Books everyone seems to love, but you just can't

[Ulfgeir]

Hearing the Bible described as basically any other piece of pop fiction makes me wonder, semi-seriously, if there are any Bible shippers out there

If someone had tried writing the bible today, would any serious publishing house touch it with a 10' pole? I think the only way it would get published in the current form would be self-publishing.

I mean the beginning has two different versions, then a bunch of chapters in the middle that tell the same story from different pov's. The main characters are either way overpowered, or totally incompetent (wandering around for 40 years in the desert). Sometimes the same character falls into both categories, like you have multiple authors . And it suffers from extremely bad editing, with a bad plot, and unbelievable characters (humans living for 900 years)...

 

[dragoner]

If someone had tried writing the bible today, would any serious publishing house touch it with a 10' pole? I think the only way it would get published in the current form would be self-publishing.

I mean the beginning has two different versions, then a bunch of chapters in the middle that tell the same story from different pov's. The main characters are either way overpowered, or totally incompetent (wandering around for 40 years in the desert). Sometimes the same character falls into both categories, like you have multiple authors . And it suffers from extremely bad editing, with a bad plot, and unbelievable characters (humans living for 900 years)...

I thought everyone loved stories about invisible sky fairies? Even Marx, just a German economist linking theory with a bunch of du jour utilitarian philosophers like Kant, Lenin just added: we hand rifles to the peasants. Then you get big anti-marxist internet edge lords, and personally for me, being a marxist would be like being a rockabilly in the west (and yes, I went to Viva Las Vegas). I am just sick of it all, guess that is what getting old is about.

 

[Blue]

So many people failing-will saves unable to make it past book 4 of Wheel of Time. Go back to it. Make it to the end and you won’t regret it.

For me, I struggled with Let Them Be Hanged and The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. I lost interest. It felt like it was trying to be epic, but actually felt quite mundane.

Book 4 was my favorite. And sadly, having reread and finished the series, none of the laters ones are able to push it out of the way - or even really come close. The last ones were decent, but I think Sanderson had a fundamental misunderstanding of Matt and how the Red Hand interacted with him. Plus there were so many threads that Jordon added that got wrapped up, but didn't get made feel like they were required enough to be included so they feel like filler in a series that was way too long already. I realized that I would never again want to reread the series and gave it away.

 

[Blue]

So I started reading SF in the 70s and Fantasy in the 80s. Two acclaimed series from that period that never gripped me were Dragonriders of Pern, and Narnia. Call me a heretic but I never got far in them at all.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Speaking as a non-Christian who loves the Bible as literature:

The Bible isn't a book, it's a collection of books, written in different languages over a period spanning nearly a millenium, and it was ordered the way it was for doctrinal and pedagogical purposes, not for being an enjoyable read. Here's how I usually suggest people approach it to get the gist:

Start with the Gospels, good ol' Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. This is like starting with Episode IV of Star Wars, or The Crystal Shard in the legend of Drizzt... it might not make sense to the uninitiated, but this is the good stuff.

Then flip back to Genesis and Exodus. The prequels, basically. Skip over the really boring parts with all the begats, unless you're into that sort of thing. Most of the best stories of the Old Testament are found here.

Jump forward. Read Job. Then Ecclesiastes. Two very important books.

Then go to the New Testament again. Read Acts - I know it's kinda the Episode VII of the Bible, but it tells the stories of what happened afterwards.

Then Revelation. With or without the psychedelic drug of your choice.

Dip into the rest of the Bible as the spirit moves you. There's some good stuff in the early books after Exodus, but it can be few and far between (with lots of discussions about how to purify yourself after unclean bodily emissions in between). The histories (Samuel, Judges, Kings) have their moments. Psalms and Proverbs can be nice to dip into. Never been a big fan of the prophets or the letters of Paul, but they have their fandom.

And, of course, after that there's the fanfic - aka apocrypha - but that's for another day...

Psalms is the highlight of the whole collection, IMO, but yeah this is a fair list. I do disagree with starting with the gospels. IMO, the heroes and kings and prophets of the OT are more interesting.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

For me, I struggled with Let Them Be Hanged and The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie.

I read the First Law Trilogy and felt like it wasn’t written to tell a good story so much as for the direct purpose of subverting tropes and making a point, which took me from enjoyment and curiosity to eye-rolling disdain in the final pages of the book.

Then I tried the one about Shivers and the mercenary lady, and it was such an ugly slog of grimdark “no one is good or decent ever, actually, or even just not awful, life is hell and everyone deserves it” garbage that I don’t think I finished it. There are characters in that world that I really like, but it’s very clear that all of them will either fail in thier endeavors because only the worst people succeed at anything, die an ugly death, or “live long enough to become the villain” (vomits a bit). No thanks.

Marvel’s The Ultimates (the Ultimate universe Avengers book. Just not enjoyable from about halfway through on), Sin City, most stuff by Frank Miller but especially his terrible Batman work, are more examples of works that I find to be trash try-hard attempts at getting attention onto a work by turning good story elements as grimdark as possible.

My partners’ answers: Percy Jackson, Hunger Games, Death Note.

 

[Eltab]

Psalms is the highlight of the whole collection, IMO, but yeah this is a fair list. I do disagree with starting with the gospels. IMO, the heroes and kings and prophets of the OT are more interesting.

If you can find a chronological Bible*, reading Samuel and Kings plus Psalms turns into "this is what happened to David ... and what he thought / felt about it." It is a more colorful experience than reading the 3 books separately.

* The local Public Library might have one to borrow.

 

[Greg K]

most stuff by Frank Miller but especially his terrible Batman work, are more examples of works that I find to be trash try-hard attempts at getting attention onto a work by turning good story elements as grimdark as possible.

It is funny that when I started reading this thread, I was thinking of some popular comic "must reads" for which I don't care. Two involved Batman. First, there is Miller's Dark Knight. I really liked his Batman: Year One, but Dark Knight did nothing for me and I did not buy into it. The second is Grant Morrison on JLA. I had found his run on Animal Man to be enjoyable and Doom Patrol to be interesting. When it came his JLA, I was not a fan. I know many people enjoyed "BatGod". I was not one of them.
Uncanny X-men was a title I disliked beginning with Fall of the Mutants. I found the Mutant Massacre enjoyable enough (although I found the title already on a slow decline for a while) and really enjoyed Fantastic 4 vs X-men. While there were a few occasional enjoyable issues after Mutant Massacre, the title in my opinion took steep nose dive overall from which, in my opinion, it could not recover when they entered the Outback (I think I followed the title for another dozen issues hoping it would get and nothing I heard from friends afterward sounded interesting).

 

[The Green Hermit]

If someone had tried writing the bible today, would any serious publishing house touch it with a 10' pole? I think the only way it would get published in the current form would be self-publishing.

I mean the beginning has two different versions, then a bunch of chapters in the middle that tell the same story from different pov's. The main characters are either way overpowered, or totally incompetent (wandering around for 40 years in the desert). Sometimes the same character falls into both categories, like you have multiple authors . And it suffers from extremely bad editing, with a bad plot, and unbelievable characters (humans living for 900 years)...

Actually, there were three versions. I used to be able to tell the difference between all three, but now I can only differentiate between the main two.

 

[The Green Hermit]

So I started reading SF in the 70s and Fantasy in the 80s. Two acclaimed series from that period that never gripped me were Dragonriders of Pern, and Narnia. Call me a heretic but I never got far in them at all.

I love Pern, but I hear what you are saying about Narnia. I loved it as a kid, and I think the most-recent movie versions are fantastic, but they are definitely kid books and do not reread well as an adult.