Wow, good thoughts.
The gang with the 200% shotgun character sounds like my group
As for Worst Fantasy Novels:
Bottom line: 99.9% of D&D, Star Trek, Halo, Magic: the Gathering novels...all of them just SUCK (1 exception...for D&D "Knight of the Black Rose")!!!!!
Anything by Jerry Pournelle or Larry Niven...even though it is Sci-Fi, I hate it and must tell everyone that I hate it.
The Wheel of Time series. I have read the first 10 pages of each book and I just can't find the interest to justify wasting the time to read one more page...it sucks.
The Shannara series was....acceptable for one book...every other book is THE SAME...I read the sword of shannara, but the song and the elfstones were the same book and the moronic family of the Ohmsford's was too retarded to be taken seriously.
Matthew Riley and Scarecrow was pretty good IMO...it was a good four hour read on an airplane so that was good.
As for Lovecraft...his stories rock and along with Poe are IMO the two masters of American Fiction, regardless of what my Lit professors say (even though August Derleth was actually better at Lovecraftian writing that Lovecraft)!
-STS