06-14-2013, 07:48 PM | #16 |
You kids get off my lawn!
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Hmm, I read the first 6 Covenant books when the first come, so my memory is quite dim on them, but I remembered loving the first 3 and finding the second 3 harder to read (probably because they were "darker" overall).
I've got the ones released recently in my TBR pile, but haven't read them yet. |
06-14-2013, 08:28 PM | #17 |
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That is just my opinion and concerns only me. I know everyone has their own likes and dislikes. I would never presume to feel that what I like is good and what someone else likes is bad. I know some of my favorite reads are considered trash b y others. Does it bother me? No, just as my dislikes should not bother others.
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06-14-2013, 09:09 PM | #18 | |
cacoethes scribendi
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Quote:
I can understand that some won't like the Thomas Covenant series, but any attempt to call it "bad" ... well, let's just say I have never seen anyone present a convincing argument, all it ever boils down to is "I didn't like it." I have read some "bad" fantasy, stuff that is obviously poorly done copies, but the truth is that I don't dwell on these very much so rarely remember them (which can be a mistake because I sometimes try to re-read them). The ones I tend to remember are those from authors that have done something I like. I really like David Eddings' Belgariad and Mallorean series, but thought the Elenium was a disaster. I forced myself through them mainly to give him the benefit of the doubt - but these were awful (I will reluctantly allow that the third wasn't as bad as the first two). An excessively long prologue that throws up a catalogue of names with little useful context, and then a story which reads like a group of Don Quixote type knights (but not as likable as the original) rushing back and forth over the countryside achieving bugger all. Was this really "bad" as opposed to just didn't like? Perhaps others can answer that. Is there anyone out there that liked this series? |
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06-15-2013, 06:29 AM | #19 |
Wizard
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I'd be interested to know if you read it all the way through.
That goes down in the record book for me for a novel where nothing seems to happen for the first 400 (!) pages, then finally gets going properly in the second half. Not a great book, but enough to get me further into the series, where he really does deliver with other books, notably the next one, Deadhouse Gates. I'm struggling through The Bonehunters at the moment though. One stunning sequence but too much sprawl around it. Graham |
06-15-2013, 07:36 AM | #20 |
Wizard
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I did. I read all of those books all the way through, although in some cases I kind of wish I hadn't. I believe I took a break to read something else in the middle of Gardens of the Moon, but I do remember it being better in the second half. It still felt like a semi-random series of unmotivated events. I didn't feel there was any kind of dynamic structure to it, just cataclysm upon cataclysm, with no build-up, no anticipation, no suspense.
I have heard that the second one is much better, but I'm not sure I'm willing to put the effort it. I'm not short of reading material. |
06-17-2013, 11:37 AM | #21 |
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I have never been able to get through Terry Brooks' The Sword of Shannara. I'm not saying that it is inherently bad but I have tried three times to read through the whole book, without success.
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06-17-2013, 11:49 AM | #22 |
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The series is not quite what you'd think if you start with The Sword of Shannara. If you read in chronological order, it's quite different.
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06-17-2013, 02:30 PM | #23 |
Me Lurk Here Long Time
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I hated - HATED - Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books when I tried rereading them recently. As a teenager I remember really enjoying the first three books, but a friend and I began swapping fantasy suggestions, and I found myself having to reread the series with him. I genuinely thought I might enjoy them, but I found myself advancing through the seven stages of grief with each successive page, until I permanently settled on stage three - anger. By the seventh book, I was filled with the white hot hatred of a thousand suns for Mr. Jordan and his crap writing. I reached the point where I realized that if I read about one more braid being tugged, one more skirt being smoothed, one more boneheaded decision by characters to move the incredibly bloated plot forward by one more millimeter, or one more overblown and unnecessarily detailed description of something I could not care about for another second longer, I was going to stab my eyeballs out with pencil.
Anyway, I didn't care for The Wheel of Time. |
06-17-2013, 05:08 PM | #24 |
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I'm quite happy to say it's inherently bad. I read it a long time ago, when I was much more forgiving, and I found it tedious even then. Like Tolkien without the good bits. And the imagination.
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06-17-2013, 05:49 PM | #25 |
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I'll nominate Lester Dent's Doc Savage books, written in the 1930's and reprinted in the 1960's. I thought these were awesome when I was around ten years old.
Somehow I came across most of the collection later in life and I could not understand how my young self enjoyed those so much. Robert E. Howard's fantasy works also lost some their value to me later in life but they still have some redeeming qualities. Same for the Perry Rhodan series, weaker but still valued. |
06-17-2013, 08:24 PM | #26 |
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Here we go with tastes again. Never read any Doc Savage when I was younger, but a few have be posted here in the library and I've read 8 or 9 and I really like them. Yeah, they're pulp fiction to the extreme but at the same time they're fun little reads.
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06-17-2013, 09:14 PM | #27 | |
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Anyway, sorry to hear you didn't like it. I like her books quite a bit and so it's hard to read about all three trilogies getting put down because someone didn't like 140ish pages of the first (900+ page) book. |
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06-17-2013, 09:16 PM | #28 | |
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06-17-2013, 09:21 PM | #29 |
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06-17-2013, 10:05 PM | #30 |
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