Books and Series to Avoid

[JMeganSnow]

What books and series have you read, only to wish you hadn't spent the time later? I have several, but I review books for my blog.

Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind
Novels of Tiger and Del by Jennifer Roberson
Anything written by Robin Hobb
That godawful "Shadow" series George Lucas did that was nominally set in the Willow world. Blech.

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad tops my list of single books.

 

[Razzle Bathbone]

Any Dune book with words other than "Dune" in the title.

 

[GothmogII]

No love lost for George R.R. Martin then eh?
As for Robin Hobb...well, the Assassin's Apprentice series was okay.

Okay...to avoid humm...most stuff by Gene Wolfe, and not because I think it's bad, but because some much of his work is so damn incomphrehensible. Not for the novice reader ^^' I still like a lot of it despite this, The Book of the New Sun series, Latro in the Mist etc.

 

[geddydisciple]

I don't want to argue with you i just want to know why you didn't like the sword of truth series. (i'm in the middle of it and i love it so no spoilers please)Remember im not trying to be rude so please don't take the tone of my question out of context i just want to know why you didnt like it.

 

[kawazu]

The sword of truth series gets super convoluted. I agree with the dune books comment.

 

[GothmogII]

I don't want to argue with you i just want to know why you didn't like the sword of truth series. (i'm in the middle of it and i love it so no spoilers please)Remember im not trying to be rude so please don't take the tone of my question out of context i just want to know why you didnt like it.

Well, at first, it's standard fantasy stuff. A lot of interesting ideas. However, I wouldn't recommend reading further into the series unless you're into S&M ^^' Seriously... Then there's a lot of chapters in which everyone generally acts like idiots.

 

[Alleged_Alec]

I don't think the 'convolutedness' the sword of truth series is that bad, honestly. It might be because I've read most of the dune series though... I didn't like it because it became more of the same after you've read a book or 8 of it.

Any book by Knaak, unless you're really into dragons (god, his warcraft books were fucked up).

 

[fulano]

Hmm, care to explain about Heart of Darkness? I'm aware of some criticism, and to be honest, I haven't read it but I'd been thinking about giving it a shot. But still, there are certain aspects I'm not too thrilled about.

 

[The_Deleted]

It's way too late now, but just incase, if anyone has yet to read The Da Vinci Code then just don't. Absolute arse that would have been ignored if not for the subject matter.

 

[Alleged_Alec]

It's way too late now, but just incase, if anyone has yet to read The Da Vinci Code then just don't. Absolute arse that would have been ignored if not for the subject matter.

I'm afraid I have to agree on this one. I was halfway through the book before anything happens.


Oh, and I found two others:
1: The last part in the Gold Compass series. I love this series, but I found the Amber Spyglass to be a disappointment.
2: The Silmarillion. Again, I love Tolkien and his works, but I found this piece of work to be unreadable.

 

[fulano]

1: The last part in the Gold Compass series. I love this series, but I found the Amber Spyglass to be a disappointment.

Funny, I really liked it.

 

[JMeganSnow]

For the Sword of Truth series, I'm with Alleged_Alec in that they got repetetive; downright formulaic, even. I honestly can't differentiate between the last few that I read.

Speaking of formulaic: Koontz. I read 3 books by him, and I swear they were all the same story and characters with a few names/traits switched. I suppose this just means to stop at 1 if you decide to read something by him.

With The Song of Ice and Fire series I stopped at the 2nd book because there wasn't enough in them to keep me interested. The characters and plots I was interested got too little time per book, or just plain ended. However, other people would find different plots and people to follow, so your mileage may vary.

The Wayfarer Redemption by Sara Douglass would be one to avoid. A better title would have been 'Stereotypes and Cliches'.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

I can agree with The Sword of Truth series, Terry Goodkind and his torture fetishism got a little out of hand.

I can see WHY one may not like Song of Ice and Fire, I mean, they make you like all these characters, and then they kill them, all of them and replace them with all the characters they've taught you to hate... yeah, kinda wrecked the series for me. But they are very well written and George R.R. Martin is a wicked cool guy.

 

[KSarty]

The Silmarillion I agree with. The problem with that one I think is that it was never finished by Tolkien himself. It was published by his son by compiling all of the notes he found and filling in the blanks, but he never took the time to turn the notes into something actually readable.

 

[Alleged_Alec]

Funny, I really liked it.

I wasn't saying it was a bad book, but I wouldn't call it a fitting end for end for a series like that. It deserved better.

Speaking of formulaic: Koontz. I read 3 books by him, and I swear they were all the same story and characters with a few names/traits switched. I suppose this just means to stop at 1 if you decide to read something by him.

Good one.

And for the dutch crow: Don't read more then one Baantjer book. They are just as formulaic.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

For the love of all that is holy, if you haven't started it already DO NOT read The Wheel of Time until the last book comes out, I read it when Heart of Winter was released, and by the time book 10 came out I had forgotten who pretty much ALL of the characters were. That and Robert Jordan has that freaky harem thing going with the main character that always bugged me.

 

[NewClassic_v1legacy]

Anything with Harry Potter in the title.

 

[varulfic]

The two final "Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy" books.

The first three are very good, though they get progressively worse they were all entertaining. The fourth book jumped the shark in a huge way. Everything that was great about the three first movies, the humor, the weird science, quirky characters and surreal logic, it was all gone and instead we were treated to a mediocre love story. The fifth book wrote off the love interest introduced in the previous book in three sentences, rendering the entire fourth book even more pointless and to top it off, it had the most unsatisfying ending ever in a book. I mean, five books and like a thousand or so pages later and that's it? It's like getting a blowjob, and just when you're about to cum you get your dick bitten off.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

varulfic is right, those two last books of Hitchhiker suck, mostly because Douglas Adams didn't want to write them.

EDIT: If you're going to read Xanth, read A Spell for Chameleon, The Source of Magic and Castle Roogna, after that quit while you can, he pretty much just compiles puns and pervy fetishes after that.

 

[rryyann]

Twilight.
Need I say more?