Authors that SHOULD HAVE wandered off mid series

[Penfeather]

Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon Chronicles. Started off terrifically, with

[Darren_Garrison]

Wow, Penfeather wandered off mid-post.

[Shalmanese]

Orson Scott Card wandered definitively into the deep end post 9/11 and his continual attempts to expand the Enderverse have gotten steadily worse. I remember checking out one of his latest attempts out of sheer morbid curiosity and saliently remember one plot point which is that a miner from Pluto had to stow away in a mining capsule on a trip back to earth to send a message and realized halfway through the trip that the capsule didn’t have sufficient shielding so he slowed the capsule down to a complete halt so he could go outside and add more shielding.

I remember thinking that it really is quite difficult to outdo yourself in dumbness when your last book was about how Democrats were sending giant bipedal killer robots onto the streets of New York after a coup to assassinate the president but somehow, he managed it.

[Darren_Garrison]

@Shalmanese

I remember thinking that it really is quite difficult to outdo yourself in dumbness when your last book was about how Democrats were sending giant bipedal killer robots onto the streets of New York after a coup to assassinate the president but somehow, he managed it.

Okay, which book was that?

[Shalmanese]

@Darren_Garrison

Okay, which book was that?

According to Wikipedia, it’s Empire (2006). The relevant plot summary:

While Malich is being debriefed at the Pentagon, Coleman is asked to participate in a right wing coup to correct the existing government. Coleman recounts the meeting on live television and retreats to Malich’s side in New Jersey. The next morning they both decide to take a borrowed SUV to Ground Zero. They are caught in an uprising led by high tech mechs that fire on anyone wearing uniforms. After rescuing a squad of New York Police officers, they escape on foot via the Holland Tunnel to New Jersey where they collaborate with the National Guard to repel a horde of the mechanized warriors. Two Air Force F-16 jets are shot down into New York Harbor, one hitting the gown of the Statue of Liberty.