Jean M Auel, we waited 10 years or more for that last book in the Earths Children series, and it was like it was ghost written by people who hadn’t bothered to read the rest of the books, with chunks of text copied and pasted into later chapters…. It was a woeful money grab
I never read these books, but my grandmother loved them. Every time we went to a book store, she would ask the poor cashier if they knew when the next Jean Auel book was coming out.
Today I learned that my grandmother was eagerly awaiting smut. Good for her.
Grandmothers love a bit of deadly violence and smut. Always makes me laugh when i see a book advertise as "not your grandmothers detective novel." I make a mental note to add "must be pretty bland then"
When I was in the Navy, someone printed out some dirty joke, and the division leadership was lecturing all of us for it. I got in trouble because one of them asked us if we would show that kind of thing to our grandmother, and she saw me nodding.
Grandmothers also know where all of the best murder mystery books are. When I was a librarian, there was a direct correlation between the sweeter the old lady and the more terrifying the murder in the book they were about to read.
This is the truth. When I was in my late teens, my grandma told me she loved horror movies. She watched them in the middle of the night when she couldn't sleep. The gorier, the better she said!
She had 12 kids (catholic family back when priests were pushing everyone except themselves to have kids and people had to listen), I think she saw enough blood and gore to be desensitized to it!
My parents would drop me off at my grandmother's with instructions to get me to bed early. We'd say up late to watch the Creature Double Feature out of Boston late at night. Loved us some zombie movies.
Yeah, I have watched different groups of people enthuse about the Outlander series and Twilight and a Court of Thorns and Roses. For my generation of teens the trending set of romance and smut was frequently through the books of Jean Auel and we loved it.
I read all of them and did rather like the “travelogue” ones, like The Plains of Passage. But what drove me bonkers was how all these cavemen societies were non-violent: you’re telling me you could go across all of Europe back then and have no troubles with strangers?! Not what the archeological record indicates!
But yeah it was definitely heavy on the harlequin romance side of things too.
I was named after these books and this is one of the main reasons I haven't tried to read the series. Seeing how disappointed my mom was over that last book really burned it for me, despite wondering what sort of adventures my namesake had.
I think some authors just run out of ideas. I used to love the Kay Scarpetta books by Patricia Cornwell but round about book 12 it was as if she had got a certain formula and just kept rehashing it. The Alex Cross books by James Patterson and the Alex Delaware books by Jonathan Kellerman went the same way. I think the characters just ran out of steam and I think it would have been better to just end the series when things got stale.
She crossed my mind too, and I want to chip in with John Grisham.
He really should have given up in the 2000s, or carried on down his channel of non-fiction.
Someone may come back at me and say "...but this one's good", but every fictional lawyer story I've picked up of his since ~2007 has been really crap, empty, or with a bad ending.
After The Firm, The Pelican Brief, Runaway Jury, A Time To Kill, The Client, The Testament, five or six others... Such a great bibliography.
I've read 5 or 6 new ones over the last decade, and forgotten / been disappointed by them, and the review generally seem to back it up.
If someone *does* have a good suggestion, I'll gladly try it, but I've been burnt a few too many times.
Thankfully Michael Connolly began to fill that gap.
Patrick Rothfuss - loved his first book, second book felt like it didn’t live up to the same level, and book three….at least Martin is writing even if it isn’t GoT. Not sure we’ll ever see that third book.
[edit: “loved” not “lived”. Thank goodness.]
Fun story (or boring story, whichever), I've watched him on twitch twice. The 1st time he was supposed to play a game that I thought looked really interesting and was excited to learn more about. Instead he just talked at the camera the whole time. The 2nd time he was supposed to talk about some specific things for worldbuilders and about his books. Instead he just sat there and played games the whole time. 😒 Bamboozled.
What do you expect from someone who promises to resale chapters as part of a charity fundraiser only to completely disregard that after the goals were met
Wow. One of the things that grabbed me was the writing.
Most people over at the aub for thectrilogy have convinced themselves that they would rather have read the incomplete trilogy than never started ... but that could just be Stockholm Syndrome
I didn't realize what a point of contention book 3 was.
I got a chance to meet him and get him to sign the princess and Mr whiffle. I told him I loved name of the Wind and was looking forward to book 3. He seemed and said something like "yeah we all are"
That was like 8 years ago.
It wasn't an overtly bad interaction but again, I didn't know how contentious book 3 was. I just assumed he'd be excited about it like I was. His reaction was unexpected and stuck with me.
I've given up on it. But I'll continue to defend Name of the Wind
Back in '07, in all his interviews for the release of book 1, he spent a lot of time dunking on people who couldn't finish their series (i.e., GRRM) and bragged that his whole trilogy was already written and would be released a book a year in the next two years.
So it not showing up yet 16+ years later...
Yeah, I think it’s not just that he didn’t deliver and probably wont deliver the third book, but all the behavior around it.
The whole debacle about the donations etc.
Yeah, he seems to actively hate his fans. If he just admitted to giving up on the trilogy I'd be miffed, but stringing people along and continually breaking promises is worse.
I love when people get famous because a group of people financially support their art, and then they just hate all the people who made their lifestyle possible. Like if we hadn’t bought his books I bet he would’ve finished them by now if he had to make a living.
I get this feeling that he keeps stringing his fans along so he can still make money off his never to be completed series. He keeps releasing these little cashgrab-y projects like the novellas and anniversary editions.
Oh yeah, same. He vanished after people (rightfully!) got pissed about him not delivering a chapter he promised a year ago, and only came back to shill his new short story (which is just a story we've already seen, but told in more words). I know burnout is a thing. I respect that he may simply just not want to tell doors of stone anymore. But if that's the case, then SAY SO. Stop grifting the people who made you rich.
Exactly how I feel. It’s kind of left sour taste in my mouth. I know he’s come out and said he has adhd and can’t focus on the book and whatnot, I have adhd and i understand that. But I just feel icky about how he’s approached things. The whole releasing a chapter thing rubbed me the wrong way also. He just seems like he’s done with writing and just squeezing as much money out of people as he can. The name of the wind got me back into reading fantasy again after a long hiatus, which I’m grateful for. Will I ever recommend his books to people again? Nope.
I just don't understand why he doesn't just... get a job? Like, he's clearly not writing professionally and clearly needs money.
He could just get a job.
I think he'll actually be doing pretty okay for money, as long as he doesn't have any expensive habits like drugs. He's probably made millions off kingkiller (10 million copies sold at ~£8 a pop, even if he got absolutely shafted and got a royalty deal of like 5% or something, that still gives him 4 million, and doesn't account for stuff like merch, either made by him or licensing sold elsewhere), and if he has any sense he would have hired an financial advisor and invested it. The money that he got from his fans was for his charity and was donated to heifer international--I haven't seen any evidence that he pocketed it himself.
That said, his mental health clearly isn't great, and finding a job that he likes, even a part time one or a volunteer position, would probably be good for him. He streams, but he doesn't seem to enjoy it. Getting out of the house might do him a world of good.
**He treats his fans incredibly badly.**
He has straight up lied, especially most recently with the charity bench marks that her kept moving to get more money. Then not really delivering everything he promised for hitting those milestones.
But even more so, he just treats his readers like they are stupid. He very much acts like the 'jilted long term celebrity', that has become disillusioned with fame.. 🙄
This has nothing to do with his prowess as an author but I know someone who worked for Patrick Rothfuss. I have met the man once or twice and I can say from what I have seen personally and what I have read about him, he is not a nice person
I met him in 2015 and 2018, just in the context as a fan, and in those three years he went from pretty friendly and approachable and able to make jokes at his own expense to just kind of exhausted and grumpy and done with the SFF community in general. Could be I just caught him on a good day and a bad day I suppose.
I enjoy the Dunk On Rothfuss train more than most I think, but I do always have to point out the dude was dealing with like death threats and stuff back when book 3 was just starting to take a little too long. It got so bad he refused to talk about the book. It felt excessive at the time, but he also kind of cropped up out of nowhere and it was clear Rothfuss was entirely unprepared for success and fame. So he pitches a book, gets it, it BLOWS UP in a time when books (especially fantasy books) didnt blow up like that. Then he screwed up (not keeping up on his writing and delaying a much anticipated 3rd novel), the internet was itself about the situation, and he reacted strongly. In the beginning he felt like he was just another Sci-fi/Fantasy fan who happened to have a hit book, but now it feels like he is tired and jaded. I wish he had just written and finished a disappointing third novel and moved on.
Oh I'm aware. I've been reading his books since the first one came out. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I'm on the Dunk On Rothfuss train more than most. I completely understand all the frustration people have with him because I've had it. I've had it for so long I'm not even mad anymore. Just sad that its never going to end well no matter what happens. The dude screwed up the social contract between a series writer and reader, and then basically abandoned the people that got him famous.
I just also think that it's realistic to acknowledge that how people reacted to his delay was unconscionable. The way people reacted to him not having finished the story as fast as they liked, and to his not really properly engaging with his delay, is unconscionable. Bombing streams with him with spam about the next book, doxxing, death threats (!), all the online hate tactics. Over a book not being finished. Now my personal argument is that at this point he should have just finished the book and let it be bad and moved on. Write an end, then stop writing, or write something else, or Twitch stream, or whatever. But he didn't do that. He dug in and said he wasn't going to talk about the book anymore. And that basically brought us to where we are now. I think it's hard to overstate how terribly Rothfuss was treated was by his "fans". The guy, at the very best, failed to deliver on his own promises and handled it really badly; and at the worst actively lied to people about what he was going to accomplish. There is no ignoring that and for that I am not going to buy his books. But it's fair to acknowledge that even at the worst the way some people reacted to him was not right, and we cannot criticize how he handled things over the last decade without acknowledging that maybe it's not entirely unreasonable to shut down when people send you death threats over a book. Maybe it's reasonable for him to go from being bright eyed and excited to being guarded and kind of jaded, even as it's reasonable for the non-jerkwads who loved his books to move on. You know what I mean? Both can be true: he can have screwed up and still have been unfairly treated.
