# Books everyone seems to love, but you just can't



## Sacrosanct (Jan 27, 2021)

What books have you read, or more accurately, tried to read because everyone seems to rave about them, but you just couldn't get into them?

For me it has to be the Wheel of Time series and Tigana. 

I had to stop midway through wheel of time book four. And forced myself to read 200 pages of Tigana, but I don't think I can continue. 

Why?  Both for the same reason. They just drag on and on and on. Reading them is very tedious. I just can't do it.


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## Imaculata (Jan 27, 2021)

Raymond Feist's Magician. I could not get through it. It was the worst cliché fantasy, mixed with adolescent boy romance, and it discouraged me from ever reading any of Feist's other works. Why do people like this book so much?


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## Zardnaar (Jan 27, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> Raymond Feist's Magician. I could not get through it. It was the worst cliché fantasy, mixed with adolescent boy romance, and it discouraged me from ever reading any of Feist's other works. Why do people like this book so much?




 Because I read it aged 15. 

 The Empire Trilogy is the best of those books IMHO. 

 For me

Lord of the Rings. Never made it through book 1. 

And 
Wheel of Time. Gave up book 7 iirc.


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## turnip_farmer (Jan 27, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> Raymond Feist's Magician. I could not get through it. It was the worst cliché fantasy, mixed with adolescent boy romance, and it discouraged me from ever reading any of Feist's other works. Why do people like this book so much?



Magician was for some time my favourite book but, as with Zardnaar, I read it when I was an adolescent boy, so perhaps that is the intended audience.

Been a long time since I read it, but I'd probably enjoy it for nostalgia's sake.

Try reading Faerie Tale, totally unconnected to his other works and with a very different feel (though bear in mind I'm also here recommending a book I read two decades ago).

In answer to OP, Asimov's Foundation. I read the first book, and came away with a distinct 'meh' feeling. This is really perceived to be one of the great sci-fi classics?


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jan 27, 2021)

After my Dad read it all, I started the Dune series.  But I couldn’t get past the 2nd novel in the series.


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## Dioltach (Jan 27, 2021)

Harry Potter: enjoyed the first three, quite liked the fourth, thought the fifth was a complete waste of time. Never got round to the last two. (Never watched the last two movies either.)
Dune. I've tried again and again to get into it, but I can't get beyond the first fifty pages.
Guy Gavriel Kay, Brian Sanderson. Wheel of Time also went downhill quickly after the fourth book, and I gave up a hundred pages into the tenth.
And Ed Greenwood's Forgotten Realms always creep me out, with all the impossibly beautiful young women spending lots of naked time with his ancient author avatar.


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## amethal (Jan 27, 2021)

People seem to be complaining about series, rather than individual books, so I'll second the Harry Potter opinion.

I enjoyed the first four books (without ever seeing what all the fuss was about) but I found book 5 infuriating so I had to stop reading. A friend of mine who is a big fan of the series explained that my criticisms were (more or less) addressed later on in the book, but I'm not reading it again to find out.


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## Zardnaar (Jan 27, 2021)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> After my Dad read it all, I started the Dune series.  But I couldn’t get past the 2nd novel in the series.




Dunes the only good one really. I liked God Emperor of Dune the rest were crud.


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## DammitVictor (Jan 27, 2021)

Stephen King's _The Gunslinger_; not only does everyone love this, but I enjoy King's writing and the premise of this novel could not have been better tailored to my literary interests, but I've never even gotten a quarter of the way through.

There's a whole lot of Young Adult (especially Young Adult Fantasy) that I can't stomach because, in the vein of Roald Dahl, they take all of the worst excesses of how human adult authorities treat the (normal/lucky) children under their care and _exaggerate them_ until they resemble something out of _my childhood_, which is a minefield of triggers for me, and then the child protagonists are forced to reconcile with these aberrant heaps of narccisistic idiocy with no consequences whatsoever, because of the importance of traditional family values and teaching children that keeping their family together is more important than protecting themselves from abuse.

There's a point at which my anger at these authors is wholly justified, but realistically speaking I am far, _far_ past that point.


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## aco175 (Jan 27, 2021)

*Dark Sun*.  Never could get into the feel of it.  We played once and could only have a rock and piece of bone to defend myself with.  Then one broke and I had to use a goblin weapon, which would have been so humiliating, but I was only a bald half-dwarf, so it was not that bad.  I was told that was part of the fun, which it wasn't.  

Maybe next year's release of the new 5e Dark Sun will be better.


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## Zardnaar (Jan 27, 2021)

aco175 said:


> *Dark Sun*.  Never could get into the feel of it.  We played once and could only have a rock and piece of bone to defend myself with.  Then one broke and I had to use a goblin weapon, which would have been so humiliating, but I was only a bald half-dwarf, so it was not that bad.  I was told that was part of the fun, which it wasn't.
> 
> Maybe next year's release of the new 5e Dark Sun will be better.




 Damn you had a piece of bone. Generous dark sun game.

 Think we started as slaves with a loincloth.


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## DammitVictor (Jan 27, 2021)

Zardnaar said:


> Damn you had a piece of bone. Generous dark sun game.
> 
> Think we started as slaves with a loincloth.




You mock, but I murdered four elves with that loincloth... before the fourth elf dropped a bigger loincloth and I started hunting half-giants.


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## Zardnaar (Jan 27, 2021)

Shroompunk Warlord said:


> You mock, but I murdered four elves with that loincloth... before the fourth elf dropped a bigger loincloth and I started hunting half-giants.




 Heh yeah we've had Kreen going hunting and an assassin left for dead in the sea if silt.


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## DemoMonkey (Jan 27, 2021)

The Gormenghast series.

I prefer my story focii to be humanoid rather than architectural.


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## Umbran (Jan 27, 2021)

Zardnaar said:


> Wheel of Time. Gave up book 7 iirc.




I have this weird dissonance between the idea of "I just can't get into them" but reading through seven books.  It took _nearly 6000 pages_ to figure out you didn't really like it?

I can't seem to work up any enthusiasm for _Ready Player One_. However well-targetted the book is for me, the flaws so thoroughly overwhelm whatever pleasure there may be found in the work.


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## GreyLord (Jan 27, 2021)

People seem to love Stephen King.  I've read a few of his books, but they just seem to lack something to me.  They just don't seem fulfilling or enjoyable.  

I am about to finish the Wheel of Time, but I can understand everyone that talks about how they stopped reading.  Book 1-3 move quickly and are fun.  Book 4 starts to slow down, and book 5 starts to get more of a slog.  However, none of them compare to what happens when you hit book 8, 9, and 10.  Those books just about sunk my goal of getting through the Book series this time around.  The series starts off quick and then just moves slower and slower and slower each book around.  Finally, it starts to speed up again, but I think those middle books kill off a LOT of readers.


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## Nilbog (Jan 27, 2021)

The city of brass, I love the premise and honestly the first third is superb, but when they get to the aforementioned city it just becomes something else entirely. I gave up soon after


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## Sacrosanct (Jan 27, 2021)

Dioltach said:


> Harry Potter: enjoyed the first three, quite liked the fourth, thought the fifth was a complete waste of time. Never got round to the last two. (Never watched the last two movies either.)
> Dune. I've tried again and again to get into it, but I can't get beyond the first fifty pages.
> Guy Gavriel Kay, Brian Sanderson. Wheel of Time also went downhill quickly after the fourth book, and I gave up a hundred pages into the tenth.
> And Ed Greenwood's Forgotten Realms always creep me out, with all the impossibly beautiful young women spending lots of naked time with his ancient author avatar.



I made it through the first 4 Harry Potter books, but stopped after that.  Just lost interest and wanted to read other books instead.


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## Gradine (Jan 27, 2021)

The Name of the Wind. The worst kind of self-indulgent fantasy wrapped in the world's most tedious framing device.


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## billd91 (Jan 27, 2021)

A lot of people rave about the Thomas Covenant series. So I read *Lord Foul's Bane*. I forced myself through it to see if it would ever pull me in but the protagonist was so irritating, I couldn't pick up another book in the series. 
People here are talking about dropping out in the 5th Harry Potter - but Covenant is a far more annoying and despicable character than Harry acting as a petulant (and developmentally appropriate) teen.


