Bad, 'guilty pleasures' authors and the readers who buy their books

In My Humble Opinion
1

There are a couple of pit-threads right now about authors (Robert Jordan, David Eddings) who aren’t very good, but people are admitting they like. I thought a more general thread might be a fun idea.

Which authors do you know are awful, but you find youself compelled to read anyway?

For me, one of my main guilty pleasures is Mercedes Lackey.

:rolleyes:

Mediocre repetative writing, repeated ad nauseum themes, icky luuuuuv stuff (Findovar gazed longingly into Jomo’s brown, limpid eyes and knew: she would never be alone again!") and frankly, Lackey has…issues. Which is fine, I suppose, but I wish she’d get herself to a therapist or something and get past them; I’m getting kind of sick of reading about them. Every character comes from a BAD home, finds a new home with friends and their magical horsies and either reconciles with the family or not. And everyone is either disgustingly icky-sweet loveable or an EEEEeeeeEeee-vil, cruel monster. Plus the covers of sensitive, big-eyed, wimpy, sissy horses and the sensitive, big-eyed, wimpy, sissy people who ride them (done in shocking pink and lavender) are
A) embarassing to walk around with and
B) make me want to puke.

And yet, I buy her books in hard-cover. They’re addictive, she’s got an interesting world with a detailed history. So what the hell do I know?

Fenris

2

I picked up Immortal from the library last year, whenever it was published. Wasn’t bad – well, wasn’t terrible – wasn’t great. But Buffy was in reruns, I wanted a hit or two of Buffiverse, and the comic books just don’t do it for me.

A few months later, I read Spike and Dru: Pretty Maids All in a Row, which was actually not half bad.

After that, though, season 5 started, and I read other stuff, and didn’t have time for books of the Buffiverse.

A month or so ago, I read The Book of Four. This may be the worst novel I’ve read cover-to-cover in the last ten years. It’s incoherent, the character capturing is terrible, the end studied at the “it was all a dream” school, and the entire town was destroyed, contrary to all evidence on the series.

I figured I’d leave well enough alone at that point. No more Buffy novels! At least I didn’t actually buy the books – just read library copies.

A couple of weeks ago, though, I walked past the library’s adolescent lit section, and noticed a bunch of Buffy paperbacks. I picked up two.

They’re not very good, but damn, they’re addictive. One of the the torturous pleasures is figuring out exactly how the author is not quite getting the Buffiverse down – Xander’s quips just sound stupid, or they really should explain where Faith is, or they really don’t explain why the Mayor wouldn’t be stopping this next round of ultimate evil from destroying his town on the eve of the Ascention.

When I go to the library again tonight, I expect to pick up a few more titles.

3

Ah. So you can’t use formatting in the “Post subject:” field. At least, not successfully.

4

[sub]I am unfortunately hooked on the Outlander series.[/sub]

5

Elinor Glyn. The Jackie Susann of the 1910s–20s. She wrote really lurid, trashy novels about loose-living flappers and Russian countesses whose lips were red, Red, RED!!

6

Anne McCaffrey, at least her dragon books. Of the 20th-century writers who may one day make the pantheon, she isn’t one of them. Fairly typical genre stuff, some rather florid prose at times, and recycled plot points. But, damnit, I can’t get enough of those dragon stories!

7

“But Mrs. Shinn! Wouldn’t you rather have your daughter read classics like The Rubyiat of Omar Kyam than Elinor Glyn?”

“What Elinor Glyn’s mother lets her read is her business! It’s a smutty book.”

Fenris

8

Dean Koontz - I know how his books are going to end and I know I will feel ripped off, and yet…
Johanna Lindsay and other similar historical romances, I can’t help it, vacuous, trite and silly but hand me and bodice-ripper and I’m good and quiet for at least an hour while I read it. sigh

9

OK, Fenris, ya got me—what’s that FROM?

10

I have a fondness for “cozy” mysteries and my literary standards are considerably lower for them than for other types of books. I especially enjoy the ones in which the characters frequently break for drinks or meals (sometimes with actual recipes provided.) These would be folks like Philip Craig, Lillian Jackson Braun (with cute cats, too, fer gawd’s sake), and so on.

