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Which Fantasy Author Did You Find Most Disappointing?
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Robert
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Sep 19, 2012 09:44AM
I'm think of the various Camber/Deryni series. They're mostly broken into trilogies, but they all take place in the same world. Sometimes with overlapping characters, others in totally different points in the history. http://www.goodreads.com/series/49168...
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Robert wrote: "The ones who do seem to pull it off either skip around in a world's history (Katerine Kurtz), write shorter novels rather than 2000-page epics (Brust, who also does #1), or mix things and such a way that it's not exactly a traditional series (Moorcock's Elric/Eternal Champion/Multiverse saga).
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I think the serials generally do pretty well. Like Kate Daniels, Harry Dresden, Mercy Thompson.
Andre Norton did the entire planet/different characters thing with her Witch World series. IIRC, that's where the trend started.
Oh, okay. Thanks, Robert. I'll check them out.Witch World! You're right, MrsJoseph. I forgot about those. There are some great stories in there. The Crystal Gryphon springs to mind. I read through all those back in high school. Wonderful stuff.
Christopher wrote: "Oh, okay. Thanks, Robert. I'll check them out.Witch World! You're right, MrsJoseph. I forgot about those. There are some great stories in there. The Crystal Gryphon springs to mind. I read throug..."
That's one of my favorite arcs! I love the entire series...I even own OOP copies.
Robert wrote: "I agree it is very tough to go beyond a trilogy without a series falling off. It seems to require particular talents, point of view, and perseverance. Otherwise highly talented writers rarely pull ..."well, there are exceptions to the rule, right? at least IMO it is Steven Erikson (havent read Esslemont yet) and though some here might disagree with me, I also love all ASOIAF books out yet :)
Erikson has 10 book main series and first book out of Kharkanas Trilogy series out (havent gotten to that one yet)... I am finishing Dust of dreams today and moving on to Crippled God tomorrow or so, and I am yet to be disappointed... there were too many great memorable moments to mention, and I thought there might hardly be something to really shake me or something... and then he came with that badass kickass scene in this one (view spoiler)
MrsJoseph wrote: That's one of my favorite arcs! I love the entire series...I even own OOP copies.Five minutes of percolating in my head...now I'm totally inspired to go hunt those down and re-read them. Off to Amazon to hopefully find them for Kindle...
For me it has to be Robert Jordan and his Wheel of Time series. It looked so promising and as I got further into it the more I realized I needed a big chart to cross-reference and keep track of everything. When that happened I lost interest and admire anyone that can keep that timeline straight.
Mike (the Paladin) wrote: "I was a commercial refrigeration tech. for 25 or so years and had that experience a few times. You had to be sure of what book you had and the language used."Haha I know that one, it also links to the author I found most dissapointing, it was Chris Bunch's Seer King Trilogy.
First book was sword and sorcery fantasy with some rather overly descriptive sex scenes but gave it benefit of the doubt, rest of the series ended up reading like some porn script disguised as sword and sorcery fantasy fiction.
I could'nt believe it was just left with the other books in my local bookstores fantasy section. The Blurbs gave no indication at all, he had the makings of a fairly good story but killed it with all the sex scenes every 50-100 pages or so.
Was definately one of those moments when youve just read a scene and someone asks you what your reading, so you try to change the topic as quickly as possible!.
Needless to say those books got binned (probably the only books ive ever thrown away) was'nt gonna end up on my bookshelf where my much younger siblings could read em.
I'd never read a book by Laurel K. Hamilton and I got one on cassette (tells you how long ago it was) and had it on in my work vehicle..... It was after she'd moved from fantasy to what amounts to soft-core porn. I wasn't aware of that till i put the book on.Happily no one "unfortunate" happened to hear before I took it off.
I know this is going to be heresy, but for me it's Tolkein. For as good as the Lord or the Rings movies are, the books are unreadable. I think he's writing is just hard to read and it seems like he's breaking into song every other page. I had to put the book down after about 100 pages.Carl Alves
Mike (the Paladin) wrote: "I'd never read a book by Laurel K. Hamilton and I got one on cassette (tells you how long ago it was) and had it on in my work vehicle..... It was after she'd moved from fantasy to what amounts to ..."Her early Anita Blake books were a lot of fun to read, especially when they first came out since there wasn't much UF or PNR at that time. Up to book 10 or so, I really liked the series, but the first few were the best. The audio books I got of her first 3 were HORRIBLE, though. The reader was the pits.
