Kevin's Watch

I thought that after the threads for recommending various writers/books. We ought to have one helping our fellow watchers to avoid the awful. My goodness, there is sooo much dreck out there. If there is already a thread for this maybe this can be imploded or merged and am sorry!

Anyway, my first recommendation for the s***list is absolutely anything by that heinous 'writer' of the crap (cue drumroll and canned spewing noises)... Alexander Besher. He is so utterly terrible. I dare anyone to say he is okay (my Dad has been heard to utter these words, once, under his breath- to my horror). His writing is more dated than Jules Verne, despite being written inthe last decade. His style is that of a 6th grader and his ideas ridiculous and hackneyed.

You have been warned.

Robert Jordan

Hey, RJ's not that bad...

Terry Brooks

Stephen King

Stephen King is pretty much purple pants is he not!?

Purple pants? Now you've lost me... Anyway, I don't like him, so avoid like herpes

Precisely. He is a superhack of the worst kind. Barbara Cartland with y-fronts and an unhealthy view of people and/or animals

He's great if you don't think, and he writes like crazy. I read most of his stuff because he's creative, but not because its "good."

Except for the Dark Tower series. The main character is just too likable, regardless of the gigantic problems with the series.

David Eddings - forumulaic writer
Terry Brooks - 'A war crime of a writer'
Sara Douglass
Any TSR writer - can you say, 'unoriginal'?

Piers Anthony. His last good work occured over 20 years ago....

Gahhh, Cov, you beat me to Steven King! I've read so much of his stuff and I hate most of it... why I kept reading is beyond me.

That is chouettey! I liked the Stand-that's about it-The Dead Zone is a very cool ideal. David Eddings, I agree The Mallorean=Malboorean....

Hey, I liked David Eddings, or should I say, i liked Belgarath, Polgara, and many of his Belgariad/Malloreon characters. Quite pedestrian and predictable compared to other authors prehaps, but I found him a nice change when I needed a break from the brain liquifying emotional and intellectual excesses that characterize SRD's work.

Sum sui generis
Vs

variol son wrote:Hey, I liked David Eddings, or should I say, i liked Belgarath, Polgara, and many of his Belgariad/Malloreon characters. Quite pedestrian and predictable compared to other authors prehaps, but I found him a nice change when I needed a break from the brain liquifying emotional and intellectual excesses that characterize SRD's work.

Sum sui generis
Vs

Good point, VS.

Thank you Ur-Vile. I actually found Eddings characters refreshing in that they were very much modern men and women for the most part, who still managed to fit into a fantasy world, which are usually historical in nature. I also enjoyed his races, especially the Nadraks and their women.

Sum sui generis
Vs

It's true, we can't read on adrenaline all the time. SRD creates a mental and emotional high pitch in his readers. Sometimes we need to "lie down in green pastures." But at least let the green be foliage instead of cardboard.

SRD spoiled me-I can never look at Howard or Moorcock the same way again-I'm not saying it's bad stuff-it's just doesn't suffice

Yes, I agree with danlo. I haven't read a lot of fantasy since I finished the Chronicles. Only Lord of the Rings and Anne Rice, if you want to call Anne Rice a fantasy writer.

But I think I won't ever read something by Tad Williams again. His way of storytelling in the Osten Ard series is really a pain in the ***. Sorry to all TW fans out there...but descriptive detail isn't the same as substance.
Terry Brooks may be bad, but at least it doesn't take him several thousand pages to get it over with. *sigh*

But I guess Williams is still very high standard compared to a lot of REALLY bad stuff out there.

Howard & Moorcock don't suffice? Wow. I think it wold be better to say they don't fit your tastes as well as SRD. Certainly they were great writers, and NOT ones to avoid like the bubonic plague.