Novel series that you can't stand.

[Viking Bastard]

Re: Re: Lame spoiler in the Sword of Truth rant

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!

FINALLY! Someone. I can't stand this man's writing. I like some of
his ideas behind his stories, most notably Darksaber (which is the
only of his books I enjoyed on some level, for his spin of a cliche
SW plot) but if he just could get somone else to write it.

And why he keeps gettin' jobs on licensed projects is beyond me.

 

[Psychotic Dreamer]

The Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton. Well thats not entirely true. I love the first 4-5 books. Basically they go from strong sexual contect to softcore porn and finally to hardcore, deviant porn. I have not been able to finish the latest book. *sigh* Not to mention the whole her becoming more of a monster than the monsters in the book. I also made the mistake of trying Hamilton's other new series (forget the name of the first book) and that was even more twisted and sick than the last few Blake books.

 

[zug_zug]

My vote have to be the original Trilogy for Dragonlance. I know those books were commisioned by TSR and that the authors were new to writing but eck, Im unable to read em.

I also really dont get the Shannara series.

As a side note(hijack), to those dislking Tolkien. I would say give it a chance. I felt much the same way for alot of my life till about 5 years ago. And to be honest, Tolkien does ramble getting the story started. Part of this is his style, and attempt to frame the world, but some of this was a result of his own indecision of a direction to take the story. From the beginning until the party reaches Rivendell is pretty slow. For a more learned discussion of this I refer you to Tom Shippey in Author of the Century

Anyway I now end my thread hijack.

 

[Dr. Talos]

Oh where to begin

Jordan - WOT - When, oh when will this train wreck end?

Goodkind - First book was good, then he became a Jordan rip-off.

Eddings - 1. First book - Great 2. Second Book - Repeat Book 1.

Brooks - The anti fantasy. But oh, my dwarves love the woods.

Dragonlance - Junk except for Chronicles and Legends.

Eric van Lustbader - Ring of Five Dragons, gutwrenching.

All for now.

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

I'm willing to chalk up my dislike of Tolkien to personal taste. I've always been more of a plot 'n action man than a setting man. I've always felt like over-describing the setting is just a dodge to cover plot holes, or a lack of plot as the case may be. I can never get into Lovecraft either - his books are booooooooring.

Writers who work just the right mix of setting detail and plot for me are Neal Stephenson, Michael Moorcock, and (I don my flak jacket for this one) J.K. Rowling.

On Harry Potter: I agree with most people about the first book. It was definitely written for 11 year olds, which I didn't really have a problem with, but I could see why one might. But the next books are so absorbing and dark that I find them irresistible. YMMV, of course.

 

[Olive]

So:

Jack Vance's Dying earth books
Fritz Leiber's Lanhkmar books
The Black Company books
Harry Potter

I think that Gygax and I have different taste in fiction generally, although I do like Lovecraft. I'm starting to think that I hate 50s fantasy, other than LeGuin.

 

[jdavis]

I've skipped a lot of these books, once I start a book I have to read the whole series no matter how bad it is, once I get started I have to know how it ends, so I try to be more picky about what I start these days (Like Jordan, who I was actually enjoyed up till Crossroads of Naptime). Digging Deep into the old box of Paperbacks I found a couple of real stinkers, I doubt that they can be considered series people like though, well one was sort of popular so I'll start with it.

The Iron Throne Trilogy by Dennis McKiernan. Talk about copying Tolkien, it was so blatantly derivative that it was just silly. As I was reading it I was wondering how he managed to keep from getting sued for plagerism.

Sword and Circlet series by Carole Nelson Douglas. I really have nothing to say about it except it wasn't very good at all.

Loremasters of Elundium series by Mike Jefferies. Has to be the absolute worst series of books I have ever read. They were so poorly written they gave me headaches. It was shear will power to get through them. Makes my head hurt even thinking about them. They are out of print now and that's probably a good thing.

 

[BryonD]

The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind, starting with Wizard's First Rule. I mostly enjoyed the first book, with the exception of the overly-long sado-massochism subplot (my thought at the time? "The author really needs to date more.)

Then I started reading the second book, and suddenly the characters had all gotten incredibly stupid again. It was like all the revelations and character development that had happened in the end of the first book had never occurred, and we were cursed once again with whining, self-doubting protagonists who just needed to talk to one another. Feh.

Man, this is exactly what I thought.
The first book was JUST good enough for me to try the second. It has been several years now, but I remeber them getting stuck in some magic/cursed desert. It draggggggggggggggged. "Oh, we are lost, woe to us. WAIT, we can go this way. Nope. Oh, we are lost, woe to us. WAIT, we can go this way. Nope. Oh, we are lost, woe to us. WAIT, we can go this way. Nope. Oh, we are lost, woe to us. WAIT, we can go this way. Nope. Oh, we are lost, woe to us. WAIT, we can go this way. Nope."

(I did not get that far into wheel of time)

 

[BryonD]

The Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton. Well thats not entirely true. I love the first 4-5 books. Basically they go from strong sexual contect to softcore porn and finally to hardcore, deviant porn. I have not been able to finish the latest book. *sigh* Not to mention the whole her becoming more of a monster than the monsters in the book. I also made the mistake of trying Hamilton's other new series (forget the name of the first book) and that was even more twisted and sick than the last few Blake books.

I loved the first nine (up through Obsidian Butterfly, which may have been the best). Then CRASH AND BURN. Not only was Narcissus in Chains porn not plot, I would not recommend it to somebody looking for porn. I was convinced that Cerulean Sins was better, so I tried it. It is better. A very little bit better. Not finishing it either.

But still, a strong 9 book run can't be a series I don't like. It is just a series that ended before it was put down mercifully. (Kinda like Wild Cards, great for 9 to 10 books, then trash)

The Kiss of Shadows stuff seems to show that Hamilton does not plan to go back to writing plot driven stuff any time soon.

 

[Welverin]

I'm willing to chalk up my dislike of Tolkien to personal taste. >snip<

Writers who work just the right mix of setting detail and plot for me are >snip<, Michael Moorcock, >snip<.

Funny you should mention those two.

I've liked all of the Middle-Earth books I've read. When I first asked my brother if I could borrow the Silmarillion he warned me I might not like it, which wasn't the case at all.

He's the one who suggest that I read the Elric books, which left me wondering why people think they're good.