# Bad, 'guilty pleasures' authors and the readers who buy their books **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 21, 2001, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-guilty-pleasures-authors-and-the-readers-who-buy-their-books/77409 "2001-08-21T20:09:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2001, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-guilty-pleasures-authors-and-the-readers-who-buy-their-books/77409/21 "2001-08-21T22:38:07Z")
I read all those romance books with Fabio on the cover. The thing is, I know it’s not going to be good when I pick it up, but…but… I can’t believe it’s not better. oh come on! At least give me an “E” for effort. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Eyed\_Stranger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/919ad9/32.png) [@Green\_Eyed\_Stranger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Eyed_Stranger)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2001, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-guilty-pleasures-authors-and-the-readers-who-buy-their-books/77409/22 "2001-08-21T22:38:25Z")
**Obfusciatrist** , I was going to mention the _Destroyer_ series. Oh well. There was another fantasy series I started reading, I can’t remember right now. It was about wizards with birds fighting some technological advanced country. I read two or three books, then started the new one thinking “Ok, this will answer all my questions”. I got a couple chapters in and thought “This sucks, I don’t really want any questions answered anyway.” _Eaglemage_ might have been that last book. GES ---
**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2001, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-guilty-pleasures-authors-and-the-readers-who-buy-their-books/77409/23 "2001-08-21T22:41:40Z")
ALL the Dune books, including the prequels. at least it’s got a plot… “Jitterbug Perfume” by Tom Robbins. sorry. i. love. it. Johnathan and Faye Kellerman. what can i say. i need help. help me. please. Sherri S Tepper. some book about a fungus that is actually god, or something. i loved it at the time. read the damn book about 5 times. can’t remeber the title. the shame is making my memory fail. i’m sad, and i have appalling taste in trashy novels. but sometimes you need to relax and live a little. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2001, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-guilty-pleasures-authors-and-the-readers-who-buy-their-books/77409/24 "2001-08-21T23:21:42Z")
Darn. I hoped to be the first to bring up the Anita Blake series. I will, however, be the first to note the irony that the initial book in the series is actually titled **Guilty Pleasures**. Obviously Laurell knew what she was writing about. Fenris is quite right about the Bimbo to Monsters criticism. Here we’ve got a fierce, sadistic master vampire, who’d gladly kill you just to make a point, who has repeatedly threatened to murder any of Anita’s boyfriends who are not him–and she _loves_ him! That’s not what I want in my heroines. And then there’s the book where she totals her car in one chapter, only to be seen driving it again two chapters later. Or the one where the bad guys put a contract on her head to get her out of the way so they can carry out their master plan. Except that their master plan will only work if she’s alive. Or the one… Oh, never mind. They just don’t make sense. And yet, I’ve read them all. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2001, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-guilty-pleasures-authors-and-the-readers-who-buy-their-books/77409/25 "2001-08-21T23:29:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Enderw24 \* > \*\*I read all those romance books with Fabio on the cover. . > \*\* Actually, I know you’re kidding and all, but no less of a personage than Lois McMaster Bujold herself recommended romance writer Georgette Heyer to me. I was doing book reviews and made a snotty comment about how I like whatever book it was but I hated the “romance-novel” cover. She very nicely pointed out that the sort of snobbery I was engaging in was _exactly_ the same sort as the “Sci-Fi? You like reading about robots and brain-eaters?!” type of cretin. She also pointed out that her newest Miles book A Civil Campaign was (IIRC) nominated for both the Hugo and the Sapphire (romance) awards, so there can be some cross-influence. She claimed Heyer was complex and very, very funny. I’ve just recently gotten a couple of the romance novels she’s recommended (Heyer is _impossible_ to find used), so we’ll see. That said, unless Heinlein came back from the dead and told me personally to do so, I wouldn’t caught dead reading a novel with Fabio on the cover. 😉 Fenris ---
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2001, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-guilty-pleasures-authors-and-the-readers-who-buy-their-books/77409/26 "2001-08-21T23:38:16Z")
