Book Rip-Off's

Book Rip-Off's

spookyboo's picture

We all talk about movies that we wished we didn't watch.  What about books that you wished you never bought?  Any thoughts on this?  If there are bad books under good named authors or publishing companies, I think it's something worth discussing.  Yes, everyone has different tastes but did you ever shell out a bunch of cash thinking something was going to be an awesome novel and it just turns out to be shit?  I'm sure I'm not the only one who has run into this dilemna.

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zombie_man's picture

Stephen King's The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordan. I can't beleive they call that shit horror. I love Kings work, but this one is, eeehhhh. Ok girl stays back on hike, girl gets lost, girl saw a cow and though it was a monster, girl was found, THE END

DoctorWest's picture

The Necronomicon Grimoire by Donald Tyson is bullshit.  Had great reviews but no substance.  I could've made up a better book.  Anything that comes from as a publishing company, stay away from.  They have no editors.  There is an author called Kuriakos who's writing is truly shit.  Half of the pages are always blank and what he writes he writes in a weekend and then does the self publishing thing to scam people.

spookyboo's picture


RIP OFF:                                                                                    BETTER CHOICE:Satanism For Dummies                   World Domination For Dummies

dmon_man's picture

Sorry King fans. I have enjoyed plenty of King novels but Tommyknockers was far and away the worst I believe he's written.

Edit: I also bought some Splatterpunk novels by Carlton Mellick III. They're touted on Amazon as being the new wave of horror and totally disgusting. I read them a few years back and found them pedestrian. Yes, they went above and beyond with sex and violence but that still needs to lead somewhere.

However, I kept them and it's odd for me to keep a book I don't really enjoy. I've actually been thinking about giving them a reread so look for the reviews soon as they're pretty short little books.

littleboo's picture

Well I've bought a movie that I thought was going to be cool but turned out to be shit. Flesh Tx's was a horrible movie. I love King's work as well but found one story such a drag I could not finish it. Sorry I forgot the name of that story since its been awhile.

spookyboo's picture

I know I mentioned this one before, but I can't find my original post.  I've been doing a bit of book research here and there and thought I'd mention the warning again.

Awhile back I had the curious displeasure of running into a book called "The Necronomicon Ritual Book" by an author who's pen-name is Kuriakos.  Don't buy this book.  Half of the pages are blank, there are no sigils, each page had about two sentences on it (aside from the half empty pages that were left in good will for the reader to fill in, seriously that was stated).  This is just one of many books that this author has made in a weekend for a scam, honing in on more famous titles. He's got tons of books out and after seeing this, I thought I'd warn people about purchasing anything by that author.  Your just going to have to eat the shipping to send the stuff back.  The product description is the only content that has more then a paragraph of writing. self publishing is notorious for letting this sort of stuff fly and apparently as long as the self-publishing site provides the author with an ISBN#, the book is advertised all over.  Even at barnes and nobles.  Self publishing sites to not require and editor etc, so anyone can publish anything.


Book #2 to avoid would be Donald Tyson's "Necronomicon Grimoire."  Many people have given it good reviews and yes Tyson admits his book is not based on actual texts or anything but it's supposed to follow the H.P. Lovecraft Cthulhu Mythos and Simons book and it really doesn't.  It's more of a call for Esoteric Order assembly, which is not bad in and of itself, but it's more of a goth following fad book.  It doesn't follow the mythos, names and sigils for the most part are entirely made up save for a couple popular Ancient One mentions.  The book was ok until about half way through when I realized there really wasn't any spells that follow the right format or any believable format for that matter.  I do give Tyson a degree of leniency though for trying to explain some things and pay tribute to H.P. Lovecraft, but he really fell short in the work as a whole.

It might be an ok read for someone that just really loves the genre and all works relating to the topic but if your very picky and expect quality, then skip this one.  He's got another book called "The Wanderings Of  Alhazred" and that has great reviews.  It's a collection of fictionalized storys and might be better, but I can't recommend it as I am not satisfied at the moment overall with the author's writing style but this second book might be ok if you like easy to read fiction.  I'm open to hear other reviews if you've bought "The Wanderings Of Alhazred."  But, I so did love H.P. Lovecraft that a lot of authors even trying to do their best tributary work, have not satisfied me in form or style.

