I got turned off Cornwell’s series fast, because it seemed like the protagonists spent an inordinate amount of time conversing over lunch and comparatively little doing anything.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with describing delicious food in the course of a novel, if you don’t get carried away. For example, the Pendergast series by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child goes into mouthwatering detail about fabulous buffet spreads set out for the grand opening of exhibits at the New York Museum of Natural History, and I’d be envious of the characters who got to load up their plates with expensive delicacies.
I haven’t actually read anything since the first Harry Potter series, so that comment was based on what my friends have told me. And yes, they are biased. But they may be referring to this:
Such a tiny part of book. Also, in the world of the book, shown to be untrue.
Also, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has been revised over time to be more explicitly queer and affirmative.
She’s wound up in a polarized position. I don’t agree with her, but she’s so LGBTQ+ affirmative in other areas of her writing and statements that, while she is accountable for herself, compared to the horrors we are experiencing daily in the US from hateful conservative politicians, going after Rowling seems like ripping apart people mostly in the ally camp rather than turning attention to, say, homophobic Orson Scott Card (another author who can’t sustain a series).
I think a lot of the reason for the hatred (and i have trans friends who hate her bitterly) is that she initially appeared to be an ally, and ex-fans feel betrayed.
But completely ignoring anything she did after the first Harry Potter series, i was really disappointed by the later books in that series. They so desperately would have benefited from editing. I think she’s a poster child for this thread.
Definitely agreed with this. I found the first three HP books to be tremendously enjoyable and charming. As the series went on, the books got longer and loooonger (and were likely increasingly immune from serious editing), and I’ve always believed that she didn’t actually have a good idea of how to complete the series’ story arc, which led to the later books bringing in new, complex themes (like the Horcruxes and the Deathly Hallows) in an attempt to get over the finish line.
I thought that the odd thing is that after all the (original series) Harry Potter books had been published, in replying to someone’s question, she said that Dumbledore is gay. There’s nothing in the books that shows this to be true or false. There’s nothing explicitly saying in the books that there’s anything wrong with transexuals. She got some criticism from some conservatives about Dumbledore being gay. She got some criticism from liberals about her views on transexuals. I don’t consider it even worthwhile to discuss her political views, since her being a good (but not great) author doesn’t make her an expert on homosexuality or transexuality.
I read that book. It is not a political screed; it is a murder mystery, it is pretty good (in terms of being able to keep “it” up), and “a popular cartoonist is harassed and killed after her work is criticized as transphobic” is an utterly inaccurate synopsis.
People’s problem with Joanne Rowling (this is coming from a trans friend, so take it as someone’s perception/opinion, not as fact-checked) is that she actively and publicly supports anti-Semitic and anti-trans organisations and/or movements [a recent computer game was also mentioned as having anti-semitic portrayals], not that her books are shit.
Well, i didn’t love her work so much that i need to read more of it. I think the last 4 Harry Potter books (which don’t touch “trans” issues at all and certainly aren’t transphobic) firmly qualify her for “can’t keep it up”. They are long and rambling, have huge plot holes, and just aren’t as good as the earlier books.
Would have sworn I had commented on the following in either this thread or a related one, but zero hits on search, oh well…
C. J. Cherryh never did a 5th book in the Morgaine series, and, seeing as how her web site/blog has been totally inactive in a number of years now, she likely won’t. Not terribly surprising, as some other people went through the gate with Morgaine and Vayne at the end of Exile’s Gate, and she may have simply felt like the story couldn’t go anywhere else interesting if these other characters weren’t very compelling.
I am one of that rare breed of Dark Tower fans. It’s pretty unusual to hear anyone say the FIRST book was the best. I would say it’s my least favorite of the series. 2-5 were great, 6-7 really could have been one book. It felt like towards the end they were just encountering random baddies that didn’t really have much to do with the overall story arc of the series. And everyone would have been better off if he had worked through his post-traumatic issues with a therapist rather than with his readers.
I too find it hard to imagine who is reading those 44 Xanth books (I gave up around #9). The target readership would seem to be nerdy adolescent boys, but no kid that I know has ever heard of the series.
No right or wrong answers here, but I don’t think I’ve ever before heard anyone claim that the Harry Potter series went downhill as it went on.
That’s interesting and maybe a topic for another thread. I’m as anti-colonialist as the next guy, but I never really picked on that as a theme of the books. The bit about the house-elves (except Dobby) being happy and grateful to be basically slaves was definitely squicky, though.
LHoD, aren’t you a teacher? Do you see kids reading Xanth books today? (open question to all teachers, librarians, etc)
I’ve never seen any of my students reading them, but then they are written for younger readers than mine. The seniors are too busy reading Into the Wild and Twelfth Night.
The highest grade I teach is fifth, and that’s the grade where I started reading Xanth, and oh hell no. I can’t believe my mom–who read several of the Xanth novels when I was reading them–didn’t yank them out of my hand. They are so gross.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure most of Piers Anthony’s fanbase these days is creepy pedophile-adjacent types. Some of his earlier works were okay, but they just kept getting worse, until it was pretty hard to ignore the creeper elements.
I heard some people say it after Goblet of Fire came out - that it was too bloated and they wondered if editors were afraid to actually edit after how popular the work got. This as on an HP mailing list (I think Onelist or something like that - can’t recall when it became YahooGroups).
And there was a few things set up that seemed like they’d pay off in the last book, and didn’t.
Structurally, they became different, too, of course. The later ones weren’t mysteries in the same way as the early ones. Took some other turns I didn’t much care for, but it was things that didn’t pay off that disappointed me. I thought there was a real chance of the world changing (in a way the real world doesn’t) when the species discrimination was talked about and with the Sorting Hat talking about the way sorting might bring about the terrible end (can’t recall the exact phrase), I thought they might get rid of sorting, which sort of pigeon-holed kids as (at least probably) evil as at 11, but then it didn’t happen. That thread was never again addressed so far as I recall.
I may be misremembering, as I haven’t read a one since the last one came out. I remember both 6 and 7 were a disappointment to me, and I know I read 7 only the once (can’t recall for 6). Five was bleaker than the others, but I did read it several times. Oddly, I can remember the name of the first four, but can’t remember the last three, and you’d think I’d have book 5 grouped with the first four, but I didn’t, I guess.