Books you like but get a lot of criticism or hate

[Sacrosanct]

Yesterday I asked what books that get a lot of rave reviews, but you just couldn't get into. Today it's the opposite. What books do you like, but every time they are brought up, the critics seem to come out in droves.

Top of the list for me are the Shannara Series. Every time someone brings up Terry Brooks, inevitably people will make it a point to call him a rip off of Tolkien. Was Sword of Shannara a rip off of LoTR? Yeah, but so was LoTR in regards to existing Anglo-saxon mythology or old English poems. In many cases, almost word for word with the serial numbers filed off (ahem, ring of Silviarus, Ents, etc). So I don't criticize Brooks too much for that. Secondly, that was just his first book. All of his other books were his own stories, and I'd argue better (Elfstones and the Walker Boh stories are the best, IMO).

Behind Brooks, are many of the D&D property novels from the 80s and 90s. They get a lot of criticism for just being garbage writing churned out to take advantage of the D&D IP. And yes, part of it is nostalgia, but I really enjoyed some of the books by Pauli Kidd, Rose Estes, etc.

 

[Morrus]

Dunno about books but it definitely happens with films for me. I think I generally like films more than most people do.

 

[TwoSix]

A Wise Man's Fear (Kingkiller Book 2) by Patrick Rothfuss. The Kingkiller books are pretty polarizing in general, but even fans of Name of the Wind tend to view Wise Man's Fear as the lesser book. Personally, I like it just as much as the first book, and the parts that get a lot of criticism (Felurian, the long section in Ademre) are some of my favorite parts.

I think a lot of the hate is understanding that all the digressions in the book make a satisfying book 3 nearly impossible, but I've resigned myself to that a long time ago.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Gardner F. Fox's Kothar series. They're total thud & blunder ersatz-Conan tales, but there's such a sense of fun to them, and I still suspect that there's more than a touch of satire, that they're not entirely meant to be taken straight.

I'm tempted to list the Eye of Argon, but the point of reading it is that it is terrible.

 

[the Jester]

The Malazan Book of the Fallen. They tend to be love 'em or hate 'em kind of books. I love them, but have several friends who just hate them.

 

[Gradine]

I'll echo the OP on the Shannara books. Sword of Shannara was my first non-Tolkien-or-Lewis fantasy novel, and I devoured it as a kid. Yes, it's a ripoff of LotR but it makes up for it by being actually readable. The Heritage of Shannara books were my personal favorites, especially Druid of Shannara and Elf Queen of Shannara. Fell out of the series after that, but I should probably pick it up again at some point.

Oh, and also I'd want to stick up for the old Star Wars EU (now called Legends I think?) but mostly I just want to sing the praises of the Thrawn Trilogy and nobody really hates on those. Pretty much everything involved with the Yuuzhon Vong sucked though; including the incredibly stupid retcon that Palpatine et. al, just wanted to conquer the galaxy in order to protect it, their intentions were good, honest.

 

[billd91]

Oh, and also I'd want to stick up for the old Star Wars EU (now called Legends I think?) but mostly I just want to sing the praises of the Thrawn Trilogy and nobody really hates on those. Pretty much everything involved with the Yuuzhon Vong sucked though; including the incredibly stupid retcon that Palpatine et. al, just wanted to conquer the galaxy in order to protect it, their intentions were good, honest.

You can count me as a critic of Thrawn as he appears in the books. Couldn't stand him.

 

[Alzrius]

Behind Brooks, are many of the D&D property novels from the 80s and 90s. They get a lot of criticism for just being garbage writing churned out to take advantage of the D&D IP. And yes, part of it is nostalgia, but I really enjoyed some of the books by Pauli Kidd, Rose Estes, etc.

Same here, particularly with regard to the Ravenloft books (not all of them, but quite a few).

 

[Sacrosanct]

I'll echo the OP on the Shannara books. Sword of Shannara was my first non-Tolkien-or-Lewis fantasy novel, and I devoured it as a kid. Yes, it's a ripoff of LotR but it makes up for it by being actually readable.

Amen.

 

[Dioltach]

Agreeing on Shannara. It's also interesting to read Sometimes the Magic Works by Terry Brooks: he explains that the only reason that Sword was published was in fact because it's so similar to LotR.

Lester del Rey had been given the job of establishing fantasy as a separate genre. For those of you who weren't around at the time: fantasy was mostly a collection of separate works, often by established SF writers, with no unifying traits. Lester del Rey decided that the best way to do this was to publish a book that people would immediately identify with LotR, and he chose Sword for that. If I recall correctly, they even made some changes to reinforce the similarities.

It was an immediate hit, and fantasy as a genre was established: elves, dwarves, powerful but mysterious wizards, an ancient evil, a quest that starts in a sleepy rural town, a party of companions who become separated along the way and - by the time Wishsong was published - generally as a trilogy too. This was pretty much the staple of fantasy literature throughout the 1980s, and it was all thanks to Terry Brooks and Lester del Rey.

Nowadays people say, "Oh, it's so derivative", but at the time Sword was both reminiscent of Tolkien and refreshingly new and modern. And Elfstones is a completely original and wonderful book.