Again, I really can't judge "The Wanderings Of Alhazred" because I did not read that book.  It might be pretty good for most people's standards.  But, "The Necronomicon Grimoire" by Tyson doesn't appear to have what it takes for the serious occultist nor the picky ones and I did read through that text.

spookyboo's picture

Sorry West, did not see your comment at first.  Even though the Tyson book wasn't that good, it actually got published through a real legitimate publishing company. Surprise!?!

Kuriakos books are the ones coming from self-publishing and I think booksurge as well.

spookyboo's picture

Well, not exactly a rip-off but more of a misguided adventure.  Anyone looking for The Liber Logaeth (also spelled Loagaeth), may find themselves very confused.  This book is also called The Book Of Enoch, Mysterioum Liber Sextus Et Sanctus, John Dee's 5 Books Of Mystery, Al Azif and Mysteriorum Liber. Although all claim to be the Liber Logaeth, most are not related in material or contents.

One search will lead you to a writing called Al Azif by Sprague De Camp and is also "supposed to be" not only The Book of Enoch but also yet another version of The Necronomicon from the 70's.  It has little to do with the Enochian writings though. Probably nothing to do with the bible.  I'll be looking over the best part of a sample tomorrow but the rest of the book has gotten extremely mixed reviews saying that the only part in english is what is available from free downloads.  No organization what so ever. Only 18 pages repeated throughout the text that are in English.

If you look at John Dee's 5 diff. series of books called "Mysteriorum Liber" you'll find that it has nothing to do with The Necronomicon and it probably also has little to do with Enoch in the biblical sense.  Apparently Dee made communication with some spacey shit from The Chaledeans (sp?) or so he always thought and complete nonsense was dictated to him. 

Anyhow, most of Dee's writings that can be found that make ANY sense at all, are only texts that have been quoted and heavily edited.  If you have the unfortunate luck to find his original texts, I can almost guarantee that there will be no table of contents, no chapter headings, little to no explainations and the book will be in some entirely made up language that nobody understands.  The vowels usually rhym though. Better works straight from Dee himself are mostly out of print, but there are plenty of spin-off books based on his "revelations" that are in plain English from other authors.  By the way, John Dee did speak English.

There are many diff. copies of The Book Of Enoch from other authors. Several of those books do not have relating material.  Many will tell you that the single "Book Of Enoch" is just one of 5 books that were translated.  They do not provide you the other titles or authors with which to follow up on.

Probably if your looking for the true combination of Dee's work and The Book Of Enoch, you'd have to buy something from Joseph Peterson who has done many translations in his day.  He has Dee's work combined in a text called "The 5 Books Of Mystery" and supposedly that was translated from Dee's scribbles of The Liber Logaeth at the British Museaum.  I've seen some of Petersons work on other books and he did a good job but not sure what to think about this most recent contribution.  The material doesn't seem so interesting or believable.

If someone gets lucky and finds a true and decent copy of The Book Of Enoch, please tell me the author and publisher's name.  Hopefully we'd be able to see in the preface wether or not this is just one book of many off shoots or a better version that has combined all this shit, like Peterson's book.

The R'lyeh Text also preaches to be a missing part of both the Necronomicon and The Book Of Enoch (liber logaeth).  Nothing in it has to do with the bible, that I can see.  I guess the same rules apply to this text.  Mostly historical forward and only about six spells that require unobtainable items in a language that doesn't follow the Syriac or Cutha liguistics.  The language appears to be made up. 

It doesn't really follow the same train of thought as The Cthulhu Mythos or bible analogies, often speaking of spirits and sigils that cannot be found.  I won't demonize this text because I did not read the whole thing, but did sample the meat of why people buy it; in a few pages (the main 25+) and was not impressed.  That book was published by authors Robert Turner and George Hay.

  Hay has another book out that has gotten good reviews though and have noticed that those not liking The R'lyeh Text, did enjoy his other works.  So I guess at least someone made an effort in prolonging the folklore and history of those lost documents. Many of Hay's other works might have the potential for a good read.

spookyboo's picture

Just so I didn't confuse any biblical scholars, there is a Book Of Enoch that is a Hebrew translation that has nothing to do with John Dee or The Liber Logaeth.  The hebrew Book Of Enoch I guess is ranked right up there with The Torah in religious material.  So anyone in possession of that text please let me know what version you have and how thourough it is.

Buffyhotep's picture

Stephen Kings the Tommyknockers! blah what tripe! yackers


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