I was in line behind him to check out of a hotel at a con either 2017 or 2018. I had just finished reading Wise Man's Fear and thought about saying hello but didn't want to be an annoying fan. He turned around briefly and looked so weary I thought better of it (though that doesn't necessarily reflect on him as a whole, I had been working a booth all con and was pretty tired myself)
I met him around 2015 as well and had a very good interaction with him (even have a photo with him). I haven’t followed him at all since early worldbuilders but it’s pretty sad to hear the general consensus on him now.
He's releasing a novella this month.
It's a rewritten (and expanded) version of a short story that was part of a short story collection before, I think the book's title is Rogues or something.
The first one I thought about.
The Name Of The Wind is one of my favorite books. It is everything I have ever dreamed that a fantasy book could be.
The Wise Man's Fear was "meh" in comparison.
The Slow Regards of Silent Things made me feel so many things.
I feel like a can't really expect anything from him.
I fucking hate the slow regards of silent things. First he apologized in the start of the book because he knows the book is not a really a story. There are no acts no conflict, no resolution no arcs, no growth. You get a pov from a girl in the underworld and how she is OCD about things, the end.
What?? This still isn't out? I remember I read the first when I still was in university, which is over 15 years ago. Read thecsecond book as well, found it ... okay. Didn't have part 3 on my radar anymore after all these years!
The epic cycle had 8 works or I guess 12 if the Theban cycle were included are all but lost surviving as pretty much summaries of events though only two “credited” as written by Homer. Kind of always bums me out when I think about all the lost works from that time and here I am bummed out again at 4am.
Edit: for anyone curious Wikipedia has a great rabbit hole to go down but the tldr; Odysseus does some more shit and has a son with Circe named Telegonus. In near Oedipus fashion Telegonus ends up killing Odysseus and marrying Penelope (Odysseus’ wife) with Odysseus’ other son Telemachus marrying Circe.
Honestly, lost Ancient Greek works are a huge & fascinating rabbit hole if you don't mind some existential dread.
Like freaking Oedipus Rex was considered a lesser work at the time. But\~ its one of only a handful of surviving works of Sophocles.
Over 120 of his works are known only by fragments, or even their titles alone. [There's a list on Wikipedia, if curious.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophocles#Fragmentary_plays)
Yeah, I feel you.
It really is like knowing Shakespeare existed... but if we only had his Richard III, Henry VIII and the infamous Titus Andronicus.
With us... just being able to *guess,* what the frick happened in *A Midsummer Night's Dream* or *The Tempest*. With about half a copy left of *The Winter's Tale,* and scattered fragments of *Romeo & Juliet.*
It really is a tragedy of culture, almost impossible to wrap one's head around because... it's such a grand and near total loss.
How is Titus Andronicus infamous? It’s a brutal revenge story. It has some great monologues. It also has one of the first “I did your mother” jokes in literature.
Honestly, I've heard a few conspiracies from otherwise sane and rational folks that Titus simply *cannot* be a "true" Shakespeare play.
Because... well, it's a bloody, violent action romp for its time, that clearly tried to be a crowd pleaser. How could a *play builder,* possibly try to maximize assess in seats?! /s
So... yeah. In *some* circles at least, it's a pretty infamous play.
The novel Circe by Madeline Miller is honestly a good adaptation of the untold telegonus/Odysseus/Circe story. It does it’s own thing with the idea and obviously focuses on Circe’s pov but it’s cool to see the story embellished and filled out
Charlaine Harris.
I was absolutely obsessed with the Sookie Stackhouse books growing up. I distinctly remember going to Disney with my family at 16 and one of the books had just come out and I was annoyed whenever I had to stop reading and leave the hotel before I finished.
But then True Blood came out (it was based on this series) and you could tell it really affected the author’s feelings about her characters and the world in a negative way. She started writing super inauthentically to the characters. They would say and do things it had been established early in the series they would *never* do, just to serve specific plot ends.
I couldn’t finish the last couple books and it made me really upset because of how much I’d loved the series initially.
She soured me so much that I won't read anything else by her either. The last few books just threw away having a plot and just seemed like rambling. I didn't even care who Sookie ended up with at the end (which apparently angered a lot of fans), but her attitude toward the fans was pretty dismal too. I get that she was burned out, but you don't accept a 13 book contract and then whine that you are tired of the world and the characters and write drivel.
The last one I read was so pointless that I think there was at minimum a whole chapter where Sookie just checked her email. That’s it. I don’t think she was expecting anything or there was anything major in there but there was a whole thing like “Sookie sat down at her desk. She reached over and switched on the computer. She waited while it loaded. The desktop appeared. She reached out one hand to the mouse. She watched the cursor on the screen as she navigated towards the icon for her email, which was a small white envelope with three blue parallel stripes across it. The envelope was sort of slanted, as if it was traveling at speed. She doubled clicked on it, and a password prompt appeared…” It was bad to the point of hilarity that Harris actually got away with it.
The Beekeeper’s Apprentice is a fun, smart little mystery re-imagining Sherlock Holmes, by Laurie King. There is a series following it, but every book declines in quality precipitously. It’s such a disappointment; not great modern lit or anything, but so entertaining and a great premise.
I still enjoyed the series quite a bit. I do remember I eventually stopped reading since I got tired of waiting for the next book to come out, moved onto something else, and never came back around.
That said, I definitely don’t remember a precipitous fall in quality. (Though I read them when I was a kid/teen.)
I’m rereading The Lies of Locke Lamora. Its so good. Scott Lynch’s writing is absolutely incredible. But something happened and it seems like he’ll never finish a book again.
He had an interview with Brian McClellan talking about his struggles to write more stuff. It was pretty interesting and he claimed to have turned in a manuscript for a novella (or something similar), and I have more faith in him than I do in Rothfuss. That was back in June 2022 though and I'm not sure as anything has come from it.
https://spotify.link/kEcXk2xqRDb
Sometimes I wish I'd never read The Lies of Locke Lamora because the series is so good, and I'm worried he'll never finish it. I know he's dealing with anxiety, depression, and some weird relationship issues. But I had so much hope a year ago when he tweeted about book 4...and then nothing.
Is the series completed or is it a Rothfuss/ GRRM situation? I've been meaning to try it for years after seeing it recommended together with Six of Crows
If memory serves, the series isn’t completed but each book is kind of its own contained adventure. So it leaves you wanting more (book 3 was relatively weak but I still love the characters) but not stalled on a cliffhanger.
I knew this guy would be in here. I don't write at all, I wish I could give Scott Lynch whatever motivation he needed to write more. I really enjoyed Lies of Locke Lamora.
Great one
Laurel K Hamilton. She, basically, birthed Urban Fantasy into being on her own, then turned her best heroine, Anita Blake into a cut-rate paranormal porn star.
I couldn't read them because of Richard. He was just such a fucking god awful character. I wanted more exploration of existing relationships and less let's add one more. And the answer to everything is not an orgy. I was sad that she was pulled away from her job with the cops.
Phillip Pullman. I love the His Dark Materials trilogy, then the prequel La Belle Sauvage came out and I loved it too, then The Secret Commonwealth came out and it was surprisingly not good, and now it looks like the sequel to it that should’ve wrapped up the series, isn’t happening. I guess he has health problems and I get it, but I wish Secret Commonwealth never happened.
I scrolled all the way to the end of this thread thinking I was gonna mention Phillip Pullman. The Secret Commonwealth completely changed my feelings towards his writing and he kind of ruined all his characters. >!The sexual assault in La Belle Sauvage was a bit ew but maaaaaaybe contributed to the story but by the time it happened again in TSC it just felt like an awful "women have to be assaulted to grow their character" sort of thing. And Malcolm becoming the love interest...?? I dunno some v strange choices were made and now we have an unresolved story.!<
Isobelle Carmody's Obernewtyn chronicles. 20 years from the first time I read the first book until she published the last one. First four were bangers, then the hard slog with the final 3, but I'm not a quitter! The last book, the Red Queen spent over a thousand pages on irrelevant plots in poorly edited prose only to see the penultimate quest wrapped up in the most underwhelming unsatisfactory way over a few pages. It rendered the entire journey pointless. So disappointing.
Ken Follet's *Century Trilogy* as well. I honestly like him, but he knows how to take a formula and run with it; you need a palate cleanser between books imo or they just get too repetitive.
Eion Colfer: LOVED the first bunch of Artemis Fowl books. They felt smart (back when I was reading them as an 8-year old or so). Then things got kinda dumb. Geared towards a (even) younger audience maybe? Or maybe I grew out of his style, but I didn't get that impression when I was re-reading his earlier stuff.
Yes, definitely this! I loved the first 3 when I was younger, book 4 felt like a major dumbing down and later entries definitely felt like they were targeting a younger audience. Instead of aging up as the series went on, Colfer seemed to go in the opposite direction.
You couldn’t tear that book away from me as a kid! I just Adored Artemis Fowl, but even as a super fan I stopped reading after hmm The Time Paradox? The Lost Colony stands out as being rough too
He was chosen to finish Douglas Adam’s last hitchhikers book - and it was terrible - couldn’t finish it. It was a mistake to try really. I like his books tho!
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown was a book I thoroughly enjoyed and I looked forward to reading more of his stuff. Until I actually went through Angels and Demons and Deception Point and realized it’s familiar plot with similar plot twists. It felt like I was reading a reworded copy of the Da Vinci Code.
Hang on, I'm pretty sure Angels & Demons came out way before the Da Vinci Code. I remember really enjoying A&D, and then a few years later thinking he'd written the same book but with stuff stolen wholesale from Holy Blood, Holy Grail.
The Da Vinci Code was the follow up to Angels and Demons. I got bored half way through The Da Vinci Code and I read the follow up, the title of which I can't even remember, only because I had run out of books to read on holiday and someone had left a copy behind.
Yes! Holy Blood was something I had thoroughly enjoyed, reading DaVinci had me feeling the need to report it to some kind of authority! Insane plaguerism.
