Bad books, bad writing

Are bad books and bad writing necessarily the same thing? And does context matter? There are plenty of poorly written books in the world that have become bestsellers; and plenty of well written ones that are torrid; yet are we even talking about the same thing? Sometimes a writers' style doesn't gell with the reader. I remember recommending Anne Micheals' "Fugitive Pieces" years ago, and someone being disappointed, finding the poet's style too intrusive for its subject. There are "marmite" writers that you can love or hate; but there are books which given space and time I'd happily give a rationalised trashing too. (One example from way back: the much lauded late Carol Shields. I hated "The Stone Diaries" but was intrigued by its success and critical acclaim, and read her later novel "Larry's Diary." If anything it was worse, but whereas with "The Stone Diaries" I could perhaps say it was a "marmite" book - and probably not written for a male audience at all - "Larry's Party" protagonist was male, but Shields' didn't get anywhere close to the male psyche, and the book was both boring and unbelievable.)

Usually, if you can't say something good, you possibly shouldn't say anything at all - it might just be "marmite" after all, but I wrote a negative review of Sean O'Brien's debut novel "The Afterlife" last year, because the reviews I'd read seemed to be skirting around how poorly written it was; and I half feel that I should do the same for Adam Roberts' "Swiftly" which is one of the poorest books I've read in a long time. A piece of "steampunk" (rather than SF) where Gulliver's discoveries are now protagonists in 19th century European history, the idea is a grand one, but Roberts' soon loses interest in it - preferring an extrapolation of the idea (what if the Lilliputians were giants compared to some other organism? etc.) which is frankly unecessary. Worse, the wild goose chase of an unlikely set of protagonists is punctuated by the worst kind of historical novel purple prose, and for reasons that - having not read Roberts before - I'm assuming are meant to be humorous, an obsession with the scatalogical. The blurbs on the cover, the interesting premise, the homage to the great Swift, would indicate that you are in the company of a modern master; but the end result is over-long, poorly structured, and written in an indigestible prose style that may be an effective mid-19th century parody, or may simply be rubbish. Not a full review, I'm afraid, but I did struggle to the end, hating the book more and more as I skipped through its unengaging picaresque, with characters I neither liked nor had any sympathy for. Having read a few SF or related novels over the last year or two, I've become used to a sort of clagginess of contemporary SF prose that aims, I think, to be almost "literary", but its usually been redeemed by both the scope of the imagination, or the sympathy with the characters. "Swiftly" provided neither of these comforts.

So is there a connection between bad books and bad writing? A well written book will let you excuse a lot, a badly written one - one's patience quickly wears thin. I know that Carol Shields being a good writer couldn't rescue "Larry's Party" - in many ways, her "good" writing, mitigated against it. I know that Sean O'Brien is a deft critic and capable poet; but "The Afterlife" despite being an original idea, is scuppered by the writing. Adam Roberts is no hack, but "Swiftly" is no honour to Swift.