# Books/Writers You Were Disappointed With



## jeff (Apr 3, 2012)

Let's talk about disappointing experiences you've had with books or writers recently.

Against my better judgment I decided to read HP Lovecraft. Super disappointing:

+ The general concept of Eldritch horrors.
+ The Green Meadow

- Racism:
Murderous Hawaiians and other Evil Mongrels (but its okay they're from MU, this is my excuse for being hopelessly racist) - Swarthy Asiatics, Violent African Tribes oh my!, Noble INJUN MAKUM BIG SPIRIT (calling them "savages" nonetheless)
This used to be a nice white neighborhood full of Oxford fellows!!!
- Too many Eldritch horrors?
- Friendly Eldritch horrors?
Why
- That terrible story about the modern muse.
- Yig, and related stories, in general.
- Pre-historic human societies, in general.


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## Gavrill (Apr 3, 2012)

Dean Koontz.

Positives:
-It was...good....writing? Ish? From the technical aspect. I guess.

Negatives:
-Nothing he writes scares or unsettles me.
-Everything he writes makes me go "the hell were you on when you made that plot twist?"
-Forgettable characters, throwaway plots,  confusing action sequences, confusing "well how the hell did you get there/to that conclusion" scenes, seems to get off on his readers having no idea wtf.

Sorry Dean, maybe after reading Clive Barker's stuff I'm just spoiled when it comes to horror.


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## Mxpklx (Apr 3, 2012)

Whitley Strieber

Positives:
-Fucking awesome. No exceptions.

Negatives:
-Needs to be more convincing.


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## BRN (Apr 3, 2012)

I thought Iain M. Bank's "Matter" was slightly dissapointing. It was entertaining, but the entire story felt like it was driving towards a massive literary masterpiece, when it actually felt into what would have been a cinematic masterpiece - had this been a film.

I'm of the opinion that his books _should_ be films, but they're not yet - and Matter's finale fell short of the mindblowing conclusions of the rest of his Culture series.


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## Gavrill (Apr 3, 2012)

Semi related, but was anyone else disappointed by _Dead Leaves_?
To me it really felt like a poor man's _Mister B Gone _except without a discernible plot. Then again, Clive Barker fangirl derp


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## ElectricBlue1989 (Apr 7, 2012)

Do graphic novel authors count?

Who: Katsu Aki, the maker of _Futari Ecchi_, but more commomly known as _Manga Sutra
_
What: _Psychic Academy_ graphic novel series, specifically vol. 11.

The crime: Killing off my favorite main character in the last volume, with having her visiting the main protagonist through another dimension (it's not that complicated, but I'll leave it here). Yeah, that'll please the fans. Everything I loved about the series came crashing down in that last volume. It seriously distracted of the bigger picture, which had to do about the relationship humans have with the Earth or something.

To further add my personal discomfort (that's putting it mildly) to this, I had already bought all the previous volumes. Being in a hurry I didn't read it at the store (remember Borders?). I was doubly frustrated. Thankfully, I was able to get return all 11 volumes, as they were all recent purchases. Never again shall I purchase a graphic novel without knowing if it ends well. To this day I feel a little raw about it. 

If it's of any concern the rating seem to be all over the place, ranging from "Older Teen" to "Mature" and I swear I saw a "Teen" rating in there somewhere.


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## Aldino (Apr 10, 2012)

The Hunger Games series really died for me after the second book. The action that everyone was so fond of from the first two books was nonexhistant in the third book. I will not be looking forward to the next two movies.


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## Fay V (Apr 10, 2012)

Gavrill said:


> Dean Koontz.
> 
> Positives:
> -It was...good....writing? Ish? From the technical aspect. I guess.
> ...



I didn't even realize he was trying to be scary till later. I read Odd Thomas. 

I think Koontz thinks plot holes are scary "omg thing you don't understand woooo..." and then it's just never explained, ever. So it's not really that scary at all.

His writing is like a big rubber spider. 
Rubber spiders are not scary. You might be startled, but then you get over it, because a rubber spider does nothing. 
A real spider is scary as hell. It's silent, it moves, the damage it can do is constant and you're not sure where it is. 

