The “Takings” opinion? 
- ::: d & r ::: *
What WOULD all you literary critics consider “good”? (and I’m not saying that some of those nominated aren’t for good reasons).
I’m just curious here. If I remember my creative writing courses, there are only about 200 storylines PERIOD for fiction.
What makes a book “bad”? So far I’ve seen a lot of “it sucked” and “a F#@#$#@ Spider???” But no real hard REASONS why this or that book “sucked”.
And yeah, I’ve come across a few books I hated, but for the most part, I look at it sort of on a par with food.
Some books are “junk food” books, just fun and nonsense, and some are good “nutritional” books like maybe Marcus Aurelius.
So anyway, what IS it that folks expect out of pulp fiction??? The greatest entertainment experience known to the universe?
Just a few hours of interest or guilty pleasure? What?
Her punishment? All of her subsequent novels must start with the letter “X.”
I have to add to the Tom Clancy bashing.
I made it through all of them. Even Red Rabbit. I am ok with a few hundred pages of crap, because it makes you remenisce a bit about what Clancy once was… but fuck a duck, Teeth of the Tiger… From the first chapter, I knew almost exactly how it would end. It was as if he took chapters from every other book, and stapled them together. I think towards the back there was a little tidbit that said, “want to write books like this? Order our simple and easy to use formula!”
Thanks for agreeing with me. The way people talk about her, I wonder if I’m missing something. Let’s just hope that she at least stops when she reaches “Z.”
If you think Patricia Cromwell’s fiction is bad, try reading her “true” :eek: book on Jack the Ripper. Oi. Her punishment should be to meet up with the real Ripper in the afterlife.
What, you’re asking for a consensus? I doubt that anyone who’s posted to this thread hasn’t seen at least one author they feel doesn’t deserve to be listed here. For me, it’s Stephen R. Donaldson. Great writer, one of my favorites. Other people don’t like him. Whatever. No work of art ever made has universal appeal. There are intelligent, educated, literate people who don’t like Shakespeare. While you can intellectualize about the whys and wherefors, in the end it all comes down to viscera: you either like it, or you don’t. The explanations come afterwards.
Two hundred? Try sixty-nine, tops. Personally, I say there are only two: the good guys win, or the good guys lose. Not that it has any real bearing on the topic at hand. Books can be bad for reasons other than unoriginality.
You’re looking for a debate thread. This is a bitch thread. Subtle difference.
A fair analogy, but let’s take it a step further: some books are rotten. They’re all soggy, with green fuzz on top, and reading them makes you feel sick.
Speaking only for myself, I expect them not to suck. I expect characters who are minimally interesting, action that is remotely plausible (possible I can take or leave), and a writing style that is at least somewhat above that of a sixth grader. It’s really quite surprising how many authors fail to meet that minimum requirement. Piers Anthony, for example, has failed to meet it more often than any other writer in history, living or dead.
I thought the writing was OK. It was the lack of a single clear, reasoned thought in the entire book that got me. I’ve never read a “true” crime book with so many leaps of logic, so many variations on “it seems likely that”, such abysmal organization, not to mention the total lack of any coherent narrative form.
CanvasShoes, my comment on Turtledove included this: “Stilted plots, wooden characters, and forced dialogue.” Is that real hard reason enough?
Just for the record, although I nominated him, I actually love Donaldson’s stuff. I just can’t figure out why. Like I said before, he’s an awesome storyteller.
He is a crap writer, but somehow he manages to really make me care a great deal about his characters. The “story” if you mean the plot is okay (and in the Second Chronicles kinda meandering and stalling-out), but the emotional involvement… I almost couldn’t read the Second Chronicles because it upset me so much what he did to the Land. I was really broken up about it. Which is why I really like the guy and I’ll read anything he writes, even though I’m scared to death that the “Last Chronicles” or whatever will really suck ass. I guess emotional involvement is one of the things that makes or breaks a book for me, whereas I know to other people plot or writing or theme or whatever is more important.
Oh, and I like Stephen King a lot too for similar reasons. Although he definately has a problem with endings. I mean, I see his problem - the monster’s always a lot scarier before you turn the light on it. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon had some really genuinely scary bits in it before the end, which sucked.