Carl wrote: "I know this is going to be heresy, but for me it's Tolkein. For as good as the Lord or the Rings movies are, the books are unreadable. I think he's writing is just hard to read and it seems like ..."Welcome to the small, but stalwart, group of non-Tolkienites. ;D
Colleen wrote: "Carl wrote: "I know this is going to be heresy, but for me it's Tolkein. For as good as the Lord or the Rings movies are, the books are unreadable. I think he's writing is just hard to read and i..."http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/n...
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lol :)))
I dropped WHEEL OF TIME within four paragraphs. Didn't even get to the second page. Think of the hours and hours of time I have saved!SHANNARA, all volumes. I read the first and that was plenty, thanks.
DUNE sequels. I read the first trilogy in one gulp, over a single weekend, and realized that not only was this enough, but that I would never reread them.
TWILIGHT. Sorry, vamp fans. Not my bag.
Brenda wrote: "I dropped WHEEL OF TIME within four paragraphs. Didn't even get to the second page. Think of the hours and hours of time I have saved!SHANNARA, all volumes. I read the first and that was plenty..."
I must admit I also found the Wheel of time very hard to get into with the first book, but after getting through it I really enjoyed the way the rest of the series opened up, looking forward to finally seeing it complete in January.
Shannara series' are generally good, they follow a very similar pattern every series so reading the first is generally enough to guess the pattern for the rest, but they can be a fun read.
Dune Id tend to agree, main trilogy was amazing but it wasnt something id honestly bother to read a 2nd time, not sure why that is.
And thank goodness for the last bit, I can't stand Twilight and am always glad to find im not alone in that dislike. Sparkly Vampire rubbish lol, give me a book about evil bloodsucking monster vamps any day!
I took me a few false starts to finally hook up with Tolkien (but forget about Silmarrillion!). Robert Jordan's first book or two were good, but I couldn't stick with it after that. Actually, I find that I can't connect with a number of the mainstream fantasy authors.
Martin's game of thrones books are good, but for a fantasy novel there's not a lot of fantasy!I was under the impression that hunger games was sci-fi dystopia rather than fantasy.
I really, truly, deeply hate Stephen R Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series with the white hot fury of a thousand suns.I read the first book in high school because most of my fantasy reading friends recommended it.
They were wrong, and shall never be completely forgiven
Patrick, you and I have a point of agreement.
I will never understand how anybody liked those books. I pushed through to the end of book one, figuring it just had to get better, but it never did.
I disliked them as well. However there must be somebody out there who adores them, since they are popular.
Personally, I only read them because I loved all things fantasy and my library in the 80s didn't have a lot of options in the sci-fi/fantasy shelving, so I read almost everything there. Now there is so much more to discover!
A lot of people do like them (I hear from them often when I express my, "dislike" of them. I read the books (first series) with a "group" of people. It was a sort of "group read" among my D&D group back when the books came out.
I read several of Marion Zimmer Bradley books. The trilium series was great, but the Avalon series disappointed me a lot. "The Mists of Avalon" was amazing. The sequels, written with Paxton, not so much. They were repetitive, to the point I could nearly say what was going to happen in each chapter.
I would have to say Christopher Paolini is the most dissapointing. Eragon was a total fantasy cliche from beginning to end. The whole book felt like an insult to fantasy. He took pretty much all the major plot points of well known books like Shannara/WOT/LOTR but somehow it was all so childish and predictable in his book without any of the finesse.
Mach wrote: "I would have to say Christopher Paolini is the most dissapointing. Eragon was a total fantasy cliche from beginning to end. The whole book felt like an insult to fantasy. He took pretty much all th..."I see a lot of young adults read them and love the books, but as you said that if they just go dig deeper into really fantasy, but a lot of people don't, they just read what is popular out there in the media.
Brenda wrote: "I disliked them as well. However there must be somebody out there who adores them, since they are popular."I must be the somebody out there because I adore all the books.
One that disappointed me was Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series. I read them as a child and knew that he was heavily inspired by LotR (e.g. Gurgi vs. Gollum). When I later got more into Celtic mythology, I discovered that he was even more heavily influenced by the Welsh mythology. Most of the characters' names--Gwydion, Arawn, Math, Rhun, Gwystyl, etc--and most of the plots--the war over a stolen pig, the whole black cauldron thing, etc--are straight out of Y Mabinogion. However, I felt that he did very superficial research into Welsh mythology and the personalities of the characters were seriously twisted from their original forms--it felt like appropriation to me. I love tracing the mythological lines in LotR and Harry Potter, but I guess Prydain bothered me because the copies of the books that I read didn't note just how heavily Alexander drew from Y Mabinogion. It did make me examine how I felt about the line that delineates acceptable levels of uncredited influence, though.
Interesting, Carly. I remember reading it ages ago but not many details.
