Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion
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What WON'T you read?
So far, anything written by Jacqueline Carey (overrated and simply boring), David Weber (he can make dialing a phone number scene last for one whole chapter), whoever wrote Princess or Throne of Glass... Or was it Thorns?? It was something about a very annoying and incompetent so-called assassin chick. Others in my oh-hell-to-the-no list: John Greene, Rick Riordan, Jack Thorne, Larry Correia. I will add more if I could remember them.
Silvana wrote: "So far, anything written by Jacqueline Carey (overrated and simply boring), David Weber (he can make dialing a phone number scene last for one whole chapter), whoever wrote Princess or Throne of Gl..."Why these two, John Greene and Rick Riordan, out of curiosity?
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I hear some people rave about them... and others rant about them... so I've never pulled the trigger and tried them, despite coming close once... they sound pretty angsty... which is one of my no-gos
The only John Green book I've read is The Fault in Our Stars
I made my thoughts on Larry Correia known in the other thread... loved Grimnoir... didn't care for MHI...
We actually used John Green's Crash Course series in both of my History courses in University. I didn't even know he was an author until The Fault in Our Stars became popular, and my daughter expressed intrest in wanting to read one of his books. I believe Green is a different/opposite political persuasion than myself, but I haven't heard anything specific in that realm.
As for Riordan, I hope he's not an @$$ because both of my twins (especially my daughter) and many of their friends love his work. I enjoyed the first Percy Jackson book, and I plan to read that series and others.
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I hear some peo..."
Sarah J Mass is officially on my won't ever read list after I read Throne of Glass. What kind of assassin (view spoiler). Plus literally every YA trope you can stuff in one book.
No love triangles, no YA of any sort anymore, no John Green and definitely no Paulo Cohelo :3
I try to be open with books and genres but YA does make it difficult I don't dislike it since there are probably some books it's just there are stuff I don't like such as love triangles and stupid characters but there may be some that prove me wrong I have read Maas yet but I don't really have much interest in reading her with some of the complaints she has for the books but I might read Cassandra Clarke clockwork book since I hear the love triangle is well done in the books
But yeah I don't think you should shut yourself out I might run into a book that's a big no no for me in the future but right now I want to explore out of fantasy in the future so that's my 2 cents
Well I haven't read but there is this book called Paper Princess. I have read the reviews after hearing about this book. It's basically about a girl moving into a house of some rich guys. His sons harass the girl non-stop in every way possible. They openly talk about raping her. And girl somehow falls in love with the worst guy. I really felt angry after hearing this all.
If I based my reading on politics I wouldn't have a lot to read. And since I pretty much dislike politics, I wouldn't even have that going for me. HehI actually liked the 1st two Sarah Maas books. Not favorites, but I found them to be harmless fun.
I do tend to avoid romancey stuff and love triangles (I know this contradicts my last statement, but there it is).
I'm also starting to get to the point where I am shy about starting a new series by an author that's infamous for taking 7 years to write a book. I've been burned by Martin, Rothfuss, and Lynch. They all take so long that I have to reread everything up to the new one each time they finally deem it necessary to refill their coffers and release something. I'm too old to remember shit like I used to be able to do.
On that, I'm too hooked on Martin to do anything but fall into the trap with ASOIAF. I'll read the new one if it comes out in my lifetime, even though I know he'll dangle the carrot out in front of us for years after that. Too much of an addiction.
The other two? Not so much. I will only read Rothfuss if i'm given assurances that the Doors of Stone will be the final book. If he drags it out, I won't bother with it. Same with any new series he might start.
Far as the "issues with authors" thing,I would have a problem picking up MZB because of the abuse thing. I also shy away from Card because of extreme hate politics that makes me feel dirty, and there is the fact that he's a sub-average author in the first place.
With most of the others out there I haven't seen enough to make me steer away.
I still find it funny hat the only reason this thread got started was because I didn't agree with terry goodkinds philosophy
Terry Goodkind is kind of a whackjob. He doesn't offend me (I haven't cared enough to read up on his philosophy) but he is something of a hack. I really enjoyed his first couple of books, but then he entered the suck-zone and I have pretty much purged him from my TBR.
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I have an aversion to pectorals on book covers, and refuse to read romance.
I’ll never read Marion Zimmer Bradley or anyone who has sexually abused a person. There’s a huge history there on my hubby’s side of the family that makes me feel nauseous to even think of reading anyone who has abused another human being
I also read the autobiography of Malcolm X, which was a mistake because I discovered he was quite the jerk (fondly reminiscing on beating his women, saying women are incapable of complex thought, very vocal hatred against black Christians). So that has put a bad taste in my mouth about Historical/political figures.. but I might read the biographies of Keith Richards or Willie Nelson
@Nyssa: I found them both overrated and their books annoying.Terry Goodkind is also a no-go for me. Gene Wolfe, Jack Vance, Michael Moorcock, Anne McCaffrey. All because I got really offended with their treatment to their female characters.
