Novel series that you can't stand.

[ASH]

Are we to either assume that he convinced you, or is it because your name is actually Ashley?

My name is not Ashley. My initials before getting married spelled ASH and my husband used it as a cute nickname for me. And no he did not convince me, he orignially got the concept from a website.

I think it's an official word now, too. In the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language

I hate that popular usage could get a word in to a dictonary.

Where is it originally from?

Bugs Bunny in and of its self is not hacked. Its the character, the comic harleqin. Its from basic charcters that have been reproduce in time. Starting as far back as written comic works. I cant give any specific examples because I have heard this from teachers, but that was all that i remember.

I have to ask, what is the message? That good will triumph over evil? That message is NOT in the LOTR books. In the end, the ring overtakes Frodo, and Gollum and Frodo fight over it. He did not throw the Ring into the fire, it fell in with Gollum. Frodo becomes evil because of the Ring at the end, its one evil overcoming another evil, not good over evil like many readers think.

Oh...So the fact that Sauron the Dark lord is vanquished has nothing to do with good. I mean really, the book is mainly about Frodo, but the fact that he even gets to the fires of mount doom says alot for his charater. It was known that he could not do it himself, thats why Sam and the others go with him. Frodo fails to stay himself from the evil. But that does not mean that evil triumphed because the ring was still destroyed. The dark lord is gone and it ends up being a happy ending. I did not say that was even the meaning. It could be one meaning, but not the only one. There are many ways to interpret the books another way might be, that the book has a meaning that everyone is weak, but if we look inside our selves we can accomplish wonderful things. I mean who is to say that Gollum is even truely evil, even he has two sides.

My point still stands, every one likes everthing. Or doesnt like it. Its all based on perception. I mean people like Britney Spears, I think she may be the worst female pop singer alive, but just because I hate her does not mean she is.

 

[KidCthulhu]

Mercedes Lackey and that ilk. Any book featuring a young girl and a horse. And I include anything by Anne McCaffrey except her first 6 books. I gave up reading Fantasy and Sci Fi after just one too many "Oh, I am a beautiful maiden, but I lack self confidence, and the only one who understands me is my telepathically bonded horse/dragon/kitty cat/fluffy entity. But wait, who is this handsome, emotionally stunted male authority figure or rogue. I wonder if his love will make me complete?"

Blaaaagh. So much romantic claptrap on toast. Give me a good mystery novel anyday (not that there isn't dreck in that genre as well). I get better game ideas, and far less RenFaire Romance tm.

 

[Rune]

TSR having a "code of ethics", now thats funny. But I know I will get flamed for this, but the book series I can't stand is Lord of the Rings. I love the movies, but the books are just so long, drawn out. JRRT had no idea how to do plot devlopment or how to prgress the story. He describes the characters going around EVERY hill, road, ect.. Then for some reason that has no relation to the main plot, the characters sing for many pages, to show the language(s) He devolped. Also, some major plot things that should have been explained more, are not(IE, between FoTR and TTT the orcs attack, no place does JRRT describe the action, its just mentioned in passing the the orcs attacked the, that is a MAJOR plot happening). Someone else said "you read LOTR to find out about the world, the languages, the story is the backround". I felt like I was reading a textbook, if I want to read a textbook to learn, I will read a textbook to learn, if I want to read a fantasy adventure novel, thats what I expect, not a textbook.

Lord of the Rings wasn't a novel, it was a saga--in the old norse/icelandic tradition. That's why a lot of people have trouble reading it--they're expecting a novel.

The author that I really think is over-rated is John Steinbeck. I had a professor who called him "a very talented bad writer." I think that sums it up very nicely.

He has a tendency to do very flat and unbelievable characters--which is okay, in some of his works, but works much more poorly in others. East of Eden is particularly bad in this area.

The one good thing about Steinbeck's stories, however, are the movies based on them.

As for fantasy novels--let's just say that I don't like most fantasy novels at all. A few good ones shine through, but most are pure drivel.

 

[Rune]

I have to ask, what is the message? That good will triumph over evil? That message is NOT in the LOTR books. In the end, the ring overtakes Frodo, and Gollum and Frodo fight over it. He did not throw the Ring into the fire, it fell in with Gollum. Frodo becomes evil because of the Ring at the end, its one evil overcoming another evil, not good over evil like many readers think.

