# Authors You Looked Forward to Reading, and then were Disappointed by? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 19, 2013, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-looked-forward-to-reading-and-then-were-disappointed-by/653325 "2013-03-19T02:49:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-looked-forward-to-reading-and-then-were-disappointed-by/653325/61 "2013-03-23T14:58:22Z")
Tom Clancy. How the mighty have fallen. All of his pre-9/11 books are good bordering on genre-defining, though as the Ryanverse continued it became somewhat less implausible. Jack Ryan becomes the President of the United States at the end of _Debt of Honor_ after a Japanese pilot avenges the death of his son and brother following the defeat of a Japanese nationalist who engineered an economic/military crisis to take over Saipan and Guam. I’m sure I didn’t need to spoiler that, but you never know. Anyway, the Ryanverse long ago diverged from real life, and in that universe everything progressed nicely. Until 9/11. Somehow we were jolted back into the real world, which makes no sense because Denver was nuked by terrorists in _The Sum of All Fears_, but no mention of it ever happens again after 9/11 and it became about what everything was about after 9/11: Muslim extremism, Afghanistan, and Iraq. It’s as if he hit a wall after (see first spoiler) and he could go no further. His last few books written by himself were decent but not great. His recent ghostwritten books have been pretty much phoned in. He and his co/ghost-writer can’t seem to stifle their political views. While they have never exactly been a secret, he expressed them through the characters’ actions. Now the characters editorialize and sermonize, and it takes you right out of the books. The bottom line is that Tom Clancy is no longer a great author. He’s a brand, and with the 8 million spinoffs and videogames he’s riding the gravy train while the stuff that comes out in his name is sullying his reputation. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-looked-forward-to-reading-and-then-were-disappointed-by/653325/62 "2013-03-23T15:16:34Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > I should have loved Charles de Lint. I’ve tried a few of his books, and I just couldn’t get into them. I also should have loved _Mists of Avalon_, and again, I just don’t. There are more authors, but I can’t remember them right now. Re Charles de Lint: Everyone I know kept raving about _The Onion Girl_ and how great it was and how much they loooooooved Jilly Coppercorn and could identify with her and on and on and on. So I read it and hated it more than any other novel I’ve read since _American Gods_. I had been working my way through de Lint’s works at the time so I had had quite enough of Jilly Fucking Coppercorn. She’s my least favorite character in the city he sets most of his work in. I much preferred his earlier works before Jilly took over. I’m going to nominate Ellery Queen. I’ve always heard how Queen was the master of detective novels and one of the best. I’m reading my way through my mom’s old books right now and mostly they annoy me. Mostly it’s because the slang hasn’t aged well and neither have the tropes. I’m starting to wonder why the victims always tell the truth in their dying gasp. Why not lie? What are they going to do to you? ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-looked-forward-to-reading-and-then-were-disappointed-by/653325/63 "2013-03-23T15:19:03Z")
> [@gallows\_fodder](#): > > Hey, this is exactly what happened! Your post made me remember reading a collection of supernatural stories when I was a kid that included a story called “Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary,” and it was definitely short-story length. So I just checked her [wiki page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Dean) and sure enough, the short story version was published in 1989, and the novel came out in 1998. Wow. Well, I can’t say I’m surprised, but if anything I think even less of Dean as a writer now that I know she really was just padding for hundreds of pages and wasn’t just someone who had a very misguided idea of what her readers would find interesting. > [@](#): > > I didn’t like Dean’s **Tam Lin** , either. Appropriate for this thread: I read it in high school when I heard it was similar to (the greatly superior) **The Perilous Gard** by Elizabeth Marie Pope, also loosely based on the ballad of Tam Lin, and I had hoped Dean’s book would be equally as engrossing as Pope’s. Ugh, it was not. It was like 500 pages of a totally separate story that had nothing to do with the fairy tale besides the characters’ names, until the final ten pages. And that story was painfully dull, about dull and pretentious people, told in dull and pretentious prose. What a let-down. It’s my recollection that the non-fantasy portion of the book didn’t even really _have_ a story, it was just the mundane minutiae of college life and was unrelated to any plot. I kept thinking “Surely some of this will be important later, she’s not spending this much time on the heroine picking out which classes she’ll take next semester just to boost her word count” but no. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-looked-forward-to-reading-and-then-were-disappointed-by/653325/64 "2013-03-23T19:16:02Z")