Koontz writes something that can be scary, then does nothing with it. So instead of having a sense of danger you get nothing and move on. 

Recently a book I was disapointed by 
Snuff. by Terry Pratchett. 

Positives-it's still a discworld book
it's still well written 
it's still funny. 
it's still better than average

negatives- his disease is showing. 
His characters are becoming heavy handed, he repeats the same idea over and over, and yet there's not really a reason to. The character assures himself he is not evil, and yet he hasn't done something truly immoral in ages. 
It's just awkward and not quite right in comparison to his earlier works.


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## DarrylWolf (Apr 10, 2012)

Within the fandom, I feel that the works of Ben Goodridge, especially that book "Found: One Apocalypse" is pretty disappointing. I'm certain that his earlier collaborative works were wonderful but this novel was a mistake, somehow making space opera boring which is quite an accomplishment. It was filled with ham-fisted and heavy-handed metaphors about class warfare and, while I can understand his idea of mixing comical space pirates with some overbearing evil organization, it just made it impossible for us to take the book as seriously as it takes itself- almost like an Ed Wood Jr. space movie converted to print with animals. Goodridge even uses the term "Anthro" to tell us what we would have already guessed from the start- the book has anthro animals. Now, I've heard (from Graveyard Gred, no less) the sequel "Class Struggle" is much improved from his first book, even as it retains the major characters. So I guess the first book was a learning experience and maybe, he'll get better as time goes on and he's gotten a much better editor. If you're going to write your book full of ham and cheese, then it better be Boar's Head and real cheddar, rather than Velveeta and SPAM.

The other Furry fandom writers whose works could have used some fine-tuning was DJ Fahl and his "Save the Day" book. For a superhero novel that focuses on one (coyote)-man's personal struggles, more than 350 pages and most of it is filled with the next villain of the week, describing a bunch of battles with characters who might have been better served with their own short stories. And there were spelling mistakes and grammar errors that no editor should miss. And why can't a gay superhero find any acceptance in a West Coast like Portland, Oregon anyway, which has a real-life gay mayor? Ignoring that and the book's length, you have a fairly good though serviceable story and I await a hopeful sequel.

I just hope that the authors don't take offense with the negative reviews and I may end up meeting them at a convention so I'm going to say that most writers, like athletes get better as their careers go on. And this should be no different.


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## Gucci Mane (Apr 30, 2012)

how about everyone in my graduating class who is an english major (less like 2 people) 
i write like hot garbage on a cold day but goodness me oh my

dont write about the first time you had sex/tried acid/listened to animal collective (the last one in particular. dont say animal collective in your story. dont say it. dont.)


on a related note why do all the writers/english majors here have such fuckin awful taste 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			




(its actually not a mystery)


especially le renard whaa whaa melville suxxx whitman suxxx anyone in the new yorker suxxxx im a fuckin faggadoccio french look at my french name hey ho over here


read celine and get bent asslord


cram it up your wordhole

you know why proust died after he finished a la recherche du temps perdu 
because his body knew he had said everything he needed to
stop writing
stop
dont write lots of words 
write a few words and then dont write anymore 
fuck


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## Zenia (Apr 30, 2012)

After waiting for ages, the last book in the Earths Children series FINALLY came out (it was book 6, the first one 'Clan of the Cave Bear' was published in 1980). Jean M Auel was so great at the first 5 books... but the 6th one sounds like someone else probably wrote it. It sounds like barely adequate fanfiction. Of the series, I have read all the other books at least 10 to 15 times, but I've only read the last one once. 

Another one that disappointed me was when the LJ Smith series 'The Vampire Diaries' (the TV show is totally inaccurate and sucks, btw) came out with two new books. I can tell that they were just written to cash in on the current vampire craze, and that they were done by a ghost writer. They have none of Smiths style and read like BAD fanfiction. Seriously, the villians in it are Japanese spirits (kitsune) and the main characters have to travel to some magical supernatural world (that was never alluded to in the original 4 books) to save Stefan. A few times the girls get fancy dresses that are dripping with jewels. Honestly, it is so terrible. I only own it because it was a Christmas present.