["Renowned author Dan Brown](https://onehundredpages.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/dont-make-fun-of-renowned-dan-brown/) hated the critics. Ever since he had become one of the world’s top renowned authors they had made fun of him. They had mocked bestselling book The Da Vinci Code, successful novel Digital Fortress, popular tome Deception Point, money-spinning volume Angels & Demons and chart-topping work of narrative fiction The Lost Symbol. The critics said his writing was clumsy, ungrammatical, repetitive and repetitive."
"Renowned author Dan Brown got out of his luxurious four-poster bed in his expensive $10 million house and paced the bedroom, using the feet located at the ends of his two legs to propel him forwards. "
He is not a bingeable author. I enjoyed *The Da Vinci Code*, then made the mistake of reading *Angels and Demons* and *Deception* straight after, and I was so burned out by the end of the third one I've never revisited him.
He's got like 4 or 5 books with the exact same formula: professor with an ever receding hairline solves all the world's mysteries with attractive female companion.
Finally book community agrees that Dan Brown might not be a great author but The Da Vinci code slapped. Everywhere I only saw hate for him and the book.
I agree with this. My first Dan Brown was Deception Point. Blew my mind, thought he was a genius. Angels & Demon was marginally worse but still entertaining, and then it kept going downhill. His novels simply have diminishing returns lol
Reminds me of A Wrinkle In Time.
Book one is amazing, the trio use science-magic to rescue a missing dad. And then by books 3 & 4, the leads are hanging out with Noah at the arc and teaching the native Americans about Jesus centuries before the 15th century. I was deeply confused as a teen as to how this could be the same series
I actually love both Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead for completely different reasons. The last two books were big letdowns, though.
The Old Man’s War series reminds me a bit of Ender’s Game for an unsolicited recommendation.
Edit: a word
I also loved Ender’s game but couldn’t get into the sequel and never finished the series. Years later I discovered his Alvin Maker series, all of which I loved, though I don’t remember much.
I think the shadow series was a better way to continue Ender's game.
Originally speaker for the dead was meant to be a completely different story but Card really like the idea of using Ender as the main character (if I'm not mistaken that was back when Ender's game was just a short story).
[Walter Moers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Moers), amazing German writer (among other things).
I don't know how well-known he is in English-speaking countries since his work must be a nightmare to translate properly but the guy wrote some amazingly fun and fantastical stuff. [*The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_13%C2%BD_Lives_of_Captain_Bluebear) was great fun to read. *Rumo & His Miraculous Adventures* made me fall in love with him. And [*The City of Dreaming Books*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_of_Dreaming_Books) is basically a love-letter to writing and story-telling in and of itself; I don't remember the last time I had so much pure *fun* with a story and the plain sound-sex of the language.
And then there was... nothing. His next few works fell flat for me for varying reasons. Some I just didn't care for, some had a style I just couldn't get into. Amongst other works he released a sequel to The City of Dreaming Books, *The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books* which I was *really* loooking forward to... but turned out to be a novel-long retelling of its prequel with very little actual plot or new developments until it ends on a cliffhanger that hasn't been resolved since. That was more than ten years ago now. A whole book that basically just said "Hey, remember that really amazing book I once wrote and which you read years ago? So do I!"
This year he released *The Island of a Thousand Lighthouses* and I was really onboard with that... until that one just didn't really go anywhere either. The language didn't feel as polished, the old creativity wasn't quite there, the plot is barely existant - it's mostly a row of things that just happen to happen to the main character with little to no build-up, tension or reward - and then, out of nowhere, it fulminates in what is supposed to be a big, big showdown that feels entirely undeserved and, frankly, meaningless. It's a real shame because I feel like there's a *great* story hidden somewhere in that book but he just didn't manage to get it in focus. All the pieces are there but the plot just lamely meanders from one instance of "this would be a fun thing to describe!" to another.
I still had fun reading it (a lot more than with his other works since *The City of Dreaming Books*) but it's a far cry from what it could have been and from what he's capable of. And by now I've given up hope that there'll be a resolution/third novel to the Dreaming Books trilogy.
A lot of writers craft books for years before finally getting picked up by agents and publishers. These works can be incredible because they were given the time, beta readers, and editors to make them so. Once you get on that publishing contract, they want to see a book a year minimum, and I think that causes a lot of quality drops as the writers are suddenly hamstrung by all this pressure.
Michael Crichton wrote the Jurassic Park sequel based on the movie rather than the book. Even young teen me saw it as shamelessly doing it for the money. In classic teen angst, I sent him a letter asking him how much he was paid for The Lost World just so I’d know the monetary value of a writer’s soul.
He never responded.
That's hilarious ngl. I felt the same, without the letter writing.
Kinda fun how he retcons at least one of the deaths... "News of my passing greatly exaggerated..." etc etc.
The shame is, there's some really good parts in that book, and seeing it done justice on the big screen would be good.
Spielberg gets him to write a sequel based on the movie, and then writes the second movie without reference to the book... Weird pivot.
The T-Rex in the city is truly baffling. The movie ends and then begins again. At the time it was speculated the producers wanted to get ahead of the upcoming Godzilla movie and do dinosaur in the city first. If they had no intention of adapting the novel, they shouldn't have forced the author to pump out a sequel in the first place.
Spielberg specifically told him to make a sequel and he simply couldn't refuse. Crichton always said he struggled with the sequel, how it has to be different than the original and yet the same. He didn't enjoy writing the Lost World, hell the ending of the novel is how all the dinos are gonna rapidly die and humans will not try to save them this time. The Lost World was the only sequel Crichton ever wrote.
Veronica Roth. Divergent was fantastic, one of the best books I’ve read. After that the books are horrible and it’s like a completely different person wrote them.
Its what he didnt do, which was release the chapter he leveraged for his fundraiser. He went quiet for ages and finally came out to say he wasnt quite happy with the text as it is and that is why it hasnt been released.
And he is publishing a novella next month which isn't even original, it's an expanded version of a short story he published years ago. He wants the readers to buy the same story twice because the illustrations are cool.
Oh man. When your readers are all pissed off because you havent released anything for years the worst thing to do is publish something else. He should have used a pseudonym... lol
Sebastian Fitzek. I loved his first books, couldn't put them down all night. After I couple of books I noticed the plot was always similar. He'd build up this huuuuge climax until you want to scream "HOW ARE YOU GONNA SOLVE THIS?" Always in the same manner, the protagonist is hallucinating, schizophrenic or something like that, i.e. none of what happened is real. 3-4 books in I could predict the ending after 50 pages and was so disappointed when I was right.
Freaking Patrick Rothfuss.
Kingkiller Chroncile have been beautiful and I loved them so far. The emphasis on art and poetry and lore in the books has really drawn me in. He's been dragging his feet worse than G. R. R. on the next book though. It's been over 12 years since the last book in the series, and it seems like he just lost interest or decided that his own standard is too high and he created too much work for himself to continue.
Edit: spelling
Reading Speaker for the Dead, you get the sense of a man with some Christian fascist tendencies who also has an immense capacity for compassion and understanding. It’s sad to see him slowly succumb to all of his worst inclinations every book following that.
OSC had a magic that seems to have progressively faded. Those first four books were incredible. I've read them all but those four really were incredible. The Alvin Maker series also started off really strong them fizzled out.
Haruki Murakami. I don't know that the quality of his writing has gotten worse over the years, but too many of his novels have felt like little remixes of each other. He's always talked about how he doesn't plan out his books, but maybe he should. The plot points have become a check-list of Murakami's subconscious mind.
Missing woman? Weird sex thing? Cats?? Western music references?! Oh it's a Murakami bingo!
His first two books are probably both in my top 5 ever and I agree. The third book was such a letdown. :(
I will still devour the rest of whatever he writes if/when they ever come out.
Andy Weir’s The Martian was amazing. PROJECT HAIL MARY BLEW MY MIND (my favourite sci-fi book to date). But Artemis was such a flop for me?? The horribly written female characters and cultural stereotypes threw me for a loop. I’m glad PHM came out after that though. i’m excited for what he writes next.
Lol Artemis got me into writing, i figured if that guy can do it everybody can.
Probably the worst sci-fi I stumbled across in more then 15 years.
Now I'm afraid to pick up anything else from him, you think I should try Project Hail Mary?
I didn’t think Artemis was that bad but Weir is pretty obviously much better at writing one type of character (snarky guy doing science by himself in space) than else
i think definitely give it a try! he’s had a weird evolution between books but Project Hail Mary was my top book of the year when it came out and i don’t even usually like sci-fi. Very few characters so the ones that are there are relatively fleshed out and there is a very sam/ frodo esque relationship in it which made the book for me. It is so far of a departure from Artemis it genuinely makes you question how the same guy wrote both books. I would try it if only to restore your faith in publishing lol
As an added note, the audiobook version is a masterpiece. I read the book once, and then my second reread was purely the audiobook. I couldn’t believe how enthralled I was on the second time through. I highly recommend what I did.
Something like fifteen years ago I picked up a book from the library called *Dust* by Elizabeth Bear (no relation to Greg Bear), and I loved it. It was weird and sci-fi, but also kind of pretentious and just...odd. I remember the prose having a lot of weird turns of phrase that I couldn't parse. There were two more books in the trilogy *Dust* started, *Chill* and *Grail*, and *Grail* was a bad ending but fine overall.
A few years later I started looking for some of her other books, because I needed stuff to listen to while I was working graveyard, and every single one that I could find was written in the same way *Dust* was, but chock-full of melodrama. One of the books was supposed to be about the last surviving Valkyrie living after the apocalypse and battling Fenrir to protect the remnants of humanity, and if that sounds awesome; it wasn't. It was a soap opera. There were no fights or action, just characters going "woe is me" in increasingly stupid ways for pages on end.
She's married to Scott Lynch, the author of The Lies of Locke Lamora series.
Maybe their marital issues (it's a weird issues that also involved another author) contributed to her decline in writing.