I heard great things about Neil Gaiman. American Gods was a complete let down.Carl
I was disappointed in "American Gods," but I stand by "Neverwhere" as a brilliant urban fantasy.
Carl wrote: "I heard great things about Neil Gaiman. American Gods was a complete let down.Carl"
Same here except it was with Anansi Boys. I'd heard so much about Gaiman but was disappointed. However I recently read Neverwhere and now understand why Gaiman is so popular. It is brilliant, really magical
Jalilah wrote: "Carl wrote: "I heard great things about Neil Gaiman. American Gods was a complete let down.Carl"
Same here except it was with Anansi Boys. I'd heard so much about Gaiman but was disappointed. Ho..."
Felt the same with Stardust. Couldn't finish it.
I found Stardust OK but didn't like Anansi Boys or American Gods.
Brenda wrote: "I found Stardust OK but didn't like Anansi Boys or American Gods."I didn't like those book either!
Many of the authors that I find disappointing are also the ones that I find most enjoying. George R. R. Martin really knows how to write well but the last few books of the series have started to slow in pace. Most of the interesting parts of the novel seem to come at the end, so that I almost don't even want to read the middle of the novel. I read the beginning wanting to find out what happens, bore in the middle, and then get excited at the end which makes me want to read another one. Because of this, though, I haven't yet read the most recent novel. I find the same problem with Robert Jordan, as much of the Wheel of Time series seems to go on and on without much happening.
A lot of the disappointment I find from any authors in fantasy is the a long-winded plodding along that seems to keep everything frozen. I like knowing a lot about the world, but I also want to feel a sense of urgency with the writing.
I'm surprised that some people are saying they dislike American Gods and Anansi Boys! I'll admit that they aren't as good as Neverwhere though....For the people wondering if Laurell K Hamilton knows how many fans she's miffed. I would say so. I read a blog post awhile ago about how she had to bring body gaurds to a romance conference a few years back because she was getting death threats.
Also, I'm gonna agree with some of the above posters about the Thomas Covenant books. I read halfway through the first one and was already bored, then became outraged when I got to the scene where (view spoiler)
Benjamin wrote: "Many of the authors that I find disappointing are also the ones that I find most enjoying. George R. R. Martin really knows how to write well but the last few books of the series have started to sl..."Good post. I have similar concerns about the above mentioned books. Wheel of time seemed to run out of steam and ended up becoming waste of time. The later books felt as though they had been phoned in.
Yes, Erin, absolutely.That scene in the Covenant books was the clincher for me as well.
I don't mind a flawed protagonist. I do mind a complete douchecookie protagonist.
Erin wrote: "For the people wondering if Laurell K Hamilton knows how many fans she's miffed. I would say so. I read a blog post awhile ago about how she had to bring body gaurds to a romance conference a few years back because she was getting death threats.Also, I'm gonna agree with some of the above posters about the Thomas Covenant books. I read halfway through the first one and was already bored, then became outraged when I got to the scene where (view spoiler)"
I'd love to hear what KLH thinks of her situation now.
RE: Covenant. OMG. My same reaction. Plus he was a whiny bitch. I hate whiny destructive bitches.
I'm going to be controversial by admitting that I have read more books by Terry Goodkind (and enjoyed them) than books by another, more famous, Terry...Yes, thus far, the most disappointing fantasy author I've found is Terry Pratchett.
A lot of my friends are huge Pratchett fans and I tried very hard to like The Color of Magic and The Light Fantastic but they just didn't do it for me. Interesting characters, brilliant world but...I don't know. Maybe it just wasn't the right time in my life for me to be reading them.
The Discworld series calls to me every time I see them on bookshelves in the library or in shops, so over 15 years since I read the last one, I intend to give them another go and hopefully, not be so disappointed this time.
Many fans of the series will tell you the first ones aren't the strongest. I started with 'Wyrd Sisters' - mostly because I didn't know it was a series and just randomly grabbed it from the store. It got me hooked, and I've never looked back.Still don't like the early books so much, though.
I'm going to have to go with Brad on Robert Jordan. It is bad form to speak ill of the dead, probably bad form for a nobody author to smack a well known bestseller. But damn Eye of the World was so promising. It deserved everything it got, as far as being a major rejuvenating force in High Fantasy. I was completely enthralled with it, I mean I was all in the next book. Then I was in for the second. And then. And then....I don't know. I got to Path of Daggers and gave up, too. I don't mind a shifting narrative, with many plots and a full and complete world. I DO mind being soap opera'd. And that's how I felt come the Daggers novel. That all I could hope for with each upcoming novel would be only a fractional move forward for every character I was invested in.My chief worry now is that Martin's series is going down the same path. I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't gone through book 5. But please George Martin, please don't Jordan us.
