Thread: Fantasy authors you (and I) should NEVER read
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Old 07-29-2011, 03:52 PM   #249
queentess
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GreenMonkey View Post
Oh, old thread, but lots of good reading. I'll comment on some of the names brought up.

Personally I liked Terry Brooks, mostly. Shannara- Sure, Sword was a bit of a LOTR clone, but it was his first book. They got better. Up to the end of the Heritage of Shannara I really enjoyed. I read the High Druid/Jerle Shanarra ...meh. I think he derailed a bit - I didn't think either of these trilogies were very good. Word/Void was very good, and the newer Armageddon's Children prequel was alright.

Another one criticized - Weis & Hickman - the first book and a half or so of the original Dragonlance books are pretty cliche, but the end + Legends is still great reading to me. I love Raistlin & Caramon. After that things become hit and miss, but that's the influence of TSR/Wizards of the Coast screwing up the gameworld.

Mercedes Lackey came up, and I love her books. Especially the last Herald-Mage trilogy. The last Valdemar book or two, I admit, have started to feel strained - kind of like Brook's Jerle Shannara/High Druid trilogies - so maybe she's run out of stuff for the world. I dunno.

I read Gene Wolf's Book of the New Sun...boy, that's a tough, tough read to me. I felt like reading it again, and I wasn't really sure if I loved it or not. I liked "There Are Doors" a bit better on first read. I'm not surprised he is controversial, mainly because he is a tough read - it's a very different style of books.

I can't believe Neil Gaman's American Gods came up - it wasn't a favorite book for me, but it was pretty good.


I think the most controversial on my disliked list would be The Wheel of Time. I got through about book 5...it just didn't seem to be going anywhere, nothing happened of note, and the fight descriptions were ridiculous. (so and so used the wheeling crane that flows down the river...or something like that).

The funny thing is, I avoided G.R.R. Martin for a long time, because I thought he was going to be the same sort of writer - big books, hyped up.... boy, was I wrong. My 2nd favorite author now.
It appears that you are the Yin to my Yang. My opinion is the exact opposite on every single one of those (though I've not yet read GRRM, so I can't say about him).
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