Writers to avoid like the bubonic plague

Post by **danlo** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 8:12 pm

"I'm not saying it's bad stuff" I never said that! I'm just chatting in general...calm down Bucko!

Post by **matrixman** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 8:40 pm

I haven't read enough to have come across any truly horrible writing, so this thread is helpful to me. Seems everyone at the Watch has read more than me: I must be the Slacker King!

I did read Anthony, Brooks & Eddings (attorneys-at-law!) in my pre-Donaldson youthful ignorance. I enjoyed the Belgariad saga by Eddings, but I felt he dropped the ball with the sequel series The Mallorean. I finished it for the sake of completeness, but it was a struggle. After that ordeal, I never touched anything by Eddings again.

About Moorcock, I have his Cornelius Chronicles hiding somewhere in my closet. I started it years ago but never got into it. Maybe in time I will come back to it.

I'm possibly one of the few people in the Western Hemisphere who hasn't touched a Stephen King book, but I'm not losing sleep over it. I have read good things about the Dark Tower series, though. Wonder if that's worth investigating...

Post by **I'm Murrin** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 9:19 pm

Matrixman, I really don't know if it's worth the bother. The Dark Tower story is... okay, but I don't really like his writing style - he did manage to write a large chunk of Wizard and Glass well (the entire Roland & Susan story), but then he ruined my hopes for the series with the rest of the book :/

Post by **Dragonlily** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 9:33 pm

Don't sample Ricardo Pinto. I hate to say this about someone who writes as well as he does, but his stories are atrocious. How much badness can he cram into one jeweled society? How many times can the protagonist weaken when he has a chance to kill someone he knows will destroy everything good in their world?!

If the books have to be destructive, at least they could be apocalyptic instead of malicious. <shudder>

Post by **Iryssa** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 9:39 pm

A note on Robert Jordan...yeah, he's not great...but I got sucked into the Wheel of Time, and now it's growing on me (haven't got as far as Path of Daggers yet, though, which I'm told is terrible)...my honest opinion if him can be summed up in one word: Inconsistent. He has the odd moment of brilliance, but it quickly fades, and leaves the reader reading on in earnest, waiting for the next one.

On my list for terrible writers? Danielle Steele, Johanna Lindsey, and anyone else who writes the formula cheap romance novel.

Post by **Seppi2112** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 5:08 am

I went to school with Danielle Steele's kids, so she came to my graduation. Weird lady, thats for sure. She doesn't look nearly as young in person as those pics on the backs of her books, lol.

Post by **Nav** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 3:32 pm

Clive Anderson wrote:"Popular paperback novelist Harold Robbins died last week. He has since been buried in an unfeasible plot."

It strikes me that even 'bad' books will usually have a few redeeming features.

A while back I read Elizabeth Moon's Serrano Legacy, and found it to be overly sentimental with rather one-dimensional characters. At the same time it contained a great deal of insight into military hierarchy, fox hunting and the weight of expectation that accompanies being born into an 'important' family.

More recently somebody bought me The Matewix, a parody of the Matrix by Charlie Hamilton-James. Although it has a few genuinely hilarious moments, the rest of it is made up of cringe-making purility and running jokes that quickly cease to be funny.

While I'd probably read more of Moon's work (in fact her book The Speed of Dark, written from the PoV of an autistic fellow, has been very well recieved indeed), I'd perhaps warn people that Hamilton-Jones' books aren't as consistently funny as their blurbs.

If you take the red pill, there is no going back. You will leave the Matewix and enter a world more real to you than you can possibly imagine. But if you take the blue pill you will sustain an erection for up to twelve hours. You must decide."

Post by **Encryptic** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 5:46 pm

I used to love Eddings when I was younger. His stuff certainly isn't incredibly deep or original, but above all, it's entertaining. I'll bust out Belgarath the Sorcerer or something now and then just to read something for the sheer entertainment value, rather than a deep emotionally involving experience (e.g. the Chronicles, etc.)

Terry Brooks and Raymond Feist are pretty much in the same category with Eddings. Nothing incredibly deep here either, but entertaining for what it is. Feist could use a kick in the ass, though. How many frickin' demon kings or evil magicians can there possibly be in Midkemia? I will say that the Empire trilogy he did with Janny Wurts was pretty good.

As far as authors who absolutely, positively SUCK: I give you Terry Badkind...errrr...Goodkind. How this guy ever got any of his dreck published is beyond me. Incredibly crappy writing, not to mention half of his stuff sounds like he ripped it straight from Wheel of Time. Wheel of Time has started to suck lately, but Jordan at his worst is still 100x the writer that Goodkind is....

Post by **variol son** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 12:34 am

Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress were always my favourite Eddings works, probably because I enjoyed those two particualr characters and their eons old wrangling so much.

