.....Fantasy series you never finished. [And why.]

Post by **peter** » Mon Sep 15, 2014 3:33 pm

Come on - we've all done it. Got two or three books into a series and then fallen by the wayside.

Here's a few notable series that I never completed.

Jordan's 'Wheel of Time' [was it?]. Got too long and bleurrrgh!

The Dragonbone Chair series. Really likes the first two books, but then it took forever for book 3 to appear and when it did it was only book 3 part one and I lost heart.

David Eddings wrote some fantasy books. Belgeriad...Beleriad....something. They were ok but they never quite got me. I gave up after two or three.

Terry Pratchett Diskworld. It took me two books to realise I was never going to like comedy mixed with fantasy unless it was done by a master like Piers Anthony.

The 'Shannara' series by Terry brooks. The first was almost embarrasing in it's plagarism [Tolkein for beginners; like a modern adaption of the KJ Bible] but actally rather fun to read [in spit or because - who knows]. The Elfstones and the Wishsong came and went and were ok too. The next book came along and about twenty pages in I realised I was 'Brooked' out.

There'll be more but thats all I can remember today. If anyone thinks I should take up the mantle again of any of the above then speak now or forever hold your piece....peace...peez..

Post by **I'm Murrin** » Mon Sep 15, 2014 7:15 pm

(Maybe dAN will be willing to move this to the main SFF forum.

)

Hmm...

I stopped Terry Goodkind's series after book 8, because I'd finally started to recognise how bad it all was.

I read Pratchett up to Lords and Ladies in school, but then never really continued.

After Knife of Dreams, I didn't bother continuing Wheel of Time. Though I've been thinking about finishing it.

I read the first two books of Greg Keyes' Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone series, but they never really felt quote as good as others I'd read and I didn't bother to get the next one.

Wondering if the Malazan books count... I read all 10 of the main series, but haven't picked up any follow ups, and I read Esselmont's first big book and have no desire to read his others.

As for disagreements... you should try rereading and completing Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn some time. I remember enjoying it a lot. And Tad Williams is writing a new trilogy set in the same world, now, called The Last King of Osten Ard.

Post by **Orlion** » Mon Sep 15, 2014 7:47 pm

I stopped reading Terry Goodkind after the first book....I mean, seriously, love is the answer? I thought love wasn't suppose to affect anything! That character lied because of....reasons? Sooo f'in lame!

I stopped reading Terry Brooks after about twenty pages into the Scion of Shanara.

I stopped reading Hitchhiker's guide to the blargedy after the first few pages.... four times....

I "took a break" from Wheel of Time after I read New Spring when it came out (terrible, awful, pointless book). I still plan on finishing it...but I also plan on doing so by re-reading the others that came before...so yeah... it'll be a while.

I actually stopped reading the Chronices of Thomas Covenant half-way through the Illearth War. I'm surprised no one has called me out on that yet

Post by **aliantha** » Mon Sep 15, 2014 7:53 pm

I've read a few of the Discworld books and found them entertaining, but I haven't been moved to read all umpty-ump of them.

It's the Belgariad you're thinking of, peter.

I read that series and thought about starting the Mallorean, but folks here said it was the same story with different characters. So I never did.

I did read the Keyes series, Murrin, and I liked them well enough. I seem to recall thinking that the last one was pretty good.

OTOH, I read The Lies of Locke Lamora and bailed on the rest of the series. The main character is just too ethically challenged for my taste.

And there was another series I started not long ago, and found I wasn't interested enough in the story to look for the next book. I wonder what it was. The premise was this: mostly agrarian society with fairly isolated settlements; monsters would come out after dark and attack people in their homes unless they were warded with specific designs; and the main character had some kind of unusual ability in relation to the making of those wards. That's about all I can remember. It felt sort of post-apocalyptic, but the apocalypse had happened a really long time before.