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## Conker (Apr 30, 2012)

Man, I really like Lovecraft, despite his obvious racism. I'm currently going through his early stuff, and while there are problems with it, I feel like he has some interesting ideas. I like his style, though it took a bit of getting used to.

Shit I was disappointed with:

Travis S Taylor. He cowrote some sci fi novels with John Ringo that I really liked, but his standalone work is shit. I bought four books at a goingoutofbusiness sale, and they are all really bad. They are so clearly aimed at tweens that...ugh. It was painful getting through them  "Look, the robot can transform into a plane AND some goofy thing with arms and wings BECAUSE I SAID SO" For a book trying to work define itself with hard science and military shit, that doesn't make any fucking sense on any conceivable level. It's like reading a bad anime. 

Oh, pretty much anything by Hawthorne. Man, I cannot stand that guy. I think I ended up skipping every other paragraph in _The Marble Faun_. He's just so fucking boring. 

Oh, and the Twilight books for obvious reasons :3

And God could have done a better job with the Bible


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## Smelge (Apr 30, 2012)

Laurell K Hamilton and the Anita Blake series. It started off with a pretty decent concept, brought some new stuff to the whole vampire/zombie/werewolf thing, and had a strong lead character. Then over the course of the series the things that made it special started disappearing, Anita started becoming an author insert, and it went from horror/action to Anita fucking literally every moving thing in the book. I'm not even exaggerating here. I bought one of the more recent books in the hopes that it had gone back to how it used to be. It started with a sex scene, a few pages of story to set up the plot, which was then not mentioned for over 300 pages because everything in between was her shagging pretty much every member of the cast. In the end, it was about 550 pages long and had maybe 30 pages of story. The rest was just sex.

I'm not saying that sex in books is bad, but the amount of it in there just makes you hit overload. You no longer care and start flicking ahead to try and find something more interesting. You don't care how good it makes her feel when yet another giganto-cocked character bumps her fucking cervix. You just want it to stop and give you some actual fucking story.


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## drpickelle (May 2, 2012)

The author that let me down the most, was K.A. Applegate. 'The Animorphs' was my favorite series when I was a kid. Ordered the newest one on every fucking book list, and even worked to complete the series as a teen, so I could pass them off to some other kid some day, and spread the awesome adventures around.

WELL.

The series ends horribly-- and she kills off all the fucking characters. Not to mention that she puts the first chapter of her next series in the back of the last book. The last thing you want to read, when your a kid who's bawling their eyes out because their heroes just died in a tragic space ship ramming... is an insert for what the author hopes to take your money on next-- a book about survivors in space after an attack. :V

Not to mention, I found out later, that she didn't even write half of the books-- she hired ghost writers. 

K.A Applegate... you broke my heart.


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## Conker (May 3, 2012)

drpickelle said:


> The author that let me down the most, was K.A. Applegate. 'The Animorphs' was my favorite series when I was a kid. Ordered the newest one on every fucking book list, and even worked to complete the series as a teen, so I could pass them off to some other kid some day, and spread the awesome adventures around.
> 
> WELL.
> 
> ...


Aw, I remember those books. That series went on for so long, but I read them all anyways. The ending was pretty shitty, though I dunno if she was going for "they all die" or just an ambiguous one. I remember one of the people saying "RAM THAT SHIP" and then it ends. The odds of them all dying form that are pretty great though.

@Bold. Is that really true? If so, then fuck that bitch.


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## BRN (May 4, 2012)

Conker said:


> Aw, I remember those books. That series went on for so long, but I read them all anyways. The ending was pretty shitty, though I dunno if she was going for "they all die" or just an ambiguous one. I remember one of the people saying "RAM THAT SHIP" and then it ends. The odds of them all dying form that are pretty great though.
> 
> @Bold. Is that really true? If so, then fuck that bitch.


Are you serious? D: 

Tobias' permanent transformation was a hell of a sad thing in my childhood and I think I read 'em all up to (possibly #19) - that was a great series.