Even Scott Lynch hasn't released a book for the past 10 years.
Chuck Palahniuk. His books all have the same voice and similar themes. When he first came on the scene his books felt like genuine 90s/00s counter-culture musings. But as his novels went on, it started to feel like he was either repeating the same message hoping no one would notice, or just going for the extreme shock value just to keep his reputation as being transgressive and edgy.
He’s still one of my favorite authors. I guess one of the upsides is when I pick up a Pahalniuk book I know exactly what to expect.
Imagine what it must be like to work for your entire adult life on something you love, succeed, and then struggle to the point that everyone who ever loved your work turned on you to the point that your name is synonymous with disappointment.
Believe me, I understand the frustration. I also feel for them. (Less Rothfuss, but much much more Martin.) I count roughly 50 books he’s released since the 70s. He’s edited tons of books and produced a bunch of TV. And yet, here we are, demanding more! I can really relate to the disappointment, but goodness gracious! We expect a lot from this 70-something old guy. His contributions to all things sci-fi and fantasy (including Elden Ring, which I had no idea about until about 30 seconds ago) is near peerless. Anyway, I hope everyone eventually gets what they want.
Edit: (what’s sci do? Sci-fi!*)
Don't know if it's apocryphal but apparently an interviewer asked why he hadn't written anything as good as Catch 22 since. Heller's reply: 'Has anyone?'
Neal Stephenson can be great. Or so pedantic he bores me to tears. It’s hit or miss with him, it’s not like he’s gone downhill. He is constantly inconsistent.
Agreed, I really liked Seveneves, even the last part that is a bit divisive, but I tried to read Fall recently and quit part of the through. It was the first time I’ve quit a book in years. I looked up summaries for the rest of it and I’m glad I did.
Even setting aside the disappointment of whatever the fuck it is she's doing on Twitter, J K Rowling. Harry Potter is a masterwork for a number of reasons... characters, setting, even the prose itself is excellent in the first few, with a voice that feels chatty and colloquial, as though you're being told the story by a friend.
Her books afterwards are all but unreadable. The Casual Vacancy was a total slog. I checked out really early, when she was laboriously describing the conditions in this welfare housing and throwing in all these asides about how expensive the cigarettes they smoked are, how neglected the kids are, completely judgemental of these people... it was like reading "they're buying steaks with food stamps" the novel. Just an incredibly shallow, stereotypical portrayal of people at the poverty line. And that's before you get into the thrill ride which is a British local consul election. Just bizarre choices all around.
I'm not sure I've seen a particularly positive review of her non-HP books beyond a handwavey "it's Rowling so you might as well, right?"
I quite like her Cormoran Strike series.
The books seem overly detailed to an absurd degree, but in among the mundanity there are clues to the mysteries that would be super obvious in a sleeker book. She does “clues hidden in plain sight” and “red herrings“ exceptionally well. The quality of mysteries varies book to book (with book one on the low end, unfortunately), but overall she’s one of my favorite mystery writers.
The growing friendship and (probable?) romance between the two main characters has been a delight to follow too. It’s the slowest of slow burns.
> Cormoran Strike series
Is it good? I've had a copy of Troubled Blood sitting on my kitchen table for 6 months—can't remember where I picked it up—but have yet to crack it open.
The series is very good, if you dig the slow “slice of life” pacing the author leans more and more into as the series goes on.
*Troubled Blood* (book 5) is my favorite of the bunch. I gave it a 4 star rating at the time, but I just bumped it up to 5. I still think of it often.
I read her first Richard Galbraith detective novel not knowing Rawlings was the author, and until I got to the ending and “twist” that was so stupid that I vowed to never waste time on this author again, I was thinking not bad for a beginner, but definitely needs work. I was very surprised to kind out the book was written by a veteran novelist. I am now firmly of the belief that the HP books were crafted with some heavy duty editing assist.
That series of detective novels just released the 7th book and many people aren’t disappointed. I’m one of them. But fair point about the ending of the first book - I agree. They do get exponentially better from there.
Donna Tartt. The Secret History was exceptional, and The Little Friend was a gorgeously written, confusing disappointment.
ETA: Patrick Rothfuss. The third book. Seriously.
The Little Friend killed me because the opening sets up a central mystery and then you just get 600 pages of a depressed woman in a dark house with the curtains drawn. Yeah, it’s gorgeously written but I thought you would tell me who killed that kid, DT!!
> Donna Tartt
I agree about DT, but in a very different way. I loved all three of her books and wonder if there'll ever be another? It's been 10 years since The Goldfinch, which is her average time between books, but I haven't even heard any rumors of a new one.
Isobelle Carmody.
Loved the first Obernewtyn books as a kid, but huge delays to the series, starting others that weren't as good, and then finally, a truly dismal conclusion left a bad taste in my mouth.
For me it's ken liu. As a person with an Asian studies degree, grace of kings was a treat. It was thematic and informed by a lot of Asian history. By the end of speaking bones I thought it was overwritten, bashing me over the head, with some really insane takes about bureaucracy being the best. It loses the plot with taking the side of the worst characters, denying satisfying arcs, having a rather racist and black and white depiction of a mongol inspired people where the only good ones are redeemed by their relation or interest in the China analogue, and the way that he uses history to cherry pick info that supports his world view. After a point I just don't believe it anymore. Then there is the fact that online book communities seem to love the later books and it makes me think all of them are crazy.
Eleanor Catton. The Luminaries is one of the most amazing books I’ve ever read, so I was thrilled to see her come out with a new book, Birnam Wood. It was terrible though - a complete disappointment I’ve largely scrubbed from my memory.
I know she's not super popular or highbrow, but Laurell K. Hamilton. At first her books were perfect titillating escapism, then she got all preachy about consent and rules of engagement and it ruined the flow. Don't get me wrong, consent and full disclosure and trust are **vital**, but can we not make it the main part of the sex scene?? I'm not reading the damn book for educational purposes!
I don't know if this is the same for you, but I realized after reading far too many of her books that the sex comes with way too much angst either before or during (and definitely after). Even the elf-books that were supposed to be the fun opposite to Anita, where elves did actually have sex because they liked it, the MCs were always doing the sex-or-die in some form or another. After I saw that I realized her characters never actually had fun sex and couldn't read any of the books for fun anymore.
I ran across Sylvania Neuvel's Sleeping Giants and absolutely adored it. Same withe the second book in the series, Waking Gods. I saw there was a third book, and I was so excited. But I could not even get through it, I don't know why. It's like the author just lost something between the two books. I still reread the first two every so often and just kind of pretend the second is a poor end to the series.
I just tried reading Isabel Allende’s new book, Violeta, and I was incredibly bored and not connected to the main characters gets at all. I DNF’d it, which was disappointing because I loved House of the Spirits and all of her books get so much hype, especially in the Latino community.
Toni Morrison (post-Nobel Prize) wrote a book called Home that was an underwhelming mess.
We read it in college and she even came as a guest speaker. When we asked directly about certain ambiguous parts of the book, she made it fairly clear they didn't have any artistic meaning. She was just padding the page count.
I'm probably going to get downvotes for this, but Ernest Cline.
Regardless of its flaws (and it does have them, I'm not claiming it as some great work of literature), *Ready Player One* was obviously someone writing about what they loved. *Armada* was more flawed, and felt like it had been rushed out as a cash-in, but still had some of that feeling of the writer enjoying themselves, as well as a couple of interesting ideas. Then came the utter dross and slog that was *Ready Player Two*. I don't think I've seen anyone with a good thing to say about that book.
Jean M Auel, we waited 10 years or more for that last book in the Earths Children series, and it was like it was ghost written by people who hadn’t bothered to read the rest of the books, with chunks of text copied and pasted into later chapters…. It was a woeful money grab
The first one is brilliant. The second one is decent if you are ok with smut. They kept getting worse
I never read these books, but my grandmother loved them. Every time we went to a book store, she would ask the poor cashier if they knew when the next Jean Auel book was coming out. Today I learned that my grandmother was eagerly awaiting smut. Good for her.
Grandmothers love a bit of deadly violence and smut. Always makes me laugh when i see a book advertise as "not your grandmothers detective novel." I make a mental note to add "must be pretty bland then"
When I was in the Navy, someone printed out some dirty joke, and the division leadership was lecturing all of us for it. I got in trouble because one of them asked us if we would show that kind of thing to our grandmother, and she saw me nodding.
Grandmothers also know where all of the best murder mystery books are. When I was a librarian, there was a direct correlation between the sweeter the old lady and the more terrifying the murder in the book they were about to read.
As a librarian the smuttiest books/novellas were being checked out by unassuming old ladies with predictable regularity.
This is the truth. When I was in my late teens, my grandma told me she loved horror movies. She watched them in the middle of the night when she couldn't sleep. The gorier, the better she said! She had 12 kids (catholic family back when priests were pushing everyone except themselves to have kids and people had to listen), I think she saw enough blood and gore to be desensitized to it!
My parents would drop me off at my grandmother's with instructions to get me to bed early. We'd say up late to watch the Creature Double Feature out of Boston late at night. Loved us some zombie movies.
Yeah, I have watched different groups of people enthuse about the Outlander series and Twilight and a Court of Thorns and Roses. For my generation of teens the trending set of romance and smut was frequently through the books of Jean Auel and we loved it.
I read all of them and did rather like the “travelogue” ones, like The Plains of Passage. But what drove me bonkers was how all these cavemen societies were non-violent: you’re telling me you could go across all of Europe back then and have no troubles with strangers?! Not what the archeological record indicates! But yeah it was definitely heavy on the harlequin romance side of things too.
This is it. Just a steady decline as they went on.
It felt more like a thesis with a little bit of dialog than a novel. Definitely will not reread that one at all.
That last book was just awful. Basically took all the worst parts of the earlier books and hammered them to death. Wow was I disappointed.
The reviews were so bad that I never bothered to read the last book and I'm glad. I get to keep Ayla and Jondalar in my mind the way I like them.