> [@Athena](#): > > See, that’s why I like his books. I’m fascinated with how seeing the same events through different eyes can be totally different experiences. And it also makes the books infinitely re-readable; the first time through I identify with one character and see things from his/her point of view, the next time through I might be more into another character and suddenly it’s like a whole different book. > > But yeah, I can totally see how if you find that annoying, his books would be unreadable. Different strokes and all that 😛 I don’t insist everybody has to like only what I like, though I really don’t understand people who like Hemmingway and Twilight. \ As long as they don’t try and force me to read it, I am fine. > [@SpazCat](#): > > . I’m starting to wonder why the victims always tell the truth in their dying gasp. Why not lie? What are they going to do to you? \ I also admit I don’t like some authors who pick their work to flog their hangups - I stopped reading Mercedes Lackey because it got to where I felt everything was going to be about either abused kids or abused women. Though [Sharon Green](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharon_Green) went the other way and all her stuff was about dominance and submission. I found out later when talking to a guy she had dated for a little while that she felt that a date wasn’t any good if somebody didn’t end up with bruises and blood. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-looked-forward-to-reading-and-then-were-disappointed-by/653325/65 "2013-03-23T19:37:42Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > My libertarian friends kept telling me I needed to read ScFi books by **Robert Heinlein**. “Start with _The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress_. You’ll love it!” > > So I bought _The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress_ and started reading it. God, how _ **awful** _. The author spends \*way \*too much time explaining technical crap and ignores the story. I made it half way through the book and gave up on it. I hafta agree with **furdmort** - TMiaHM is nowhere near the place to start with Heinlein. Try _Have Spacesuit - Will Travel_. That was where this fan started. _Stranger in a Strange Land_ can wait until you know if you have a taste for Bob’s work. And whatever you do, stay far, far away from _The Number of the Beast_. I feel about that one the way you apparently do about _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_. My Most Disappointing Author is F. Scott Fitzgerald. He just sucks as a writer, that’s all. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Tapiotar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3be4f8/32.png) [@Tapiotar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapiotar)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-looked-forward-to-reading-and-then-were-disappointed-by/653325/66 "2013-03-23T22:17:45Z")
> [@Beastly\_Rotter](#): > > The Dresden Files are like the Discworld books, it helps if you skip the first four or so books and pick up on them later. Start at about Summer Knight, and you pick up the backstory pretty fast. Jim Butcher improves vastly as an author as he writes, it’s one of the things I like about the series. Thanks, Beastly Rotter. I’ll give him another try, with Summer Knight. Everyone deserves another chance. ---
**Author:** ![Tapiotar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3be4f8/32.png) [@Tapiotar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapiotar)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-looked-forward-to-reading-and-then-were-disappointed-by/653325/67 "2013-03-23T22:26:13Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > I read (and re-read) and enjoyed his short story collection _Dreams Underfoot_ when I was about 13, but when I got around to reading some of his other short story collections I was pretty disappointed in them. I never bothered with any of his novels because they didn’t look very good. Then I re-read _Dreams Underfoot_ again and was pretty disappointed with that. > > A friend of mine in college who was underwhelmed by de Lint pointed out that most of his significant female characters are really just the same character, and speculated that he couldn’t stand to write for long about anyone but his fantasy woman. I suppose they might all be based on his wife, which would be kind of sweet, but still it got old. > > This same friend also shared my experience with Pamela Dean’s _Tam Lin_. It had been enthusiastically recommended to us by other friends…but we were not impressed. It turned out later that my sister had the same experience, and I suggested we should form a club. 