Books and Series to Avoid

[JMeganSnow]

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.

No flame from me, I get this question a lot. I'm not a big fan of anything I've read by Terry Goodkind largely because he writes like I did . . . when I was 16 and depressed and stupid. I'm not saying you can't like his stuff, it's just that I find him aesthetically intolerable. If I'd read him 12 years ago I probably would have been like, BEST BOOKS EVARR!!11!!!1

I think the main problem is that all of his conflicts are horribly contrived and to compensate for this fact he goes straight for the stomach to induce a sense of flinching awfulness. It's sort of like if you took Armageddon (the movie) and made it into a novel. The books I like now head for your emotions via the intellect instead of via the gut.

 

[JMeganSnow]

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.

Well, the title kind of explains it all, really. It's fundamentally a book about depravity--but not just that, about how ALL men are ONE STEP AWAY from becoming depraved monsters of the worst sort.

I won't argue that depravity exists in the world, but it is not *all* that exists and reading Heart of Darkness was like drowning in sewer water.

 

[JMeganSnow]

No love lost for George R.R. Martin then eh?

I don't actually think he started out as a bad writer. The first three books were very grim but they were also extremely suspenseful and fascinating. Then he took a ten year break and wrote A Feast For Crows where he completely ignores half of the story. At the very end he writes this smug little explanation about how he just kept writing and writing and he found he couldn't fit everything into one book so he's going to write the same time period from different perspectives in two books, which means waiting for TWO MORE BOOKS to find out WHAT HAPPENS.

The allure of WHAT HAPPENS was all that kept me suffering through the ever-growing and encroaching spiritual horror of those books. If Mr. Martin can't get it through his head that he's telling a story and not creating a universe in some godlike act of literary masturbation well enough to engage the services of an editor, he can go f*ck himself, I'm not reading any more of his stupid books.

*ahem* Anyway, that's my opinion.

 

[JMeganSnow]

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.

What specifically about the ending did you dislike, if I may ask? I really enjoyed the books, also, so I'm wondering if it's that the children had to separate at the end or was it something else that bothered you?

 

[Razzle Bathbone]

"Feast for Crows" and "Dance with Dragons" should have been compressed into one sentence:

TEN YEARS LATER...

But nnnnnoooo, he had to drag that one sentence out to about three thousand fucking pages. Ugh.

 

[Najos]

I wouldn't recommend starting any unfinished series. They are the bane of my existence. Even good series piss me off. I mean, I started Wheel of Time about...ten years ago. Here I am, waiting on the last book that is going to be written by some other author. Really, really sucks.

So yeah, just read things that are finished works, not works in progress. It may also change your opinion on them as you can just read them all at once and not spend any time waiting.

 

[JMeganSnow]

I wouldn't recommend starting any unfinished series.

I would also say this with the caveat that if the author *knows* how many books are going to be in the series, you *may* be able to risk it. There are also series out there which are infinitely extensible, HOWEVER each book is a self-contained unit, like Discworld or the Vlad Taltos books by Steven Brust. Those are also okay.

However finding a series of this nature is difficult. I think the fundamental reason why I liked Harry Potter so much is that J.K. Rowling knew where she was going from the beginning and she GOT THERE. I won't say that the books are works of great literature, but they're good books and I get depressed when I hear people panning them simply because they were so popular.

 

[dalek sec]

The Bounty Hunter Wars Trilogy By K.W. Jeter. Just total crap from page one of book one to the last page of the third book.

 

[drummond13]

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.

That, and the author is dead.

 

[JMeganSnow]

I think Brandon Sanderson has been tapped to do the next Wheel of Time book (I find the idea of bringing on an understudy to finish a writer's novels to be kind of sick, but oh well). I don't really like his work very much, and I've read all three of his books so far. The man cannot write suspense to save his life.

What he writes is actually the opposite of suspense--you, the reader, figure out very quickly from his ENDLESS HAMMERING approximately what is going to happen, and then he drags on and on and on before the characters figure it out. Towards the end of Well of Ascension, in particular, I was ready to start yelling "GET A CLUE, ALREADY!!!" When you're shouting at people who don't exist, you've got problems.

 

[infernovolver]

Books n' series to avoid aye? Possible spoilers I suppose if you actually take the time to read this.

