Bad Fantasy

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

(this coming from a guy who actually likes Thomas Covenant).

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.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by treadlightly

Fair enough

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.
Apache

[gmw]

Originally Posted by treadlightly

Hmmm, I think there is a big difference between bad fantasy and fantasy that you didn't like. [...]

^ Definitely this. ^

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?

[Graham]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

Steven Erikson - Gardens of the Moon

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

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by Graham

I'd be interested to know if you read it all the way through.

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.

[LovesMacs]

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.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by LovesMacs

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.

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.

[conanfan]

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.

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by LovesMacs

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.

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.

[Penforhire]

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.

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

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.

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.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

No, I did not read all nine. I found the first book so awful, that I gave up after 15 chapters. Nothing happened, nothing looked like it was going to happen, and it looked like if anything did happen, it would have been something boring. I just found the writing to be stiff and unimaginable, It wasn't nice at all.

You are of course entitled to you opinion and I know others who didn't care for it, but at fifteen out of ninety-six chapters things hadn't even gotten rolling yet as far as the overall story-line of the first trilogy.

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.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

You are of course entitled to you opinion and I know others who didn't care for it, but at fifteen out of ninety-six chapters things hadn't even gotten rolling yet as far as the overall story-line of the first trilogy.

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.

The way I look at it, if the author cannot be interesting in 140 pages, it's not worth bothering with.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The way I look at it, if the author cannot be interesting in 140 pages, it's not worth bothering with.

Guess we find different things interesting. :shrugs:

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Guess we find different things interesting. :shrugs:

I am willing to try her Agents of Hel series. It does sound interesting.