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## Ralif Redhammer (Jan 27, 2021)

Within genre, Butcher's Harry Dresden series' popularity just baffles me. Abercrombie's The Blade Itself left me cold for about 75% of it. 

Outside of genre works, just about everything Hemmingway and Steinbeck wrote springs to mind.


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## turnip_farmer (Jan 27, 2021)

Ralif Redhammer said:


> Within genre, Butcher's Harry Dresden series' popularity just baffles me. Abercrombie's The Blade Itself left me cold for about 75% of it.
> 
> Outside of genre works, just about everything Hemmingway and Steinbeck wrote springs to mind.




I quite enjoyed Steinbeck; but if we're talking about American classics; the author I cannot read is Jack Kerouac. Tedious. It does indeed read like he splurted his books out while drunk and never bothered to revise anything. That's supposed to a virtue. It's not - the final product is unreadable crap.


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## payn (Jan 27, 2021)

Atlas Shrugged, ugh. So many break out of nowhere 30min diatribes about how awesome capitalism is and the main character bangs all the best dudes at it. Rand caricaturizes socialists, while offering zero solutions to the problem of government other than magical gulches...

Bored of the Rings. I loved Fellowship, the next two where absolute chores to read through.


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## the Jester (Jan 27, 2021)

David Eddings' work- I read the Belgariad, though I thought it was pretty awful, because of how much people had talked it up. I kept expecting it to get better. Ugh. Then I started the sequel series, egged on by its fans- but it read like the same story over again, so I tossed them aside and gave up a few chapters in.


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## Mercurius (Jan 27, 2021)

Gradine said:


> The Name of the Wind. The worst kind of self-indulgent fantasy wrapped in the world's most tedious framing device.



Yeah, me too. I tried two or three times, made it about 100 pages in, but found the viewpoint character annoying. 

Also, Harry Potter. Good for what it is, but just not my thing.


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## cmad1977 (Jan 27, 2021)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> After my Dad read it all, I started the Dune series. But I couldn’t get past the 2nd novel in the series.




They stop being good right about there as I recall.


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## Gradine (Jan 27, 2021)

Oh, and also _Taran Wanderer _in the Prydain Chronicles. I loved the rest of the series, but this one bored me to tears. I kept wanting them to bring Eilonwy back. There was something about boy-becomes-a-man narratives that I just could never connect with.

That should have been the first clue for me, honestly.


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## RangerWickett (Jan 27, 2021)

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Couldn't get into it.

I'm mixed on Neil Gaiman, too. I keep enjoying the setup of his stories but every single ending I'm left sort of shrugging. (I've read some Sandman, American Gods, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane, listened to Neverwhere's BBC radio drama, and watched Coraline.)


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## Dioltach (Jan 27, 2021)

Gradine said:


> Oh, and also _Taran Wanderer _in the Prydain Chronicles. I loved the rest of the series, but this one bored me to tears. I kept wanting them to bring Eilonwy back. There was something about boy-becomes-a-man narratives that I just could never connect with.



It's definitely the weakest in the series, but I think it serves mostly as the basis for Taran's development in the final book. If you've read it once, you can skip it next time you reread the series, or at least only read the final confrontation with the outlaw at the end, for all the symbolism.


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## Sacrosanct (Jan 27, 2021)

RangerWickett said:


> I'm mixed on Neil Gaiman, too.



I read most of American Gods, and while it was a good story, I couldn't see what the super big deal about it was, or why so many people lavish all over Gaiman.  I'm more of a fan of him personally than of his writing.


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## Ralif Redhammer (Jan 27, 2021)

From the Beat generation, I'd certainly rank Burroughs and Ginsberg way ahead of him.



turnip_farmer said:


> I quite enjoyed Steinbeck; but if we're talking about American classics; the author I cannot read is Jack Kerouac. Tedious. It does indeed read like he splurted his books out while drunk and never bothered to revise anything. That's supposed to a virtue. It's not - the final product is unreadable crap.




Pretty much every Eddings book could be summarized as "they had adventures, bantered wittily, overcame all the difficulties without breaking a sweat, and nothing bad happened." I can understand why people like them as popcorn reads, but I'd hardly call them fantasy greats.



the Jester said:


> David Eddings' work- I read the Belgariad, though I thought it was pretty awful, because of how much people had talked it up. I kept expecting it to get better. Ugh. Then I started the sequel series, egged on by its fans- but it read like the same story over again, so I tossed them aside and gave up a few chapters in.


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## Mallus (Jan 27, 2021)

Sacrosanct said:


> I read most of American Gods, and while it was a good story, I couldn't see what the super big deal about it was, or why so many people lavish all over Gaiman.  I'm more of a fan of him personally than of his writing.



Have you read Sandman? My guess is a lot of people's opinion of Gaiman are based on his run on the comic, especially the first half or so, plus Death: The High Cost of Living. Which are, admittedly, fantastic. 

Gaiman kinda bores me as a novelist. I must have started American Gods three or four times without finishing it.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jan 27, 2021)

I read the whole Gormengast series...more out of curiosity than enjoyment.  It seemed to be a bad impression of Charles Dickens, a writer I only liked a couple of things by anyway.

I also took a completist attitude to reading Storm Constantine’s Wraethu novels.

I started Julian May’s Pliocene novels.  I have all the books, but only got halfway through.  Not sure what stopped me...

I usually enjoy Patricia McKillip’s work, but the Riddlemaster of Hed series lost me after the first book.


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## Mallus (Jan 27, 2021)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I started Julian May’s Pliocene novels.  I have all the books, but only got halfway through.



For a long time my favorite fantasy character was Aiken Drum, the Nonborn King, with his glorious upraised middle finger coat-of-arms. 

But I could get 10 pages into the semi-sequels set in the Galactic Milieu.


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## DemoMonkey (Jan 27, 2021)

The Bible.


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## Ulfgeir (Jan 27, 2021)

I got through the first 4 books of Wheel of Time. Then decided, nope, not going to read more.

The old man and the sea, by Hemingway. We read in in an English-course at the university college. It was so boring, and way overrated imo.


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## Helldritch (Jan 27, 2021)

My wife put me on a dare. I lost. I couldn't get passed beyond the first half of ... 50 shades of Grey...
We are big readers. Our libraries (yes plural) holds about 4000 different books. From bibliography, to historical books (my wife is an historian) to sci-fy, Agatha Christie, murder and mysteries and fantasy, we have many genres (and yes I do count my RPG books in there). But 50 shades... no thanks...


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## The Green Hermit (Jan 27, 2021)

The 4th book is when I gave up on Wheel of Time also. And I gave up on the Honor Herrington books when the war was over . . . so they started it again for a reason that all sides knew was inane. 

In a completely different genre, though, Nora Roberts. Individual paragraphs are outstandingly written, but as a complete book, she is boring as all get out.


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## Gradine (Jan 27, 2021)

Dioltach said:


> It's definitely the weakest in the series, but I think it serves mostly as the basis for Taran's development in the final book. If you've read it once, you can skip it next time you reread the series, or at least only read the final confrontation with the outlaw at the end, for all the symbolism.



Last time I saw a thread here with Prydain nostalgia everyone was waxing poetic about how great and formative _Taran Wanderer _was for them. To each their own!

For my money _The Castle of Llyr _was my favorite but I know everyone has a soft spot for _The Black Cauldron _(but not the movie (which I actually enjoyed too no matter how far it veered from book(s)))


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## Ralif Redhammer (Jan 27, 2021)

I was sad to see news of her death. the Wraethu series was like someone commissioned David Bowie to write the Lord of the Rings.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> I also took a completist attitude to reading Storm Constantine’s Wraethu novels.


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## Eltab (Jan 27, 2021)

I read a Harlequin Romance (figuring if there are shelves and shelves of them at the library they must be good).  Fortunately for me, I did so while down with fever; kept going due to boredom should I have stopped.


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## BookTenTiger (Jan 27, 2021)

RangerWickett said:


> Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Couldn't get into it.
> 
> I'm mixed on Neil Gaiman, too. I keep enjoying the setup of his stories but every single ending I'm left sort of shrugging. (I've read some Sandman, American Gods, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane, listened to Neverwhere's BBC radio drama, and watched Coraline.)



