io9 has an amusing list of the worst SF Movie/TV resurrections (no books are listed).
Just about any Jedi in Star Wars: When you die in Star Wars, and you have the power of the Force, you have the option of appearing as a glowing, transparent spectre. It’s hinted that this is due to the research that Qui-Gon Jinn did sometime before he died, and it gets picked up by Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Anakin so everyone can reunite and glow with pleasure around fires and dispense knowledge to your Jedi-kin. In fact, if you’re lucky, you might get your own green glowy action figure.
The comments are almost more entertaining than the list itself, with geeks resorting to tortured logic to “explain” why their favorite resurrection wasn’t so bad.
Also, if you type “resurrection” enough it starts to not look like a word any more.