Novel series that you can't stand.

[Claude Raines]

Hmmm, so many bad books.
Eddings series with Sparhawk were awful. Same as the Belgariad and Mallorean series. Exactly the same story with even more annoying characters.

Tailchaser's song by Tad Williams. Whenever I read a book that has been touted as "Watership Down for X animal species," I'm always in for a huge waste of time and money. (But I do love Watership Down.)

I hated Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule and have avoided all the other books.

The Witch World series bored me to death, but then I find I don't really enjoy most fantasy where the protagonist comes from a normal earth to an alternate world.

And for another one that probably will surprise many people, I never really enjoyed Kurtz's Deryni series.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

David Eddings: Belgarian, Mallorean, Elenium, Tamuli (the last two are the Sparrhawk trilogies). I can't believe I read them all. Years after they were published, so in about one month I read them all. Then, eventually "Belgarath the Sorcerer" came out and I read that. By then, I so hated the Belgariad/Mallorean series, I could not bring myself to read the book named after the greatest charater in the series: Polgara. Wow. Eleven bad books and I couldn't waste a weekend to read #12? What was I thinking?

For the record: I just hate the Belgariad or whatever that novel series was called. Such a waste to feature a great character like Polgara in such utter meaningless tripe.

So, I'm with Frostmarrow on this one.

Hmmm, so many bad books.
Eddings series with Sparhawk were awful. Same as the Belgariad and Mallorean series. Exactly the same story with even more annoying characters.

And I am with Claude Raines, too. And as for annoying characters--that conman/thief who spoke "in dialect" all the time. Give it a rest!


But, for complete crapitude, so bad I couldn't even finish it, the award goes to Stephen Donaldson's "Thomas Covenant" series. Now I must confess, if I read more than 50 pages of a book, I finish it. No matter how bad (see list of Eddings I have read, at the top of this post). But that first Thomas Covenent book--my god, I read 250 pages (more than half!) and then could not finish it.

Special Honorable Mention time. For the stealth crapitude award, Terry Brooks' "Shannara" series. I read the first one. I read the second one. I read the third one. All was good, but I had no desire to read further. Then I read "Lord of the Rings." Admittedly, the book was spoiled a bit, for I had already read it--in "Sword of Shannara"--a rip-off so extreme, I can only call it plagiarism. Now, I'm not some Tolkien purist or fanboy, whole sections of his trilogy are god-awful boring. But Shannara, well, having finally read the source material, I just can't call this a good series. And that name--Allanon. When I read/hear it, all I can think of is
Al-Anon (a 12 step program for people with relatives/friends who are alcoholics).

 

[Tewligan]

The stink of Wizard's First Rule

I couldn't make it past the first book. The only book I've ever put down and refused to finish.

Same here. A friend pushed it on me, gushing about how great it was. I'd read a bit and think "Huh. I guess it'll get better..." I repeated this a few times before realizing that it was not going to improve and gave up on it. To make matters worse, I loaned her my copy of Moorcock's Hawkmoon series, and we never got around to returning the books to each other before she moved to California. I traded a good book for crap!

Oh, and Pier's Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality quickly became unfinishable for me. It's his dialogue - to me, his characters all sound like they've been practicing everything they're going to say for weeks beforehand. Very awkward and unnatural-sounding.

 

[Dagger75]

Lame spoiler in the Sword of Truth rant

Robert Jordan is to easy to bash and his books to easy to hate, althought they are on my list.


Dune -Holy cow I tried to read this garbage. I was barely able to sit through the movies

Sword of Truth Books- I kinda like The Wizards First Rule but the S&M was lame and from what a freind of mine told me about the rest of them, they seem to have degenerated into Porno novel with demons and what not. And to spoil the books for the rest of you the wizards first rule is People are Stupid, which explains why so many people got suckered into reading this.

Harry freakin Potter books - Sweet lord I could not finish the first chapter of the first book. Here is a sample of Harry Potter that I wrote.
Arnoldo Frumblebuttle walked down Whitchty Way with Mrs Crumplediddle Tootifruitywhotty.... God that annoyed me.