_Betty and Veronica Double Digest_ Yes, I’m serious. [sub]I know I should just shut up but I feel I must explain[/sub] I don’t like the new stories, but I love the B&V stories from the '70s and the '60s, especially those drawn by Dan DeCarlo. Betty and Veronica with their tiny little waists and pointy boobs, never a hair out of place, going to the malt shop and the sock hop and fighting over Archie. They’re like . . . I dunno . . . Rockwellian, I guess. Happy American Youth as it never was. I buy B&VDD when I’m feeling blue or when I need something mindless to read. Lord knows there’s nothing more mindless than an Archie comic book. ---
**Author:** ![bashere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@bashere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bashere)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2001, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-guilty-pleasures-authors-and-the-readers-who-buy-their-books/77409/27 "2001-08-21T23:43:12Z")
Well, I’ve got a weakness for Robert Jordan’s stuff, as I admitted in another thread. But I’m swearing off it. One day. The more embarrassing ones are Dean Koontz, and Clive Cussler. I’m seeking therapy. ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2001, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-guilty-pleasures-authors-and-the-readers-who-buy-their-books/77409/28 "2001-08-21T23:43:24Z")
I wouldn’t put Sheri S. Tepper into the trashy books category. Most of her stuff is very well written. There are a couple of bad ones, but I wouldn’t call any of them trashy. ---
**Author:** ![lolagranola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ea5d25/32.png) [@lolagranola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lolagranola)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2001, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-guilty-pleasures-authors-and-the-readers-who-buy-their-books/77409/29 "2001-08-21T23:43:49Z")
My post should sound suspiciously like **Interrobang!?**'s post, except about Star Trek. I had a bunch of books that required thinking, and while I was a student, I just didn’t want to think in my offtime. Terrible, I know. So I have a nearly complete collection of DS9 novels in my bedroom. My sister calls them the Harlequinn of the sci-fi world. And what’s worse? I just bought a Buffy book too. I should be shot. I spent my teen years reading the classics, and my adult years reading teen books. ---
**Author:** ![Gozu\_Tashoya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7993a0/32.png) [@Gozu\_Tashoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gozu_Tashoya)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2001, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-guilty-pleasures-authors-and-the-readers-who-buy-their-books/77409/30 "2001-08-21T23:50:49Z")
Well, nice to see I’m not the only one who can’t rip myself away from the bad authors. In addition to the aforementioned Hamilton books (‘bimbo to monsters,’ I like that), Terry “it’s time for a lecture to my once wise, but suddenly clueless supporting characters” Goodkind, I also read the crappiest of fantasy books, namely the _Forgotten Realms_ and _Dragonlance_ books. Say what you will about Eddings and his books, but FR is _horrible_. I mean talk about never, ever, being in danger of losing a fight (Drizzt and, of course, Elminster)! But I just can’t keep myself away… I attribute it to starting this stuff in elementary school, personally… ---
**Author:** ![Some\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Some_Guy)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2001, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-guilty-pleasures-authors-and-the-readers-who-buy-their-books/77409/31 "2001-08-22T00:00:42Z")
Okay, Jordan’s stuff (which, admittedly, I read ravenously) isn’t exactly Great Literature, but it’s not _horrible_. The triouble comes from believing people ( the really rabid fans, say, or his publishers) who say that he’s the Modern Tolkien- he’s far, far, away from that league. On the other hand, comparing him to David “omnipotent blue stone” Eddings is perilously close to libel- it takes a whloe lot of mediocrity to write stuff that limp. I should point out that I’ve read all of Eddings’ stuff, too ;). > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by magdalene \* > \*\* > > 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. > \*\* Heh. Robert Parker is my one painful weakness. I know most of his stuff has exactly the same plot, the same characters, and even the same repeated dialogue (“My strength is as the strength of ten, because my heart is pure.”), but I absolutely cannot resist reading (and rereading) everything he’s ever written. The scary thing is, he’s been writing Spenser stuff since 1974, which means that the man must be in his mid-sixties by now. Some how or another, even though every other character in the entire series ages, Spenser and Susan just … don’t. How’s that for good writing? Given that I used to work in a bookstore, I could probably give a illion examples of authors that must be _someone’s_ guilty pleasure (Nora Roberts _is_ J. D. Robb!) - but I think I’ll refrain for the moment. Maybe later… ---
