# Authors you used to like, but don't now. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 4, 2012, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-used-to-like-but-dont-now/642966 "2012-12-04T16:10:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2012, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-used-to-like-but-dont-now/642966/61 "2012-12-05T17:03:07Z")
> [@Trick\_Rider](#): > > Looks like I’m the first to mention Dan Brown. I really enjoyed The Da Vinci Code and have read everything but The Lost Symbol. I lost interest once I found out how outrageously inaccurate many of his “facts” were. Brown wrote “factual” novels? That’s news. I’m re-reading Angels & Demons, and the DaVinci Code right now; they’re rollicking good reads, but they’re fiction and never claim to be anything else. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2012, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-used-to-like-but-dont-now/642966/62 "2012-12-05T17:05:56Z")
> [@koeeoaddi](#): > > I wish they’d bag the ‘mythology’ in the Pendergast books and get back to some good old fashioned murder/monster potboilers (with or without him), like _Still Life With Crows_, _Riptide_ and _The Ice Limit_. > > I’ve also fallen out of love with Ruth Rendell, [Elizabeth George](http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/259364781) and (tragically) Peter Straub, whose most recent book was hilariously terrible (and I do mean _Son of Rosemary_, by Ira Levin-level awful). I still read the Pendergast books, but I don’t buy them. And I agree 100% with **koeeoaddi** : A.X.L. has turned into a total Gary Stu. I loved _Still Life with Crows_. Now he’s practically a Marvel Comic. The next book is out Tuesday; that may decide whether I’ll ever read anything more. I’m dubious. I’m still in with Ruth Rendell; I pick up Elizabeth George now and then, and I’ve never read anything by Peter Straub. ---
**Author:** ![Yorikke](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yorikke/32/4335_2.png) [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2012, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-used-to-like-but-dont-now/642966/63 "2012-12-05T17:20:15Z")
> [@by-tor](#): > > I thought Heinlein was a great writer… when I was a kid. Hmmm. I first tried Heinlein when I was about… 25? **Stranger in a Strange Land**. I hated it. I read **The Moon is a Harsh Mistress** for the first time last year, at age 38-ish, and loved it! Different strokes… ---
**Author:** ![Yorikke](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yorikke/32/4335_2.png) [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-used-to-like-but-dont-now/642966/64 "2012-12-05T17:22:13Z")
> [@Sigmagirl](#): > > I still read the Pendergast books, but I don’t buy them. And I agree 100% with **koeeoaddi** : A.X.L. has turned into a total Gary Stu. I loved _Still Life with Crows_. Now he’s practically a Marvel Comic. The next book is out Tuesday; that may decide whether I’ll ever read anything more. I’m dubious. > > I’m still in with Ruth Rendell; I pick up Elizabeth George now and then, and I’ve never read anything by Peter Straub. The next book is the last of the trilogy about his wife, right? Or was that the most recent one? Just give me a good standalone story, goddammit! ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2012, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-used-to-like-but-dont-now/642966/65 "2012-12-05T17:53:09Z")
Ditto on **Laurel K. Hamilton**. No plot, no character development, unless you count her vagina as a character. And it’s seen way too much development, if you know what I mean. I used to love **Diana Gabaldon** , but I no longer recommend the books. I loved when they were presented as a double trilogy. Now Gabaldon is content to spend 600 pages writing about 6 months of mundane comings and goings. And her plot devices are starting to repeat. Wrap up the story already! **Janet Evanovich** jumped the shark after about #6. She’s written herself into a corner because she won’t allow her main character (Stephanie Plum) to mature and grow. So she keeps regurgitating the same plot, including the love triangle, to the point where it’s beyond stale. It’s now moldy. One amateur reviewer suggested that her daughter is actually doing the writing now, and I wonder if there’s some grain of truth in that. ---
**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:** [December 5, 2012, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-used-to-like-but-dont-now/642966/66 "2012-12-05T17:57:08Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > But, as other folks have been implying – and I’ll come right out and say – if he’d stopped with A SPELL FOR CHAMELEON instead of running the series into the ground, and likewise stopped with ON A PALE HORSE and SPLIT INFINITY, I figure we’d all be having conversations lamenting how the guy could’ve done so much more. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I agree that he would have been better off quitting while he was ahead and I disagree that I would be praising his (early) books now. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2012, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-used-to-like-but-dont-now/642966/67 "2012-12-05T18:01:40Z")
V. C. Andrews was a guilty pleasure when I was a teenager/college student, and I still sometimes go back and reread the “Flowers in the Attic” series. After that, though, except for “My Sweet Audrina” which was a one-off, I coudn’t get through any of her other series (I gave up after trying the first book of the next couple). I’m not sure exactly when Andrews died and somebody else started ghost-writing her stuff, but I could argue that the FitA series was at least a fresh idea, while every subsequent series seemed to just rehash old territory with different characters. ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2012, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-used-to-like-but-dont-now/642966/68 "2012-12-05T18:02:09Z")