Sum sui generis
Vs

Post by **Furls Fire** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 3:10 am

I loved the stories about Garion...the banter between the characters would make me laugh out loud. I loved Belgarath, Polgara, Beldin (he would always crack me up) Silk..and the ship captian that would sail them back and forth to Riva...ummmm...Greldik or something like that? Fun stuff. For a light, entertaining, laugh a minute read, go with Eddings. Not deep and certainly not my all time favorite...but he's a kick.

Post by **duchess of malfi** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 3:58 am

I keep hearing ludicrously bad things about a book called The Fifth Sorceress, which is said to be the worst fantasy book ever written. I have been tempted more then once to attempt to read it, to see if its so bad its funny, like the movie Plan Nine from Outer Space...

There is even a website dedicated to how awful it is:
fifthsorceress.tripod.com/front.htm

Post by **Brinn** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 2:04 pm

Read it. It was....not good.

Post by **variol son** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 5:20 am

Furls Fire wrote:I loved the stories about Garion...the banter between the characters would make me laugh out loud. I loved Belgarath, Polgara, Beldin (he would always crack me up) Silk..and the ship captian that would sail them back and forth to Riva...ummmm...Greldik or something like that? Fun stuff. For a light, entertaining, laugh a minute read, go with Eddings. Not deep and certainly not my all time favorite...but he's a kick.

Exactly! Definately nothing amazing, if you want deep then Terry Pratchet's work has more interesting social commentary than Eddings, but for light reading, it's a blast. I actually enjoyed the Malloreon as I liked seeing a more mature side to Garion, and therefore a maturity in his relationships with others, especially Belgarath, Polgara, Silk, Durnick and certainly Ce'Nedra. The most annoying thing for me in the Malloreon was the way the characters refused to submit to the choice of the Seeress of Kell when it was obvious that the two necessities already had. Pigheadedness I guess.

Sum sui generis
Vs

Post by **Byrn** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 5:38 am

Mercedes Lackey, Unless she's co-writing with Andre Norton. Lackey makes everything so sickly sweet.

John Marco. I've only Read the Jackal Of Nar, that was enough. Yee Gods what crap.

Sadly, I have to mention Anthony. I had read the Incarnations Of Imortality when I was 13 or so. I tried to re-read them within the last year and I couldn't get past Bearing an Hourglass. His Blue Adepts stuff is still good though. Stile just has...style

Post by **dANdeLION** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 12:16 pm

Byrn wrote:Sadly, I have to mention Anthony. I had read the Incarnations Of Imortality when I was 13 or so. I tried to re-read them within the last year and I couldn't get past Bearing an Hourglass. His Blue Adepts stuff is still good though. Stile just has...style

I weep for you. I won't venture into anything Anthony that's newer than "Prostho Plus" anymore. Too many bad "Xanth" flashbacks....

Post by **Encryptic** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 4:56 pm

dANdeLION wrote:
Byrn wrote:Sadly, I have to mention Anthony. I had read the Incarnations Of Imortality when I was 13 or so. I tried to re-read them within the last year and I couldn't get past Bearing an Hourglass. His Blue Adepts stuff is still good though. Stile just has...style
I weep for you. I won't venture into anything Anthony that's newer than "Prostho Plus" anymore. Too many bad "Xanth" flashbacks....

Yep, the Xanth series just degraded after a while. The early books up to Golem In the Gears were pretty good but after that, the series did start to get a little silly, although I did like Question Quest...

Incarnations of Immortality, the Tarot series and the Adept series were rather good, though.

Post by **Loredoctor** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 8:59 am

How is it that many many people complain of having their books rejected, regardless of how good they are (or average) and yet we have so much trash (like newcomb's book) on the market? It's ridiculous.

Post by **Dragonlily** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 11:02 am

Part of it depends on what genre is selling well at the time. I'm told it's a lot harder to get a historical published than it used to be. And a poor knock-off of a popular author is more likely to get a contract than something original about an untested subject matter. Precisely why it took SRD's award-winning material so long to find a publisher.

Post by **dANdeLION** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 12:54 pm

Unless we read these rejected books, we really don't know if they're good at all.

Post by **CovenantJr** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 5:53 pm

Byrn wrote:Mercedes Lackey

Argh! I've only read Storm Rising, but...argh! She has reasonably good (though not outstanding) ideas, but she somehow contrives to make everything so dry. Reading Storm Rising left me feeling like I'd actually been licking the pages, it was so dry. All in all, my one experience with Lackey's work has left me with the impression that reading her other books would be as exciting as going to sleep...when you know you're not going to have any good dreams.

Kevin's Watch

Kevin's Watch

Writers to avoid like the bubonic plague