You should avoid reading...

[Cheiron]

To not clutter the other thread. Here are books or authors I recommend to avoid reading.

David Drake - Lord of the Isles. I had such high hopes for this based on some acclaim the author was receiving. It was hard to get through. The writing is very simple, and uninteresting. The story was alright, but nothing to get excited about. But I've never wanted to read another thing by him.

Terry Brooks - Sword of Shannarah. Wow. I knew a number of people who loved the various books and just ate them up. I read the first book and haven't moved on. Sadly, if I ever want to continue reading the series I'll have to reread the first book as I don't remember much at all. But what I do remember was my impression of Terry's writing. Horrid! It reminded me of how I was writing in high school. A stylistic nightmare. The descriptions were filled with bad metaphors, and there was little to no real character development. However, I may go back to read this and the series purely because of the movie deal.

Further, I've read (okay it was an audio book) the first book in the Demon Series and I enjoyed it. So I figure he must have improved. I do have a free copy of some other book of his (Magic Kingdom), that somebody on the PMX boards recommended I not read.

Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series post-Obsidian Butterfly. The first 9 books are so are very entertaining novels. However, after Obsidian Butterfly the novels transition into vamperotica. Now this may be your thing. But for me character development and story focus slowed down. Instead, you have to read another description of some sexual act or another. This was a disappointment for me because I felt that the previous novels had so much more going for them. I feel like Laurell started to run this on ideas. I read through the 11th book Cerulean Sins, and then stopped until/unless I heard that the erotica was reduced and it returned to being more story focused. I haven't heard anything...

 

[PatrickHoyt]

R.L. Stine - Anything

 

[OrbWeaver]

*still reads the Goosebumps books* R.L. Stine's novel for adults was bad, though. Ugh.

 

[PatrickHoyt]

*still reads the Goosebumps books* R.L. Stine's novel for adults was bad, though. Ugh.

Yeah when I was younger and had time to read or had to read for school for grades/points I enjoyed Goosebumps, but anything other than that from good ole R.L. sucks IMO.

 

[ravage2020]

I totally agree with the Anita Blake post. Also avoid A Tangled Web by Anne Bishop. What a disapointment.

 

[Pellaz]

Terry Brooks - Sword of Shannarah. Wow. I knew a number of people who loved the various books and just ate them up. I read the first book and haven't moved on. Sadly, if I ever want to continue reading the series I'll have to reread the first book as I don't remember much at all. But what I do remember was my impression of Terry's writing. Horrid! It reminded me of how I was writing in high school.

I read the first Shannara book and thought it was a sub-par pastiche of Tolkien. Like you, I never moved on.


I see that Mr. Ward has written another novel in the Halcyon Blithe series, so now I can wholeheartedly recommend against starting the series.

 

[Kenneth R.]

Terry Goodkind - Sword of Truth series. Starts out great. 3 to 5 books later, it's not bad. 7 to 9 books in, you should be extremely tired of his objectivist rants that go on for pages on end, his stark "good" and "bad" characters who always make the right decision or always fuck up. You should also be frustrated that at the beginning and ending of each book, the necessary characters are in the same room, but due to some relationship dysfunction, fight or otherwise ignore communicating with each other, only to be seperated the entire book while vital information is withheld from needful parties. Naturally, things get solved the hard way, and the characters reunite only to say "oh, you already knew/fixed that". I hear the last book saves it, but I'll save it for when I am really really bored. Goodkind also borrows heavily from Tolkien (especially the Gollum character) as well as from Star Wars (light side, dark side) among other SF/F sources, though he vehemently denies having ever been exposed to these or other works (he lives under an objectivist rock, he asserts).

Dan Brown. Sorry Dan, but you clearly don't know much about any of the subjects your books cover. The research on Digital Fortress for example, is painfully thin and shows glaringly through. Terminology is wrong, logic misapplied. The characters are usually unbelieveably stupid given their supposed status as genius cryptographers and the like. Or, as often happens in Da Vinci Code, the characters unrealistically crack the "impossible" code instantly, revealing the secret a paragraph later, leaving the reader no time to ponder it on their own, as if Brown delivers the punchline to a joke without a pause - the sign of an amateur. Really not feasable, predictable and trite. Good for grocery store shelf paperbacks.

