True. Tedious and dull at best. Especially if you had had the good fortune to have read Lines and Shadows first, the story of the Border Alien Robbery Force. Lines and Shadows killed.
And the late Hemingway…so beyond dreary as to be oddly remarkable. (Paraphrasing) “Thomas Hudson paused in mid-pour; no, he would not drink just yet. First he would paint. He was a good painter.”
more:
http://www.weltordnung.ch/books/Hemingway,%20Ernest%20-%20Islands%20In%20The%20Stream.pdf
I agree with a lot of these, even when they are about authors I like.
About Pamela Dean: I actually love her but I was laughing while reading the descriptions of her work. I should hate her, but I don’t.
Charles de Lint is so… limp. Or something.
I like the Dresden books, but half of me agrees with everything bad written about them in this thread.
I think I should love Pratchett. I don’t hate him, but I don’t feel drawn to his work, either.
Same for Gaiman. I’m just underwhelmed.
I’m a little surprised anyone’s friends recommended Sue Grafton. She’s not someone I think of as more than a hack.
If you want Harry Potter for adults, try Lev Grossman’s The Magicians and its sequel.
That’s an author that belongs in this thread for me!
Paul Auster. He was represented to me as the be-all-and-end-all of modern literary fiction.
God, what a bunch of MFA crap.
You left out the fact that, at that point in the Clancyverse,
Saddam Hussein was dead, Iraq merged with Iran (but then split again after the Ayatollah was overthrown), and China had become a democracy.
It’s not really surprising. Any author that has a reputation and following will obviously have some people that are disappointed when they think the author didn’t live up to the hype.
Of those mentioned in this thread already, Heinlein is definitely mine.
I just read Gaiman and Pratchett for the first time in the last year. I liked Gaiman enough that I’ve now read four of his books, and I liked Pratchett’s The Colour of Magic quite a bit. However, I understand some who expect to like them won’t.
When did Tom Clancy start writing fantasy fiction?
I stopped at The Hunt for Red October. Glad I did.
I like Neil Gaiman well enough, but I can see how people might find him disappointing. Not merely because his writing isn’t to everyone’s tastes, but because there’s a sort of cult of personality regarding Neil Gaiman that isn’t based entirely on his writing. He’s an entertaining public speaker and reader of his own work, does quite a few public appearances both to promote his own work and to raise money for charity, had a fairly popular blog before blogging was even very common, and while he’s not exactly a matinee idol he’s not a bad looking guy. So he gets a bit more publicity and is a bit more “swoon-worthy” than other writers who may be equally talented.