"Julie of the wolves". I had interest in this book at first, but it slowly dwindled. Seriously, the "eating regurgitated food a wolf ate" seemed pretty sickening in my opinion. That was bad, but that wouldn't kill the book. What did was the ending. I never knew there was any sequels, and still don't plan on reading them when I finished with that... Thing. >.<

"The wings of a falcon", by Cynthia Voigt. I kind of have empathy for the book, but here's a great way to end the story: The main character dies, his best friend gets what he earned through his lifetime, and gets his possible love interest. His friend is now the new main character. YAY!

The "Time Spiral" series, for Magic: The Gathering. I'm sorry, but when you grow attached to major heroes from expansion after expansion of the card game, then have them just die? I mean what the hell? Magic has always been overly violent and loves to just murder character after character, but DAMN. The freaking Invasion series was bad enough (it has a part for you guys who love those S&M torture sequences that I'm hearing so much about), but jesus christ, this is gettng old fast. I must say it was the worst series out of all of the MTG books I've read. And what happens normally is something bad happens, and then something good happens. It makes a balance. This series has no balance. Everybody just dies.

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.

I'm afraid I really did enjoy the golden compass; it kicked off great, but it just fell apart soon as I started reading the subtle knife.

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.

I must agree on the silmarillion. When I first tried picking it up, it felt almost as if I was interpreting the Bible. Except I can tolerate the Bible. I still have trouble pronouncing that book's name... o.o

 

[Alex_P]

Pretty much anything that gets stretched into a whole series is usually worth avoiding.

-- Alex

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Can we put a veto on overly opinionated overarching statements like the one above? It's clearly fallacious.

 

[NewClassic_v1legacy]

Can we put a veto on overly opinionated overarching statements like the one above? It's clearly fallacious.

Aye. Hear hear, all in favor?

 

[JMeganSnow]

Speaking of the Dune universe, avoid anything written by Frank's son and that Anderson hack. I stopped way back at House Harkonnen, and I would have figured someone, somewhere would have demanded they slow down and put some quality writing in there. They're stamping out 500-600 page travesties, one a year, like keeping a deadline was the most important part of writing a book.

 

[Lord Krunk]

Twilight.
Need I say more?

My roomate threw that book out of her window, she then felt bad about it because it was a library book so she went and got it back.

If my sister says that dreaded word one more time...

Seriously, there's got to be a Twilight cult out there. Why did they have to make a movie?

Besides that, 'Kidnapped' by R.L. Stevenson. I loved so many of his books, but I just despised this one.

'The Keys to the Kingdom' series. he thing about Garth Nix is that he has a brilliant beginning to a story, but just can't seem to end it right.
I don't hate the series at all, but the fact that his most recent book ended on the biggest cliffhanger ever really cheesed me off. Especially when the next book comes out next year.
Read 'Mister Monday,' but don't expect to be as praising with the later books.

 

[Vortigar]

Lustbader's Pearl Saga is a wreck, avoid at all costs.

paulgruberman:
Kevin J Anderson isn't all bad. Frank Herbert managed to screw Dune up all by himself before they tapped Anderson to continue it (he's under contract for it, it could very well be he's indeed under deadline to produce words for it). I'm pretty much enjoying his saga of seven suns, it's not incredibly even in characters or plot, but some parts are written very well indeed. It isn't very sophisticated, but it rolls along incredibly well. But then, Seven Suns is his pet project, he took his time to do it (oh hell, book seven is out?).

Can we put a veto on overly opinionated overarching statements like the one above? It's clearly fallacious.

Aye. Hear hear, all in favor?

Aye.

 

[poleboy]

Book versions of popular movies. This is just wrong. To clarify: If it wasn't a good book before it was a movie, it never will be.

For a book about vampires, Bram Stoker's Dracula is dreadfully boring.

 

[Reaperman Wompa]

Twilight.
Need I say more?

I liked those... In my defence before they became popular, about 1-2 years ago so does that make it a bit better?

Read all the Harry Potters. Liked them but they are way overhyped, think of all the GREAT books that haven't been movies which could have been made with the Harry Potter money.

 

[Dommyboy]

'arry Potta books. Like a slowly unfolding version of Bully and Morrowind.