As to the Covenant thing. I like them. The novels, but it's a weird kind of like, because I also despise Thomas Covenant. And every complaint I see here about them I agree with fully. I spent most of the first novel saying to myself "Sounds great, Thom, but what about that whole...I don't know...Rape thing that happened within the first few chapters?" When he finally came back to it, I found the response pretty subpar. But then again, what kind of amends does a person make for such an act? And again, how do you continue walking down the road with that guy? I struggled with it for some time.
David Eddings? Yeah. Even before Leigh came in on his books, he had a weird habit of repeating not just characters, but plot lines and sometimes, I felt, entire novels. I loved the Sparhawk novels, but they were my introduction to Eddings. When I went back through his earlier series, I found that a lot of what I had been reading, I'd read before, through Sparhawk. It was a weird thing. I know authors touch back on places they've been, their chief obsessions, etc. But it should have been clear to Eddings that these were roads he'd gone down before, maybe. But again, I can't speak too much ill of these guys. They are in their positions as known authors because of the work they had produced, at some point. I just lost interest in what they had to say later on.
Patrick...you and I seem to have many points of agreement, except that I burned out on Martin with Storm of Swords.I said in many "elsewheres" (other threads, other groups etc.) that the Wheel of Time books seem to me to be one of the great tragedies of fantasy. The first 5 or 6 books are among the best books I've ever read...and then they slow to glacial pace but still manage to crash and burn.
I'm also not a fan of Eddings. I tried, oh how I tried to like those books, but just don't.
Oh well, thought you might like to hear someone agrees.
I'd probably have to go with Terry Goodkind as my most disappointing fantasy author, only because he squandered such strong potential. I thought his first 3 books were amazing . . . and then he just gave up on any attempt at storytelling and decided to play armchair philosopher.
David Farland is one author where a single book should have been enough, but I was foolish enough to give a second a try. Runelords was like a bad afternoon of high-school role-playing, with a couple of part-time goofball players, and without a DM to guide it.
I'd have to consider Terry Brooks and David Eddings disappointing as well. Both had a solid, if unremarkable, opening series with which to catch my attention, but then just kept retelling the same story with new names.
As for some of the other names I keep seeing mentioned here, I didn't mind Anne Bishop; I'm satisfied that Raymond E. Feist and I parted ways when we did (although I am sorely tempted to see how he ends it all); and Mercedes Lackey is an old standby when I want a simple, traditional, magical fantasy.
David Farland is one author where a single book should have been enough, but I was foolish enough to give a second a try. Runelords was like a bad afternoon of high-school role-playing, with a couple of part-time goofball players, and without a DM to guide it.
I'd have to consider Terry Brooks and David Eddings disappointing as well. Both had a solid, if unremarkable, opening series with which to catch my attention, but then just kept retelling the same story with new names.
As for some of the other names I keep seeing mentioned here, I didn't mind Anne Bishop; I'm satisfied that Raymond E. Feist and I parted ways when we did (although I am sorely tempted to see how he ends it all); and Mercedes Lackey is an old standby when I want a simple, traditional, magical fantasy.
Lackey seems to me to run hot and cold. She has written books I REALLY like and others that felt like throw-aways.
My feelings about Lackey are like that. I have only read about 6 of her novels. I often start out really liking them but then she does something that really annoys me or has a bad ending Often whether I am disappointed by an author depends on my expectations. The more hype about a book, the higher the expectations, then the more prone I am to being disappointed. That is how I felt about Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, especially because there was a quote from Neil Gaiman on the cover saying something like it was the “best fantasy novel” of the 21st century.
Speaking of Gaiman, a few years ago I was disappointed when I first read him, probably also because of all the hype. I liked Anansi boys but certainly did not love it. Only recently I read Neverwhere and understood why he is so loved. Maybe it was just my frame of mind when I first read him I don’t know!
Jalilah wrote: "My feelings about Lackey are like that. I have only read about 6 of her novels. I often start out really liking them but then she does something that really annoys me or has a bad ending "
I have several authors like that ... authors that I definitely read only from the library because some I love and want to re-read ... others that I can't finish.
Some of Lackey's are like that, Robin McKinley is especially bad for me and quite a few of the mystery authors as well.
Sharon wrote: "Jalilah wrote: "My feelings about Lackey are like that. I have only read about 6 of her novels. I often start out really liking them but then she does something that really annoys me or has a bad e..."Robin McKinley is like that for me to. I often love her books until the last chapter then she ruins everything for me somehow! I almost would have given Sunshine 5 stars, except for the end.
I could never fogive Robert Jordan for what he did to Conan.
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