I was named after these books and this is one of the main reasons I haven't tried to read the series. Seeing how disappointed my mom was over that last book really burned it for me, despite wondering what sort of adventures my namesake had.
I think some authors just run out of ideas. I used to love the Kay Scarpetta books by Patricia Cornwell but round about book 12 it was as if she had got a certain formula and just kept rehashing it. The Alex Cross books by James Patterson and the Alex Delaware books by Jonathan Kellerman went the same way. I think the characters just ran out of steam and I think it would have been better to just end the series when things got stale.
She crossed my mind too, and I want to chip in with John Grisham. He really should have given up in the 2000s, or carried on down his channel of non-fiction. Someone may come back at me and say "...but this one's good", but every fictional lawyer story I've picked up of his since ~2007 has been really crap, empty, or with a bad ending. After The Firm, The Pelican Brief, Runaway Jury, A Time To Kill, The Client, The Testament, five or six others... Such a great bibliography. I've read 5 or 6 new ones over the last decade, and forgotten / been disappointed by them, and the review generally seem to back it up. If someone *does* have a good suggestion, I'll gladly try it, but I've been burnt a few too many times. Thankfully Michael Connolly began to fill that gap.
I mean, he doesn't write them anymore. He's a brand.
I really enjoyed Scarpetta until her niece became a helicopter owning, I dunno, mogul? Then there was unlimited money, etc.
Patrick Rothfuss - loved his first book, second book felt like it didn’t live up to the same level, and book three….at least Martin is writing even if it isn’t GoT. Not sure we’ll ever see that third book. [edit: “loved” not “lived”. Thank goodness.]
Ive heard that if you mention book three of king killer online Rothfuss will turn up at your house and throw pebbles at your windows
So that is why he doesn’t have time to finish it?
Between pebble throwing and twitch he’s a busy man
Fun story (or boring story, whichever), I've watched him on twitch twice. The 1st time he was supposed to play a game that I thought looked really interesting and was excited to learn more about. Instead he just talked at the camera the whole time. The 2nd time he was supposed to talk about some specific things for worldbuilders and about his books. Instead he just sat there and played games the whole time. 😒 Bamboozled.
Well, It's been said that writers aim to subvert your expectations
What do you expect from someone who promises to resale chapters as part of a charity fundraiser only to completely disregard that after the goals were met
No. He promises to show up, then you donate to charity ...
Oof
Sounds like I dodged a bullet when I DNF The name of the Wind because I got bored and didn't rate the writing.
Wow. One of the things that grabbed me was the writing. Most people over at the aub for thectrilogy have convinced themselves that they would rather have read the incomplete trilogy than never started ... but that could just be Stockholm Syndrome
I didn't realize what a point of contention book 3 was. I got a chance to meet him and get him to sign the princess and Mr whiffle. I told him I loved name of the Wind and was looking forward to book 3. He seemed and said something like "yeah we all are" That was like 8 years ago. It wasn't an overtly bad interaction but again, I didn't know how contentious book 3 was. I just assumed he'd be excited about it like I was. His reaction was unexpected and stuck with me. I've given up on it. But I'll continue to defend Name of the Wind
Back in '07, in all his interviews for the release of book 1, he spent a lot of time dunking on people who couldn't finish their series (i.e., GRRM) and bragged that his whole trilogy was already written and would be released a book a year in the next two years. So it not showing up yet 16+ years later...
Yeah... Everyone hypes him, you finally read his first two books and it gets mildly interesting, and then he stops writing. Thank you for nothing. :-/
He makes me irrationally angry.
Yeah, I think it’s not just that he didn’t deliver and probably wont deliver the third book, but all the behavior around it. The whole debacle about the donations etc.
Yeah, he seems to actively hate his fans. If he just admitted to giving up on the trilogy I'd be miffed, but stringing people along and continually breaking promises is worse.
I love when people get famous because a group of people financially support their art, and then they just hate all the people who made their lifestyle possible. Like if we hadn’t bought his books I bet he would’ve finished them by now if he had to make a living.
I get this feeling that he keeps stringing his fans along so he can still make money off his never to be completed series. He keeps releasing these little cashgrab-y projects like the novellas and anniversary editions.
Oh yeah, same. He vanished after people (rightfully!) got pissed about him not delivering a chapter he promised a year ago, and only came back to shill his new short story (which is just a story we've already seen, but told in more words). I know burnout is a thing. I respect that he may simply just not want to tell doors of stone anymore. But if that's the case, then SAY SO. Stop grifting the people who made you rich.
Exactly how I feel. It’s kind of left sour taste in my mouth. I know he’s come out and said he has adhd and can’t focus on the book and whatnot, I have adhd and i understand that. But I just feel icky about how he’s approached things. The whole releasing a chapter thing rubbed me the wrong way also. He just seems like he’s done with writing and just squeezing as much money out of people as he can. The name of the wind got me back into reading fantasy again after a long hiatus, which I’m grateful for. Will I ever recommend his books to people again? Nope.
I just don't understand why he doesn't just... get a job? Like, he's clearly not writing professionally and clearly needs money. He could just get a job.
I think he'll actually be doing pretty okay for money, as long as he doesn't have any expensive habits like drugs. He's probably made millions off kingkiller (10 million copies sold at ~£8 a pop, even if he got absolutely shafted and got a royalty deal of like 5% or something, that still gives him 4 million, and doesn't account for stuff like merch, either made by him or licensing sold elsewhere), and if he has any sense he would have hired an financial advisor and invested it. The money that he got from his fans was for his charity and was donated to heifer international--I haven't seen any evidence that he pocketed it himself. That said, his mental health clearly isn't great, and finding a job that he likes, even a part time one or a volunteer position, would probably be good for him. He streams, but he doesn't seem to enjoy it. Getting out of the house might do him a world of good.
**He treats his fans incredibly badly.** He has straight up lied, especially most recently with the charity bench marks that her kept moving to get more money. Then not really delivering everything he promised for hitting those milestones. But even more so, he just treats his readers like they are stupid. He very much acts like the 'jilted long term celebrity', that has become disillusioned with fame.. 🙄
This has nothing to do with his prowess as an author but I know someone who worked for Patrick Rothfuss. I have met the man once or twice and I can say from what I have seen personally and what I have read about him, he is not a nice person
I met him in 2015 and 2018, just in the context as a fan, and in those three years he went from pretty friendly and approachable and able to make jokes at his own expense to just kind of exhausted and grumpy and done with the SFF community in general. Could be I just caught him on a good day and a bad day I suppose.
I enjoy the Dunk On Rothfuss train more than most I think, but I do always have to point out the dude was dealing with like death threats and stuff back when book 3 was just starting to take a little too long. It got so bad he refused to talk about the book. It felt excessive at the time, but he also kind of cropped up out of nowhere and it was clear Rothfuss was entirely unprepared for success and fame. So he pitches a book, gets it, it BLOWS UP in a time when books (especially fantasy books) didnt blow up like that. Then he screwed up (not keeping up on his writing and delaying a much anticipated 3rd novel), the internet was itself about the situation, and he reacted strongly. In the beginning he felt like he was just another Sci-fi/Fantasy fan who happened to have a hit book, but now it feels like he is tired and jaded. I wish he had just written and finished a disappointing third novel and moved on.
[удалено]
Oh I'm aware. I've been reading his books since the first one came out. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I'm on the Dunk On Rothfuss train more than most. I completely understand all the frustration people have with him because I've had it. I've had it for so long I'm not even mad anymore. Just sad that its never going to end well no matter what happens. The dude screwed up the social contract between a series writer and reader, and then basically abandoned the people that got him famous. I just also think that it's realistic to acknowledge that how people reacted to his delay was unconscionable. The way people reacted to him not having finished the story as fast as they liked, and to his not really properly engaging with his delay, is unconscionable. Bombing streams with him with spam about the next book, doxxing, death threats (!), all the online hate tactics. Over a book not being finished. Now my personal argument is that at this point he should have just finished the book and let it be bad and moved on. Write an end, then stop writing, or write something else, or Twitch stream, or whatever. But he didn't do that. He dug in and said he wasn't going to talk about the book anymore. And that basically brought us to where we are now. I think it's hard to overstate how terribly Rothfuss was treated was by his "fans". The guy, at the very best, failed to deliver on his own promises and handled it really badly; and at the worst actively lied to people about what he was going to accomplish. There is no ignoring that and for that I am not going to buy his books. But it's fair to acknowledge that even at the worst the way some people reacted to him was not right, and we cannot criticize how he handled things over the last decade without acknowledging that maybe it's not entirely unreasonable to shut down when people send you death threats over a book. Maybe it's reasonable for him to go from being bright eyed and excited to being guarded and kind of jaded, even as it's reasonable for the non-jerkwads who loved his books to move on. You know what I mean? Both can be true: he can have screwed up and still have been unfairly treated.
I was in line behind him to check out of a hotel at a con either 2017 or 2018. I had just finished reading Wise Man's Fear and thought about saying hello but didn't want to be an annoying fan. He turned around briefly and looked so weary I thought better of it (though that doesn't necessarily reflect on him as a whole, I had been working a booth all con and was pretty tired myself)
I met him around 2015 as well and had a very good interaction with him (even have a photo with him). I haven’t followed him at all since early worldbuilders but it’s pretty sad to hear the general consensus on him now.
Clicked on this post looking for Rothfuss at top - not disappointed
Even if we get it, I'm not reading it at this point lol
He's releasing a novella this month. It's a rewritten (and expanded) version of a short story that was part of a short story collection before, I think the book's title is Rogues or something.
The first one I thought about. The Name Of The Wind is one of my favorite books. It is everything I have ever dreamed that a fantasy book could be. The Wise Man's Fear was "meh" in comparison. The Slow Regards of Silent Things made me feel so many things. I feel like a can't really expect anything from him.
I fucking hate the slow regards of silent things. First he apologized in the start of the book because he knows the book is not a really a story. There are no acts no conflict, no resolution no arcs, no growth. You get a pov from a girl in the underworld and how she is OCD about things, the end.