😉 I like the _idea_ of a 20th century retelling of the ballad “Tam Lin”, and the book started off doing a pretty good job of introducing the fantasy elements into the real world setting…before turning into an excruciatingly dull account of the mundane day-to-day life of a college student. There’s no plot in this book except for the “Tam Lin” storyline, but it went for IIRC a hundred pages or more without developing this at all. Instead the heroine did things like meet with her adviser and plan her course schedule. She also meets Tom Lane (who by his name is obviously a variant on Tam Lin) early in the book but doesn’t get together with him until a lengthy romance with another character who will prove to be IIRC totally unimportant later. I kept thinking “I know you’re going to end up with Tom, _his name is the title of this book_, so just get on with it already.” RE: deLint. I liked the first few books of his that I read back in the 1980’s well enough, but then they all started to seem the same, and I haven’t read anything of his since then. Pamela Dean’s \*\*Tam Lin \*\*was supposed to be about going to college back in the 1970’s or so, with the folklore element added in. That was part of what I loved about it, the nostalgia factor. Also, I lived in Minnesota for a while and visited Carleton College and went to plays at the Guthrie, so that aspect of setting was fun for me. For a much better take on a modern version of Tam Lin, read Diana Wynne Jones’ **Fire and Hemlock**. It’s quite different from most of her works. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-looked-forward-to-reading-and-then-were-disappointed-by/653325/68 "2013-03-24T06:17:07Z")
> [@furdmort](#): > > Far and away his WORST book. If I’d read it first, I’d have never ever picked up another Heinlein book. I honestly don’t know why people like that steaming pile of piles. Read some of his juveniles (Between Planets, or Red Planet, or the Rolling Stones.) They beat _The moon is a harsh mistress_ by miles. His short stories are good. I love “All you Zombies” and “By His Bootstraps.” Just keep that moon revolt thing the fuck away from me. > > Your libertarian friends would do themselves a favor by not recommending it. Maybe some of the Lazarus Long stories - plenty of libertarianism, far less “sucks ass.” You think that _Mistress_ is his worst book? I take it that you haven’t read _“The Number of the Beast-”_ then. Heinlein’s juveniles were some of his best. I liked Mistress not because of the politics, but in spite of it. I thought that the respect accorded to women in a society where women were in short supply was an interesting concept, for instance. And was Mike a person? ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2013, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-looked-forward-to-reading-and-then-were-disappointed-by/653325/69 "2013-03-25T14:47:21Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > “Farenheit 451” sucked In my case, it was “The Martian Chronicles” that disappointed me. ---
**Author:** ![Apocalypso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Apocalypso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apocalypso)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-looked-forward-to-reading-and-then-were-disappointed-by/653325/70 "2013-03-26T15:56:48Z")
**Ray Bradbury**. I read _Farenheit 451_ at a teen and thought it was pretty interesting. In my late 20’s I saw the “deluxe remastered” edition in a bookstore, grabbed it, and loved it. Bought _the Martian Chronicles_ a year or so later and it was a completely different experience. The first story or two was pretty funny, almost Phillip Dick like, but after that the quality seemed to me to drop off sharply and I gave up about halfway through. **Asimov** too, came to my party late and was a bit of a letdown after seeing how much reverence he’s held in by sci-fi fans. I don’t remember which of his books I read (I don’t think it was his famous _Foundation_ series) but I didn’t care for them at all. I also tried reading **Kurt Vonnegut** several times, thinking he’d be right up my alley. But I just couldn’t get into him. However, it has been a while since I’ve attempted to read these 3 authors, and I haven’t completely given up on them. I do remember that back in high school I absolutely hated Douglas Adams on first read, but went back about 6 months later and thought he was one of the funniest authors I’ve ever read. So I’ll go back and try again before writing them off. ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-looked-forward-to-reading-and-then-were-disappointed-by/653325/71 "2013-03-26T16:02:50Z")
Clive Cussler. I’m a fan of Michael Connely. When I finished reading all of his books, I was looking for another author I could get behind. I remembered reading some of Clive Cussler’s books when I was young. Wow. His main character Dirk Pitt; is a prick; and a borderline rapist. I’m now working my way through Richard Lee’s Jack Reacher series. I’m enjoying them so far. ---
