Poll: Worst book thread; basically a thread where I rant about a book my friend is reading with a footnote

[Bobbity]

See, this excuse always leaves me cold. Most of the time it's reasonably valid - pretty much the whole of the fantasy genre consists of variations on Tolkien's work - but Eragon actually goes so far as to take very specific things from different series. He's pilfered through the genre and taken everything that he's liked, to the point that it's not just a lack of originality, but utter plagiarism.

Again, I think you should look at the synopses of Star Wars and Dune and tell me Star Wars wasn't a copy/paste of Dune, AND that it wasn't one of the most significant films to come out in the last 50 years. Just because something's been done before doesn't mean it can't be a good story. Hell, it doesn't even make a difference to those who have never seen the story or concepts before. And it can give the inducted a new way of looking at things. That is a big part of what art is--taking something you know and making you see it in a different way.

And please don't try to make this into me defending Eragon, or anything else that is just inexcusably bad for reasons other than their unoriginality. That's not what I'm talking about at all. I'm talking about the concept of using things that have been seen before in general.

Don't worry, I won't. I haven't read Dune myself, but I'll take your word for it. I'd heard that Star Wars was based on Kurosawa's 'Hidden Fortress', but, either way, it means the same thing.
I think I misinterpreted your comment about presentation of ideas being the important thing, being wrapped up in my rant, and for that I apologise. I agree that reinterpreting and reinventing older things is a perfectly valid way to go about creating a work of film or literature, but, what I was originally getting at, having misunderstood your post, was that I don't think that was Paolini has done is legitimate. He's not just taken inspiration from, or even reinvented older ideas, but rather he's just picked the things he likes and thrown them into the cooking pot, totally unchanged.

While, as you put it, "taking something you know and making you see it in a different way" is, I agree, perfectly legitimate, I just don't think that's what Paolini's done. He takes something here and something there, throwing them together, so that, rather than creating a new work, all he's done is put together an awkwardly phrased patchwork of older ones.

 

[Logiclul]

The book is the Warriors Series.

Here is the Wikipedia link.. pray your eyes don't bleed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warriors_%28novel_series%29

As for it being "something different", the reason it is different is because something which doesn't have to be, is! And the thing which is isn't anything special, it is just an altercation of the protagonists' species! There's NOTHING ELSE TO IT. Great for cat lovers who like generic plots; bad for anyone else.

THE CATS DONT SYMBOLIZE ANYTHING.

THAT'S WHAT I'M TRYING TO TELL YOU

I don't think any less of my friend; the idiot and fetish comments was just me joking to him.

Oh, the cats don't symbolize anything. Ah, now your rant has been upgraded from "nonsensical ravings" to "deep literary criticism". Imagine, a young adult fantasy series about cats not having deep symbolism. What madness is that?

Deep symbolism? What? No, if you are going to include an unusual aspect to your book, you need a reason; and the easiest thing to do is symbolism. Deep symbolism? Deep literary criticism? Try reading the basic writers manual, and then tell me that this book isn't a load of shit.

 

[Ironic Pirate]

The book is the Warriors Series.

Here is the Wikipedia link.. pray your eyes don't bleed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warriors_%28novel_series%29

As for it being "something different", the reason it is different is because something which doesn't have to be, is! And the thing which is isn't anything special, it is just an altercation of the protagonists' species! There's NOTHING ELSE TO IT. Great for cat lovers who like generic plots; bad for anyone else.

THE CATS DONT SYMBOLIZE ANYTHING.

THAT'S WHAT I'M TRYING TO TELL YOU

I don't think any less of my friend; the idiot and fetish comments was just me joking to him.

Oh, the cats don't symbolize anything. Ah, now your rant has been upgraded from "nonsensical ravings" to "deep literary criticism". Imagine, a young adult fantasy series about cats not having deep symbolism. What madness is that?

Deep symbolism? What? No, if you are going to include an unusual aspect to your book, you need a reason; and the easiest thing to do is symbolism. Deep symbolism? Deep literary criticism? Try reading the basic writers manual, and then tell me that this book isn't a load of shit.

I was being sarcastic. I haven't actually read the books, I'm not debating whether or not they're shit.

But saying "This young adult fantasy novel is shit because it contains fantastical elements" is a bit silly. It's a book about talking cats. Why? Because the author figured it'd be interesting what a culture made of talking cats would be like, and wrote a book series about it. Does it really need a better reason? Let me remind you, it's a young adult fantasy series.

You say the protagonists could easily be people, and it'd be the same. Only having read the Wikipedia page, it doesn't really seem like that. They're a bunch of cats, and the society seems to reflect that. It's like Redwall; you could replace all the animals with people, but it'd be stupid and unnecessary (and it'd take away a lot from the setting). You could also take the magic out of Harry Potter, and have a cleverly written story about a boy who goes to a private school and has a shitty family. Would that be a good idea? Of fucking course it wouldn't.

Again, maybe the series is shit. Apparently the characters are flat, and there's too many of them to follow. The writing has been described as inelegant. Criticize it for that, not for such an insipid reason.

 

[Axolotl]

Fun fact: everything has been done before. EVERYTHING.

This is not a fact. It is wrong, it's provably wrong, it's an insult to all the authors who are original since it implies they don't exist. It's perfectly possible for books to be original.

 

[lRookiel]

And here I thought this thread would actually be worth replying to -.-

What an awful reason to rant....