I loved Marion Zimmer Bradley as a teenager. Big reason why I always wanted to become a writer. Then the reveal came and I had to throw out her books :( I don’t like love triangles but I try most things once!
Margret wrote: "What’s Goodkind’s philosophy?I have an aversion to pectorals on book covers, and refuse to read romance.
I’ll never read Marion Zimmer Bradley or anyone who has sexually abused a person. There’..."
Goodkind is a bit of an Ayn Rand supporter and he really believes in objectivism which is kind of looking at stuff ideally and kind of like logic over feeling kind of stuff and with some research there are a few problems with it and he has said he has used that philosophy in his work I'm paraphrasing of course but yeah not really my thing
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Iain wrote: "A bit of a discussion sprung up in the Buddy Read Invite thread, this is just giving that discussion it's own space.The discussion started HERE and continued for about a page...
I decided to gen..."
Oh wow. I'm reading FeverSong now. I did not know that Phil Gigante is a convicted sex offender. I must have missed that whole scandal. It makes me lose so much respect for KMM, well, as much as I can have after she more or less made book 6 about pedophilia. Guess I'm not too surprised? I'm about 99% sure this will be the last KMM book I read.
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I won't read Brent Weeks because I tried two series and couldn't make it by book one in either. Too bad because he seems like a hell of a guy.
I'm not going to read romance novels.
So I just looked up Marion Bradley and it was shocking and I have no sympathy for her but would that mean I wont read her books? I don't know she's not really profiting from it anymore and they do sound interestingAlso to be fair I don't know why anyone would not read an author due to there political opinions an example for me would be JK Rowling now personally I really didn't like her for a thing she did concerning Donald Trump not a huge fan of the guy but I was not happy with what she did would that mean I refuse to read her books obviously not and to be fair everyone's entitled to there opinion especially if its a bit shit and yes it can have an effect on the books authors write but other than that I try to separate the art from the person.
Oh, look, I've discovered my new favorite thread!I have specific shelves for books I won't read - all in all somewhere around 7000 and counting (that's in one year that I've been on GR).
So here we go:
Historical fiction, poetry, anything written before 1900, Humor, non-fiction, short stories, detective stories, horror, childrens books, middle grade, PNR, romance with successful people (jocks, billionares, alpha males, generally adults???), romance without HEA, angst-heavy (mother died, father raped me, I got into drugs, etc), protagonist death, time travel, lgbt MC's, vampires, family drama, women that speak like hillbillies, first contact, generation sagas, robot/AI protagonists, animal protagonists, epic fantasy, it was all a dream.
These are ones I REMEMBER right now. Will update whenever.
**Of course there are rare exceptions to most of these, but they are RARE.
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The only saving grace though Ahdam that you can rest easy about is that the children of MZB have set it up so that most of the profits are going to charity. So yes you can read them knowing that there is a silver lining
Besides anything that is pure romance there probably isn't anything that I wouldn't at least try. I don't really look into authors at all so I'm never really aware of what they believe or have done. I'm not running out to grab her book but will probably end up reading MZB at some point.
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And because I've learned my lesson about going off-topic for extended periods of time... and it's been quiet around here lately... always nice to get a lively discussion started...
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The discussion started HERE and continued for about a page...
I d..."
In the end, the backlash, and I presume cancelled preorders, got KMM to change her tune and change narrators... but the damage was done...
I never continued past Shadowsong anyway... I was waiting for the new storylines to end before starting, because I couldn't imagine reading the first 5 books one at a time, they were so connected... and then the plans and focus for the later books kept changing, and the reviews were mixed, and I just decided to not bother...
I mean... it was to be a Dani O'Malley trilogy, THEN more Mac & Barrons books... but I guess Iced didn't sell well, so they merged the plans and brought Mac back early... and then the Feversong series "ending" doesn't even resolve everything and there are to be spin-off books with more plot resolutions...
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What's funny is... even tho I listed 3-4 authors that people have problems with, I found out about their problems after I already stopped reading them for other reasons... so I can't really say their views have had much of a direct effect on me... yet...
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I have specific shelves for books I won't read - all in all somewhere around 7000 and counting (that's in one year that I've been on GR).
So here w..."
@idiffer: I think the better question is: What WILL you read?... o_0... that's a lot of NOPEs...
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And because I've learned my lesson about going off-topic..."
I was going to thank you for diverting the topic. This thread is the exact reason why its important as we are now having multiple members posting and providing thought provoking comments, it likely wouldn't have done the same on the invite thread
Ahdam, agreed on Rowling. I don't refuse to read her, but I did unfollow her on Twitter because I don't want to see her constant Trump-bashing.She's not even close to being the only celeb I unfollowed for that very reason. I don't care if they dislike Trump or anyone else, but I don't want to read about it constantly.
