The first was Tom O'Bedlam by Robert Silverberg.
I'll freely admit I picked this book purely because of the character of the same name in Grant Morrison's The Invisibles. The blurb on the back also seemed to match, ever so slightly, one of the (many) ideas behind The Invisibles.
Started reading on the train and recognised the style immediately. Chatty. It reads like someone who really wants to write "f**king" every ten words but writes goddamn instead. So far all female characters have either been groped, perved on, threatened with a "good slapping around" or naked. It reads like someone who'd really prefer to make violent porno movies but is instead stuck with writing sci-fi novels so is making the best of it.
In fact, it reads like a Stephen King novel twenty years too early.
A quick search through the archives and I realise he wrote a book I read last year that I thought was completely rubbish.
Hopefully this is better.