**Author:** ![furdmort](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@furdmort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furdmort)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-looked-forward-to-reading-and-then-were-disappointed-by/653325/72 "2013-03-26T20:28:55Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > You think that _Mistress_ is his worst book? I take it that you haven’t read _“The Number of the Beast-”_ then. > > Heinlein’s juveniles were some of his best. I liked Mistress not because of the politics, but in spite of it. I thought that the respect accorded to women in a society where women were in short supply was an interesting concept, for instance. And was Mike a person? The politics aren’t the problem. Most of his books are about politics in one form or another. The problem is that it is simply a train wreck of a mess of ideas and concepts, and then he kills off Mike at the end because Mike wouldn’t fit into his world of nobel libertarians. What good does it do to proclaim libertarianism as teh highest aspiration of man when a computer has handed the victory to your heroic libertarians? It is near as bad as [Rebel Moon](http://billionlightyearbookshelf.com/reviews/rebelmoon.shtml) - and that pile of turds at least had the excuse of trying to flatten a video game on to a sheet of paper. ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2013, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-looked-forward-to-reading-and-then-were-disappointed-by/653325/73 "2013-03-27T11:31:14Z")
A while ago, I heard for the first time on a message board which ranges widely over assorted sci-fi / fantasy, about the Hoka stories by, in collaboration, Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson. By the description of them there, they sounded potentially fun. I was disappointed to find that for me, this whole scene appeared pretty much a “one-trick pony”. The premise is that the Hokas – a space-alien race visually a lot like the Ewoks of Star Wars – are highly imitative: once contacted by the human race, the Hokas become captivated by all kinds of aspects of human culture and history, which they discover one after another, and enthusiastically mimic and re-enact. It’s basically just this joke, over and over again – a nice idea, but for me it quickly became stale. The only “Hoka” story which I enjoyed and was amused by, was the very first one, taking place shortly after human / Hoka first contact. The Hokas learn of Wild West films and novels, and enact the material from those – but as all things human are very new to them: a lot of the Western stuff, they muddle up and get hilariously wrong. However, they are such skilled and able imitators, that very soon, they are getting spot-on, whatever is the latest human thing that they latch on to. It just gets, IMO, very repetitive and limited. And the sole full-length novel about the Hokas, “Star Prince Charlie” – I found that direly, embarrassingly awful: couldn’t finish it. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2013, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-looked-forward-to-reading-and-then-were-disappointed-by/653325/74 "2013-03-27T13:21:21Z")
I’ve found Dennis Lehane novels disappointing. He writes well to a point…then his plots tend to get overly convoluted and the enjoyment peters out. As for Wambaugh, his first couple of police novels were pretty good, but the rest have been mostly forgettable. His real strength has been in classic true crime books (i.e. “The Onion Field” and “The Blooding”). ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2013, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-looked-forward-to-reading-and-then-were-disappointed-by/653325/75 "2013-03-27T23:52:20Z")
> [@vontsira](#): > > A while ago, I heard for the first time on a message board which ranges widely over assorted sci-fi / fantasy, about the Hoka stories by, in collaboration, Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson. By the description of them there, they sounded potentially fun. I was disappointed to find that for me, this whole scene appeared pretty much a “one-trick pony”. The premise is that the Hokas – a space-alien race visually a lot like the Ewoks of Star Wars – are highly imitative: once contacted by the human race, the Hokas become captivated by all kinds of aspects of human culture and history, which they discover one after another, and enthusiastically mimic and re-enact. It’s basically just this