I guess I'll just keep my memories instead of seeking them out =x


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## Conker (May 6, 2012)

SIX said:


> Are you serious? D:
> 
> Tobias' permanent transformation was a hell of a sad thing in my childhood and I think I read 'em all up to (possibly #19) - that was a great series.
> 
> I guess I'll just keep my memories instead of seeking them out =x


Yeah, there were like fifty some books to. Shit went on forever. At one point they rescued some of those big green aliens and had like a camp of them on Earth. I don't remember much else though


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## Conker (May 11, 2012)

I nominate Suzanne Collins, author of _The Hunger Games_. That book kind of sucked. I really wanted to like it too, but no dice. Writing quality was generally poor, characters were unlikeable, the world's continuity was kind of all over the place, and just general other things. The ending was kind of stupid, and there was this shoehorned romance side plot that was all kinds of annoying.


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## Ikrit (May 11, 2012)

so far the only book i was disapointed in was inheritance

i really didn't expect waiting till collage to finish reading the eragon series...witch i started in middle school


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## Gucci Mane (May 18, 2012)

robert frost (i hate him i hate i hate him)

_


			
				robert frost said:
			
		


			Iâ€™d like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
*One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.*

Click to expand...

_
*yeah
one could be robert frost
you shit
rest in pee-pee
*
anyone who writes about "new england" i am probably going to not like
which kind of includes lovecraft


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## Batty Krueger (May 18, 2012)

I didn't like the latest gersberms D:


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## aqxsl (Jun 1, 2012)

Ooh, this a good topic!

First of all, I agree with whoever said Dean Koontz; I made it three pages into one his books and was like "welp, fuck this".  Somehow he manages to pull of a more terrible Stephen King

I was majorly disappointed with Neil Gaiman myself, particularily with American Gods (the only thing of his that I "read").  The hype surrounding that man is beyond me.

This comparison might seem like a bit of a stretch, but his style of writing reminded me of Michael Bay's style of directing, but just more pretentious.  Every theme was so non-subtle/in your face and dumbly reiterated to the point where I found myself saying statements along the lines of: "alright I get what your saying!  For the love of god, I get it!".  Definitely babby's first "dark + deep" novel.

One thing in particular that drove me insane was the way in which EVERY character would at some point say to the main character "there's a storm a cumming" or "hasn't been a storm like this in centuries" etc...  Maybe I'm just being an ass, but this is so cliche/overused that it's almost ironic to use it these days...


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## Stratto the Hawk (Jun 1, 2012)

Pirate Latitudes - Michael Crichton

I love Crichton as a writer, and his novels have always been fascinating to read, but this... this book just shouldn't have seen the light of day considering the circumstances surrounding its release.  

- Interesting concept, but completely out of character for him
- Many of the characters seemed rather flat
- Very similar to Pirates of the Caribbean without any of the charm
- Lacked much of Crichton's usual story telling devices
- Overall, it felt like Crichton's loved ones decided to cash in on a "lost treasure" and released a half-finished novel that Crichton himself never wanted to see the light of day

Mortal Coils - Eric Nylund

OK, I know that I'm going to get flak for this, but the reason I was even remotely interested in this book was because I had read Nylund's work via a couple of Halo novels. In my opinion, he did a pretty good job of telling a story, and was never terribly long winded about what was going on. In general, I was expecting some reasonable pacing and a good story to go along with it, but this just failed to deliver on quite a few levels.

- Can create some interesting characters, and can even show some development, but in many ways, some of the characters don't really endear themselves to me 
- The plot is incredibly slow moving and once it finally picks up, it goes back to the same general setting that it's been in for something on the order of 150 pages
- Major plot points get developed, but never go anywhere particularly fast; he seems to be content to espouse their entire life stories and keep the plot relatively stagnant


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## Batty Krueger (Jun 1, 2012)

Haha I lov that bit in family guy where Brian runs over a guy and goes omg are you Steven king?no I'm dean koontz! Then Brian runs him over a few more times lol.


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## aqxsl (Jun 11, 2012)

I was also gravely disappointed with Haruki Murakami; but I was probably too hyped and the bar was set impossibly high.