> [@hrhomer](#): > > The next book is the last of the trilogy about his wife, right? Or was that the most recent one? Just give me a good standalone story, goddammit! Douglas Preston said, in a Goodreads thread he participated in last year, that the upcoming book WILL be a stand alone, so …yay! > [@salinqmind](#): > > I’d read every word Ruth Rendell ever put down on paper (long pre-internet, when I searched the library and used book stores). My favorite author EVER! But she wrote a book (can’t remember the name) with a bit too much S&M, and it unduly disturbed me, and I haven’t caught up with anything written after that. She’s good at sick and twisted - maybe too good! Yes! This is it, exactly. The exception is when she writes as Barbara Vine, for some reason. I thought _The Minotaur_ was very good, but just about everything else since _Sight for Sore Eyes_ has squicked me out mightily. ---
**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:** [December 5, 2012, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-used-to-like-but-dont-now/642966/69 "2012-12-05T18:23:21Z")
…and another vote for Stephen King, who I used to greatly enjoy but for years has churned out twice as many words for less than half the effect. Plus all the detective fiction writers who’ve carried on well into the post-senility phase of their heroes (i.e. Robert Parker, Robert Crais, Dick Francis (deceased, but writing from the grave via the medium of his son) and their derivatives. Give it up, fellas, and especially you fans who need to move on to fresher stuff. ---
**Author:** ![maggenpye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecc23a/32.png) [@maggenpye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maggenpye)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2012, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-used-to-like-but-dont-now/642966/70 "2012-12-05T18:52:10Z")
I really enjoy Ruth Rendell, but \*\*salinqmind \*\*makes a good point. I used to love Ben Elton’s books - until the one with the graphic (oh so very graphic) fisting scene. The next book I picked up began with a graphic sex scene and I just put it to one side and haven’t finished it. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2012, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-used-to-like-but-dont-now/642966/71 "2012-12-05T19:11:34Z")
I struggled through a few **Laurel Hamilton** books, but must never had made it to the “good parts” sex versions of the series, since they had neither plot, character, or sex. I loved **Neal Stephenson** up through The Diamond Age, after which he drifted quickly into less entertainment and more self-congratulatory narratives. His books now feel like a PBS William F Buckley style round-table discussion. **John Varley** has slipped from all-time-favorite-must-reads-of-new-books-as-soon-as-they-hit-the-shelf to save-them-for-long-airplane-flights. ---
**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:** [December 5, 2012, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-used-to-like-but-dont-now/642966/72 "2012-12-05T19:24:30Z")
> [@hrhomer](#): > > Hmmm. I first tried Heinlein when I was about… 25? **Stranger in a Strange Land**. I hated it. I read **The Moon is a Harsh Mistress** for the first time last year, at age 38-ish, and loved it! Different strokes… When Heinlein was good, he was great. But he did produce some less than great stories. And Stranger is not a good starting point for someone who is new to Heinlein. In addition, Stranger was a groundbreaking book that needed to be read for the first time in that era (the 60), as it has become fairly dated now. I used to love it, but nowadays I have issues with it. Many of his stories are considered seminal. For instance, “By His Bootstraps” and “All You Zombies” are considered THE defining time travel stories, never mind H. G. Wells. If you can find some of his books and collections in the library, check them out, especially the juveniles. Some are worth buying for your own collection. ---
**Author:** ![Jenaroph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2012, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-used-to-like-but-dont-now/642966/73 "2012-12-05T20:22:46Z")
> [@Orville\_mogul](#): > > \*\*Jenaroph \*\*is right about the genital thing. My own complaint is King using sex as a weapon (e.g. Roland’s sex with the giant spider in Dark Tower)… Yikes. I may just stop reading it now if that’s coming up. ---
**Author:** ![kbear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4491bb/32.png) [@kbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kbear)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2012, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-used-to-like-but-dont-now/642966/74 "2012-12-05T22:28:03Z")
> [@Sigmagirl](#): > > Patricia Cornwell can fall into a hole. You got that right! ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2012, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-used-to-like-but-dont-now/642966/75 "2012-12-05T22:46:48Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Plus all the detective fiction writers who’ve carried on well into the post-senility phase of their heroes (i.e. Robert Parker, Robert Crais, Dick Francis (deceased, but writing from the grave via the medium of his son) and their derivatives. Give it up, fellas, and especially you fans who need to move on to fresher stuff. Robert B. Parker is also deceased, Just wanted to point out that he had a few different series of novels going on, branching out from Spencer. James Lee Burke writes novels with different protagonists from Dave Robichaux. And Robert Crais is writing novels starring new characters, too. There are probably more. Alice Hoffman lost me with The River King, all the elements were there, but it simply didn’t gel and I disliked the characters. I think she’s writing young adult or kids stories now. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2012, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-used-to-like-but-dont-now/642966/76 "2012-12-05T23:18:42Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > Last night, I paged through _The Eiger Sanction, The Loo Sanction_, and \*Shibumi \*by Trevanian. > I read these years ago when they were new and I was young. I remember liking them very much and thinking Trevanian was A Great Author. > My opinion of Trevanian, now, would be that he is A Horse’s Ass. His spoofing of the super spy genre is, at best, ham fisted. There didn’t seem to be any love for the genre he spoofed. > Worse, though, is that for reasons I can’t articulate, I come away from his work with a distinct feeling that he has nothing but contempt for his audience. What little is out there in the way of interviews and such reinforces that feeling. > Another pleasant youthful memory ruined by trying to revisit it… I loved Shibumi the first time I read it. I disliked it intensely the second time. The third time I found I could enjoy it and while at the same time notice all the things I didn’t like about it. I went through the same cycle with _Stranger In a Strange Land._ ---