I’m also a sucker for the one’s with a standard cast of lovable eccentric friends and acquaintances of the central character. (Charlotte Macleod, Martha Grimes.)

To be fair, I also read the truly literary types like Ruth Rendall and Colin Dexter (RIP Morse).

11

I really have to concur with the people who cited Mercedes Lackey and Anne McCaffrey. It’s everything they said and less! So why am i drawn to the damn things? I managed to give up Goodkind, Piers Anthony, Eddings and Andre Norton.

12

<hehe! I stumped EVE(!!!) on a movie quote. :slight_smile: >

The Music Man. Mrs Shinn comes into the library, furious that Marion Paroo has let Zanita Shinn read a “smutty book” about “people lying on the grass, eating sandwiches and getting drunk.”

Fenris

13

But I read all of Sharon Green’s Blending series in about two weeks.

Books simply do not get worse than this. Awful, torrid romance. Scenes written from the points of view of FIVE different characters. A tragically shallow political/ideological agenda.

I bought the first one because I liked the cover art. I figured, well, if Tom Canty did the artwork, how bad can the book be?

What kept me coming back for more I will never understand. Self-contempt? Voyeurism? Dunno. Never again.

14

Eve, have you ever read any of SJ Perelman’s “Cloudland Revisited” pieces? They are hilarious accounts of rereading or rewatching favorite novels and films of his youth. He does one (called “Tuberoses and Tigers”) on the Elinor Glyn novel. There are others on Erich von Stroheim, Theda Bara, Rudolph Valentinom, “20,000 Leagues under the Sea”, “Tarzan” “She,” and some other fruity novels from the '20s.

15

I’ve finally managed to shed all the above, only to get hooked on David Drake and Eric Flint. Maybe it’s Drake’s penchant for rewriting ancient history over and over and over again that does it. How many different ways can the Roman Empire be rehashed? Must every character George Patton or Bellisarius? Gah. Flint and Drake’s other co-writers just encourage him to keep on doing it. If you’ve read any two of the Drake/collaborator books, you’ve read them all. But still, I keep buying them…

16

See, I started reading the kid’s books when I was in sixth grade - Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, Dragondrums…before you know it I’m sneak-reading “Dolphins of Pern” at the local library.

I am absolutely hooked on Robert Parker’s Spenser novels. Mushy Spenser-Susan love scenes, endless repetition of the phrase “We’d be fools not to”, and plotlines that more often than not involve a married woman who has had nude blackmail pictures taken of her. I blame Hawk.

I also read and liked some Tom Robbins books - Skinny Legs and All, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues…

Throw in Anne Rice’s erotica (the A.N. Roquelaire stuff)…well, it ain’t pretty.
My Robert Jordan issues are already embarrassingly public, so I’ll just go now.

17

I guess my guilty pleasure is Laurell K. Hamilton’s “Anita Blake, Vampire Killer” series. The boks tend to have repetitive plots, soap opera-like romantic menages, and lately, WAY more sadomasochistic sex than I care to read about. But, I have the whole set and will buy the new one in hardback when it comes out in October (assuming that I’m not living on the street by then).

18

I liked the books early on when she was Anita Blake, tough fearless vampire-hunter. I like them considerably less, now that she’s Anita Blake: Bimbo to Monsters.

Fenris

19

Since I mostly read non-fiction these days, I can’t say that I have any such beasts, right now.

The closest would probably be Terry Goodkind. This has really gone downhill as it gets more political (ooh ooh, socialism bad, capitalism good, ooh ooh; I agree, but still, it is boring). But I keep reading.

I’m probably just hoping that the Mord Sith will go back to the BDSM ways and that’ll make me happy again.

I used to be on the Anne McCaffrey train, reading every new Pern book as they came out. Then one day I finished one and suddenly realized: “Hey! These suck.”

OH! I just remembered:

The Destroyer Series! Remo Williams, Chiun, Sinanju. I just love these books for some reason. The only thing off the “male action” shelf I’ve ever read.

20

Yeah, me too. I also read the Left Behind books when they make it to my library(I don’t give any more money to those people). And I love the romance novels written by the likes of Johanna Lindsey and Virginia Henley.