<spoiler=Fun stuff>

 

[Philol]

This is the most pointless and retarded thread I've ever come across (sighs)

 

[SckizoBoy]

If the book isn't your cup of tea...don't read it. Talk to your friend about something you both like. My best friend loves Gankutsuou: Counte of Monte Cristo, I can't really get into it. We agree to disagree and start talking about Soul Eater which we both love.

Just out of curiosity, any particular reason? Didn't like the adaptation from Dumas' original, or do you, like me, find the visual aesthetic to be too much of an effort to concentrate on (though to be fair, I did actually enjoy the series).

Here is the Wikipedia link.. pray your eyes don't bleed.

Truth be told, I was faintly intrigued... though please note: faintly. The names were kind of irritating (as were the insults). Besides, I have a backlog of Robin Hobb stuff to go through...

While, as you put it, "taking something you know and making you see it in a different way" is, I agree, perfectly legitimate, I just don't think that's what Paolini's done. He takes something here and something there, throwing them together, so that, rather than creating a new work, all he's done is put together an awkwardly phrased patchwork of older ones.

... in stark contrast to, say... Ben Hurr as inspired by the Count of Monte Cristo?

To be fair, when Eragon was released, it severely rankled at me (never read it, mind), and while I didn't know why at the time, I find myself oddly vindicated...

*goes back to sadly wondering if my magnum opus will ever get published!* *hrk* =P

 

[damselgaming]

I read an amazing books with anthropomorphic cats. King of the Vagabonds. AMAZING book. Don't slag off cats!

 

[orangeban]

Ah, the Warrior books, my friend reads those. I don't, too busy reading all 14 (14!) volumes of the Works of Stalin. I mean, the guy is interesting, but... you know, it isn't exactly compelling.

Anyway, what's wrong with cats (answer: everything, literally everything, the little bastards). Why must a story have cats? Now, the book would be shitty if it was just a generic fantasy novel but with cats as a stupid gimmick (but even then it would be no more shitty than just a generic fantasy novel), but my friend assures me it's not.

Also: Dragons improve everything, so I see no reason not to have them in books.

Anyway, the books I loathe, with a passion, is the CHERUB series. I hate them, hate them so much, and I've read them all! Because I hate them so much and my friend hates them and we stay up late into the night discussing how much we hate them!

They aren't even badly written, and the plots and scenarios are actually pretty interesting, it's just the characters are all horrible, horrible people. All the boys are total assholes, who can't control their sexual urges and generally act like gorillas on steroids, and all the girls are incredibly up-tight "holier-than-thou" (thou being anyone male) assholes as well! The only good character is Kyle, but I suspect that's only because he's gay and the author see's gay people as some kind of balance between male and female.

My god I hate that series.

 

[Giftfromme]

I actually enjoyed for the first Twilight book. It had many hilarious events in it, and I was laughing at something or rather almost every 3 pages of the book. Good stuff

 

[Mrrrgggrlllrrrg]

snip

So instead of actually talking about whats terrible in the proposed book you only mention that it centers on cat characters of whom talk and that upsets you?

But its genre is fantasy, I hope you realize how petty this argument is.

So you dont like fantastical elements in fantasy, that is okay don't read it, but if someone else is reading it and you are the one who is upset, well all I gotta say to you is get a job as a political pundit or grow up.

 

[Belaam]

Sounds like Warriors. I haven't read them, but a quick wikipedia perusal seems to indicate that they are built around an exploration of what happens to stray cats.

A couple thoughts:

1) How dare you diss talking animal stories!! Watership Down, Runaway Ralph, the rats of NIMH, Despereaux, or even Narnia, His Dark Materials, any Discworld book with Gaspode, the Uplift series, half of old world folklore, and countless more. All of those stories could have been done without talking animals as well. But clearly the authors chose to do so for some reason. Possibly because the target audience was young adults... though I don't buy that with Watership Down. The mere presence of talking animals does not negate the value of a story.

2) If a 17 year old is forced to skim books aimed at middle schoolers, they clearly need to develop their reading skills. Encourage them to read any and everything to get them up to par. As their reading skills develop, so will their taste in literature. I am frankly happy with anyone reading anything. Yes, even Twilight... I know, I know... but Twilight is better than illiteracy.

TL,DR: Get over it. Let people read what they like, recommend books you think they will like and hope they grow as a reader.

 

[Ouroboros0977]

The dictionary, I'm fairly certain it had no plot at all and simply tried its best to use every word in existence disjointedly.

 

[Belaam]

I don't write these rants because I hate Eragon and everything about them, but because it really irritates me that while Christopher Paolini gets enormous amounts of recognition and popularity, these (better) authors are relatively unknown outside of the genre. I don't hate Eragon - I've read them all, so that probably says something - but it's important that people understand that it is plagiarised, and not just lacking in originality.

Great breakdown. Couldn't agree more. I remember at the time hearing, "Can you believe this book was written by a teenager?" I read it, and said, "Yes."

I am a 7th grade English teacher, and regularly see kids reading his books. When they are done, I point them towards Tolkien, Jordan, LeGuin, Eddings or McCaffrey with a "these came first and have similar themes, you may like them." Nicely, they recently split Jordan's Eye of the World into two books. Makes it less intimidating that saying, "Hey, this series is good... it's not done yet, but by the time you read all 11,000 pages in print, it might be."

 

[wolf thing]

i just read the plot synopsis on Wikipedia and it sounds kind of bad ass, but that's just me, you are welcome to your opinion ans so is your friend. people can read what they like.