Darwin's Black Box by Michael Behe. This is a nonfiction argument for Intelligent Design. An interesting topic, and the biology covered, although fairly basic, is novel. However, the basis for argument is severely lacking. The author frequently equivocates, jumps to conclusion, and commits logical fallacy after logical fallacy. Not a great way to make your case. It does a good job showing the flaws of a pure Darwinian gradual evolution, but it does not account for other kinds of evolution, and does not present nearly any case for Intelligent Design. By beating up Darwin (whom modern science has moved forward from), the author thinks he can automatically convince you ID is the only alternative. He's wrong.

The Fortress Series by C J Cherryh. Alright, it's not bad. But, without sounding sexist (cause I'm not), Cherryh really can't write male characters. The all have the semblence of weak, bumbling emo trainwrecks. Very effeminite. I'd understand if it's just one character who simply has that personality, but they all do, and I think it's a flaw of her writing. It takes away believability for me.

 

[KaptainKrude]

*still reads the Goosebumps books* R.L. Stine's novel for adults was bad, though. Ugh.

And I have students (seniors, at that) who ask if they can read those books for DEAR... "Um, no."

 

[Pellaz]

The Fortress Series by C J Cherryh. Alright, it's not bad. But, without sounding sexist (cause I'm not), Cherryh really can't write male characters. The all have the semblence of weak, bumbling emo trainwrecks. Very effeminite. I'd understand if it's just one character who simply has that personality, but they all do, and I think it's a flaw of her writing. It takes away believability for me.

Hmm, noted, but I'll toss in a strong recommendation for C.J.'s Chanur saga (The Pride of Chanur, etc.)
Easily one of the best spacefaring series I've ever read....and the lone human character, Tully, isn't too much of a pantywaist either.

 

[DoomsdayZach]

Terry Goodkind - Sword of Truth series. Starts out great. 3 to 5 books later, it's not bad. 7 to 9 books in, you should be extremely tired of his objectivist rants that go on for pages on end, his stark "good" and "bad" characters who always make the right decision or always fuck up. You should also be frustrated that at the beginning and ending of each book, the necessary characters are in the same room, but due to some relationship dysfunction, fight or otherwise ignore communicating with each other, only to be seperated the entire book while vital information is withheld from needful parties. Naturally, things get solved the hard way, and the characters reunite only to say "oh, you already knew/fixed that". I hear the last book saves it, but I'll save it for when I am really really bored. Goodkind also borrows heavily from Tolkien (especially the Gollum character) as well as from Star Wars (light side, dark side) among other SF/F sources, though he vehemently denies having ever been exposed to these or other works (he lives under an objectivist rock, he asserts).

Seconded. I did enjoy the first few when i read them, but it got tedious about 4 or 5 books in. Not to mention the incredibly awkward dialogue. Not what i'd call "fun reading"

 

[OrbWeaver]

And I have students (seniors, at that) who ask if they can read those books for DEAR... "Um, no."

That's just sad. I will pick up and read the ones I bought years ago, just for fun. But never for any other reason.


Avoid Ed Greenwood's Dark Warrior Rising. It's like a novel about Forgotten Realms Drow...but not! It's billed as being based from Norse Mythology, but I have a hard time seeing where that comes into play, except in a very loose sense. His dark elves are very much like the Drow in forgotten realms, but aren't quite as abjectly evil. They all seem to be redeemable. Also, character relationships are transparent. You can see where they're going to go almost immediately.

Really, if you want to read about Drow, stick to Forgotten Realms and avoid this novel, which will probably have follow up novels.

 

[Kenneth R.]

Hmm, noted, but I'll toss in a strong recommendation for C.J.'s Chanur saga (The Pride of Chanur, etc.)
Easily one of the best spacefaring series I've ever read....and the lone human character, Tully, isn't too much of a pantywaist either.

Thanks, I'll check it out. Maybe she just isn't great at fantasy, but stronger at scifi.

 

[Pellaz]

Thanks, I'll check it out. Maybe she just isn't great at fantasy, but stronger at scifi.

I haven't actually read any of her fantasy stuff, so alas I can't render a good comparison. I enjoyed the Chanur series tremendously and Downbelow Station very much also: it's set in the same 'universe' as the Chanur series, but in a different part of space...which begin to interact in the Chanur Saga.