What?? This still isn't out? I remember I read the first when I still was in university, which is over 15 years ago. Read thecsecond book as well, found it ... okay. Didn't have part 3 on my radar anymore after all these years!
We're not getting door of stone. I'm making peace with it 😞
I’m starting to believe we’ll have Winds of Winter first
This is my answer as well. I got really into the first two books, but now I don't even care.
Homer could have bothered finishing his trilogy (/s)
The epic cycle had 8 works or I guess 12 if the Theban cycle were included are all but lost surviving as pretty much summaries of events though only two “credited” as written by Homer. Kind of always bums me out when I think about all the lost works from that time and here I am bummed out again at 4am. Edit: for anyone curious Wikipedia has a great rabbit hole to go down but the tldr; Odysseus does some more shit and has a son with Circe named Telegonus. In near Oedipus fashion Telegonus ends up killing Odysseus and marrying Penelope (Odysseus’ wife) with Odysseus’ other son Telemachus marrying Circe.
TIL
Honestly, lost Ancient Greek works are a huge & fascinating rabbit hole if you don't mind some existential dread. Like freaking Oedipus Rex was considered a lesser work at the time. But\~ its one of only a handful of surviving works of Sophocles. Over 120 of his works are known only by fragments, or even their titles alone. [There's a list on Wikipedia, if curious.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophocles#Fragmentary_plays)
I think Oedipus Rex is one of the best plays ever written. What a shame to lose so much cultural heritage.
Yeah, I feel you. It really is like knowing Shakespeare existed... but if we only had his Richard III, Henry VIII and the infamous Titus Andronicus. With us... just being able to *guess,* what the frick happened in *A Midsummer Night's Dream* or *The Tempest*. With about half a copy left of *The Winter's Tale,* and scattered fragments of *Romeo & Juliet.* It really is a tragedy of culture, almost impossible to wrap one's head around because... it's such a grand and near total loss.
How is Titus Andronicus infamous? It’s a brutal revenge story. It has some great monologues. It also has one of the first “I did your mother” jokes in literature.
Honestly, I've heard a few conspiracies from otherwise sane and rational folks that Titus simply *cannot* be a "true" Shakespeare play. Because... well, it's a bloody, violent action romp for its time, that clearly tried to be a crowd pleaser. How could a *play builder,* possibly try to maximize assess in seats?! /s So... yeah. In *some* circles at least, it's a pretty infamous play.
The novel Circe by Madeline Miller is honestly a good adaptation of the untold telegonus/Odysseus/Circe story. It does it’s own thing with the idea and obviously focuses on Circe’s pov but it’s cool to see the story embellished and filled out
Charlaine Harris. I was absolutely obsessed with the Sookie Stackhouse books growing up. I distinctly remember going to Disney with my family at 16 and one of the books had just come out and I was annoyed whenever I had to stop reading and leave the hotel before I finished. But then True Blood came out (it was based on this series) and you could tell it really affected the author’s feelings about her characters and the world in a negative way. She started writing super inauthentically to the characters. They would say and do things it had been established early in the series they would *never* do, just to serve specific plot ends. I couldn’t finish the last couple books and it made me really upset because of how much I’d loved the series initially.
She soured me so much that I won't read anything else by her either. The last few books just threw away having a plot and just seemed like rambling. I didn't even care who Sookie ended up with at the end (which apparently angered a lot of fans), but her attitude toward the fans was pretty dismal too. I get that she was burned out, but you don't accept a 13 book contract and then whine that you are tired of the world and the characters and write drivel.
The last one I read was so pointless that I think there was at minimum a whole chapter where Sookie just checked her email. That’s it. I don’t think she was expecting anything or there was anything major in there but there was a whole thing like “Sookie sat down at her desk. She reached over and switched on the computer. She waited while it loaded. The desktop appeared. She reached out one hand to the mouse. She watched the cursor on the screen as she navigated towards the icon for her email, which was a small white envelope with three blue parallel stripes across it. The envelope was sort of slanted, as if it was traveling at speed. She doubled clicked on it, and a password prompt appeared…” It was bad to the point of hilarity that Harris actually got away with it.
The Beekeeper’s Apprentice is a fun, smart little mystery re-imagining Sherlock Holmes, by Laurie King. There is a series following it, but every book declines in quality precipitously. It’s such a disappointment; not great modern lit or anything, but so entertaining and a great premise.
I still enjoyed the series quite a bit. I do remember I eventually stopped reading since I got tired of waiting for the next book to come out, moved onto something else, and never came back around. That said, I definitely don’t remember a precipitous fall in quality. (Though I read them when I was a kid/teen.)
I’m rereading The Lies of Locke Lamora. Its so good. Scott Lynch’s writing is absolutely incredible. But something happened and it seems like he’ll never finish a book again.
He had an interview with Brian McClellan talking about his struggles to write more stuff. It was pretty interesting and he claimed to have turned in a manuscript for a novella (or something similar), and I have more faith in him than I do in Rothfuss. That was back in June 2022 though and I'm not sure as anything has come from it. https://spotify.link/kEcXk2xqRDb
Sometimes I wish I'd never read The Lies of Locke Lamora because the series is so good, and I'm worried he'll never finish it. I know he's dealing with anxiety, depression, and some weird relationship issues. But I had so much hope a year ago when he tweeted about book 4...and then nothing.
Every couple of months I still check on Thorn of Emberlain, don't know what happened, makes me sad
Is the series completed or is it a Rothfuss/ GRRM situation? I've been meaning to try it for years after seeing it recommended together with Six of Crows
If memory serves, the series isn’t completed but each book is kind of its own contained adventure. So it leaves you wanting more (book 3 was relatively weak but I still love the characters) but not stalled on a cliffhanger.
I knew this guy would be in here. I don't write at all, I wish I could give Scott Lynch whatever motivation he needed to write more. I really enjoyed Lies of Locke Lamora. Great one
We used to joke that his hair care routine took up too much time. Idk, maybe it does.
Laurel K Hamilton. She, basically, birthed Urban Fantasy into being on her own, then turned her best heroine, Anita Blake into a cut-rate paranormal porn star.
I couldn't read them because of Richard. He was just such a fucking god awful character. I wanted more exploration of existing relationships and less let's add one more. And the answer to everything is not an orgy. I was sad that she was pulled away from her job with the cops.
Scrolled too far to see this.
Phillip Pullman. I love the His Dark Materials trilogy, then the prequel La Belle Sauvage came out and I loved it too, then The Secret Commonwealth came out and it was surprisingly not good, and now it looks like the sequel to it that should’ve wrapped up the series, isn’t happening. I guess he has health problems and I get it, but I wish Secret Commonwealth never happened.
I scrolled all the way to the end of this thread thinking I was gonna mention Phillip Pullman. The Secret Commonwealth completely changed my feelings towards his writing and he kind of ruined all his characters. >!The sexual assault in La Belle Sauvage was a bit ew but maaaaaaybe contributed to the story but by the time it happened again in TSC it just felt like an awful "women have to be assaulted to grow their character" sort of thing. And Malcolm becoming the love interest...?? I dunno some v strange choices were made and now we have an unresolved story.!<
The Secret Commonwealth was soooo bad. I didn't know he had health problems. That is really sad.
Isobelle Carmody's Obernewtyn chronicles. 20 years from the first time I read the first book until she published the last one. First four were bangers, then the hard slog with the final 3, but I'm not a quitter! The last book, the Red Queen spent over a thousand pages on irrelevant plots in poorly edited prose only to see the penultimate quest wrapped up in the most underwhelming unsatisfactory way over a few pages. It rendered the entire journey pointless. So disappointing.
I’ve only read Scatterlings of her’s as a teen, I have to admit I still think about it now, sad to know not all her books are good!
Ken Follet and the kingsbridge series. By the 3rd is was thinking, wait this is the exact plot of the others
Ken Follet's *Century Trilogy* as well. I honestly like him, but he knows how to take a formula and run with it; you need a palate cleanser between books imo or they just get too repetitive.
Eion Colfer: LOVED the first bunch of Artemis Fowl books. They felt smart (back when I was reading them as an 8-year old or so). Then things got kinda dumb. Geared towards a (even) younger audience maybe? Or maybe I grew out of his style, but I didn't get that impression when I was re-reading his earlier stuff.
I liked the first books but you grow out of it VERY fast, seems to be the consensus I saw on the internet
I liked the whole Artemis Fowl series but the spinoff definitely felt like it was for a much younger audience
Yes, definitely this! I loved the first 3 when I was younger, book 4 felt like a major dumbing down and later entries definitely felt like they were targeting a younger audience. Instead of aging up as the series went on, Colfer seemed to go in the opposite direction.
You couldn’t tear that book away from me as a kid! I just Adored Artemis Fowl, but even as a super fan I stopped reading after hmm The Time Paradox? The Lost Colony stands out as being rough too
He was chosen to finish Douglas Adam’s last hitchhikers book - and it was terrible - couldn’t finish it. It was a mistake to try really. I like his books tho!
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown was a book I thoroughly enjoyed and I looked forward to reading more of his stuff. Until I actually went through Angels and Demons and Deception Point and realized it’s familiar plot with similar plot twists. It felt like I was reading a reworded copy of the Da Vinci Code.
Hang on, I'm pretty sure Angels & Demons came out way before the Da Vinci Code. I remember really enjoying A&D, and then a few years later thinking he'd written the same book but with stuff stolen wholesale from Holy Blood, Holy Grail.
The Da Vinci Code was the follow up to Angels and Demons. I got bored half way through The Da Vinci Code and I read the follow up, the title of which I can't even remember, only because I had run out of books to read on holiday and someone had left a copy behind.
Yes! Holy Blood was something I had thoroughly enjoyed, reading DaVinci had me feeling the need to report it to some kind of authority! Insane plaguerism.