Man, Johnathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is a book I love, love, love, but I get how it can be difficult to get into. But I really love that book.

I really like Neil Gaiman's imagination, but his main characters tend to be empty points of view, and his plot falls apart in the 3rd Act.


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## BookTenTiger (Jan 27, 2021)

Two highly praised fantasy novels that I didn't just not get but wound up really, strongly disliking are:

The Name of the Wind - Rothfus might as well have just tied his character to a cross and told everyone how self sacrificing, how brilliant, how handsome, how powerful he is... So popular with the ladies, but he holds off for his one true love who he would never dare confess his feelings too! If you took the toxic "nice guy" trope and magically transformed it into a fantasy novel, this would be it.

The Magicians - I get it, Harry Potter but with drunk college students. But I cannot stand self-loathing main characters who do nothing. So much of this novel was just Quentin either begging to be included, pissed off that he wasn't included, or refusing to make choices. Utter waste of a premise.


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## RobJN (Jan 27, 2021)

billd91 said:


> A lot of people rave about the Thomas Covenant series. So I read *Lord Foul's Bane*. I forced myself through it to see if it would ever pull me in but the protagonist was so irritating, I couldn't pick up another book in the series.
> People here are talking about dropping out in the 5th Harry Potter - but Covenant is a far more annoying and despicable character than Harry acting as a petulant (and developmentally appropriate) teen.



Covenant is a whiny bitch. Couldn't make it through the first book, especially after _that_ incident. (which makes him even whinier)


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## billd91 (Jan 27, 2021)

RobJN said:


> Covenant is a whiny bitch. Couldn't make it through the first book, especially after _that_ incident. (which makes him even whinier)



Yep. Even friends of mine who like the series were totally understanding about me not liking Covenant and are quite aware that a lot of people stop after the rape.
And I don't really care if it's a spoiler - the book's over 40 years old. If we can talk about Vader being Luke's father out in the open, we can talk about Thomas Covenant raping Lena.


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## DemoMonkey (Jan 27, 2021)

Vader is WHAT??!!


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## The Green Hermit (Jan 27, 2021)

Eltab said:


> I read a Harlequin Romance (figuring if there are shelves and shelves of them at the library they must be good).  Fortunately for me, I did so while down with fever; kept going due to boredom should I have stopped.



In all fairness, like any genre/publishing company, some authors are much better than others.


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## TheSword (Jan 27, 2021)

So many people failing-will saves unable to make it past book 4 of Wheel of Time.  Go back to it. Make it to the end and you won’t regret it.

For me, I struggled with Let Them Be Hanged and The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. I lost interest. It felt like it was trying to be epic, but actually felt quite mundane.


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## Sacrosanct (Jan 27, 2021)

TheSword said:


> So many weak-spirited people unable to make it past book 4 of Wheel of Time. Go back to it. Make it to the end and you won’t regret it.
> 
> For me, I struggled with Let Them Be Hanged and The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. I lost interest. It felt like it was trying to be epic, but actually felt quite mundane.




It has nothing to do with being weak spirited.  You can keep insults to yourself please.  It's more to do with I like to enjoy what I read, and I do not enjoy spending 100 pages describing how dark that road is that Rand happens to be walking on.


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## Eltab (Jan 27, 2021)

The Green Hermit said:


> In all fairness, like any genre/publishing company, some authors are much better than others.



The one I got probably was better due to my addled mental condition at the time.  Once healthy again, I could not think of a single person I've ever met who falls head-over-heels into bed, and knows that person is the love of their life, with somebody they just met this morning.


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## TheSword (Jan 27, 2021)

Sacrosanct said:


> It has nothing to do with being weak spirited.  You can keep insults to yourself please.  It's more to do with I like to enjoy what I read, and I do not enjoy spending 100 pages describing how dark that road is that Rand happens to be walking on.



I’ve amended to be clear I was joking and not claiming you lacked moral fiber for not finishing

It’s interesting though, that whenever I see a specific criticism of the books its usually a massive exaggeration 

Perhaps give it another go if you get time, it’s lasted for a reason.


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## Ath-kethin (Jan 27, 2021)

cmad1977 said:


> They stop being good right about there as I recall.



The 2nd was bad, the 3rd was worse, and it took me 15 years from when I started God Emperor to when I finished it.

By the time I had, I realized that the first one and God Emperor are the only ones worth reading.


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## MNblockhead (Jan 27, 2021)

GreyLord said:


> People seem to love Stephen King.  I've read a few of his books, but they just seem to lack something to me.  They just don't seem fulfilling or enjoyable.
> 
> I am about to finish the Wheel of Time, but I can understand everyone that talks about how they stopped reading.  Book 1-3 move quickly and are fun.  Book 4 starts to slow down, and book 5 starts to get more of a slog.  However, none of them compare to what happens when you hit book 8, 9, and 10.  Those books just about sunk my goal of getting through the Book series this time around.  The series starts off quick and then just moves slower and slower and slower each book around.  Finally, it starts to speed up again, but I think those middle books kill off a LOT of readers.




Try his _Eyes of the Dragon._  I got the kindle version on a whim because I was interested to see what a fantasy novel by Stephen King would be like and it had good reviews.  I was happily surprised. I found it very well written, much better than the few books of his I've read in the past.


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## jhingelshod (Jan 28, 2021)

TheSword said:


> So many people failing-will saves unable to make it past book 4 of Wheel of Time.  Go back to it. Make it to the end and you won’t regret it.
> 
> For me, I struggled with Let Them Be Hanged and The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. I lost interest. It felt like it was trying to be epic, but actually felt quite mundane.



That's an interesting perspective (on The First Law trilogy). I've always thought that Abercrombie was focussing on the mundane against the backdrop of the epic sweep of the story. For me, the focus on the very believable and human characters, most of whom are in some way broken, made the world and the epic sweep of the story more real.

WoT, on the other hand...utter guff. Think I gave up on book 2 or 3. It was like the diary of the worst D&D campaign you ever played. Literally the only thing I remember was, at various points in the book, marking the points where the party levelled up.


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## Sabathius42 (Jan 28, 2021)

Wheel of Time: Female character descriptions/actions grate on me.  Tried twice.
Harry Turtledove alternate histories:  Carboard characters, cool settings.  Can't do it.
Harry Potter:  Too old to enjoy it.
Canticle for Liebowitz:  Couldn't follow the thread connecting the stories
Confederacy of Dunces:  Hate the main character so much I couldn't keep reading.
The Illuminatus Trilogy:  I may have to be on something to follow the plot.

(TV Show)
Buffy TVS:  Too much teen angst
Dragonball Z:  Looks like a show for 8-10 year olds.


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## Arilyn (Jan 28, 2021)

Years ago when Dragonlance was hitting bestseller status. Couldn't get into the series. And Dune. Just cannot read Dune. 

And I also could not get into the Wheel of Time. Struggled through book 1 and stopped.


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## dragoner (Jan 28, 2021)

Altered Carbon, overly violent, rather sexist, libertarian-fascist, and set in San Francisco, where I lived (Oakland actually, but it's just across the bridge) where he cribbed some stuff that might have been true at one point, like the mission being seedy, but totally wasn't true after the dot com boom.

Gibson's later cyberpunk books set in SF were rather meh as well, esp ones where they are living on the bay bridge which is gone now, and was going away then, as pieces were falling into the bay.

My sister loves the whole Anita Blake, sexy vampire kind of novel, not much into that.

Hear people croon over Heinlein's Starship Troopers, and how it is totally right about only letting soldiers vote. Uh, no? Not only do about 30% qualify for military service; personally I think it's recipe for fascism, like if restricting voting to one subclass, why not only let the officers vote, or the rich, or your own party? Nope. Plus the whole "violence as the final authority" thing.


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## SehanineMoonbow (Jan 28, 2021)

C'mon all, I managed to start the Wheel of Time series at age 12. If a 12-year old can read 'em, you all can too  I tease, I tease. 