joke, over and over again – a nice idea, but for me it quickly became stale. > > The only “Hoka” story which I enjoyed and was amused by, was the very first one, taking place shortly after human / Hoka first contact. The Hokas learn of Wild West films and novels, and enact the material from those – but as all things human are very new to them: a lot of the Western stuff, they muddle up and get hilariously wrong. However, they are such skilled and able imitators, that very soon, they are getting spot-on, whatever is the latest human thing that they latch on to. It just gets, IMO, very repetitive and limited. And the sole full-length novel about the Hokas, “Star Prince Charlie” – I found that direly, embarrassingly awful: couldn’t finish it. I agree, the Little Fuzzy books are better. ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2013, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-looked-forward-to-reading-and-then-were-disappointed-by/653325/76 "2013-03-28T11:21:00Z")
aruvqan – had never before now, heard of “Little Fuzzy”. Googled accordingly – the series looks well worth getting into. My thanks ! As regards “aliens of teddy-bearish aspect”, my favourite kind has to be Harry Turtledove’s Roxolani; who despite their cuddly looks, are aggressive spacefaring conquerors (though as individuals, they come across as likeable enough). ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2013, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-looked-forward-to-reading-and-then-were-disappointed-by/653325/77 "2013-03-29T20:38:02Z")
> [@Sparky812](#): > > Larry Niven - Ringworld was good, wish he hadn’t written the other two. The other **three** , actually, plus five Ringworld “prequel” novels with Edward Lerner now (although I really don’t know if you can call them “Ringworld prequels” when they don’t really directly involve the Ringworld). I may be the only one in the world who actually likes all of them (although I haven’t read the latest one, **Fate of Worlds** , yet). I’ll add my vote to the Dresden Files. I read Cecil’s “Straight Dope Chicago” column about the [Chicago Undertown](http://chicago.straightdope.com/sdc20090319.php) way back in March 2009, and he made the books sound pretty cool – " think Harry Potter for adults, or Sam Spade meets _The Lord of the Rings_," he said. But even with James Marsters reading, the first two books still left me feeling, well … somewhat underwhelmed. I still bought all the rest of them, but I sure hope they get better. ---
**Author:** ![Poysyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Poysyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poysyn)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2013, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-looked-forward-to-reading-and-then-were-disappointed-by/653325/78 "2013-03-30T01:09:19Z")
I know it’s just pulp, but Kathy Reichs - Her lead character is supposed to be really intelligent and just…not. It pains me to say it, but I haven’t been able to get into the most recent Diana Gabaldon book, but I am trying… ---
**Author:** ![Beastly\_Rotter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@Beastly\_Rotter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beastly_Rotter)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2013, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-looked-forward-to-reading-and-then-were-disappointed-by/653325/79 "2013-03-30T01:18:06Z")
I’ll add my vote to the Dresden Files. I read Cecil’s “Straight Dope Chicago” column about the [Chicago Undertown](http://chicago.straightdope.com/sdc20090319.php) way back in March 2009, and he made the books sound pretty cool – " think Harry Potter for adults, or Sam Spade meets _The Lord of the Rings_," he said. Guy needs an editor: > [@](#): > > Among other things, he helps Chicago’s finest crack magic cases. ---
**Author:** ![Beastly\_Rotter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@Beastly\_Rotter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beastly_Rotter)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2013, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-looked-forward-to-reading-and-then-were-disappointed-by/653325/80 "2013-03-30T01:19:59Z")
> [@](#): > > I’ll add my vote to the Dresden Files. I read Cecil’s “Straight Dope Chicago” column about the [Chicago Undertown](http://chicago.straightdope.com/sdc20090319.php) way back in March 2009, and he made the books sound pretty cool – " think Harry Potter for adults, or Sam Spade meets _The Lord of the Rings_," he said. That guy needs an editor: > [@](#): > > Among other things, he helps Chicago’s finest crack magic cases. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-looked-forward-to-reading-and-then-were-disappointed-by/653325.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-looked-forward-to-reading-and-then-were-disappointed-by/653325.md?page=5)