# Authors/Writers/Creators that Should Lose the Right to Write **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 13, 2004, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-writers-creators-that-should-lose-the-right-to-write/244993 "2004-05-13T18:38:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-writers-creators-that-should-lose-the-right-to-write/244993/41 "2004-05-14T02:11:24Z")
> [@HPL](#): > > I haven’t reas von daniken, but I wonder…Is “Chariots of the Gods” better if you pretend it was supposed to be fiction? Hmmm… :dubious: Nope, it´s crap whichever way you look at it; but keep in mind that I read the book when I was twelve, so it may even be worse than I remember it. ---
**Author:** ![Master\_Wang-Ka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/master_wang-ka/32/3325_2.png) [@Master\_Wang-Ka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Master_Wang-Ka)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-writers-creators-that-should-lose-the-right-to-write/244993/42 "2004-05-14T02:16:41Z")
Man, talk about “fish in a barrel.” **L. Ron Hubbard** : A not-bad writer of pulp fiction, he found religion but lost his talent. Whatthehell, he died rich. But I had to force myself to finish _Battlefield Earth_, and I think the movie actually did the book justice; the book stank, remarkably, and so did the movie. **George Lucas** : A not-bad maker of small, personal films, once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away; today, he stands largely as a living example that once you have a certain amount of money, you can do any damn thing you want, and no one can tell you anything. **John Byrne** : Well, I still like his art. On the other hand, both he and **Chris Claremont** aren’t the writers they used to be. Or something. What the hell happened to these two? When I read the sequel to Willow that Claremont wrote, I was quite sure the man had gone insane, and he seems to have taken Byrne with him… **Stephen King** : A writer of excellent horror fiction, once upon a time, he now stands largely as a living example that once you have a certain amount of money, you can do any damn thing you want, and no one can tell you anything. **Robert Jordan** : Interestingly enough, I’ve read some of Jordan’s early work, and I don’t think he’s gotten any worse. He’s ALWAYS been a mediocre writer. I think he just realized early how many people were getting really wound up in his Wheel Of Time series, and he’s stretching it out to pay off the mortgage and the kids’ orthodontist bills before he finally has to put paid to it and drift off into obscurity… **David and Leigh Eddings** : Well, I liked the _Belgariad_. It wasn’t bad. It was different. It wasn’t a \*Lord Of The Rings \* ripoff. Then, when I read the _Malloreon_, I thought, “Gee, aren’t we just kind of retelling the same basic story, here, with a few new characters and a coupla plot twists?” And then, I read the Sparhawk books, and thought, “Gee, this reads quite a bit like The Malloreon…” …and about then, I discovered \*Belgarath The Sorcerer \* and _Polgara The Sorceress_, in which they retell the _Belgariad_ all over again from two other points of view… …and I thought, “Why am I reading this crap over and over again? Someone fill me in, here…” _Anne Rice_: See the entry for **David and Leigh Eddings** … ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-writers-creators-that-should-lose-the-right-to-write/244993/43 "2004-05-14T02:29:24Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > **Tom Clancy** > > Created: The Jack Ryan series, Rainbow 6 > > The Offense: Everything released by him after _Executive Orders_, _Rainbow Six_ at the latest. > > Punishment: Should be forced to read Harry Turtledove. > > While Clancy isn’t the most literary of figures even at his best, he is still pretty compelling. However, I’m nigh on certain that the last couple of books (Bear and Dragon, Red Rabbit) released with his byline are either: > > 1. Contract-obligation crapola written while hung over. > > or > > 1. Written by somebody else entirely. > > The books (and style) are _that_ different. I’ll have to agree. I was a big Clancy fan for a long time, but after executive orders, my interest has waned considerably. I hoped _Rainbow 6_ was a fluke(it wasn’t),struggled through Yellow Sausage Risin…er, _The bear and the Dragon_ and haven’t bothered to read _Red Rabbit_(despite the fact I got it for free). ---