Post by **peter** » Tue Sep 16, 2014 8:22 am

Wow! Posted it in the wrong forum! Sorry Guys - can it be moved.

A book I finished but it never quite hit the spot for me was Ursula le Guinn's EarthSea Trilogy [? Was it one book, 3 books....]. I dont know - it was a bit too...faiery....[IIRC - it was a hell of a long time ago.]

Funny how often it's the same series people aren't finishing.

Post by **ussusimiel** » Tue Sep 16, 2014 11:58 am

My policy with a number of years has been to generally only read the first book in a new series. As I have often said here, way to many good standalone fantasy books have been stretched into trilogies for book deal purposes. I still enjoy the first books because you get the essential world-building, the significance of the magic and you are introduced to the main characters. However, when 100 pages goes by and nothing significant happens you know you are in one of those 'butter that has been scraped over too much bread' series. I understand the reasons, but I think that it is a real pity and has diluted the genre significantly.

I have tried and failed to finish most of the series named above: Brooks, Goodkind, Pratchett, WOT, Malazan ('tho I intend to return to these) and on and on. It's probably easier to name some of the ones I have actually finished (other than LOTR and TCTC):

- The Empire Trilogy by Wurts and Feist

- The Farseer Trilogy by Hobb (even with these it was years later when I came back and finally finished them)

- The Corean Chronicles by Modesitt Jr.

u.

Post by **Frostheart Grueburn** » Tue Sep 16, 2014 2:31 pm

Tut tut, Squishy, one ought to regard Malazan as the ultimate challenge.

What's this blasphemous revelation about Terry Pratchett?

Sacrilege! Crepuscular desecration! Sasquatch!

Post by **Vraith** » Tue Sep 16, 2014 2:58 pm

peter wrote: A book I finished but it never quite hit the spot for me was Ursula le Guinn's EarthSea Trilogy

I finished the first 3...I think there are 6 or 8 now? But I think they are the lowest of her work. [still better than Goodkind and a couple others mentioned above, though].

I haven't finished WOT, but I plan to at some point [when I start finding the books at yard sales, probably].
Mostly I finish what I start, so I try not to start until at least a couple people I trust like something.

Post by **aliantha** » Tue Sep 16, 2014 5:42 pm

I read the Farseer Trilogy, and liked them well enough to start her Liveship Traders series, which was only okay, and her Rain Wild Chronicles, which I'm not sure I finished.

There's a follow-on series to Farseer -- the Tawny Man books -- that was pretty good; it features FitzChivalry and the Fool, and has a lot more of the Fool's back story. I gather she's starting a new series featuring Fitz, which I'm mildly interested in reading.

Post by **ussusimiel** » Tue Sep 16, 2014 8:35 pm

aliantha wrote:I read the Farseer Trilogy, and liked them well enough to start her Liveship Traders series, which was only okay, and her Rain Wild Chronicles, which I'm not sure I finished.

There's a follow-on series to Farseer -- the Tawny Man books -- that was pretty good; it features FitzChivalry and the Fool, and has a lot more of the Fool's back story. I gather she's starting a new series featuring Fitz, which I'm mildly interested in reading.

I read the Rain Wild Chronicles. Hobb tends to overwrite something fierce, but she write so well that it's bearable (just!). I haven't read the Tawny Man books but will at some stage over the next two decades

u.

Post by **dANdeLION** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 1:15 am

I'm Murrin wrote:(Maybe dAN will be willing to move this to the main SFF forum. )

Done.

I gave up on the Xanth stuff after the ninth book, though I stopped buying them after the third book. It was good when I was a kid, but I quickly outgrew it. My younger brothers kept getting them, though, so I read the next 6 before giving up entirely.

I love all the Piers Anthony stuff prior to Xanth.

Also, I quit the Shanarra crap after the first book.....what a crapfest that was.

Post by **MsMary** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 2:32 am

My kids love Terry Pratchett. And I've tried to love his books, too. But the only book I've actually finished is Small Gods. Which I loved, btw.