I got Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World after hearing the rave reviews and the fact that it contains everything I love (surrealism, noir, cyberpunk,...).  Maybe it was the translation I had, but it was very "engrish-ey" and it took away from surrealism.  I'm all for a bizarre writing-style if intentional, but this just seemed google-translated and was only bizarre in the "strangely off and bad" phrasing of things, not the story content.


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## Conker (Jun 11, 2012)

Gucci Mane said:


> robert frost (i hate him i hate i hate him)
> 
> _
> 
> ...


_
D:

You heathen.

I love Robert Frost._


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## DarrylWolf (Jun 12, 2012)

Christopher Paolini. I read about how a young writer from Mormon Country became really popular and I remember thinking that if he dabbles in fantasy, surely he must have some original ideas about the genre, else he would not have been so coronated by the media. Then I realized that having your dad in the publication industry basically amounts to owning a vanity (and in some sad way, a money) press, where such things as "plagiarism" don't really matter. At least SMeyer had to be persistent when she foisted "Twilight" onto an unsuspecting world. He rewrote the movie "Star Wars" in a renamed Middle Earth wannabe land with names lifted from the epic poem _Beowulf_. Plot points, like crossing a bridge owned by a greedy troll and stealing his money were borrowed from David Eddings' "Ruby Knight", the idea of a golden symbol etched into the hand that enables Eragon to perform magic and summons dragons comes from the Triforce in "The Legend of Zelda" video game series, and Eragon falling in love with a long-lived elven woman means Paolini thought Strider was a very awesome character.

I guess the Eragon series is useful- if you don't have time or are too lazy to look at many good original books/movies/video games in the fantasy/SF genre, then this mediocre plagiarism is good enough for you. And while ripping off one author is criminal, ripping off a bunch is a guaranteed way to make millions.


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## Stratto the Hawk (Jun 15, 2012)

drpickelle said:


> *The series ends horribly-- and she kills off all the fucking characters.* Not to mention that she puts the first chapter of her next series in the back of the last book. The last thing you want to read, when your a kid who's bawling their eyes out because their heroes just died in a tragic space ship ramming... is an insert for what the author hopes to take your money on next-- a book about survivors in space after an attack. :V



Errr, no she didn't (regarding bolded text).



Spoiler: Major Animorphs plot points and ending] She killed off Rachel (who was probably one of the weakest characters in the entire series. She advanced the plot to about 2 or 3 years after the main portion of the series to a point where most of the loose ends get tied up. And then she set up a situation in which the series intentionally ends on a cliffhanger so that fans could write shitty fan-fics. If you would bother to even look at the last chapter of #54, you'd find that most of the characters are still alive and well.[/SPOILER]

[quote="Conker, post: 2917144



Aw, I remember those books. That series went on for so long, but I read them all anyways. The ending was pretty shitty, though I dunno if she was going for "they all die" or just an ambiguous one. I remember one of the people saying "RAM THAT SHIP" and then it ends. The odds of them all dying form that are pretty great though.

@Bold. Is that really true? If so, then fuck that bitch.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, the ending is ambiguous and doesn't really lend itself either way. Like I said, I'm pretty sure it was meant as a way to ask the fans to fill in the gaps for themselves and write shitty fanfics.

And yes, she used ghost writers a lot during later parts of the series. Honestly doesn't matter to me. I'd imagine she'd have to in order to release them in such time frames (I think the series ran from like 1997-2001, so 54 books over the course of about 4 years is a lot).



SIX said:


> Are you serious? D:
> 
> Tobias' permanent transformation was a hell of a sad thing in my childhood and I think I read 'em all up to (possibly #19) - that was a great series.
> 
> I guess I'll just keep my memories instead of seeking them out =x



I loved the series as a kid and actually reread a lot of them about a year and a half ago. Mostly, I read the ones with Tobias and Jake as the narrators. I hate to say it, but most of the other characters were just so poorly developed that it's hard to actually read through them. Ax is interesting, but his narration style gets irritating. Marco is kind of a dick and difficult to take anything he says seriously. Rachel's a bitch and is difficult to sympathize with. And Cassie's just... dull. She's pretty much the embodiment of PETA within the series and everything that happens around her just devolves into "how does this affect X?"