For me it's the Inheritance series. I loved the first one (Eragon), but after Eldest...no, just no lol. I hated so much the way he handled the elves it soured the whole experience for me lol.


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## Ath-kethin (Jan 28, 2021)

Add me to the Wheel of Time list. I got a free sample of the first half or so of the book and choked through it; I actually bought the full version mostly to see if it got any better. It didn't.

I also wasn't a fan of the Thomas Covenant books, or rather, book. Couldn't make it past the first in that one either.

I enjoyed both Eddings and Feist, though, at lest their initial series or two. I gave up around the time it became obvious the authors were both copying and pasting phrases, conversations, and even scenes from earlier books into newer ones.

I also never got into Glen Cook's Black Company series. I LOVE his Garret, PI books with all my heart, but the Black Company was such a letdown I could hardly stand it.


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## GreyLord (Jan 28, 2021)

MNblockhead said:


> Try his _Eyes of the Dragon._  I got the kindle version on a whim because I was interested to see what a fantasy novel by Stephen King would be like and it had good reviews.  I was happily surprised. I found it very well written, much better than the few books of his I've read in the past.



That was actually the first one I read.  It was a very quick read, but it just didn't really strike me as all that interesting while reading it or even after I was done with it.  I think part of it was it seemed as if it was sort of written at the level of a third grade/level book but with adult themes tossed in.


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## GreyLord (Jan 28, 2021)

billd91 said:


> A lot of people rave about the Thomas Covenant series. So I read *Lord Foul's Bane*. I forced myself through it to see if it would ever pull me in but the protagonist was so irritating, I couldn't pick up another book in the series.
> People here are talking about dropping out in the 5th Harry Potter - but Covenant is a far more annoying and despicable character than Harry acting as a petulant (and developmentally appropriate) teen.



I actually didn't read LFB until after I had read the rest of the series.  I started with The Illearth War First.  That was actually an awesome book with Wars and Battles and everything else an epic fantasy could contain.  However, it also points to the very obvious idea that this series is STILL a Lord of the Rings Knockoff (for all the junk that people toss at Terry Brooks Sword of Shannara, the Thomas Covenant Chronicles, at least the first trilogy, deserve all of that AND MORE).  That said, the best book of the first trilogy IS the Illearth War.  I'd say that Lord Foul's Bane is probably the weakest book of all of them.

He IS an Anti-hero though, and supposed to be a particularly disgusting anti-hero in the beginning.  Various theories and thoughts have gone into this, and some of these theories are indicated to be the correct one after reading the LAST Quadrology of the Series (for example, the Land is actually a reference to the body or soul of the individual, in this instance, Thomas Covenant.  Thus Lord Foul is symbolic of the evil Thomas Covenant already has and is actually Thomas Covenant himself...as is also the creator.  Thus, Thomas Covenant is both the protagonist and the antagonist of the series at the same time.  How is this possible, because it is beyond the boundary of law...hence he is not just the foundation of creation, but the wild magic that forms it all.  HE, himself, is wild magic, because he is what everything is to begin with...etc...etc...etc).

That said, I still enjoyed the writing of LFB, so if one didnt enjoy the character of LFB, there may be a good chance they might not enjoy the other books of the trilogy.

 I enjoyed the Second Trilogy a lot more than the first trilogy.


----------



## DrunkonDuty (Jan 28, 2021)

Oh boy... so many...

Ones that sucked from the get go:
_The Name of the Wind. _I read one chapter. Utter drek. I think BookTenTiger has summed it up beautifully above.
_Malazan Books of the Fallen._ 3 chapters. Just did not grab me. Also couldn't help thinking the guy was setting up some seriously misogynous story telling with the way the empress is portrayed.
_Confederacy of Dunces._ 5 or 6 chapters. My wife LOVES this book. I don't see why.
_Eragon. _Half a chapter. Just... wtf is this? I think Lessons From Bad Writing explains its flaws very well.  Here's a link: Lessons From the Terrible Writing of Eragon
_Dragonlance_. Okay, it seems unfair to pick on these out of all the DnD novels, all DnD novels are average to bad. But these just suck with a sucitude that outsucks the rest of the suck.

Shark Jumpers:
_Wheel of Time._ Look, it started out a perfectly adequate, stock standard bildungsroman fantasy. The characters seemed to get more boring as time went along and the plot wandered off into its own butt somewhere in the middle there. Also the gender politics are... confused to say the least.
_Dune._ Love the first one. Enjoyed _God Emperor, _but didn't love it. Everything else is bad to terrible.
_Harry Potter._ Good kids books. About book 4 Rowling realised she had adult readers and tried to write for them. She did not succeed.

Ones that I liked when I was 13-15years old but not now (and I kinda want to kick my teenaged self in the arse):
_Magician._ I have in fact re-read it recently. Did not enjoy this time around. Someone above described WoT as the campaign outline of the worst DND campaign ever. I would like to suggest that Magician outdoes WoT in this regard.
_David Eddings. _Just everything is so cute. No dramatic stakes. Just cuteness.
_Thomas Covenant._ Yeah there is no reason to include a rape in this story.

Thanks, that was therapeutic.


----------



## Zardnaar (Jan 28, 2021)

Seems I'm not the only one who liked God Emperor of Dune. 

 I was 14 when I first read Eddings loved him. 

 Read alot he gets repetitive.

  Elenium is probably his best work.


----------



## Eltab (Jan 28, 2021)

Turtledove's alternate histories are not bad if you read only one series.  If you read multiple series you start to recognize certain characters (personalities not names) are dropped into multiple worlds and set to do their thing in it, sometimes in rather similar circumstances even if the location names have been changed.


----------



## Gilladian (Jan 28, 2021)

MNblockhead said:


> Try his _Eyes of the Dragon._  I got the kindle version on a whim because I was interested to see what a fantasy novel by Stephen King would be like and it had good reviews.  I was happily surprised. I found it very well written, much better than the few books of his I've read in the past.



I dislike Stephen King, and I thought Eyes of the Dragon was an utterly boring pastiche. Never read Jordan, didn’t care for Eddings, and found Sanderson‘s female characters unrealistic. I liked Name of the Wind once, but not on the second read. On the other hand, I like the Dresden Files, Harry Potter until the last book, and Taran Wanderer. I reread LOTR every year or two. Most Great Literature bores me, though I do like Austen.


----------



## Zardnaar (Jan 28, 2021)

Eltab said:


> Turtledove's alternate histories are not bad if you read only one series.  If you read multiple series you start to recognize certain characters (personalities not names) are dropped into multiple worlds and set to do their thing in it, sometimes in rather similar circumstances even if the location names have been changed.




 He's like Eddings. Formulaic.


----------



## MGibster (Jan 28, 2021)

Umbran said:


> I have this weird dissonance between the idea of "I just can't get into them" but reading through seven books. It took _nearly 6000 pages_ to figure out you didn't really like it?



WoT is kind of a special case.  Part of it is the sunk cost fallacy.  "Oh, I've already read so many books in the series I might as well finish."  Parts of Wheel of Time are absolutely brilliant; the Battle of Emond's Field, Dumai's Well, and Mat kicking the crap out of Gawyn and Galad.  And then you realize the only thing you remember happening from one of the books is that Elayne took a bath and what the hell?  Mat isn't even in this book?!  Jordan really needed an editor who wasn't his wife.  I admit that I only finished the series because I had sunk so much time into it.  I first read WoT when I was 14 or 15 and the final book when it was released as I was 38.  



Umbran said:


> I can't seem to work up any enthusiasm for _Ready Player One_. However well-targetted the book is for me, the flaws so thoroughly overwhelm whatever pleasure there may be found in the work.



I was able to turn my brain off and enjoy it as I read it.  But once I finished it I realized it had nothing of substance just nostalgia.  I didn't bother with the movie and I doubt I'll ever read the book again.


----------



## MGibster (Jan 28, 2021)

Ralif Redhammer said:


> Outside of genre works, just about everything Hemmingway and Steinbeck wrote springs to mind.



I love _The Old Man and the Sea_!


