Unpopular Geek Media Opinions

[payn]

The Sandman comics are good but in general Neil Gaiman is overrated and I've never finished one of his novels (save for Coraline, which is a fine work).

Lucifer comics were better.

 

[Reynard]

There's nothing worse than cutesy D&D.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Cutesy Call of Cthulhu?

 

[Blue Orange]

Unpopular opinion: You're better off having not finished The Name of the Wind. It gets progressively worse.

The real problem is the third book of the trilogy.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Ah, that is one of the few that wasn't written by JMS.

I get it - honestly, whether or not Garibaldi was a suspect, there's no sense for going to the scene of a possible impending terrorist attack without a big squad of goons at your back.

We might consider that a production issue, rather than writing - having that squad of goons would mean paying for a squad of extras to be there, with all attendant costs, to ultimately do exactly squat because whether or not there are goons there, dramatically you still want Garibaldi to be the one to catch the bad guy.

It has been about five years since I watched Babylon 5 (and that was my first time watching it actually, I was more of a star trek fan growing up). So I can't remember details well enough to make point by point defenses of it. I will say, I remember it being one of the best written shows I had seen. It certainly had its quirks but I think much of that was charming because it stemmed from feeling like it was under the control of a single creative rather than a team (I do realize their were other writers on the show, but you can feel JMS's fingerprint on everything and it seems like he has an overall vision of what he wants, which isn't how it feels to watch Star Trek TNG, as much as I like that show). Also one of the things that really impressed me about Babylon 5 was the kind of science fiction he was drawing on and the types of characters it featured. Having a captain with a Jesuit education was very interesting as a choice, and it also helped set the tone of the show (because there were some very interesting spiritual themes in it).

Also, while I am sure people can pick at the story and characters now. And while I only caught glimpses of it when it first aired, it is one of the earlier shows to do the whole storyline through the whole series. We are accustomed to stuff like the Sopranos, Breaking Bad and Walking Dead now, but this was striking a different balance where each episode still had to be entertaining on its own but also had to feed into a larger storyline (personally I like that balance better than stuff like Breaking Bad----which is a great show----because it doesn't feel like I am watching episodes just to find out what happens next, each episode is still entertaining in itself

 

[Ryujin]

It has been about five years since I watched Babylon 5 (and that was my first time watching it actually, I was more of a star trek fan growing up). So I can't remember details well enough to make point by point defenses of it. I will say, I remember it being one of the best written shows I had seen. It certainly had its quirks but I think much of that was charming because it stemmed from feeling like it was under the control of a single creative rather than a team (I do realize their were other writers on the show, but you can feel JMS's fingerprint on everything and it seems like he has an overall vision of what he wants, which isn't how it feels to watch Star Trek TNG, as much as I like that show). Also one of the things that really impressed me about Babylon 5 was the kind of science fiction he was drawing on and the types of characters it featured. Having a captain with a Jesuit education was very interesting as a choice, and it also helped set the tone of the show (because there were some very interesting spiritual themes in it).

Also, while I am sure people can pick at the story and characters now. And while I only caught glimpses of it when it first aired, it is one of the earlier shows to do the whole storyline through the whole series. We are accustomed to stuff like the Sopranos, Breaking Bad and Walking Dead now, but this was striking a different balance where each episode still had to be entertaining on its own but also had to feed into a larger storyline (personally I like that balance better than stuff like Breaking Bad----which is a great show----because it doesn't feel like I am watching episodes just to find out what happens next, each episode is still entertaining in itself

Part of that can be attributed to JMS bringing in the ego in human form otherwise known as Harlan Ellison, as the "continuity consultant." He helped to keep things on track and appeared in at least one episode, as a PsiCop.

 

[Mannahnin]

Agreed. I enjoyed it while I read it. None of it stuck with me long after I was done.

In contrast, and forgive me @Reynard, I re-read Dune every year and get something new from it.

Agreed.

Name of the Wind was okay. I think Rothfuss has a similar issue to lesser Gaiman works, where he tries to imply a lot but isn't as clever as he thinks he is.

Dune has a few issues, but it holds up very well overall.

 

[Ryujin]

Agreed.

Name of the Wind was okay. I think Rothfuss has a similar issue to lesser Gaiman works, where he tries to imply a lot but isn't as clever as he thinks he is.

Dune has a few issues, but it holds up very well overall.

Yeah. Things only start to fall apart, for me, when the kids start wearing cute worm onesies.

 

[Mannahnin]

I'll give you credit for being nice, in much the same way that a parent will watch second graders playing soccer and say, "Look, they are going after the ball! That's ... well, that's something. And little Salvatore ... I mean, he's holding down the defense by, um, sitting in the box and playing with dandelions."

But (unpopular opinion ahead) .... Salvatore could not surpass mediocrity on his best day. The one nice thing I will say about his literary output is that, to quote Uncle Joe, Quantity has a quality all its own.

Bah! In my opinion, in his better works Bob is a fine and full heir to such Appendix N luminaries as Lin Carter, Andy Offutt, and L. Sprague de Camp! Upholding the noble tradition of also-ran swords & sorcery writers.

Not everyone can be Leiber, Moorcock, Anderson or Wellman, after all!

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Bah! In my opinion, in his better works Bob is a fine and full heir to such Appendix N luminaries as Lin Carter, Andy Offutt, and L. Sprague de Camp! Upholding the noble tradition of also-ran swords & sorcery writers.

Not everyone can be Leiber, Moorcock, Anderson or Wellman, after all!

I can see you writing a blurb for someone today-

At his absolute best, this writer almost approaches the quality of writing of some of the lesser-known and lesser-quality writers of science fiction during the 1930s, with prose that sometimes comes uncannily close to the third-best short story in Astounding Stories of Super-Science.

To get absolutely real for a second-

Salvatore is a commercially successful writer. He makes money writing. That immediately puts him in the upper echelon of all writers. That is no small feat. It's similar to a musician who supports themselves making music ... simply doing that, regardless of subjective opinions about "quality" is a remarkable achievement in this world. He can generate perfectly cromulent text, and a lot of it, that people will read.

But the actual writing is insipid. It is full of borrowed tropes, poor characterizations, and worse plots. It is certainly not successful as "literature," and certainly does not aspire to same. It is not great compared to other fantasy writing that isn't "work for a brand." And it's not even particularly good genre/pulp writing; other than some small facility with combat, there is nothing particularly propulsive or interesting about the writing from a pulp or genre perspective. Comparing his writing to writing from nearly a century ago in the same genre ... does it no favors.

And again, this is the best of his writing! Some of the worst is just terrible. Like ... really bad. One of the people that I ran D&D games for a few years ago (they were first year high school at the time) was a voracious reader and picked up one of his books at a Friends of Library sale, and told me that they couldn't finish it because it was so bad.

Look, people like what they like, right? Danielle Steel is one of the best-selling authors of all time. Kanye's ex, Julia Fox, had a book out that was ... well, it was something, and people bought it. If you are "ride or die" with Team Salvatore, then enjoy it! Some people like Hummel figurines. Some people like Kinkade paintings. Some people like Love Island. Who am I to gainsay Milton Friedman's invisible crushing hand?