Authors You Hate

[frankenpimp]

Christie Golden

 

[frankenpimp]

I dislike Paolini, for reasons the original post touched on rather thoroughly. The only other author I can say I don't like is Richard A. Knaak. I have yet to read anything written by him where I could bring myself to care about obvious self-inserts, Mary Sues, and villain-of-the-week plots.

I've successfully purged all memory of his work on Dragonlance from my mind, so let's look at the work he's done with Warcraft lore, using it as toilet paper to wipe his Rhonin fantasies on. First and foremost, Knaak turned the War of the Ancients, a major turning point in night elven culture and history and arguably the beginning of high elven culture and history, into a time-travel adventure just to continue showing off how awesome his pet Mary Sue/self-insert Rhonin was. He even went so far to have Rhonin teaching Illidan Stormrage magic, backtalk to night elves in high positions of authority (something that, back then, would have gotten anyone else executed). Oh, did I mention that Deathwing compared him to the Guardian Medivh, he marries a high elf girl (a Windrunner at that), has several half-elf children against the odds (high elves have a very low birth rate to prevent overpopulation, thanks to long life spans), and out of nowhere replaces the leader of the Kirin Tor (who was in Alterac/Dalaran overseeing reconstruction)with nary a line explaining how?

I didn't really care about the whole Rhonin/Knaak thing. It made a for a good story. And I doubt any author hasn't portrayed themselves as one of their characters.

 

[Uncle Colin]

JK Rowling and whoever the hell wrote Twilight.

 

[Spaceman_Spiff]

any author schools use as part of the program

Here here! I now hate to Kill a Mockingbird due to over analysing ever damn word.

 

[Baconator96]

The ***** who wrote Twilight

second

 

[TheScarecrow]

Charles Dickens.

Literary appreciation fail.

I'm going to be slightly generic and say Stephenie Meyer. I can't stand her books, which proves that it's not a Mormon thing (I was raised Mormon, but even though I still attend church with my parents and think the BOM is true, I just don't care. I want to live for right now, because it's gonna be gone soon if I don't.)

Anyways, I also think that some of Shakespeare's works are heavily overrated. I consider Romeo and Juliet to be one of his weakest works, while slightly lesser known ones, such as The Merchant of Venice and Taming of the Shrew, are quite awesome.

I personally want to read Twilight so I can know for myself how bad it is. I was prepared to shoot your post down until you praised The Merchant.
Also what's with the Mormom thing you touched on there, what does it have to do with anything?

 

[Megacherv]

R.A. Salvatore. There is just something I bloody hate about him. I do not like his "Drizzt" character, I do not like how he writes, and I hate the fans his books spawned. Shit, they're worse then Harry Potter fans.

But without either of those two, we wouldn't have Unforgotten Realms and the current fantastic storyline...think about this stuff carefully...

 

[Zukonub]

Charles Dickens.

Literary appreciation fail.

I'm going to be slightly generic and say Stephenie Meyer. I can't stand her books, which proves that it's not a Mormon thing (I was raised Mormon, but even though I still attend church with my parents and think the BOM is true, I just don't care. I want to live for right now, because it's gonna be gone soon if I don't.)

Anyways, I also think that some of Shakespeare's works are heavily overrated. I consider Romeo and Juliet to be one of his weakest works, while slightly lesser known ones, such as The Merchant of Venice and Taming of the Shrew, are quite awesome.

I personally want to read Twilight so I can know for myself how bad it is. I was prepared to shoot your post down until you praised The Merchant.
Also what's with the Mormom thing you touched on there, what does it have to do with anything?

Twilight is regarded as a Mormon parable of sorts. The main characters (generally regarded as perfect in the book), are abstinent, Meyer is a devout Mormon, and the most common motif is that everybody has one person truly meant for them. Not to mention the almost cold apathy given to the dark-skinned characters, first popularized by Mormonism.

 

[Megacherv]

any author schools use as part of the program

Here here! I now hate to Kill a Mockingbird due to over analysing ever damn word.

Hey, I had to do I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings for my English GCSE. By Super Mecha Death Christ the BOREDOM.