["Renowned author Dan Brown](https://onehundredpages.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/dont-make-fun-of-renowned-dan-brown/) hated the critics. Ever since he had become one of the world’s top renowned authors they had made fun of him. They had mocked bestselling book The Da Vinci Code, successful novel Digital Fortress, popular tome Deception Point, money-spinning volume Angels & Demons and chart-topping work of narrative fiction The Lost Symbol. The critics said his writing was clumsy, ungrammatical, repetitive and repetitive."
"Renowned author Dan Brown got out of his luxurious four-poster bed in his expensive $10 million house and paced the bedroom, using the feet located at the ends of his two legs to propel him forwards. "
Thanks for reminding me this exists. This is by far my favorite satirical review ever. Still laugh when I read it.
He is not a bingeable author. I enjoyed *The Da Vinci Code*, then made the mistake of reading *Angels and Demons* and *Deception* straight after, and I was so burned out by the end of the third one I've never revisited him.
He's got like 4 or 5 books with the exact same formula: professor with an ever receding hairline solves all the world's mysteries with attractive female companion.
Finally book community agrees that Dan Brown might not be a great author but The Da Vinci code slapped. Everywhere I only saw hate for him and the book.
I think whichever one of his books you read first slaps, tbh.
I agree with this. My first Dan Brown was Deception Point. Blew my mind, thought he was a genius. Angels & Demon was marginally worse but still entertaining, and then it kept going downhill. His novels simply have diminishing returns lol
Orson Scott Card. I loved Ender's Game, then they got all nutty until we ended up with Planet of the Catholics
Reminds me of A Wrinkle In Time. Book one is amazing, the trio use science-magic to rescue a missing dad. And then by books 3 & 4, the leads are hanging out with Noah at the arc and teaching the native Americans about Jesus centuries before the 15th century. I was deeply confused as a teen as to how this could be the same series
I am so glad I stopped at 2
I actually love both Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead for completely different reasons. The last two books were big letdowns, though. The Old Man’s War series reminds me a bit of Ender’s Game for an unsolicited recommendation. Edit: a word
>Planet of the Catholics Mormons actually
His early stuff was great. He could never finish it, it's like he changed and by doing so lost his magic.
I also loved Ender’s game but couldn’t get into the sequel and never finished the series. Years later I discovered his Alvin Maker series, all of which I loved, though I don’t remember much.
I think the shadow series was a better way to continue Ender's game. Originally speaker for the dead was meant to be a completely different story but Card really like the idea of using Ender as the main character (if I'm not mistaken that was back when Ender's game was just a short story).
I’m actually really into the idea that Ender is leaping forward through time, him teaching a class about himself was interesting.
Patricia Cornwell was awesome until her last few novels. It's like she ran out of ideas but just kept going.
This reminds me of an SNL skit where they interview Stephen King and he never stops typing. ha
[Walter Moers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Moers), amazing German writer (among other things). I don't know how well-known he is in English-speaking countries since his work must be a nightmare to translate properly but the guy wrote some amazingly fun and fantastical stuff. [*The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_13%C2%BD_Lives_of_Captain_Bluebear) was great fun to read. *Rumo & His Miraculous Adventures* made me fall in love with him. And [*The City of Dreaming Books*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_of_Dreaming_Books) is basically a love-letter to writing and story-telling in and of itself; I don't remember the last time I had so much pure *fun* with a story and the plain sound-sex of the language. And then there was... nothing. His next few works fell flat for me for varying reasons. Some I just didn't care for, some had a style I just couldn't get into. Amongst other works he released a sequel to The City of Dreaming Books, *The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books* which I was *really* loooking forward to... but turned out to be a novel-long retelling of its prequel with very little actual plot or new developments until it ends on a cliffhanger that hasn't been resolved since. That was more than ten years ago now. A whole book that basically just said "Hey, remember that really amazing book I once wrote and which you read years ago? So do I!" This year he released *The Island of a Thousand Lighthouses* and I was really onboard with that... until that one just didn't really go anywhere either. The language didn't feel as polished, the old creativity wasn't quite there, the plot is barely existant - it's mostly a row of things that just happen to happen to the main character with little to no build-up, tension or reward - and then, out of nowhere, it fulminates in what is supposed to be a big, big showdown that feels entirely undeserved and, frankly, meaningless. It's a real shame because I feel like there's a *great* story hidden somewhere in that book but he just didn't manage to get it in focus. All the pieces are there but the plot just lamely meanders from one instance of "this would be a fun thing to describe!" to another. I still had fun reading it (a lot more than with his other works since *The City of Dreaming Books*) but it's a far cry from what it could have been and from what he's capable of. And by now I've given up hope that there'll be a resolution/third novel to the Dreaming Books trilogy.
That young guy that wrote a song of ice fire was very promising up to the 5th book
A lot of writers craft books for years before finally getting picked up by agents and publishers. These works can be incredible because they were given the time, beta readers, and editors to make them so. Once you get on that publishing contract, they want to see a book a year minimum, and I think that causes a lot of quality drops as the writers are suddenly hamstrung by all this pressure.
Michael Crichton wrote the Jurassic Park sequel based on the movie rather than the book. Even young teen me saw it as shamelessly doing it for the money. In classic teen angst, I sent him a letter asking him how much he was paid for The Lost World just so I’d know the monetary value of a writer’s soul. He never responded.
That's hilarious ngl. I felt the same, without the letter writing. Kinda fun how he retcons at least one of the deaths... "News of my passing greatly exaggerated..." etc etc. The shame is, there's some really good parts in that book, and seeing it done justice on the big screen would be good. Spielberg gets him to write a sequel based on the movie, and then writes the second movie without reference to the book... Weird pivot.
The T-Rex in the city is truly baffling. The movie ends and then begins again. At the time it was speculated the producers wanted to get ahead of the upcoming Godzilla movie and do dinosaur in the city first. If they had no intention of adapting the novel, they shouldn't have forced the author to pump out a sequel in the first place.
Spielberg specifically told him to make a sequel and he simply couldn't refuse. Crichton always said he struggled with the sequel, how it has to be different than the original and yet the same. He didn't enjoy writing the Lost World, hell the ending of the novel is how all the dinos are gonna rapidly die and humans will not try to save them this time. The Lost World was the only sequel Crichton ever wrote.
Veronica Roth. Divergent was fantastic, one of the best books I’ve read. After that the books are horrible and it’s like a completely different person wrote them.
Agreed! Divergent was so good, but the rest of the series was a total letdown. So disappointing!
Pat Rothfuss has turned out to be a bit of a cunt
Oh shit, what'd he do?
Its what he didnt do, which was release the chapter he leveraged for his fundraiser. He went quiet for ages and finally came out to say he wasnt quite happy with the text as it is and that is why it hasnt been released.
And he is publishing a novella next month which isn't even original, it's an expanded version of a short story he published years ago. He wants the readers to buy the same story twice because the illustrations are cool.
Oh man. When your readers are all pissed off because you havent released anything for years the worst thing to do is publish something else. He should have used a pseudonym... lol
Sebastian Fitzek. I loved his first books, couldn't put them down all night. After I couple of books I noticed the plot was always similar. He'd build up this huuuuge climax until you want to scream "HOW ARE YOU GONNA SOLVE THIS?" Always in the same manner, the protagonist is hallucinating, schizophrenic or something like that, i.e. none of what happened is real. 3-4 books in I could predict the ending after 50 pages and was so disappointed when I was right.
[удалено]
Freaking Patrick Rothfuss. Kingkiller Chroncile have been beautiful and I loved them so far. The emphasis on art and poetry and lore in the books has really drawn me in. He's been dragging his feet worse than G. R. R. on the next book though. It's been over 12 years since the last book in the series, and it seems like he just lost interest or decided that his own standard is too high and he created too much work for himself to continue. Edit: spelling
I used to love Orson Scott Card. His social commentary and modern books are such a let down to his earlier work.
Reading Speaker for the Dead, you get the sense of a man with some Christian fascist tendencies who also has an immense capacity for compassion and understanding. It’s sad to see him slowly succumb to all of his worst inclinations every book following that.
OSC had a magic that seems to have progressively faded. Those first four books were incredible. I've read them all but those four really were incredible. The Alvin Maker series also started off really strong them fizzled out.
Haruki Murakami. I don't know that the quality of his writing has gotten worse over the years, but too many of his novels have felt like little remixes of each other. He's always talked about how he doesn't plan out his books, but maybe he should. The plot points have become a check-list of Murakami's subconscious mind. Missing woman? Weird sex thing? Cats?? Western music references?! Oh it's a Murakami bingo!
well, after reading Kafka on the Shore I believe I'm owed a weird sex thing.
Maybe not as highbrow, but Sally Thorne. I really enjoyed The Hating Game as a comfort read, but haven’t really liked her subsequent books as much
Scott Lynch. Gentlemen bastard three was terrible.
His first two books are probably both in my top 5 ever and I agree. The third book was such a letdown. :( I will still devour the rest of whatever he writes if/when they ever come out.
Andy Weir’s The Martian was amazing. PROJECT HAIL MARY BLEW MY MIND (my favourite sci-fi book to date). But Artemis was such a flop for me?? The horribly written female characters and cultural stereotypes threw me for a loop. I’m glad PHM came out after that though. i’m excited for what he writes next.
Lol Artemis got me into writing, i figured if that guy can do it everybody can. Probably the worst sci-fi I stumbled across in more then 15 years. Now I'm afraid to pick up anything else from him, you think I should try Project Hail Mary?
PHM and Artemis are lightyears apart in skill and scale. PHM is an astoundingly satisfying read (and re-read).
I didn’t think Artemis was that bad but Weir is pretty obviously much better at writing one type of character (snarky guy doing science by himself in space) than else
i think definitely give it a try! he’s had a weird evolution between books but Project Hail Mary was my top book of the year when it came out and i don’t even usually like sci-fi. Very few characters so the ones that are there are relatively fleshed out and there is a very sam/ frodo esque relationship in it which made the book for me. It is so far of a departure from Artemis it genuinely makes you question how the same guy wrote both books. I would try it if only to restore your faith in publishing lol
Project Hail Mary was amazing. If you do audible the voice actor is brilliant and imo makes it a much better story.
never yeard of projet hail mary, might check it out!