But so far I haven't put any of this on my "Won't read" author list.
I usually try to read anything once. A few books I'll try to read twice, or thrice. It's very rare that I'll shrug a book off entirely, and those tend to be DNFs rather than never-trieds, and they mostly apply to series rather than authors. 1. The Faithful and the Fallen. I really regretted spending time on reading Malice, and I'm not interested in continuing. I'm still on the fence about trying out his new series, which is not something I usually do.
2. Throne of Glass. The prose lost me and I was not overly fond of what was happening in the few chapters I read. But I think what really pissed me of was the name. Celaena? REALLY? You couldn't find something more obviously "vampyre"-y? I could not keep reading that name without rolling my eyes, and the rest of the writing did not help.
3. The Grisha Trilogy; I read 2.9 percent of the books before the romance finally got on my nerves enough to piss me off. I still haven't read the last three chapters of the second book, and I feel no regrets. This one has been dumped, and dumped thoroughly. I have to note, however, that Six of Crows was excellent, so again- not an author thing.
4. Many romance authors. I read a lot of romance (especially historicals), so I happily dump books whenever they annoy me. The best part of that is writing the scathing reviews. The same also applies to SF/F, because there are a bunch of similar (mostly sexist) tropes in operation in both genres that I get really irritated about.
5. Authors being assholes does not usually feature into my reading choices, mostly because I don't own that many books. I tend to beg or borrow. I have very few auto-buy authors.
Iain wrote: "Diana Stormblessed wrote: "Iain wrote: "A bit of a discussion sprung up in the Buddy Read Invite thread, this is just giving that discussion it's own space.The discussion started HERE and continu..."
I'm reading FeverSong, not listening to it, so I can't confirm, but online it says he's the narrator of that one. It says she changed narrators for book 8 because he was in jail, but once he was released he was back on staff. Which pisses me off. Everything past book 5 is shit anyway. Book 1-5 were well thought out and planned. After that it's like a giant mish mosh of ideas that never came to fruition because she kept changing her mind or she didn't know where she wanted it to go before she started writing. It's a mess. After I finish this book I'm going to wipe 6-9 from my mind and pretend the series ended with 5, like it should have.
Edit to add: Iced didn't sell well because it was set up to be a love square between a 14 year old Dani and 4 grown ass men! I don't even know what KMM was thinking. I should have dropped it all right there.
Yeah I agree with the celebs and trump bashing I understand there frustration Trumps an idiot in my opinion and celebs can have there opinion but there's a point you have to think that's enough especially when you have millions of followers who listen to you and you can influence very easilyRowling isn't the only author that for me personally has gone so low another would be Rothfuss as he has been vocal about his disagreement and in one of his streams he said that he will release the third book if trump is impeached and I really hope he was joking because that's just scummy to bribe your fans like that
@IainYes. It's pretty hard for me to find books I will want to read.
UPD:
Zombies, ghosts, fallen angels, christian fiction, satan on earth. try to stay away from russian books
Ahdam wrote: "Yeah I agree with the celebs and trump bashing I understand there frustration Trumps an idiot in my opinion and celebs can have there opinion but there's a point you have to think that's enough esp..."That's just something he's saying to push off his fan's constant requests for a next book, because chances of Trump being impeached with the current congress are slim to nil. I really loved Name of the Wind but have heard such horrible stories of him as a human being and how he treats his fans. I'm really surprised that he's supposedly such a great friend of Brandon Sanderson as they're like night and day in regards to writing speed and fan treatment.
Commentary to Misc. items in the thread;1. I did not know that about Marion Zimmer Bradley. That is just plain horrible.
2. As far as I know, Riordan is not an asshole. He has questionable writing skills, though. The Percy Jackson books are good, but the sequel series Heroes of Olympus... is really not that well-written IMO. He does seem to be making a comeback with the third series set in the Percy Jackson universe though. (I used to write a ton of fanfiction about these characters. Sigh- I miss that.)
3. Ah. I have been focusing mostly on SF/F and Romance (my two main genres), but yeah- I tend to not be a fan of literary fiction. It's more often than not easy to write pretentious bullshit. ANgst and philosophical musings are far easier to do than plot and comedy.
4. Speaking of objectivism. Ayn Rand. The last time I tried to read Fountainhead I was marking off editorial comments in the margins.
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I simply don't care enough about celebrities to want to know more about them, their histories or experiences. I also hate when random famous people who have no desire to be writers, slap something together for a quick money-grab.... the number of these are growing rapidly.
@ShaThe problem with philosophy in fiction is that once you read non-fiction philosophy, then everything becomes pretentious and superfluos. One of the reasons I stay away from john green.