The message is not that good will triumph over evil, it is that the good must be wary of the evil within themselves.

Also, for those bashing the classics because they bore you...

Generally enjoyment of the classics can usually be enhanced if you have someone knowledgeable to discuss them with. You probably won't if you're still in high-school, although you might.

I know when I was in high school, I generally prefered generally pulpy (and I'm not talking about the pulp-genre, which I still like) fantasy and sci-fi novels that were high on action and low on quality over classics. But I outgrew them. That's okay. Classics may, be easier to think of as "boring," if they lack a high action content, but I'll take a good quality slow novel over a low-quality "exciting" novel any day.

 

[KenM]

Also, for those bashing the classics because they bore you...

I have read some classics that I really liked, Les Miserables, the complete uncut edtion I loved. Thats 1500 pages. I also read the Three Musketter's (SP?) I forget how long it was, but I thought it was very good.
Both Dumas and Hugo know how to advance the story, and keep it interesting, and not bog down the story with lots of usless details that have nothing to do with the plot or story, unlike JRRT's LoTR.

 

[Mistwell]

The Xanth novels, after the first few. In fact, MOST Piers Anthony (Incarfnations of Immortality and first few Robot Adapt novels also an exception), that formula-addicted hack.

 

[Storm Raven]

However, I believe the Chronicles of Narnia were written as Christian allegory.

Nothing prevents a book from being aimed at children, and Christian allegory. In the case of the Chronicles of Narnia, the books are both.

 

[WizarDru]

Nothing prevents a book from being aimed at children, and Christian allegory. In the case of the Chronicles of Narnia, the books are both.

True. It's also true that being written to be accessible to younger readers is not mutually exclusive of being possbile to be enjoyed by older readers. Harry Potter isn't "Make way for Ducklings" or "Arthur's Underwear Trouble", after all.

 

[Look_a_Unicorn]

I think it was Ursula le Guin that wrote "Earthsea" series. Was given the series-in-one-book thing as a present and got through two chapters before realising if I tried to keep reading this my brain would wriggle out my earhole & beat my around the head till I stopped.
Not sure what it's linked to, but there is another book that's part of a series, the book is "Curse of the Mistwraith." I'd rather dunk my head into radioactive goop then attempt to wade through the drek that is this book again. Got about 200 pages through before the mind-numbing apathy that is this book overcame me.

I'll defend a few of the series mentioned here by saying:

*Dragonlance (the original "Dragons of XX" ones at least). A fantastic introduction to fantasy literature for someone aged 12. Don't know how I'd take them now though.

* WOT: Given first book aged 14 & loved it to bits. It was fantastic. I shed a tear for the whore the carcass has since become.

* Shannara: I couldn't stop reading any of these books. It wasn't because I liked the characters, or because I was engrossed in the storyline. I think it was more out of disbelief that an entire series could be written that had virtually no interesting events in it whatsoever.

* Thomas Covenant: Maybe the darkness of the setting appeals to many, I htought the world was actually pretty damn cool. But making the main character a sniveller that whinges & whines about the consequences of his own actions when everyone else had already forgiven him? I finished the series in the hopes SOMEONE would beat the living tar out of him. No such luck .

Did I say defend? Umm ok then
Lord of the Rings: First true fantasy series, an entire living breathing world of such breathtaking intricacy that your modern reader, not being grabbed in the first 30 minutes by graphic violence, seductive females or witty one-liners casts it to one side? I'm happy to keep this cherished series for those with the werewithal to thoroughly appreciate it.

And I realise that people will be thinking the same thing about many of the series I bagged out, I guess it all comes down to "where your at" at the time you pick a book up.

 

[S'mon]

Here is yet another vote for the Sword Of Truth series. Very irritating, I stopped reading after the first novel, thankfully. What is worse than that, though, is when a series starts off fabulously and draws you into buying several books after that first one, hoping it will equal the level of enjoyment you found in the first book. For me, that was The Crystal Shard and the Drizzt books. I still love The Crystal Shard, but all the other books were simply not worth it.

Hear hear on that - Salvatore got me buying lots of the sequels hoping they'd be good like Crystal Shard. Eventually I cottoned on.