I love Tobias though; there's a reason that I'm a hawk, and he's it. His narrations are all very visceral and engaging, and his character is actually fairly dynamic and changes pretty significantly from start to finish.

So yeah, I'm disappointed with the series, but I still love it regardless.


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## Earth Rio (Jun 24, 2012)

I would have to say the Inheritace Cycle. Although Eragon itself was excellent, Eldest was okay, Brisingr (despite the awesome title) was meh, and Inheritance, I found, was extremely boring, awful, and repetitive. I gave up reading it halfway through, and haven't picked it up since. I lost all faith in Paolini from there.

(Although I can't say my own writing's any good... it may be to some, but what I have is awful.)


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## Mullerornis (Jun 24, 2012)

Narnia.

Positives:

- Nothing. Absofuckinglutely nothing.

Negatives:

- Everything.


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## Conker (Jun 24, 2012)

Mullerornis said:


> Narnia.
> 
> Positives:
> 
> ...


I took one of those specific style college classes. We read/studied all of the Narnia books, and other works by C.S. Lewis. 

I like Narnia, but some of his other books are really hard to get through :\


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## Stratto the Hawk (Jun 27, 2012)

> I would have to say the Inheritace Cycle. Although Eragon itself was  excellent, Eldest was okay, Brisingr (despite the awesome title) was  meh, and Inheritance, I found, was extremely boring, awful, and  repetitive. I gave up reading it halfway through, and haven't picked it  up since. I lost all faith in Paolini from there.
> 
> (Although I can't say my own writing's any good... it may be to some, but what I have is awful.)



I'm still reading Inheritance. :/

What kills me about Paolini is that he's _so _detailed and wordy about everything that goes on in his books, but he never really _says_ anything. I love that he's willing to develop his universe, but I hate that he seems to think that "developing" means "detailing every little minute of obscure and pointless phenomena within certain cultures." He could have easily taken out the entire middle section of Brisingr and replaced it with a relatively quick summary of events and saved himself roughly 400 pages of text.

In a way, it's sort of the same problem I had reading The Fellowship of the Ring (and to a much greater extent, Atlas Shrugged).


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## Imago (Mar 3, 2016)

Jean M. Auel

When I got to the final book in the Earth's Children series I wanted to throw it in the trash! It's like she forgot her own characters I would swear someone else wrote it!


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## Fopfox (Apr 1, 2016)

The Black Company.

I kept getting this recommended by my online friends and it sounded right up my alley. They warned me, just read the original trilogy, the rest is garbage.

Pros:

-Concept was good. A realistic mercenary company in a grim fantasy world.

Cons:

-Dull prose. And if you take a look in my sig, you'll find my work, I have the same problem. But it was really bad in this book.
-Dull characters.
-Forgettable plot. Biggest issue, I cannot remember what happens in the first book.


I only read the first book, despite having a three book collection.


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## Vatinyan (Apr 18, 2016)

Hm one I can think of atm is Richard A. Knaak. I remembered reading a couple of his Dragonlance books as a kid, and loving them. So a couple of years ago I tried to go for his Warcraft books, having high hopes.

Man, they were dull. A decent story was in there, but it was told in such a boring way, and with way too much unnecessary bloat :/
Maybe my standards have just changed, or he used to write better stuff....


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## aefields (Apr 20, 2016)

aqxsl said:


> Ooh, this a good topic!
> 
> I was majorly disappointed with Neil Gaiman myself, particularily with American Gods (the only thing of his that I "read").  The hype surrounding that man is beyond me.



American Gods disappointed me, too.  Likewise 'Anansi Boys'.  But everything else of his I've liked, loved, or better    Luckily for me, I got ahold of some of his best work as my introduction.

The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen R. Donaldson.  The first chronicles was the best, the second chronicles was still awesome, but the third was a disappointment right from the first part of book one.  Bad time "paradox".  Ugh.  It's been done to death, and usually the wrong way, as with this.


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