**Author:** ![Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/bc8723/32.png) [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unauthorized_Cinnamon)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2012, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-used-to-like-but-dont-now/642966/77 "2012-12-05T23:42:21Z")
I enjoyed a lot of Michael Crichton’s books, but I couldn’t read him after this story broke (the article title ably sums up everything that disgusts me): [Global Warming Denier Michael Crichton Fictionalizes Critic as Child Rapist](http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/002156.php) It’s funny, two of the frequent mentions here are Laurell K. Hamilton and Piers Anthony. I must have missed the window on them, because I picked up a novel by each of them within the last ten years, and I couldn’t read beyond a few chapters. I was like, “Why do people like these again?” I’ll never forgive Thomas Harris for the execrable _Hannibal_. It’s one thing to go the Eddings or King route where you just start wearing thin, it’s a whole other level to deliberately shit on your fans. ---
**Author:** ![Celidin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Celidin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celidin)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2012, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-used-to-like-but-dont-now/642966/78 "2012-12-06T00:09:14Z")
John Grisham … thought his books were great legal thrillers, excellent popcorn books for the beach, but about the time I hit college the books got boring. I went back and read a couple of his earlier ones recently, and they feel like they hold up, so I’m going to go with “he’s changed”. Tom Clancy+1 … I still enjoy the original Jack Ryan books up through _Bear and the Dragon_. I find them a lot shallower and more repeatative now, but as a whole they’re still worth a read. Basically after he sold out with “Tom Clancy’s Random Novel by Someone Else”, his own writing went to crap. Orson Scott Card+1 … When his _Homecoming Saga_ first 3 books came out, they were great books for me. After I grew up and realized they were an extremely thinly veiled rehashing of the Book of Mormon, I can’t really stand it too much. Also, by the time the 4th book came out, I think his writing got significantly, significantly less coherent or interesting. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2012, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-used-to-like-but-dont-now/642966/79 "2012-12-06T00:18:08Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > Alice Hoffman lost me with The River King, all the elements were there, but it simply didn’t gel and I disliked the characters. I think she’s writing young adult or kids stories now. I enjoyed her early stuff, stopped reading her for awhile, then picked up _The River King_ for a quarter at a library sale. If it wouldn’t give me a reputation as the town cheapsake, I’d ask for my quarter back. That story made no sense at all. Another author I’ve stopped reading is Toni Morrison. Her early stuff is miraculous, but _Paradise_ was just hateful. I think that’s the title – it’s the one before _A Mercy_, which was fine, but too short. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2012, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-used-to-like-but-dont-now/642966/80 "2012-12-06T01:02:19Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > But, as other folks have been implying – and I’ll come right out and say – if he’d stopped with A SPELL FOR CHAMELEON instead of running the series into the ground, and likewise stopped with ON A PALE HORSE and SPLIT INFINITY, I figure we’d all be having conversations lamenting how the guy could’ve done so much more. No, I don’t think we would. While _A Spell for Chameleon_ was better than many of the later Xanth novels, I’ve read plenty of other fantasy novels that were as good or better. If Anthony had given up on writing after _Chameleon_ then I don’t think anyone would really miss him now. Lots of authors only publish a couple of books and never become particularly successful. Heck, if Terry Pratchett – a popular author here on the SDMB, a favorite of mine, and one who _was_ capable of much more than the first two Discworld novels indicated – had quit after _The Light Fantastic_ then I wouldn’t be thinking “I wish he’d stuck with it, that series had so much potential” now. He’d be just another fantasy author who’d written a couple of books that were reasonably entertaining but nothing really special. > [@Clothahump](#): > > Brown wrote “factual” novels? That’s news. I’m re-reading Angels & Demons, and the DaVinci Code right now; they’re rollicking good reads, but they’re fiction and never claim to be anything else. The only Dan Brown novel I ever read was _The DaVinci Code_ so I don’t know if he’s done this in other books, but right at the beginning of the book there’s a page that claims that while the plot and characters are fictional the secret societies and rituals are real. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-used-to-like-but-dont-now/642966.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-you-used-to-like-but-dont-now/642966.md?page=5)