**Author:** ![Doomtrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Doomtrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doomtrain)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-writers-creators-that-should-lose-the-right-to-write/244993/44 "2004-05-14T02:31:03Z")
> [@Priam](#): > > Harry Turtledove isn’t a bad writer if you have a love for history and environment more than characters, because damn he can’t write those for anything. I especially like the Videssos cycle of stuff for the simple reason that he really seems to firmly know what he’s talking about there. Its not alternative history where he actually has to make up a lot of his characters, but fantasy the copycats off real history from whence he can filch a lot of historical characters and pretend like they’re his. See, I like Turtledove, but he is so fucking uneven, in terms of quality. Guns of the South and The Great War series are really good and he’s held the momentum well into the rise of “Southern Nazi-ism”, though I haven’t read the last couple of books. But I started that Darkness series of his and quit before I got ten pages in. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-writers-creators-that-should-lose-the-right-to-write/244993/45 "2004-05-14T02:37:37Z")
**Dan Brown**. Good lord, I’m not sure why I’m reading _Angels and Demons_ or _Demons and Bikers and Pirates_ (no, that was probably an S Clay Wilson comic and it was no doubt brilliant) or whatever it’s called because that boy cannot write! Maybe I’m reading it in the vain hope that _The DaVinci Code_ (no, I have paid for neither) sux less. Kids, read _Illuminatus_ and get the conspiracies out of your system with something that only sux a lot rather than creating a planet-sized ball of suckitude. I will second **Michael Crichton**. Poorly plotted and all of the characters speak in an identical monotone. ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-writers-creators-that-should-lose-the-right-to-write/244993/46 "2004-05-14T03:24:36Z")
Colleen McCulloch of _The Thorn Birds_ infamy. I know it’s a been a while but some things just stick in your craw. Sylvia Plath The entire self-help genre Justice Antonin Scalia ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-writers-creators-that-should-lose-the-right-to-write/244993/47 "2004-05-14T04:55:58Z")
Gee, all the fantasy titles/authors in this thread and no one has mentioned Terry Brooks? Created: (Several novels, although the word “created” seems out of place.) Offense: Never publishing a novel someone else had not already written and published–only written better. ---
**Author:** ![mike1dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@mike1dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mike1dog)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-writers-creators-that-should-lose-the-right-to-write/244993/48 "2004-05-14T04:56:55Z")
**Steven Brust.** Actually my problem with Brust is the ridiculous way the characters talk in his latest books. You just want to beat them so they’ll talk like normal humans. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-writers-creators-that-should-lose-the-right-to-write/244993/49 "2004-05-14T05:11:17Z")
> [@mike1dog](#): > > **Steven Brust.** > > Actually my problem with Brust is the ridiculous way the characters talk in his latest books. You just want to beat them so they’ll talk like normal humans. Are you referring to the, oh shoot, I don’t remember the name of the series. The one that includes “Five Hundred Years Later”. If that’s the one you’re referring to, you DO know, don’t you, that he’s deliberately imitating the tone of Alexander Dumas’s Three Musketeers? I read the first one of that series right after reading Three Musketeers, and I thought he pulled it off surprisingly well. But, man, I was way burnt out on that style of language when I finished that book. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-writers-creators-that-should-lose-the-right-to-write/244993/50 "2004-05-14T07:31:45Z")
Re Stephen King’s It-Spoilers I was somewhat let down as well. But It isn’t a spider from space. IIRC The smoke lodge induced vision of the coming of It includes a spaceship only as a symbol that the kids can understand. It isn’t from space, but another dimension. This isn’t a case of Earth 1 and Earth 2 (or even Earth C). It’s home plane cannot be conceived or explained in human terms. It is alien in the sense of coming from an indescribable someplace else and having nothing in common with us. It is also not a spider. Most of the time, It has no physical form at all. But It must feed, and for that it must take on a physical form. It is a predator that laid a trap, waits for victims to get caught, and then devours them. It takes on the form of a spider because that’s the closest human concept to It’s true nature. IIRC When the kids face it in the house on Niebolt street, It escapes down a drain. Before It does ‘Beverley thought she saw a glimpse of the final mask. It was lean and menacing’ The spider isn’t the true face of It, just the last mask hiding behind the clown and all the others. Re Tic Toc- No Spoilers I liked it. The possibility of a happy ending is established on the cover “The Deadline Is Dawn”. If Phan can last that long, he’ll live. It isn’t a case of a happy ending coming from nowhere. The other elements of the happy ending are hinted at throughout the book. Re Douglas Adams No Spoilers I agree his work declined once he achieved sobriety. So Long and Mostly Harmless are IMHO good books. But the first three were great books. ---