----------



## MGibster (Jan 28, 2021)

RangerWickett said:


> I'm mixed on Neil Gaiman, too. I keep enjoying the setup of his stories but every single ending I'm left sort of shrugging. (I've read some Sandman, American Gods, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane, listened to Neverwhere's BBC radio drama, and watched Coraline.)



I don't care for Gaiman's work other than a few short stories I've read.  Which is odd because Gaiman is a very good writer.  I just can't connect with him.


----------



## Umbran (Jan 28, 2021)

MGibster said:


> I was able to turn my brain off and enjoy it as I read it.  But once I finished it I realized it had nothing of substance just nostalgia.  I didn't bother with the movie and I doubt I'll ever read the book again.




I have never gotten through the book. But, by description, many of the issues I would have had... were apparently fixed in or just dropped from the movie, which I rather enjoyed.


----------



## DrunkonDuty (Jan 28, 2021)

I also liked  _The Old Man and the Sea_. I saw the movie many, many years ago (Spencer Tracy? I think it was Spencer Tracy.) When I finally read the short story I enjoyed that too. Also enjoyed _The Sun Also Rises_ (or _Fiesta _depending on where you live.)


----------



## Campbell (Jan 28, 2021)

Pretty much any heroic fantasy novel. Lord of the Rings, Sword of Truth, Wheel of Time, Shannara. Any sort of epic quest against huge existential threats. See also standard super heroics found in stuff like the Avengers. I like personal stories. The type of fiction that's about characters who have deeply personal wants and needs they cannot easily achieve. I don't want heroes. I want protagonists.


----------



## jhingelshod (Jan 28, 2021)

One that stuck out for me as particularly bad was Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion series. I read and enjoyed the Elric books back in the 80's. They weren't particularly well written, but...ELRIC!! STORMBRINGER!!! (I almost wrote Black Razor there....). I trawled the second hand bookshops in Newcastle and bought pretty much the whole Eternal Champion series....Erikose, Corum, Hawkmoon, Jerry Cornelius.....
I started with the Erikose (I think that was his name) and was pretty unimpressed. The writing was, if anything, worse than Elric without any of the great story and characters, but I pushed on with Corum, like you do. It was, if anything, even worse. Terrible writing and recycled ideas. As far as I could see, Corum's entire personality was "I have a silver hand". I never did find out Hawkmoon's backstory because the whole lot ended up being donated, including the Elric novels which was a shame. I've since tracked down most of the Elric stuff. It's there on my shelf, but I'm not sure I'd ever re-read it.

Let's address another elephant in the room. Conan... I LOVED the Conan books back in the day. They were what I first read, along with Sword of Shannara, in the early 80's when I met the weird kids in high school who got me to roll out my first character (human fighter, made L9, gave me my first twinge of LFQW envy). There was an imprint, by Orbit I think, of about 20+ books and I worked through them all, buying one each month with my pocket money. Loved 'em all. Howard, Offutt, Spague de Camp. Eventually, my wife informed me that we didn't have space so they were donated. A few years ago I bought the Howard Conan stories in hardback and settled down to revisit the pleasures of my youth, which turned out to be a big mistake. It wasn't as bad as Moorcroft, but I couldn't get past the one-dimensional characters, clunky dialogue and poor writing to see the magic that thirteen year-old me had seen. I should have learned my lessons from Blakes 7.....


----------



## amethal (Jan 28, 2021)

Zardnaar said:


> Seems I'm not the only one who liked God Emperor of Dune.
> 
> I was 14 when I first read Eddings loved him.
> 
> ...



I've long since got rid of the rest of my David Eddings books, but I still have the Elenium and re-read it from time to time.


----------



## Zardnaar (Jan 28, 2021)

amethal said:


> I've long since got rid of the rest of my David Eddings books, but I still have the Elenium and re-read it from time to time.




 Belgariad seemed to be aimed at teens, Mallorean a bit to familiar same with Tamuli.

 Elenium is his grittiest work I suppose with best characters. 

 He was my favorite author aged 14 or so though.

 Or as an old player described "Sparhawk greatest paladin ever".


----------



## Ulfgeir (Jan 28, 2021)

Zardnaar said:


> Belgariad seemed to be aimed at teens, Mallorean a bit to familiar same with Tamuli.
> 
> Elenium is his grittiest work I suppose with best characters.
> 
> ...




I agree that Elenium is his best work. But that is also his only work where he doesn't use the exact same template over and over. And he also stole that whole plot from Raymond  E. Feist if I recall correctly.


----------



## Zardnaar (Jan 28, 2021)

Ulfgeir said:


> I agree that Elenium is his best work. But that is also his only work where he doesn't use the exact same template over and over. And he also stole that whole plot from Raymond  E. Feist if I recall correctly.




 Silverthorn? Go recover the cure for the poison? 

 I don't think it's possible to write a truly unique concept in fantasy/sci fi anymore just clever variations.

 Heh my originals from the 90's. I covered them in plastic as a teen don't think I've read them since the 90's.


----------



## Ralif Redhammer (Jan 28, 2021)

I will give Hemmingway credit for his taste in cocktails. Both The Death in the Afternoon and the Hemingway Daiquiri are tasty beverages.



MGibster said:


> I love _The Old Man and the Sea_!




One thing about The Elenium is that it showed that a paladin could be something other than a lawful stupid stick-in-the-mud that is just waiting for an excuse to attack the party's thief. That they could be someone with a sense of humor, be actually kind, and be willing to bend the rules at least a little.



Zardnaar said:


> Or as an old player described "Sparhawk greatest paladin ever".


----------



## The Green Hermit (Jan 28, 2021)

amethal said:


> I've long since got rid of the rest of my David Eddings books, but I still have the Elenium and re-read it from time to time.



I like everything he's written, except for his first book, but the Elenium is by far my favorite.


----------



## Mallus (Jan 28, 2021)

DrunkonDuty said:


> _David Eddings. _Just everything is so cute. No dramatic stakes. Just cuteness.



Eddings is the The Lord of the Rings meets Friends. To some, a feature. To others, a bug.


Zardnaar said:


> Seems I'm not the only one who liked God Emperor of Dune.



God-Emperor is kinda brilliant. Best after the original, last one worth reading.


----------



## DrunkonDuty (Jan 28, 2021)

Mallus said:


> Eddings is the The Lord of the Rings meets Friends. To some, a feature. To others, a bug.




For me, definitely a bug. 

But I now want to read a LoTR meets _Seinfeld _pastiche.


----------



## MGibster (Jan 28, 2021)

DrunkonDuty said:


> But I now want to read a LoTR meets _Seinfeld _pastiche.



Set it in the Birthright RPG setting and you've got a "Master of Your Domain" episode right there.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Jan 29, 2021)

Sacrosanct said:


> What books have you read, or more accurately, tried to read because everyone seems to rave about them, but you just couldn't get into them?
> 
> For me it has to be the Wheel of Time series and Tigana.
> 
> ...



Well you’re objectively wrong about Tigana and probably also from Corte. 

But for me it’s The Great Gatsby. And no, not because I read it in school. I just don’t find it all that interesting or entertaining or otherwise worth reading. 

Also the Song of Ice And Fire series. Edge-lord tripe, mostly.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Jan 29, 2021)

Mallus said:


> Eddings is the The Lord of the Rings meets Friends. To some, a feature. To others, a bug.
> 
> God-Emperor is kinda brilliant. Best after the original, last one worth reading.



I tried to reread the Elenium a while back...and gods it has not aged well. Really cool world, though.


----------



## Lanefan (Jan 29, 2021)

Things I can't get into, sometimes after numerous attempts:

Any time I've ever tried reading anything by C.J. Cherryh (sp.?) I've bounced off it pretty hard.
Lovecraft, or derivatives thereof.  Ravings of a madman.
Stephen King.
Given what else I like, in theory I _should_ like Shannara but nope - bounce. Some of Brooks' other stuff is OK.
Terry Pratchett.  His humour and my humour just don't quite mesh.  Bounce.
Larry Niven.  Ditto.
Anne McCaffrey (sp.?).