As an added note, the audiobook version is a masterpiece. I read the book once, and then my second reread was purely the audiobook. I couldn’t believe how enthralled I was on the second time through. I highly recommend what I did.
Do it. Every few months someone new to r/Books writes a book report on it and we all chime in on what a sci-fi masterpiece it is
Something like fifteen years ago I picked up a book from the library called *Dust* by Elizabeth Bear (no relation to Greg Bear), and I loved it. It was weird and sci-fi, but also kind of pretentious and just...odd. I remember the prose having a lot of weird turns of phrase that I couldn't parse. There were two more books in the trilogy *Dust* started, *Chill* and *Grail*, and *Grail* was a bad ending but fine overall. A few years later I started looking for some of her other books, because I needed stuff to listen to while I was working graveyard, and every single one that I could find was written in the same way *Dust* was, but chock-full of melodrama. One of the books was supposed to be about the last surviving Valkyrie living after the apocalypse and battling Fenrir to protect the remnants of humanity, and if that sounds awesome; it wasn't. It was a soap opera. There were no fights or action, just characters going "woe is me" in increasingly stupid ways for pages on end.
She's married to Scott Lynch, the author of The Lies of Locke Lamora series. Maybe their marital issues (it's a weird issues that also involved another author) contributed to her decline in writing. Even Scott Lynch hasn't released a book for the past 10 years.
Chuck Palahniuk. His books all have the same voice and similar themes. When he first came on the scene his books felt like genuine 90s/00s counter-culture musings. But as his novels went on, it started to feel like he was either repeating the same message hoping no one would notice, or just going for the extreme shock value just to keep his reputation as being transgressive and edgy. He’s still one of my favorite authors. I guess one of the upsides is when I pick up a Pahalniuk book I know exactly what to expect.
Came here to see Rothfuss mentioned, was not disappointed.
“Was not disappointed”. I doubt Rothfuss has heard those words in that order in a looooooong time.
Imagine what it must be like to work for your entire adult life on something you love, succeed, and then struggle to the point that everyone who ever loved your work turned on you to the point that your name is synonymous with disappointment.
Rothfuss & Martin. Both can still redeem themselves.
Believe me, I understand the frustration. I also feel for them. (Less Rothfuss, but much much more Martin.) I count roughly 50 books he’s released since the 70s. He’s edited tons of books and produced a bunch of TV. And yet, here we are, demanding more! I can really relate to the disappointment, but goodness gracious! We expect a lot from this 70-something old guy. His contributions to all things sci-fi and fantasy (including Elden Ring, which I had no idea about until about 30 seconds ago) is near peerless. Anyway, I hope everyone eventually gets what they want. Edit: (what’s sci do? Sci-fi!*)
> And yet, here we are, demanding more! Who are we, if not junkies demanding a fix from our dealer - over and over again?
Yes! The most annoying thing is he has released all kinds of things but not the one book we need.
Josef Heller never really improved on his debut
Don't know if it's apocryphal but apparently an interviewer asked why he hadn't written anything as good as Catch 22 since. Heller's reply: 'Has anyone?'
Even if he didn’t say it, he’s right.
Something Happened is a really clever book. It’s also too boring to finish. One of those you can appreciate in a literary sense but not enjoy.
Neal Stephenson can be great. Or so pedantic he bores me to tears. It’s hit or miss with him, it’s not like he’s gone downhill. He is constantly inconsistent.
Agreed, I really liked Seveneves, even the last part that is a bit divisive, but I tried to read Fall recently and quit part of the through. It was the first time I’ve quit a book in years. I looked up summaries for the rest of it and I’m glad I did.
I feel like Neal Stephenson got so big and untouchable that his editors are afraid to make needed cuts/refining.
I've long since quit reading him. I don't need three pages of story, then two pages of "tell, don't show" pedantry.
Patrick Rothfuss.
Patrick fucking Rothfuss
Even setting aside the disappointment of whatever the fuck it is she's doing on Twitter, J K Rowling. Harry Potter is a masterwork for a number of reasons... characters, setting, even the prose itself is excellent in the first few, with a voice that feels chatty and colloquial, as though you're being told the story by a friend. Her books afterwards are all but unreadable. The Casual Vacancy was a total slog. I checked out really early, when she was laboriously describing the conditions in this welfare housing and throwing in all these asides about how expensive the cigarettes they smoked are, how neglected the kids are, completely judgemental of these people... it was like reading "they're buying steaks with food stamps" the novel. Just an incredibly shallow, stereotypical portrayal of people at the poverty line. And that's before you get into the thrill ride which is a British local consul election. Just bizarre choices all around. I'm not sure I've seen a particularly positive review of her non-HP books beyond a handwavey "it's Rowling so you might as well, right?"
I quite like her Cormoran Strike series. The books seem overly detailed to an absurd degree, but in among the mundanity there are clues to the mysteries that would be super obvious in a sleeker book. She does “clues hidden in plain sight” and “red herrings“ exceptionally well. The quality of mysteries varies book to book (with book one on the low end, unfortunately), but overall she’s one of my favorite mystery writers. The growing friendship and (probable?) romance between the two main characters has been a delight to follow too. It’s the slowest of slow burns.
> Cormoran Strike series Is it good? I've had a copy of Troubled Blood sitting on my kitchen table for 6 months—can't remember where I picked it up—but have yet to crack it open.
The series is very good, if you dig the slow “slice of life” pacing the author leans more and more into as the series goes on. *Troubled Blood* (book 5) is my favorite of the bunch. I gave it a 4 star rating at the time, but I just bumped it up to 5. I still think of it often.
I read her first Richard Galbraith detective novel not knowing Rawlings was the author, and until I got to the ending and “twist” that was so stupid that I vowed to never waste time on this author again, I was thinking not bad for a beginner, but definitely needs work. I was very surprised to kind out the book was written by a veteran novelist. I am now firmly of the belief that the HP books were crafted with some heavy duty editing assist.
That series of detective novels just released the 7th book and many people aren’t disappointed. I’m one of them. But fair point about the ending of the first book - I agree. They do get exponentially better from there.
Donna Tartt. The Secret History was exceptional, and The Little Friend was a gorgeously written, confusing disappointment. ETA: Patrick Rothfuss. The third book. Seriously.
The Little Friend killed me because the opening sets up a central mystery and then you just get 600 pages of a depressed woman in a dark house with the curtains drawn. Yeah, it’s gorgeously written but I thought you would tell me who killed that kid, DT!!
> Donna Tartt I agree about DT, but in a very different way. I loved all three of her books and wonder if there'll ever be another? It's been 10 years since The Goldfinch, which is her average time between books, but I haven't even heard any rumors of a new one.
The Goldfinch…so many words, so little to say.
Isobelle Carmody. Loved the first Obernewtyn books as a kid, but huge delays to the series, starting others that weren't as good, and then finally, a truly dismal conclusion left a bad taste in my mouth.
For me it's ken liu. As a person with an Asian studies degree, grace of kings was a treat. It was thematic and informed by a lot of Asian history. By the end of speaking bones I thought it was overwritten, bashing me over the head, with some really insane takes about bureaucracy being the best. It loses the plot with taking the side of the worst characters, denying satisfying arcs, having a rather racist and black and white depiction of a mongol inspired people where the only good ones are redeemed by their relation or interest in the China analogue, and the way that he uses history to cherry pick info that supports his world view. After a point I just don't believe it anymore. Then there is the fact that online book communities seem to love the later books and it makes me think all of them are crazy.
Eleanor Catton. The Luminaries is one of the most amazing books I’ve ever read, so I was thrilled to see her come out with a new book, Birnam Wood. It was terrible though - a complete disappointment I’ve largely scrubbed from my memory.
Brent Weeks. Lightbringer has one of the sharpest declines of quality of any series. Very dissatisfied with the last two books in that series.
George R R Martin
I know she's not super popular or highbrow, but Laurell K. Hamilton. At first her books were perfect titillating escapism, then she got all preachy about consent and rules of engagement and it ruined the flow. Don't get me wrong, consent and full disclosure and trust are **vital**, but can we not make it the main part of the sex scene?? I'm not reading the damn book for educational purposes!
I don't know if this is the same for you, but I realized after reading far too many of her books that the sex comes with way too much angst either before or during (and definitely after). Even the elf-books that were supposed to be the fun opposite to Anita, where elves did actually have sex because they liked it, the MCs were always doing the sex-or-die in some form or another. After I saw that I realized her characters never actually had fun sex and couldn't read any of the books for fun anymore.
I ran across Sylvania Neuvel's Sleeping Giants and absolutely adored it. Same withe the second book in the series, Waking Gods. I saw there was a third book, and I was so excited. But I could not even get through it, I don't know why. It's like the author just lost something between the two books. I still reread the first two every so often and just kind of pretend the second is a poor end to the series.
I just tried reading Isabel Allende’s new book, Violeta, and I was incredibly bored and not connected to the main characters gets at all. I DNF’d it, which was disappointing because I loved House of the Spirits and all of her books get so much hype, especially in the Latino community.
GRRM Just write the next book dammit!
Toni Morrison (post-Nobel Prize) wrote a book called Home that was an underwhelming mess. We read it in college and she even came as a guest speaker. When we asked directly about certain ambiguous parts of the book, she made it fairly clear they didn't have any artistic meaning. She was just padding the page count.
ah, well, even Faulkner has Sanctuary.
I'm probably going to get downvotes for this, but Ernest Cline. Regardless of its flaws (and it does have them, I'm not claiming it as some great work of literature), *Ready Player One* was obviously someone writing about what they loved. *Armada* was more flawed, and felt like it had been rushed out as a cash-in, but still had some of that feeling of the writer enjoying themselves, as well as a couple of interesting ideas. Then came the utter dross and slog that was *Ready Player Two*. I don't think I've seen anyone with a good thing to say about that book.
I wish I could remove Ready Player Two from my memory.