**Author:** ![Snooooopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-writers-creators-that-should-lose-the-right-to-write/244993/51 "2004-05-14T07:48:03Z")
> [@This Year's Model](#): > > **Harry Turtledove** > > How many visions of alternate histories can one writer kick out? Keep an eye on Turtledove to find out. Churning out one after another after another. Stilted plots, wooden characters, and forced dialogue. What’s worse is the man can write a little bit when he takes the time and trouble to do so. Maybe he should be forced to write a series of books envisioning an alternate history in which his parents were never born. ---
**Author:** ![flight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbce88/32.png) [@flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flight)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-writers-creators-that-should-lose-the-right-to-write/244993/52 "2004-05-14T08:11:40Z")
Terry Goodkind was mentiond in passing as punishment for someone else, but he definitely deserves his own. Created: The Sword of Truth Series Crime: The Sword of Truth Series The first book wasn’t amazingly bad, though it wasn’t well written. Contained a little too much rape and torture for me, but I figured he was just trying to be gritty. Next book had a little more rape and torture… until he gets to the book that is entirely about a group of evil red leather wearing dominatrix women who’s entire purpose for being is rape and torture. No more than three pages between torture scenes. More explicit than The Passion. Punishment: I would say rape and torture him, but I honestly think he would enjoy it. This guy has serious issues with women. ---
**Author:** ![TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tellmei_mnotcrazy/32/3419_2.png) [@TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TellMeI_mNotCrazy)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-writers-creators-that-should-lose-the-right-to-write/244993/53 "2004-05-14T11:14:25Z")
> [@tanookie](#): > > RE: Stephen King > I do love the dark tower books!!! I could seriously have done without The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon though! I enjoyed the first 2/3 of Tom Gordon. The ending, I thought, was truly horrible. Unfortunately, that seems to be the case with so many of his works… Start off phenomenally good, and wither into absolute idiotic crap. Sometimes it seems to me that he was racing the deadline and just threw whatever ending came to mind after a night of eating burritos and drinking cheap beer. Not too long ago, I had a thread in Cafe Society asking if Stephen King Still Had “It”, because as **Master Wang-Ka** says, it is starting to look as if enough fame and longevity can buy you the ability to publish just about anything, no matter how crappy it is. Which I can understand, because there are certainly plenty of people like me who buy everything he writes, on the hopes that one day he’ll show signs of the Stephen King I once read and loved. Even if the next 20 books suck, I’ll be in line for the 20 beyond that. Just because he was good once. Unfortunately, “once” is getting farther and farther into the past. I nominate: Stephen R. Donaldson: Created: The First and Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant Crime: The First and Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant I wish I knew how to explain my bizarre love of this series (which is due for a third Chronicles soon). I just reread the First, and am now rereading the Second, and the impression this time is the same as every other time I’ve read it. It’s a phenomenal story that is written extremely badly. I swear the man used every word in the thesaurus for that book. I’m all for varied and even challenging vocabulary, but man, SRD, way to take it overboard. It’s the most conflicting love/hate relationship I’ve ever had with an author. It fascinates me as it repulses me. I can never put it down, but I can also never stop shaking my head. The man makes the metaphor look like the word “the” - finding two consecutive sentences without an “as if” metaphor is a challenge. His protagonists are insanely difficult to like, which I know is intentional, but it’s a little bit too succcessful. So there’s my self-contradicting nomination for this morning. Love him. Hate him. Can’t get enough. Punishment: Take away his thesaurus and make him read VC Andrews. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-writers-creators-that-should-lose-the-right-to-write/244993/54 "2004-05-14T12:19:28Z")
