the entire series of books had built up to exactly a thing like that...

@ Wirhe
Same thing there... It was, IMO, very much in keeping with the feeling of the rest of the book.

I had some troubles with the end of the Coldfire Trilogy by CS Friedman. I found it rather, I don't know... Wrong.

 

Any Harry Potter book, Although considering the fact I hate HP that's not saying much. And also I know the Matrix: Revolutions doesn't count as a book but if it was then it would be absolute $***, and seeing as the special effects were the only good thing about the movie then I can only imagine that a book would be far worse.

 

Foundation and Earth : the last part in the extended Foundation series by Issac Asimov.

Spoiler:
To think that the fate of humanity is to divest itself of individualism and all become one big inter-connected mess. urk ........

 

@ Lontryuin

Yea; the whole book was flat. Doubt I read ever again, being still too disgusted how it ended; staking them all without trouble. "The Mighty Lord of Evil" and his "Three Powerful Vampires" -all them done for during about 10 pages and then a regular "Bless Us God, Amen." Imagine, when they had spend about 300 pages just speculating how "strong" he is and what they should do.

What a waste of time, that book.

 

Any of Terry Brooks' Shannara books. They all end the same way with the dark lord's evil plans being thwarted at the last minute by some small and unlikely hero, thus preventing the world being covered by endless darkness.

 

I really didn't think that Dracula's ending was all that bad. It wasn't a book made up of great climatic battles, though I guess one at the end wouldn't have been a negative thing.
Anyhow, I quite liked it...

 

Rainbow six, the only Tom Clancy novel i ever read. the story is decent and i like the idea of an international terror fighting organization, but through the whole novel, I think you get the idea that the members of rainbow six are good law abiding people and that these guys are good. but in the end, they put them self above the law and acts as both judge, jury and executioner. I hated that ending, because ad that point, they where not better than the terrorists in my eyes.

 

"Neanderthal" by John Darnton. What a useless and disappointing ending. It's always dodgy and lazy when a deus ex machina character shows up and saves the day.