**Author:** ![SkeptiJess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@SkeptiJess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkeptiJess)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2001, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-guilty-pleasures-authors-and-the-readers-who-buy-their-books/77409/32 "2001-08-22T00:04:04Z")
Well, my favorite guilty pleasure is \ Judith Krantz. She’s just _awful_. But, dammit, her books are sexy! And her plots keep the pages turning. I can’t help it, I just _like her books_. Some of the others mentioned here: The Left Behind series – Well, I started reading this series for [research purposes only](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=65287), but I’ll probably read the rest just for the train-wreckish quality. Also, because I’d like to see how it’s all gonna turn out. Will we actually _see_ Jesus? In person? Talk about guilty pleasures, though. I borrowed these from the library, and sheesh… I always felt like justifying my choice to the librarian. “Uh, I don’t _really_ read these, you know. I’m, uh… borrowing them for an elderly fundamentalist shut-in. Yeah!” The Pern series – I’ve loved these books forever (well, OK, – since 1977.) Ask me sometime how McCaffrey helped make me an atheist… I think the early books still hold up pretty well, although, even at its best, the quality was never much above hack-level. Stylish, fun and _addictive_ hack-work, of course. The last few books have been terrible, though, and the very last one (Skies of Pern) was so intensely crappy that I didn’t even buy it, just read it from the library. The Anita Blake books – I _love_ these books! Like McCaffrey and Krantz, Hamilton is a hack – but a fun and interesting hack who doesn’t take herself too seriously. I absolutely lost myself in Hamilton’s fascinating and creepy world, literally doing _nothing_ but working and reading until I had finished them. My husband kept asking, “Haven’t you finished those zombie books yet?” Gory, violent and so damn kinky that I sometimes felt I needed a bath after finishing one (a bath instead of a shower, because I couldn’t take the next Anita Blake into the shower with me) – I will definately be lining up for the next one, even at hardback prices. I didn’t like the Merry Gentry book as well, BTW. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2001, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-guilty-pleasures-authors-and-the-readers-who-buy-their-books/77409/33 "2001-08-22T00:09:58Z")
My guilty pleasure author is Jean Auel; I’ve read all four novels in the _Earth’s Children_ series. For all the fanatical devotion she inspires in her cultic fans, I can’t see what raises her work above the level of any other romance novel potboiler; what interested me however was the look into prehistoric society. Looking forward to her next installment in the series coming up soon after a hiatus of, what, 10 years? But maybe I don’t qualify for this thread because I’d never actually buy one of her books; I borrow 'em from the library. ---
**Author:** ![Netbrian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71e660/32.png) [@Netbrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Netbrian)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2001, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-guilty-pleasures-authors-and-the-readers-who-buy-their-books/77409/34 "2001-08-22T00:28:59Z")
Could someone jog my memory on what Terry Goodkind writes? I know I’ve read books by him, but cannot for the life of me remember what they WERE. Oh, and I’d have to say Christopher Stasheff, master of recycling plots and churning out books over and over and over again, and nigh-omnipotent protaganists. ---
**Author:** ![TVeblen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@TVeblen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVeblen)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2001, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-guilty-pleasures-authors-and-the-readers-who-buy-their-books/77409/35 "2001-08-22T00:34:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Fenris \* > \*\* > > Actually, I know you’re kidding and all, but no less of a personage than Lois McMaster Bujold herself recommended romance writer Georgette Heyer to me. > > Fenris \*\* Ease into it, **Fenris** , and try a few of Heyer’s murder mysteries to start. She couldn’t plot worth beans but her characterizations and dialogue are stellar. Envious Casca is a hoot. It’s an acidic riff on a classic 20’s country house murder over a Christmas holiday. It would have made a _great_ movie, with some of magnificent character actors so beloved by **Eve**. I’m pretty sure it’s been reprinted in paperback but some libraries still have copies lurking on the shelves as well. Serendipity…I just discovered the Anita Blake series last week. I’m trying to read them in order but they have a smarmy, car-wreck fascination so far. FWIW I’m on a vampire kick after reading Charlaine Harris’s offbeat Dead Until Dark. The difference is, Harris can _write_ but I’m still glommed into Anita anyway. Reading junkie, Veb ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2001, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-guilty-pleasures-authors-and-the-readers-who-buy-their-books/77409/36 "2001-08-22T00:48:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Netbrian \* > \*\*Could someone jog my memory on what Terry Goodkind writes? I know I’ve read books by him, but cannot for the life of me remember what they WERE. > \*\* He writes the Sword of Truth series. The first book, **Wizard’s First Rule** was one of the best fantasy books I’ve ever read. His sixth book **Faith of the Fallen** was one of the suckiest suckfest that ever did suck. Sigh…I’ll still read the seventh though. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2001, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-guilty-pleasures-authors-and-the-readers-who-buy-their-books/77409/37 "2001-08-22T00:54:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by TVeblen \* > **Ease into it, Fenris, and try a few of Heyer’s murder mysteries to start.** Heh. Bujold said _exactly_ the opposite! She said to ease into it and start with the Regency books and her mysteries were a good follow-up. 😃 I’ve got my hands on four (as I said, they’re _impossible_ to find used): Fredricka, A Civil Contract, Sylvester and A Convienient Marriage. Of those four, do you have any recommendations? (Envious Casca is now on my used-book list, btw: thanks for the recommendation!) \*\* > [@](#): > > Serendipity…I just discovered the Anita Blake series last week. I’m trying to read them in order but they have a smarmy, car-wreck fascination so far.\*\* The more monsters she boinks, the worse the books get. I gave up at **Blue Moon**. I would’ve given up earlier, but I’d already bought the damned thing. As a matter of fact, the original reason I’d gotten into the series was I was nauseated by the whole grotesquely idiotic “cold, clammy, undead, human-predator vampires are sssssssexy” trend and Anita (early on) was a welcome relief. Little did I know… \*\* > [@](#): > > Reading junkie, > Veb \*\* Excuse me, we don’t appreciate the term “junkie” as it has negative connotations. Let’s use the terms “Bibliofiend” or “Bookaholic”, shall we?. 😃 Fenris ---
**Author:** ![Tyklfe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3e96dc/32.png) [@Tyklfe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tyklfe)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2001, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-guilty-pleasures-authors-and-the-readers-who-buy-their-books/77409/38 "2001-08-22T00:55:12Z")
Terry Pratchet’s _Discworld_ novels - I just can’t get enough of this really wierd series… ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2001, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-guilty-pleasures-authors-and-the-readers-who-buy-their-books/77409/39 "2001-08-22T01:08:29Z")
> [@](#): > > Terry Pratchet’s Discworld novels - I just can’t get enough of this really wierd series… Ah, but this thread concerns _bad_ books we love; Terry Pratchett is a brilliant writer who, in the guise of comic fantasy, has written some of the wittiest and most perceptive satire to come down the pike in many a moon. Gobear to Fenris: Bimbo to Monsters, eh? I wish I’d said that! Fenris to Gobear: You will, Oscar, you will. ---
**Author:** ![TVeblen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@TVeblen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVeblen)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2001, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-guilty-pleasures-authors-and-the-readers-who-buy-their-books/77409/40 "2001-08-22T01:49:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Fenris \* > **Heh. Bujold said _exactly_ the opposite! She said to ease into it and start with the Regency books and her mysteries were a good follow-up. 😃** The ineffable Lois is right in that Heyer hit her stride with the Regencies. I’m a hardcore mystery fan and discovered those first, so maybe it’s sentimentality. The mysteries are _very_ brittle, mannered, 20’s period pieces. Picture Agatha Christie with a sex-drive, sophistication and a _wicked_ sense of humor. Another recommendation is The Unfinished Clue; country house murder again but the exotic Mexican temptress confronting the rigid pukha-sahib host is priceless. \*\* > [@](#): > > I’ve got my hands on four (as I said, they’re _impossible_ to find used): Fredricka, A Civil Contract, Sylvester and A Convienient Marriage. Of those four, do you have any recommendations?\*\* I had to dig up some reviews to recall–it’s been a few million years since I read any of 'em–but I’d recommend Sylvester of the four. Of the full list of titles the only one that rang a clear bell was The Talisman Ring. IIRC it’s witty, self-parodying costume froth elevated by a genuinely original heroine. \*\* > [@](#): > > Excuse me, we don’t appreciate the term “junkie” as it has negative connotations. Let’s use the terms “Bibliofiend” or “Bookaholic”, shall we?. :D\*\* Hmmmm. “Bookaholic” strikes addiction notes too and I’m pretty well in fiend-overdose, thanks to Anita… Book-addled? Veb [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-guilty-pleasures-authors-and-the-readers-who-buy-their-books/77409.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-guilty-pleasures-authors-and-the-readers-who-buy-their-books/77409.md?page=3)