> [@TellMeI'mNotCrazy](#): > > Stephen R. Donaldson: > > Created: The First and Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant > Crime: The First and Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant > > I wish I knew how to explain my bizarre love of this series (which is due for a third Chronicles soon). A third series, are you sure? I’ve heard people talking of a third since the 80’s, so I figured it ain’t coming. Did you hear of this recently, from a reputable source? ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-writers-creators-that-should-lose-the-right-to-write/244993/55 "2004-05-14T12:35:52Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > A third series, are you sure? I’ve heard people talking of a third since the 80’s, so I figured it ain’t coming. Did you hear of this recently, from a reputable source? Eh, did my own searching (like I should have done in the beginning) and I see the next series will be: The Third Chronicles of Thomas Covenant 1. The Runes of the Earth 2. Fatal Revenant 3. Shall Pass Utterly 4. The Last Dark and the first book is scheduled to come out October 2004. This would have really jazzed me up 15/20 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![DogMom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9c0ed/32.png) [@DogMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DogMom)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-writers-creators-that-should-lose-the-right-to-write/244993/56 "2004-05-14T13:15:31Z")
I’d also like to nominate Stephen R. Donaldson, as well as Anne McCaffrey, for their “To Be Continued” novels. Donaldson’s “Mirror of Her Dreams” series (or whatever it’s called) was, I thought, well-written and a rather good book. Same with McC’s “Freedom” series. At least the FIRST two books of each were. After that I gave up. Dammit, authors, I’m not going to be willing to read through 600-plus pages of your Deathless Writings just to be confronted with a little note that says, _“to be continued in the next volume, which won’t be published for at least another year and don’t WE just have you on the hook, ha ha ha ha ha.”_ Forget it. You want to get your story across, don’t release the first one till the last one’s done. I mean, sheesh, at least the Harry Potter series has a resolution of the _immediate_ plotline at the end of each book. Oh, and Daniken’s stuff is just putrid. Trying to read it as fiction, humor, fantasy, total-wackjob-ravings…nothing helps. It’s still really really really BAD. ---
**Author:** ![JerH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bb73d2/32.png) [@JerH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JerH)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-writers-creators-that-should-lose-the-right-to-write/244993/57 "2004-05-14T13:38:56Z")
Not many non-authors seem to have made it onto this list… **Richard Linklater** Responsible for: _Dazed and Confused_,\* Before Sunrise\* Unforgiveable crime: _Waking Life_ Punishment: Being required to watch every single student film that features college students evaluating their life (in other words, every student film ever made) ---
**Author:** ![susan\_foster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@susan\_foster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan_foster)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-writers-creators-that-should-lose-the-right-to-write/244993/58 "2004-05-14T13:49:54Z")
**Laurell K Hamilton** Responsible for : Anita Blake/Merry Gentry Series Offense: Burnt Offerings, every AB book after Blue Moon, Seduced by Moonlight Okay - the first books of the series were good - not great literature, but enjoyable. Love triangles can be fun - and I know that they can get a bit boring unless the heroine picks her man (or creature, as it would be). But c’mon - just because Anita falls in bed with one man doesn’t mean she has to fall in bed with every man who crosses her path! And Merry is even worse - SbM is 99% sex, with a plot thrown in in the last 10 pages. And guess what - copy and pasting descriptions of characters from previous books does not make good writing! Susan ---
**Author:** ![TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tellmei_mnotcrazy/32/3419_2.png) [@TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TellMeI_mNotCrazy)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-writers-creators-that-should-lose-the-right-to-write/244993/59 "2004-05-14T14:02:17Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > A third series, are you sure? I’ve heard people talking of a third since the 80’s, so I figured it ain’t coming. Did you hear of this recently, from a reputable source? Straight from the horse’s er… [website](http://www.stephenrdonaldson.com)… ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2004, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-writers-creators-that-should-lose-the-right-to-write/244993/60 "2004-05-14T15:22:36Z")
> [@DogMom](#): > > I’d also like to nominate Stephen R. Donaldson, as well as Anne McCaffrey, for their “To Be Continued” novels. > > Donaldson’s “Mirror of Her Dreams” series (or whatever it’s called) was, I thought, well-written and a rather good book. Same with McC’s “Freedom” series. At least the FIRST two books of each were. After that I gave up. There only were two books in the “Mirror Of Her Dreams” series (actually called “Mordant’s Need”). I recall the story ending quite satisfyingly, too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-writers-creators-that-should-lose-the-right-to-write/244993.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-writers-creators-that-should-lose-the-right-to-write/244993.md?page=4)