 

[annoyinglizardvoice]

Laurell K Hamilton. She totally raped the Anita Blake series. Literally. Had a decent character if a little generic, semi decent story lines. It was nothing amazing but it was readable. Then all of a sudden BAM. She goes from virgin mary to ubar whore. I am not exaggerating. She suddenly needs sex to live so goes from having one man in her entire life to banging over a dozen guys soo far. Vampires, were (even in beast form) anything she can get her vagoo on. Early in the series she fought bloody hard to not get raped by a few guys. Now she would be the one doing the raping.
I have heard that the early books were co written by her husband but then he got sick of it and left and then instantly it went to crap. There is not even a story anymore. It is soo flimsy even a porn director would shake his head in disgust. The only good thing the author has ever done was get Jim Butcher printed so for that reason alone I will let her live.

I agree with a good chunk of that. I thought a couple of the earlier Anita Blake books were really cool, but once she hit double figures they just dived straight downhill and ended up as a load of badly written furry-porn without any of the horror/mystery that they were supposed to be providing. The farie books she wrote were even worse.....

I would hate Meyer, Brown and the kid who wrote Eragon if I could actually be bothered to read them.

I may get some hate for this, but I've got a bit of a problem with Phillip K Dick. I think the guy has some wonderful ideas, but he just can't tell a story that hold my attension.

 

[TheScarecrow]

Twilight is regarded as a Mormon parable of sorts. The main characters (generally regarded as perfect in the book), are abstinent, Meyer is a devout Mormon, and the most common motif is that everybody has one person truly meant for them. Not to mention the almost cold apathy given to the dark-skinned characters, first popularized by Mormonism.

Really? I did not know that. However it is a little bit hilarious.

 

[EscapeArtist]

George Lucas
'nuff said

 

[Sendo1920]

Stephanie Meyer, Charles Dickens and Chinua Achebe, for their books "Twilight", "Great Expectations" and "Things Fall Apart", respectively.

I like Dickens' characters, but his plots are horrible, and the other two just cannot write anything entertaining.

 

[molester jester]

Terry Goodkind
Terry Pratchett

cant stand either of them

 

[The_Echo]

Christopher Paolini

I read Eragon. I though that it was impressive for having been written for a 17-year old. It was a decidedly amateur effort, but I thought that Christopher Paolini seemed like he had enough talent to eventually write something good.

Considering his age, it's a brilliant piece of work, and it gets better as it goes on.

 

[XSA37]

whoever wrote twilight

Stephanie Meyer. And same.

I think that almost everybody who had sanity and a liking for classic, Dracula-esque vampires agrees with this statement.

 

[Suikun]

Charles Dickens.

Literary appreciation fail.

Literary genius my arse. I don't appreciate wasting time reading useless details when valuable plot can be developed and cultured! Classic Literature can bite me, thank you very much. ('cept Shakespeare... he's just awesometastic.)

 

[leviandhisshenmue]

So funny thing, I was reading the Blurb for the Host (another crapshoot written by Meyers) and all the authors who praised the book,were also mormon, and I mean like the illuminati of mormon authors, orson scott card and the like. Thing is all of them have written aweful or mediocer (that's spelled wrong). Hell Card's only good book was Enders Game. (I only point this out cause I myself am a mormon, who also is a writer, at least an aspring one.)

 

[Ohten]

I didn't really care about the whole Rhonin/Knaak thing. It made a for a good story. And I doubt any author hasn't portrayed themselves as one of their characters.

See, I don't think one character being given everything on a silver platter by falling ass-backwards into a save-all-existence plot and a loyal band of sockpuppets that only exist to accentuate how awesome the main character is constitutes a good story.

Keep in mind, given Warcraft's storyline I'm willing to give quite a bit of leeway on Sueish traits, but anything Knaak grunted out in the stall has gone so ridiculously above and beyond, with maybe the sole exception of the work he's put into the dragon Aspects and their respective flights, that it just screams "I cannot write personalities, so I just gather up cliches and make them incredibly awesome and hope nobody will notice." Need I also note that Broxigar, an orc warrior (and only an orc warrior) and another of Knaak's pet Sues, managed to injure the most powerful demon around, something that Aegwynn at the height of her power was exhausted by doing?

And you're right. Most authors will self-insert, but a good author will either hide it well, or make themselves a little cameo that plays a semi-imporant role like Clive Cussler likes to do in his Dirk Pitt novels. They won't make their main character a blatant wish-fulfillment self-insertion.

 

[kamario]

whoever wrote twilight

Stephanie Meyer. And same.

you have good taste in who to despise.

Same and agreed.

Agreed.