Things I like that some others here seem not to:

Harry Potter.  Absolutely love the whole damn lot of it! 
Eddings. (except for the Elenium, which for some reason I've never read and thus have no opinion on)  His characters make great PC archetypes.
Wheel of Time.  About due for a re-read.  Still trying to figure out how to get Telheran'rhiod (the dream-world) to work in a game.
While Feist's Magician series might not be the greatest, it's not bad; and some of his other stuff is just fine.
Lord of the Rings.  And The Hobbit.

Things I've never bothered trying to read as thus far I haven't been that interested:

Michael Moorcock.  Might give this a shot one day.
Conan.
Neil Gaiman.


----------



## Arilyn (Jan 29, 2021)

Lanefan said:


> Things I can't get into, sometimes after numerous attempts:
> 
> Any time I've ever tried reading anything by C.J. Cherryh (sp.?) I've bounced off it pretty hard.
> Lovecraft, or derivatives thereof.  Ravings of a madman.
> ...



I have read C. J. Cherryh. Can be hard to get into, but when I'm in the right mood, I enjoy her books. 

In my teens I enjoyed some of Stephen King, but no longer. 

Terry Brooks-nope
Never liked Eddings
Love Terry Pratchett

Anne McCaffrey's books were something I liked as a teen but no longer. 

I'm a big fan of Neil Gaiman, especially Sandman. Funnily enough, considering its popularity, I don't care for American Gods.

Larry Niven is an author I used to read many years ago. Don't know how I'd feel about his works now. 

And I too love Harry Potter and Tolkien.


----------



## trappedslider (Jan 29, 2021)

As I've stated elsewhere I just can't get into Terry Pratchett and no i will not hand over my geek/nerd card.


----------



## i_dont_meta (Jan 29, 2021)

The Icewind Dale Trilogy. I only finished The Crystal Shard so I could say, "I finished The Crystal Shard." It reads like transcripts from somebody's home game, written by the guy in the group who really liked X-Men.


----------



## Sepulchrave II (Jan 29, 2021)

Oooh....

*_Shannara_ series. Read the first few pages of _Sword of Shannara_ when I was 13. That was enough. Utter dreck.
*_Belgariad_. Read it when I was 14. Enjoyed it at the time, but nonetheless felt soiled afterwards. Rapidly came to hate it.
*First heard _Hitch Hiker's Guide_ in the original radio format. Loved it. Hated every subsequent adaptation and sequel. Indifferent to everything else Douglas Adams wrote, but he seemed like a nice guy when he gave a guest speech at my university.
*Don't like Terry Pratchett
*_Wheel of Time_. Couldn't make it past the first page of the first book.
*_Dark Tower_ series. Couldn't get into it. I otherwise find Stephen King pretty hit-or-miss; there are some I've enjoyed.
*Michael Moorcock. Painful. Many of my peers were reading it and recommending; even at the tender age of 13 I realized it was garbage. Read it all anyway.
*_Earthsea_ series. I love Le Guin, but this one didn't float my boat; maybe I should revisit after almost 40 years...
*_Chronicles of Narnia_. I read these when I was 11. I waited too long...

Honorable mention:

I read _Game of Thrones_ and _Clash of Kings_ in 2001. But I find the sheer misanthropy of Martin hard to stomach, and I feel both could have been condensed into a single 300-page book. Gave up after that. Enjoyed the first few seasons of the TV show.


----------



## Sepulchrave II (Jan 29, 2021)

DemoMonkey said:


> The Bible.



I still enjoy this one, but find the many different POV confusing.


----------



## DemoMonkey (Jan 29, 2021)

_"I still enjoy this one, but find the many different POV confusing."_

It's basically the "Rashomon" of founding texts.


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## Eltab (Jan 29, 2021)

Sepulchrave II said:


> I still enjoy this one, but find the many different POV confusing.



Tangent:
A tourist attraction in Orlando "The Bible Experience" takes 2500 or so years of history and squishes it down as if it all happened at once.  Seeing Roman soldiers walk past Abraham's tent just did not work for me (I have a History minor).  Individually the displays were good.


----------



## Ralif Redhammer (Jan 29, 2021)

Sorry not sorry...

















DrunkonDuty said:


> But I now want to read a LoTR meets _Seinfeld _pastiche.


----------



## The Green Hermit (Jan 29, 2021)

doctorbadwolf said:


> I tried to reread the Elenium a while back...and gods it has not aged well. Really cool world, though.



The anti-gay rhetoric always bugged me. As an entire piece of work, though, I love it.


----------



## The Green Hermit (Jan 29, 2021)

I don't like horror, so I haven't read much Stephen King, but for some reason, I absolutely love Pet Semetary. I also really like Anne McCaffrey, but some of her books duplicate too much of what is going on in other books. I actually like her son's continuation of the series better, but the polyamory made it so I wouldn't let my kids read them until I knew they could handle it. Anne hinted at it, but Todd full-on went there.


----------



## Lanefan (Jan 29, 2021)

Eltab said:


> A tourist attraction in Orlando ... *takes 2500 or so years of history and squishes it down as if it all happened at once. *



That, in a nutshell, about sums up my game setting.


----------



## Deset Gled (Jan 29, 2021)

Lanefan said:


> Terry Pratchett.  His humour and my humour just don't quite mesh.  Bounce.




I don't mind Pratchett in moderation, but Good Omens definitely belongs on the list for me.  It's on a bunch of "Best Fantasy" novel lists and people were super excited when the Amazon series came out.  I found it quite forgettable.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Jan 29, 2021)

The Green Hermit said:


> The anti-gay rhetoric always bugged me. As an entire piece of work, though, I love it.



Me too. I love the characters, and the fat gay man ends up being much more complex than he first seems, but still, it’s...not a fun read in those parts.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Jan 29, 2021)

The Green Hermit said:


> I don't like horror, so I haven't read much Stephen King, but for some reason, I absolutely love Pet Semetary. I also really like Anne McCaffrey, but some of her books duplicate too much of what is going on in other books. I actually like her son's continuation of the series better, but the polyamory made it so I wouldn't let my kids read them until I knew they could handle it. Anne hinted at it, but Todd full-on went there.



Wait what? Polyamory isn’t more “adult” than monogamy.


----------



## The Green Hermit (Jan 29, 2021)

Deset Gled said:


> I don't mind Pratchett in moderation, but Good Omens definitely belongs on the list for me.  It's on a bunch of "Best Fantasy" novel lists and people were super excited when the Amazon series came out.  I found it quite forgettable.



I liked it, but it definitely had some prosey sections that I skimmed.


----------



## The Green Hermit (Jan 29, 2021)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Wait what? Polyamory isn’t more “adult” than monogamy.



Not more adult, but kids should be mature enough to not freak out about it. We have several openly gay and trans family members, so I wasn't worried about that aspect, but when your kid has a college reading level in 3rd grade, you have to pay attention to content. By middle school, my entire library was opened up for all my kids, regardless of maturity. At that age, whether they are mature or not, sheltering them does more harm than good.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Jan 29, 2021)

The Green Hermit said:


> Not more adult, but kids should be mature enough to not freak out about it. We have several openly gay and trans family members, so I wasn't worried about that aspect, but when your kid has a college reading level in 3rd grade, you have to pay attention to content. By middle school, my entire library was opened up for all my kids, regardless of maturity. At that age, whether they are mature or not, sheltering them does more harm than good.



Okay. Sorry, didn’t mean to challenge your parenting, I just don’t see polyamory as something that needs a content warning or a certain maturity level, but it is what it is.


----------



## Lanefan (Jan 29, 2021)

Deset Gled said:


> I don't mind Pratchett in moderation, but Good Omens definitely belongs on the list for me.  It's on a bunch of "Best Fantasy" novel lists and people were super excited when the Amazon series came out.  I found it quite forgettable.



Heh, and here I didn't even realize the Good Omens TV series - which I found engaging enough - was based on a book.


----------



## Sabathius42 (Jan 30, 2021)

Eltab said:


> Turtledove's alternate histories are not bad if you read only one series.  If you read multiple series you start to recognize certain characters (personalities not names) are dropped into multiple worlds and set to do their thing in it, sometimes in rather similar circumstances even if the location names have been changed.



I've just never seen a book of his where a character grew or changed as part of the story.  Most recently read the Korean War with nukes series and it was more of the same.