They are fairly "hard" science-fiction, though. C.J. knows her way around science and meshes it, and solid engineering, very believably into her plots. Her portrayal of non-organic intelligent species is one of the best I've ever seen, and the route-map of the starsystems around Meetpoint Station is positively genius.

 

[Jim LotFP]

Terry Goodkind - Sword of Truth series. Starts out great. 3 to 5 books later, it's not bad. 7 to 9 books in

1st Book: This guy's weird.

2nd Book: eh.

3rd Book, Halfway Through: "Pus bucket piece of shit why am I wasting my life on this GARBAGE! DIE MOTHERFUCKER DIE!"

I've never read an author that hates their characters more than this clown.

What kind of masochistic mental case do you have to be to go 7 to 9 books in?

 

[spag]

I've said this before, but any of the Ender saga past Ender's Game. Brutal. Yes, I know "Speaker Of The Dead" won both the Hugo and Nebula awards. I'll never know how.

 

[Pellaz]

I've said this before, but any of the Ender saga past Ender's Game. Brutal. Yes, I know "Speaker Of The Dead" won both the Hugo and Nebula awards. I'll never know how.

+1


And it was a relatively weak year for SF novels that year, methinks.





(I think David Brin wuz robbed!)

 

[ashaman7122]

I've never read an author that hates their characters more than this clown.

Interesting statement...care to elaborate?

Rock on!

 

[Kenneth R.]

I haven't actually read any of her fantasy stuff, so alas I can't render a good comparison. I enjoyed the Chanur series tremendously and Downbelow Station very much also: it's set in the same 'universe' as the Chanur series, but in a different part of space...which begin to interact in the Chanur Saga.

They are fairly "hard" science-fiction, though. C.J. knows her way around science and meshes it, and solid engineering, very believably into her plots. Her portrayal of non-organic intelligent species is one of the best I've ever seen, and the route-map of the starsystems around Meetpoint Station is positively genius.

Sounds excellent.

I think what Jim is saying is, Goodkind makes his characters paperdolls. They're very one dimensional. Richard always tries to make the right decision. He's emotionally fragile, horrible at relationships. His supposed godess Kahlan is equally emo, and there is no way they could actually make it in the real world without some major growing up to do. Their communication is nonexistent. His character of Darken Rahl was your usual Darth Vader character. Except Darth Vader was dynamic. At the end of the movie, and really throughout the epic series, he hesitates being evil. Darken is just all evil, all dumb, all the time, and then he gets killed. While Emperor Jagang is more interesting, being that he believes his "Order" (think Communism) is actually a good cause, his decisions are typically predictable.

And that's true of all of Goodkind's characters. They don't evolve. They're very static. Nicci is the only one who really changed much, and that's only for a Goodkind novel.

 

[Pellaz]

Sounds excellent.

For anyone interested, here's the Wikipedia article on the series. It was fun for me just to read through some of the details again.

 

[Yippee38]

I have to add the current series I'm reading right now to this list. The author is Russell Kirkpatrick. The books are "Across the Face of the World", "In the Earth Abides the Flame", and "The Right Hand of God."

The story is good enough. It keeps me turning the pages. It's not so bad that I won't finish it, but it does have MAJOR flaws.

The first flaw is that the guy's other passion is that he is a mapmaker. The book has really amazingly thorough maps. Very cool. However, the result is that the book feels like an exercise in pushing the characters through as many different types of terrains so the author can teach us about geology. These books could be half their length if he spent less time describing the lay of the land. That gets old.

The second, and truly fatal flaw for me is his total lack of continuity. His characters have truly drastic changes in personality in a split second for apparently no reason and with no explanation. The rest of the book treats the character as if they had always acted that way, when in fact, they had not. His characters also all of a sudden gain magical powers when they had none before. And of course, he treats the character as if they had had those powers all along. The worst though, is little stuff like saying that the character is standing in the middle of a crowd, then two paragraphs later, he says the character stands up. I've found several occasions where the story says, "Everybody was gathered together except Hal and Actal who were still off looking for Leith." (where Hal, Leith, and Actal are characters). Then four paragraphs later, Hal is talking to everybody else. I went back and reread those four paragraphs several times, and nowhere does he talk about those others coming back. In fact, Hal says something like, "Let's get started looking for Leith." It is irritating.

It is a really poorly written book.