To add my own thoughts to this thread. I tend to still read books by horrible people because most of my books are library obtained. I probably won't buy them though. The only author I consistently spend actual money on is Brandon Sanderson. But in terms of book topics I won't read non fiction (except humor books), I'm not a huge fan of sci-fi, and I hate love triangles and will try to avoid books that have that as a main theme. I like romance books, but I prefer them to be a one on one thing and not filled with "oh no who will Person A choose" angst.
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The discussion started HER..."
Feversong
UNABRIDGED
by Karen Marie Moning
Narrated By Jim Frangione, Amanda Leigh Cobb
according to Audible
@Margret: Agreed... I tried stopping even going into Buddy Read Invites, myself, for a few weeks there, to stop signing up for things... that didn't last long, tho...
Iain wrote: "Diana Stormblessed wrote: "Iain wrote: "Diana Stormblessed wrote: "Iain wrote: "A bit of a discussion sprung up in the Buddy Read Invite thread, this is just giving that discussion it's own space...."
I stand corrected. Either way the books themselves have gone downhill and I'm probably done with them.
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The discussion started HER..."
I always found KMM's comments on where she came up with Fever crazy: She read the books in a dream and was just transcribing them into the waking world... it always left me wondering where these new books 6-9+ came from, then? Fanfic?...
Ahdam wrote: "Also to be fair I don't know why anyone would not read an author due to there political opinions an example for me would be JK Rowling now personally I really didn't like her for a thing she did concerning Donald Trump not a huge fan of the guy but I was not happy with what she did would that mean I refuse to read her books obviously not and to be fair everyone's entitled to there opinion especially if its a bit shit and yes it can have an effect on the books authors write but other than that I try to separate the art from the person. "I agree with you Ahdam.
Ahdam wrote: "Yeah I agree with the celebs and trump bashing I understand there frustration Trumps an idiot in my opinion and celebs can have there opinion but there's a point you have to think that's enough esp..."He really said that? Well, it's one of those he won't have to worry about getting called on, so no fear that he'll actually have to release a book or anything so drastic.
Wow, I know that if I sat at my computer fucking off for 7 years without producing I'd starve.
Iain wrote: "Diana Stormblessed wrote: "Iain wrote: "Diana Stormblessed wrote: "Iain wrote: "A bit of a discussion sprung up in the Buddy Read Invite thread, this is just giving that discussion it's own space...."
Her dreaming self must be a better author than her waking self. If I were her I'd try harder to induce lucid dreams. It's seriously amazing that the person who wrote 1-5 wrote 6-9. I read 1-5 multiple times. The first being when I was in a bad way emotionally, and it got me through. I will forever hold those books dear because they helped me deal with a bad situation. I remember at the end of book 3 I think (view spoiler) staying up reading until 2 am when I had to wake up for work at 6, getting to that part and throwing the book across the room at the wall because I was so mad. I never had a physical reaction to a book like that before lol. But if I came into the series now and read them all at once I would have hated it as a whole.
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Phil Gigante was the originally planned narrator... but like I said, the fan backlash was large enough to force her hand... I think she made a statement on her blog and/or facebook...
As for types of books I avoid, I generally avoid anything about two people (usually different sex) who had to endure hardship in a troubled land/kingdom/planet/dystopian world blablabla and they will meet and fall in love and so on and so forth.I also avoid farmboy-turned-hero fantasy. Or assassin-wannabes.
Love triangles and angsty YA won't be in my shelves.
Post-apocalyptic fantasy. Very much derivative and lazy worldbuilding.
Most celebrity memoirs.
Books with animal abuse in it.
Books that are blatantly misogynistic and/or contain many trigger warnings.
Most of Stephen King's books. He has disappointed me too many times.
Most books with over than 4.5 star rating in Goodreads :D
The only authors I can say I would definitely not read are Marion Zimmerman Bradley. I'm kind of acquainted with her daughter in another social media group I belong to and I've heard all about what happened. It makes me sick. And Sarah J. Maas. I actually enjoyed her books in the beginning, but she doesn't stay true to her characters and I just can't invest my time in her books any more because of it. I will never not read an author's books based on hearsay from other people though.
Fantasy Buddy Reads
Books mentioned in this topic
Postmortem (other topics)Body of Evidence (other topics)
All That Remains (other topics)
Paper Princess (other topics)
Throne of Glass (other topics)
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The discussion started HERE and continued for about a page...
I decided to generalize the discussion a bit, so it can continue longer...
Like I said over in BR Invites, I've heard a bit about Marion Zimmer Bradley and Larry Correia, I witnessed the sex offender narrator fiasco with Karen Marie Moning last year, and Kendall Grey bashing her "low-brow smutty readership"...
But in more general terms, I tend to avoid love triangles and YA Angst... both just tend to serve the purpose of delaying the relationship until the end of the book/series...