Novel series that you can't stand.

[Mallus]

Dragonlance. I read them, liked Raistlin and Caramon {sp?}. Then formulated my theory about how good characters can shine throught the utter, miasmic darkness of god-awful writing...

Xanth Though I liked the first three Apprentice Adept books, and what I read of the Incarnations of Immortality.

Thoman Covenant Of course, I love them in equal measure...

That's about it for the Big Series. But what do I know, I like Eddings. He wrote 10 or 20 of the most enjoyable and essentially identical fantasy novels I've ever read.

 

[Darth Shoju]

Shadow Moon

I absolutely hated Shadow Moon by Chris Claremont (of X-men fame) and George Lucas (that Star Wars guy ). It's the "sequel" to Willow. It manages to destroy all the charm and fantasy of the movie. It re-creates the Willow character as some sort of lone-wolf uber-mage and takes him to a completely different part of the world that is nothing like the setting for the movie (it has a character who has invented the steam engine and is trying to get the kingdom to implement a railroad system!). Further, Madmartigan and Sortia (sp?) are killed off in the first chapter and Nockmaar is only a passing reference. Combine this with Claremont's irritatingly verbose writing style and it was the most painful read of my life (yes, I forced myself to finish it). There's one more book in the series called Shadow Dawn but I refuse to pick it up. I could go on about the supporting cast of characters being awful and 2-dimensional (including a grown up and annoying Elora Dannan), but I think I've rambled on long enough.

 

[orbitalfreak]

Throw on another vote for not liking Tolkein. I've tried reading LotR three times now, and never made it past Tom Bombadil. I've tried The Hobbit twice, and found that it sounded childish to me.

 

[Black Omega]

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.

 

[Dinkeldog]

Y'all are reminding me of why I want to re-read the Thomas Covenant books, Jordan (2 of the books annoy me, the rest I found really interesting), and as many Xanth books as I can get my hands on.

 

[Piratecat]

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.

 

[KenM]

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.

I'm glad I only read first book then.

 

[zyzzyr]

I'm glad I only read first book then.

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

I spent $3 on it, and feel cheated. It was, without a doubt, the single worst thing I have ever read.

The characters were monumentally stupid, the writing was dreck, and there was so little original in the book I was beginning to think it was supposed to be a parody.

Oh, and Jordan is terrible too. Go with GRR Martin instead.

 

[Darrin Drader]

The Dragonlance novels pretty much set the standard for TSR novels. They weren't perfect, and were overly melodramatic in parts, but otherwise IMO a pretty good read. If you don't like these, chances are you won't like the other TSR/WotC shared world books either.

I like Salvatore, but I may be biased considering that I first read his FR books when I was in highschool, at a time when I could really appreciate the non-stop action. Today I still follow the books, although I am about 2 behind right now. People trash him all the time, yet somehow his books always make the bestseller lists. That means that the people who don't like him are a vocal minority, or people lie about not liking him and then buy his books anyway. I had the opportunity to meet him at a book signing a few years ago and he is the definition of a nice, unpretentious guy. I disagreed with him on some of his fundamental beliefs about fantasy books in general. He has the belief that the author shouldn't spend a lot of time building the world and should cut to the action. It works for him and the stroies he tells, but I certainly wouldn't denigrate Tad Williams for telling his stories the way he does.

I appreciate Tolkein and everything he has contributed to the fantasy genre, but I don't actually like to read Tolkien. Fortunately the movies make reading him unnecessary.

I also can't stand Jordan. I read one of the Conan books he wrote and it actually wasn't bad, but trying to read WoT is like pulling teeth without anesthetic.

With David Eddings I liked with the Belgariad, but things really went downhill from there. The Mallorian was a total waste of time, as were the Sparhawk books. I'm not even sure what he's released in the past few years.

 

[Negative Zero]

i read the first of WoT couldn't bring myself to pick up another. too slow. plus the writer had an annoying tendancy to spend forever attaching you to a character and then killing htem off. not cool in my book.

Darth Shoju,
i'm really surprised coz, the Shadow Trilogy was/is one of my favourite books! in fact i was remarking to my sister over last weekend that i'm gonna re-read them soon. i understand why you were disappointed with Elora Dannan in the first book. i didn't like it either. it was very hard to justify any empathy for the focus of the entire plot of a beloved movie. she does get better in the subsequent books, tho if you hated the first that much, i doubt her alone will win you over.

PC,
funny you should bring that up. i'm reading Pliiars of Creation now. the 7th (i think) one in that series. i've been fairly disenchanted with the series tho. the first one was an impulse buy for me. and at the beginning i hated it. the writing seemed like it was done by a high school kid. i couldn't imagine how he got a book deal. but i figured, i'd spent the money, i might as well finish it. by midway, i was actually interested in seeing what happened to the characters. the subsequent books have only gotten worse tho. he tends to spend way too much time talking about unimportant characters that he kills off by the end of the books, or never brings up again. and he constantly repeats himself. and his character dialogue is so horribly primitive. and ... nevermind.

Sword of Truth. yeah that's the one i hate the most. i keep hoping for it to get good. but i keep being right that it's not. *sigh*

~NegZ