----------



## DrunkonDuty (Jan 30, 2021)

@Ralif Redhammer 
Thanks! They're great. Next time I read it I'll do Jerry's voice for Gandalf all the way through.


----------



## Tyler Do'Urden (Jan 30, 2021)

DemoMonkey said:


> The Bible.




Speaking as a non-Christian who loves the Bible as literature:

The Bible isn't a book, it's a collection of books, written in different languages over a period spanning nearly a millenium, and it was ordered the way it was for doctrinal and pedagogical purposes, not for being an enjoyable read. Here's how I usually suggest people approach it to get the gist:

Start with the Gospels, good ol' Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. This is like starting with Episode IV of Star Wars, or The Crystal Shard in the legend of Drizzt... it might not make sense to the uninitiated, but this is the good stuff.

Then flip back to Genesis and Exodus. The prequels, basically. Skip over the really boring parts with all the begats, unless you're into that sort of thing. Most of the best stories of the Old Testament are found here.

Jump forward. Read Job. Then Ecclesiastes. Two very important books.

Then go to the New Testament again. Read Acts - I know it's kinda the Episode VII of the Bible, but it tells the stories of what happened afterwards.

Then Revelation. With or without the psychedelic drug of your choice.

Dip into the rest of the Bible as the spirit moves you. There's some good stuff in the early books after Exodus, but it can be few and far between (with lots of discussions about how to purify yourself after unclean bodily emissions in between). The histories (Samuel, Judges, Kings) have their moments. Psalms and Proverbs can be nice to dip into. Never been a big fan of the prophets or the letters of Paul, but they have their fandom.

And, of course, after that there's the fanfic - aka apocrypha - but that's for another day...


----------



## Tyler Do'Urden (Jan 30, 2021)

Books I couldn't get into:

_The Sword of Truth _series. Just atrociously bad writing, and nothing grabbed me about it at all.

_A Song of Fire and Ice _series. Tried to read the first book... maybe just not my kind of fantasy.

_The Baroque Cycle. _I'm an obsessive Neal Stephenson fan - and yet, I struggled with _Quicksilver_, and didn't make it more than fifty pages into _The Confusion_.

_Romance of the Three Kingdoms. _I'm the sort of guy who has read The Silmarillion five times, but this one defeated me. Though maybe it was because the translation I was reading used Wade-Gilles romanization rather than Pinyin, and Wade-Gilles always throws me off tremendously. If/when I tackle it again, I'll look for an edition with Pinyin romanization.

_Ulysses. _James Joyce was capable of writing things that are a joy to read. This was not one of them.


----------



## dragoner (Jan 30, 2021)

I was taught the Bible by a Marxist-Leninist, and the effect was similar, something I had to know, except not necessarily believe. Both have their leaps of logic, like uh agriculture will be magically collectivized, that's right! Then again I think I have had more problems with the adherents than the source material for both.


----------



## Gradine (Jan 30, 2021)

Hearing the Bible described as basically any other piece of pop fiction makes me wonder, semi-seriously, if there are any Bible shippers out there


----------



## Tyler Do'Urden (Jan 30, 2021)

Gradine said:


> Hearing the Bible described as basically any other piece of pop fiction makes me wonder, semi-seriously, if there are any Bible shippers out there




"So, I was working on this furry Judas/Mary story the other... ::smote by lightning bolt::"


----------



## Ulfgeir (Jan 30, 2021)

Gradine said:


> Hearing the Bible described as basically any other piece of pop fiction makes me wonder, semi-seriously, if there are any Bible shippers out there



If someone had tried writing the bible today, would any serious publishing house touch it with a 10' pole?  I think the only way it would get published in the current form would be self-publishing. 

I mean the beginning has two different versions, then a bunch of chapters in the middle that tell the same story from different pov's. The main characters are either way overpowered, or totally incompetent (wandering around for 40 years in the desert). Sometimes the same character falls into both categories, like you have multiple authors . And it suffers from extremely bad editing, with a bad plot, and unbelievable characters (humans living for 900 years)...


----------



## dragoner (Jan 30, 2021)

Ulfgeir said:


> If someone had tried writing the bible today, would any serious publishing house touch it with a 10' pole?  I think the only way it would get published in the current form would be self-publishing.
> 
> I mean the beginning has two different versions, then a bunch of chapters in the middle that tell the same story from different pov's. The main characters are either way overpowered, or totally incompetent (wandering around for 40 years in the desert). Sometimes the same character falls into both categories, like you have multiple authors . And it suffers from extremely bad editing, with a bad plot, and unbelievable characters (humans living for 900 years)...



I thought everyone loved stories about invisible sky fairies? Even Marx, just a German economist linking theory with a bunch of du jour utilitarian philosophers like Kant, Lenin just added: we hand rifles to the peasants. Then you get big anti-marxist internet edge lords, and personally for me, being a marxist would be like being a rockabilly in the west (and yes, I went to Viva Las Vegas). I am just sick of it all, guess that is what getting old is about.


----------



## Blue (Jan 30, 2021)

TheSword said:


> So many people failing-will saves unable to make it past book 4 of Wheel of Time.  Go back to it. Make it to the end and you won’t regret it.
> 
> For me, I struggled with Let Them Be Hanged and The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. I lost interest. It felt like it was trying to be epic, but actually felt quite mundane.



Book 4 was my favorite.  And sadly, having reread and finished the series, none of the laters ones are able to push it out of the way - or even really come close.  The last ones were decent, but I think Sanderson had a fundamental misunderstanding of Matt and how the Red Hand interacted with him.  Plus there were so many threads that Jordon added that got wrapped up, but didn't get made feel like they were required enough to be included so they feel like filler in a series that was way too long already.  I realized that I would never again want to reread the series and gave it away.


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## Blue (Jan 30, 2021)

So I started reading SF in the 70s and Fantasy in the 80s.  Two acclaimed series from that period that never gripped me were Dragonriders of Pern, and Narnia.  Call me a heretic but I never got far in them at all.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 30, 2021)

Tyler Do'Urden said:


> Speaking as a non-Christian who loves the Bible as literature:
> 
> The Bible isn't a book, it's a collection of books, written in different languages over a period spanning nearly a millenium, and it was ordered the way it was for doctrinal and pedagogical purposes, not for being an enjoyable read. Here's how I usually suggest people approach it to get the gist:
> 
> ...



Psalms is the highlight of the whole collection, IMO, but yeah this is a fair list. I do disagree with starting with the gospels. IMO, the heroes and kings and prophets of the OT are more interesting.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 30, 2021)

TheSword said:


> For me, I struggled with Let Them Be Hanged and The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie.



I read the First Law Trilogy and felt like it wasn’t written to tell a good story so much as for the direct purpose of subverting tropes and making a point, which took me from enjoyment and curiosity to eye-rolling disdain in the final pages of the book.

Then I tried the one about Shivers and the mercenary lady, and it was such an ugly slog of grimdark “no one is good or decent ever, actually, or even just not awful, life is hell and everyone deserves it” garbage that I don’t think I finished it. There are characters in that world that I really like, but it’s very clear that all of them will either fail in thier endeavors because only the worst people succeed at anything, die an ugly death, or “live long enough to become the villain” (vomits a bit). No thanks. 

Marvel’s The Ultimates (the Ultimate universe Avengers book. Just not enjoyable from about halfway through on), Sin City, most stuff by Frank Miller but especially his terrible Batman work, are more examples of works that I find to be trash try-hard attempts at getting attention onto a work by turning good story elements as grimdark as possible. 

My partners’ answers: Percy Jackson, Hunger Games, Death Note.


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## Eltab (Jan 30, 2021)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Psalms is the highlight of the whole collection, IMO, but yeah this is a fair list. I do disagree with starting with the gospels. IMO, the heroes and kings and prophets of the OT are more interesting.



If you can find a chronological Bible*, reading Samuel and Kings plus Psalms turns into "this is what happened to David ... and what he thought / felt about it."  It is a more colorful experience than reading the 3 books separately.

 * The local Public Library might have one to borrow.


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## Greg K (Jan 30, 2021)

doctorbadwolf said:


> most stuff by Frank Miller but especially his terrible Batman work, are more examples of works that I find to be trash try-hard attempts at getting attention onto a work by turning good story elements as grimdark as possible.