 

[Dark Jezter]

Special Honorable Mention time. For the stealth crapitude award, Terry Brooks' "Shannara" series. I read the first one. I read the second one. I read the third one. All was good, but I had no desire to read further. Then I read "Lord of the Rings." Admittedly, the book was spoiled a bit, for I had already read it--in "Sword of Shannara"--a rip-off so extreme, I can only call it plagiarism. Now, I'm not some Tolkien purist or fanboy, whole sections of his trilogy are god-awful boring. But Shannara, well, having finally read the source material, I just can't call this a good series. And that name--Allanon. When I read/hear it, all I can think of is
Al-Anon (a 12 step program for people with relatives/friends who are alcoholics).

Based on what I've heard, Terry Brooks' publisher basically told him "Give me a Lord of the Rings clone that I can cash in on." So it's hardly surprising that most people I've talked to consider the Shannara series a rip-off of LotR.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Re: Lame spoiler in the Sword of Truth rant

Robert Jordan is to easy to bash and his books to easy to hate, althought they are on my list.

Too true. I agree with many of your points and wich to subscribe to your newsletter. But Jordan is an easy target nowadays...

Dune -Holy cow I tried to read this garbage. I was barely able to sit through the movies

No, no, no its Holy Bovine. I liked Dune but could never read past the first book. They get even weirder.

Harry freakin Potter books - Sweet lord I could not finish the first chapter of the first book. Here is a sample of Harry Potter that I wrote.
Arnoldo Frumblebuttle walked down Whitchty Way with Mrs Crumplediddle Tootifruitywhotty.... God that annoyed me.

I tired to read the first book got about 80 pages in and thought - why am a I reading a children's book?(as in written only for children with nothing to appeal to adults -and I'm an adult to plays RPGs and video games!) And a poorly written one at that. Maybe the later ones get better (they certainly get longer - defiantley getting that Jordanesque look about them) I don't know and don't really care to.


So others on my 'personal hate list' would be;

Dragonlance novels. All of them. Yup, every single last craptacular one of them.

Anything Kevin J. Anderson has ever written. This guy gives hacks a bad name. I have had the misfortune to read 3 of his novels (hoping they would get better because I really like Star Wars and he was doing the Dark Apprentice series it came out just after Timothy Zahn's original SW books) not all of them SW (one was a Dune novel that I got free from a book club and ordered without knowing KJA was co-author - I paid way too much for it ). I simply cannot describe how indescribely bad a writter this guy is. I noticed a few years ago he went back to writing the 'pre-teen' age Star Wars books - I fear for the young!

 

[WayneLigon]

Couldn't finish the first book of the Witch World , though God knows I tried. Tried two or three times. Maybe it was the hideous deformed dwarf character or something, but I just never could find any reason to read about these people.

Almost anything by CJ Cherryh. I'm trying to read her latest fantasy series but man, it's slow going. I've stalled twice now, not even half-way through the first book. I haven't been able to touch her science fiction.

 

[Dimenhydrinate]

Sorry But,

I read the first book of the Black Company and just can't bring myself to read anymore of them. I don't really know why either. I just really wasn't impressed with it all that much.

 

[S'mon]

The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Easily. Dark, depressing and with very little to redeem it. Even worse than the first series. Which is a shame, the world is very cool. Take TC out of the books and put in someone interesting a reader could empathize with a little and it could be a great series.

I love the Chronicles - both sets. Dark & Depressing is fine with me. They seem to inspire equal amounts of love and hate in readers. I like the Covenant character, even.

Tolkien I can take or leave - I read through the series ok, it was ok. Attempts to reread have always failed though.

Worst book I've tried to read recently was a sword & sorcery from the '70s called The Black Lion, I believe it may have been self-published, the art was so bad.

 

[Negative Zero]

while not really a series, per se, the Star Wars books written by Timothy Zhan (sp?) REALLY got on my nerves. it was his incessant use of "the other". he would continuously refer to character as "the other" over and over and over and over and over and over and o... you get the picture.

~NegZ