I started The Color of Magic multiple times, don't think I ever finished it.

Maybe I need to start with a different book.

Post by **rdhopeca** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 3:40 am

This might be heresy, but I can't finish Game of Thrones. Too many deaths and no one to root for.

Post by **aliantha** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 4:28 am

Oh there are plenty of characters to root for in GoT, Rob. It's just that GRRM kills off all the good ones.

I do like Tyrion. And Jon Snow.

ussusimiel wrote:Hobb tends to overwrite something fierce...

Yeah, no kidding.

Post by **Avatar** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 4:54 am

Goodness gracious people.

Pratchett is awesome and his books aren't a series in the traditional sense. Reading them now, I find the first few a little flat...the characters undeveloped, but you still need them for that development. MsMary, maybe start a storyline, like the Guards books, and follow that. The first is "Guards, Guards." Or there are a couple stand-alone books like "Pyramids."

Murrin, you quit WoT just as it started to recover from the disaster that was books 7, 9 & 10. The last ones are worth it.

Earthsea is great if you read it with the right mindset.

(And there's only 5.)

And you can't finish ASoIaF, none of us have.

It's not finished yet.

I suppose technically I didn't finish the Shannara books...only read 3. Think there were only three at the time though, but not sure. Also never finished (or at least read all of) an Eddings series. Again, less because the weren't great than because I didn't have access to a full series, otherwise I probably would have.

Otherwise, none I think.

--A

Post by **MsMary** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 5:33 am

Okay, Av, I'll give Pratchett another try. My daughter should have a bunch of his books in her room. If she didn't move them all to Boston.

(And I'm pretty sure she didn't.)

Post by **Cambo** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 5:39 am

I haven't finished the Black Company books yet, for the simple reason that they aren't in the library and I want the expensive omnibus editions cause the cover art is too damn gorgeous to get any other version. So I wait to have a spare 40 bucks to order them online.

Read about seven or eight books of Wheel of Time back in high school. Now it's finished I'm interested in starting from the beginning again, but it's such a commitment that it'll be a while before I do.

I've read so many version of the one David Eddings story that it's a bit embarrassing.

The Belgariad, the Malloreon, the Elenium, the Tamuli, the Redemption of Althalus...then I read one book of some series about Younger Gods, realised it had jumped the shark from formulaic to actually sucking, and stopped. That's around 20 books...I think I had a problem

Edited to add: I forgot the Raymond E. Feist books! I read a good few of those before losing interest...around the fourth saga or something? Again, they're finished now so there's a bit of interest in seeing how it all played out. But it will probably happen even after the WoT, if ever.

Post by **peter** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 10:11 am

dANdeLION wrote:Also, I quit the Shanarra crap after the first book.....what a crapfest that was.

C'mon Dan - Brooks had soo much neck in writing that you had to finish the book

{Somewhere on the Watch I did an Alanon vs Gandolph boxing match; man I loved that post - best one I ever did!}

What did Raymond E Feist do again Cambo?

Post by **Fist and Faith** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 10:49 am

aliantha wrote:And there was another series I started not long ago, and found I wasn't interested enough in the story to look for the next book. I wonder what it was. The premise was this: mostly agrarian society with fairly isolated settlements; monsters would come out after dark and attack people in their homes unless they were warded with specific designs; and the main character had some kind of unusual ability in relation to the making of those wards. That's about all I can remember. It felt sort of post-apocalyptic, but the apocalypse had happened a really long time before.

You said it twice! Heh. The Warded Man. I only read the first book, too.

Post by **Cambo** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 11:27 am

Peter wrote:What did Raymond E Feist do again Cambo?

The Riftwar saga, starting with the most famous volume, Magician. Pug of Lukemia or whatever the country was.

Kevin's Watch

Kevin's Watch

.....Fantasy series you never finished. [And why.]

.....Fantasy series you never finished. [And why.]