It is funny that when I started reading this thread, I was thinking of some popular comic "must reads" for which I don't care. Two involved Batman. First, there is Miller's Dark Knight.  I really liked his Batman: Year One, but Dark Knight did nothing for me and I did not buy into it.  The second is Grant Morrison on JLA. I had found his run on Animal Man to be enjoyable and Doom Patrol to be interesting. When it came his JLA, I was not a fan. I know many people enjoyed "BatGod". I was not one of them.
Uncanny X-men was a title I  disliked beginning with Fall of the Mutants. I found the Mutant Massacre enjoyable enough (although I found the title already on a slow decline for a while) and really enjoyed Fantastic 4 vs X-men. While there were a few occasional enjoyable issues after Mutant Massacre, the title in my opinion took steep nose dive overall from which, in my opinion, it could not recover when they entered the Outback (I think I followed the title for another dozen issues hoping it would get and nothing I heard from friends afterward sounded interesting).


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## The Green Hermit (Jan 30, 2021)

Ulfgeir said:


> If someone had tried writing the bible today, would any serious publishing house touch it with a 10' pole?  I think the only way it would get published in the current form would be self-publishing.
> 
> I mean the beginning has two different versions, then a bunch of chapters in the middle that tell the same story from different pov's. The main characters are either way overpowered, or totally incompetent (wandering around for 40 years in the desert). Sometimes the same character falls into both categories, like you have multiple authors . And it suffers from extremely bad editing, with a bad plot, and unbelievable characters (humans living for 900 years)...



Actually, there were three versions. I used to be able to tell the difference between all three, but now I can only differentiate between the main two.


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## The Green Hermit (Jan 30, 2021)

Blue said:


> So I started reading SF in the 70s and Fantasy in the 80s.  Two acclaimed series from that period that never gripped me were Dragonriders of Pern, and Narnia.  Call me a heretic but I never got far in them at all.



I love Pern, but I hear what you are saying about Narnia. I loved it as a kid, and I think the most-recent movie versions are fantastic, but they are definitely kid books and do not reread well as an adult.


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## Davies (Jan 30, 2021)

Gradine said:


> Hearing the Bible described as basically any other piece of pop fiction makes me wonder, semi-seriously, if there are any Bible shippers out there



<serious> Yes, David/Jonathan has a long history behind it; _Fate/Grand Order_ implies Ramses/Moses at times. And of course there's all the Jesus/Mary Magdalene.


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## TheSword (Jan 30, 2021)

Blue said:


> Book 4 was my favorite.  And sadly, having reread and finished the series, none of the laters ones are able to push it out of the way - or even really come close.  The last ones were decent, but I think Sanderson had a fundamental misunderstanding of Matt and how the Red Hand interacted with him.  Plus there were so many threads that Jordon added that got wrapped up, but didn't get made feel like they were required enough to be included so they feel like filler in a series that was way too long already.  I realized that I would never again want to reread the series and gave it away.



Book 4 has an awesome ending. I was particularly impressed with how clever the history of the Aiel is I think.

I’m fascinated to see how they adapt it for the screen. I just hope they don’t do another Shanara. I think they’ll be cleaving close to the plot of the books. A lot of the filler that people object to will just be detail on screen.


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## Tyler Do'Urden (Jan 31, 2021)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Psalms is the highlight of the whole collection, IMO, but yeah this is a fair list. I do disagree with starting with the gospels. IMO, the heroes and kings and prophets of the OT are more interesting.




The Psalms are great, yes, but better for dipping in slowly. I've never been one for reading massive chunks of poetry in one sitting, though - better savored and contemplated a little at a time.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 31, 2021)

Tyler Do'Urden said:


> The Psalms are great, yes, but better for dipping in slowly. I've never been one for reading massive chunks of poetry in one sitting, though - better savored and contemplated a little at a time.



That’s fair. The Psalms are gorgeous poetry, best studied, not just read casually.


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## Sacrosanct (Jan 31, 2021)

TheSword said:


> Book 4 has an awesome ending. I was particularly impressed with how clever the history of the Aiel is I think.
> 
> I’m fascinated to see how they adapt it for the screen. I just hope they don’t do another Shanara. I think they’ll be cleaving close to the plot of the books. A lot of the filler that people object to will just be detail on screen.



The shannara TV series was a disaster for existing fans. They tried too hard to focus on making an appeal to teens, and threw out any semblance to the stories from the books.


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## DammitVictor (Jan 31, 2021)

billd91 said:


> People here are talking about dropping out in the 5th Harry Potter - but Covenant is a far more annoying and despicable character than Harry acting as a petulant (and developmentally appropriate) teen.




I never read the _Harry Potter _books-- no real interest in Young Adult by the time they came out-- but I watched the first four movies and the fifth is an insurmountable and painful brick wall. _Harry's_ behavior has nothing to do with it; are you sure that Harry's the dealbreaker for most people who brick off _Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_?



Ralif Redhammer said:


> Within genre, Butcher's Harry Dresden series' popularity just baffles me.




Oh, I do love _The Dresden Files_, the novels and the comics and the RPG and even the short-lived TV series. They told me that if I liked _The Dresden Files_, I would _love_ Kevin Hearne's _The Iron Druid_ series.

_They lied to me._ Pretty sure _Hounded_ set a lifetime record for the least of a fantasy novel I've ever read before DNF.



Gradine said:


> Hearing the Bible described as basically any other piece of pop fiction makes me wonder, semi-seriously, if there are any Bible shippers out there




They're called Gnostics, but there's really only one non-canonical ship in the whole fandom.


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## Gradine (Jan 31, 2021)

Davies said:


> And of course there's all the Jesus/Mary Magdalene.



Isn't that the plot of the Da Vinci Code?


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## Levistus's_Leviathan (Jan 31, 2021)

Hmm. This is hard. I tend to like good books (Percy Jackson, Da Vinci Code, Adventurer's Wanted, Fablehaven, Eragon and the rest of the Inheritance Chronicle, Narnia, etc) and hate bad books (Twilight, Neanderthal, etc). 

How about the Hobbit? 

I will ditto the Bible, though.


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## Davies (Jan 31, 2021)

Gradine said:


> Isn't that the plot of the Da Vinci Code?



... among others, yes.


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## Zardnaar (Jan 31, 2021)

Not Christian but ad the bible stories as a kid. Quite enjoyed them.

 Was reading about Assyria earlier in the evening so yeah from that point of view I like the setting but don't buy into the message I suppose is the polite way. 

 Throw in Egypt, Babylon, Caanites, Phoenicians, Sumeria etc I'm happy.


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## TheSword (Jan 31, 2021)

Sacrosanct said:


> The shannara TV series was a disaster for existing fans. They tried too hard to focus on making an appeal to teens, and threw out any semblance to the stories from the books.



Yes, it was quite painful to watch. I’d only read the elf stones books as a teen so I was hoping it would be good. It came across very badly so I hope it wasn’t based on a book. Far too much angst and broken hearts/petty revenge for my liking.


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## GreyLord (Jan 31, 2021)

Ulfgeir said:


> If someone had tried writing the bible today, would any serious publishing house touch it with a 10' pole?  I think the only way it would get published in the current form would be self-publishing.
> 
> I mean the beginning has two different versions, then a bunch of chapters in the middle that tell the same story from different pov's. The main characters are either way overpowered, or totally incompetent (wandering around for 40 years in the desert). Sometimes the same character falls into both categories, like you have multiple authors . And it suffers from extremely bad editing, with a bad plot, and unbelievable characters (humans living for 900 years)...



Depends on how recently you consider today.

There have been some attempts, the most famous being the Silmarillion.

It has a different style of writing, but similar idea.

AS RPG players I think we've seen half a dozen attempts with RPG worlds.  Half the sourcebooks out there try to explain the creation of their world and the history of their mythology behind it.


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## Ulfgeir (Jan 31, 2021)

GreyLord said:


> Depends on how recently you consider today.
> 
> There have been some attempts, the most famous being the Silmarillion.
> 
> ...



And they are usually MUCH better written.


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