I just want to know what she’s gonna do for the letter ‘X’. Imagine the possibilities:
X is for Xylophone
Irvine Welsh.
I LOVE his books they just take sooooo long to read (and much of it aloud). If I hadn’t been married to a Scotsman I would be lost.
I submit this paragraph
“Aye, ah hud tae git oot, tae git away fae Kate, cause ah couldnae be fuckin held responsible fir whit ah might huv done otherwise. Hur ex-boyfriend was a cunt, eh battered hur, n that was oot ay order. Thir’s some cow thit deserved a fuckin punchin, lassies whae wirnae satisfied til some cunt shut their mooths wi a fist. No Kate but, he isnae like that, it was a liberty treating a lassie like her that wey. Bit muh heid wis thrashin, it’s like ah wis ready tae fuckin go, so ah goat the fuck oot.”
(from “Porno” by Irvine Welsh. Sequel to Trainspotters)
I love his books, he tells a story and portrays feelings like very few can and he shouldn’t lose the right to write…he should be forced to write in English though
I gotta agree here, i liked the first two, more Silence of the Lambs than Red Dragon but only slightly and then i read Hannibal and wondered a) who the hell wrote this and b) who the hell replaced starling. Especially the bit with Barney the ward guy and “now let us take a tip from his actions and leave” WTF?!?
Umm I wouldn’t call the anthologies of Weird Tales, or the actually published on pulp paper Those Fantastic Pulps the greatest entertainment in the universe (Obviously, the GEITU must involve Grace Jones, Shakira, Salma Hayek, and Tyra Banks wrestling in oil) but they are very entertaining.
What exactly do you mean by pulp fiction?
There have been plenty of threads extolling the works of a specific author, or asking for posters to explain which authors they love and why.
Tolkien and Douglas Adams have had more threads than you can shake a 1920’s style death ray at. C S Lewis has had at least one thread. H P Lovecraft has had so many threads, that three of the faces on his rotting yet undying corpse have permanent smiles.
Most likely – according to Grafton herself – X will be for Xenophobe. The letter does most often correspond to a person, not a thing, after all.
My picks:
Screenwriters: Edward Taylor, David Aaron Cohen, Nick Thiel, Brian Koppelman, David Levien, Rick Cleveland, Matthew Chapman, David Rabe, Robert Towne, David Rayfiel
Their work: Film adaptations of “V.I. Warshawski,” “Runaway Jury” & “The Firm”
Their crimes: Film adaptations of “V.I. Warshawski,” “Runaway Jury” & “The Firm”
Punishment: Irreversible revocation of the WGA cards, confiscation of their word processors and a month of solitary confinement during which their wretched movies will be played 24/7 at a high volume, on screens on every wall of their cells.
Armistead Maupin
Responsible for: Tales of the City and its sequels
Crime: Rather than introducing new characters with the attributes he wants to cover, he’ll have his characters suddenly change personalities, core beliefs, life goals, and/or sexual preferences between books.
Punishment: The same thing must happen to him. From now on, he will be a heterosexual conservative factory worker.
Ayn Rand. <bleg>
Crime: Defiling the written page with her mental masturbation. For writing geniuinely crappy, self-righteous novels that devolved into a ‘philosophy’ that justifies class privilege. For the college students that read her ‘philosophy’ and instantly become sages on economic theory, class struggle, and poverty. For all the times I’ve had to listen to some spoiled 18-year-old who continues to rely on his parents for everything tell me that if poor people can’t find a job, they should just move.
Punishment: being reborn in East Saint Louis; attending the schools Jonathan Kozol described - the ones without teachers, textbooks, and sewage running through the school.
I typically like an author long after most people have consigned them to the dustbin. I defended Tom Clancy for most of the last decade, because I genuinely enjoyed his books. But he lost me with Red Rabbit. Why? Because he had Jack Ryan say he didn’t like, or even get, Fawlty Towers. BLASPHEMER!!! And I’m supposed to root for this guy as the POTUS? I think not!
Ironically, Ayn Rand grew up in Soviet Russia at a time when the conditions you describe in East St. Louis would have been a step up. It’s what caused her to write the crap you hate. Wouldn’t a better punishment be attending a snobby ivy league school where everyone is the same, and they all feel that socialism is a great idea.