Regarding Thomas Covenant, I actually like the books (first sequence) although as with many others, hated the character. At the time I was much younger, and it was a refreshing contrast to the more “wholesome” Tolkien based fantasy that filled most of the shelves.
I was . . . much less impressed with the sequel trilogy, as it just doubled down on the gloom and doom, all the same elements of the first but just made worse for the reason of making it worse. Fundamentally nothing -new- happened, so it just felt like “I’ll release some more to make some $$$.”
I browsed through a few pages of the next set at a bookstore and said “Yup, no need.”
Not so much a book, but an author: Louise Erdrich. I no longer recall the titles of the books of hers I read, but I read one novel with a fascinating background and several very interesting and well-drawn characters, and a section of about fifty pages that I thought was wonderful.
Unfortunately, the rest of the book fell pretty flat. Oh well, I said, she’s obviously got a great book in her, but this just isn’t it. We shall try again.
So I read a second novel of hers and there was that same interesting background and those same well-drawn characters, and another stretch of fifty wonderful pages. Oh well, I said again, this is not that great book I’m looking for, but it must be here somewhere, right?
I finally gave up after the third one, which I reacted to just like the other two. Really wanted to like them, and just didn’t. They weren’t bad, they weren’t terrible; they just weren’t very good. Your mileage obviously may vary.
I read the four-volume Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant not too long ago (after having read the first and second trilogies way back in high school). And yeah, I wanted to like it. There’s some good stuff in it, but it’s way too long—the third volume (IIRC) starts with a hundred pages of the characters standing around talking while nothing happens.
I tried to read “Little Women” as a child. ZZZZZZZZ. I re-tried to read it in recent years. It wasn’t any more interesting this time around, either. I had the same experiences with “A Wrinkle in Time.”
I also couldn’t get into “Life of Pi.” I haven’t seen the movie.
However, I finally read “Catcher in the Rye” a few years ago, and I LOVED IT! I could certainly understand why so many people don’t, and when I got to the second chapter from the end, wondered how it could have found a publisher in, say, 1971, never mind 1951.
I read them as each of them were published. I agree with your assessment – they were dark, the story wasn’t particularly easy for me to follow, and it felt like there was a lot of words and talking, without much actual plot development. Even my younger self didn’t enjoy them.
I also found my one and only sampling of Terry Pratchett unsatisfying. A ways back, I decided to see what all the fuss was about by picking up The Truth, mostly because journalism is kind of my thing. I gave it the old college try, but eventually I just tossed it aside. I remember thinking that I just couldn’t give a damn what Mr. Pin happened to be snorting at the moment. I did a little bit of research just now to see if I might have simply picked up a lesser effort, but it appears to be fairly well-regarded by the fandom.
I’ve sort of given up on Robinson. He reminds me a bit of Ben Bova… they both write (well, wrote, in Bova’s case, RIP) something that superficially resembles hard science fiction, with science and technology featuring prominently in the narrative and the ‘visual surface’ of the world-building.
But it is obvious that neither of them had any deep scientific education. Mistakes keep showing up that throw me out of the narrative: “hang on, that’s not quite right”, or “that wouldn’t really work”.
OK, if it’s fictional new physics you can write your own rules, but if it’s known science, I want to see it done right.
They could both have benefited from an editorial process with a stronger scientific review, perhaps?
As others have said, Pratchett took a while to hit his stride. The first few books were really just parodies of the ‘sword and sorcery’ fluff that grew up in the shadow of Lord of the Rings.
I think, and again, this is discounting the fact that everyone has different tastes, is that for Discworld (specifically, not Pratchett in general), that there are issues for anyone going into it from a single book.
If you’re reading the early stuff, it’s absolutely lacking in the polish and the laughs, and if you go into it expecting more, you’ll be disappointed.
If you go into any of the later (discounting near stand-alone like Small Gods) books, part of the fun is you’re supposed to be picking up on all the little references that build off an expectation of having read the previous works. You don’t “get it” when CMOT Dibbler shows up, or a parody of that character in a different settling, or any other cameos/quasi cameos (Monstrous Regiment for example).
So yeah, picking any single place to start that will work well by itself and live up to the expectations is going to be hard.
This is why I know plenty of people who have (including posters in this thread IIRC) enjoyed Good Omens, but been underwhelmed by Discworld.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy. All my friends loved it, and I wanted to also. But the best I could do was to make it maybe fifty pages into the first book, not understanding anything, at which point I thought, “This is not entertaining at all.” I put it down, and haven’t touched it since.
So many people told me they loved The Red Tent by Anita Diamant, and I really feel like I gave it an honest try. I found the narration unbearably pretentious to the point that I couldn’t stop hearing it in this irritating airy-fairy voice. I quit before the end of the second chapter because I hated the narrator so much.
I’m big Asimov fan. I’ve read many of his novels, have many short story collections. But the first one I started, The Foundation Trilogy, I just never finished. I’d like to like it. It is so influential and well regarded.
It’s not that I hate it. I just never got interested. I quit about 25 years ago, but I optimistically left a bookmark. I was surprised to see it is in book 2! I don’t even remember anything in, let alone actually finishing, book 1. Now I’ll have to start over.
I had heard much and many great things about Infinite Jest and A Confederacy of Dunces, but neither appealed to me at all. I stopped reading about a quarter of the way in each.
I am one of those. Such a whining inane petulant plot!
The book I wanted to like, because a person I respect recomended it, was Jude the Obscure. Oh, dear! I’ll try again, perhaps, in a couple of years. When I get Alzheimer’s, maybe, I’ll be able to stand it.
Most of my friends went gaga over Lord of the Rings, so I read them. I did not like the.
I don’t like The Left Hand of Darkness, or that matter, most of LeGuin.
I read the first Game of Thrones book, realized with horror that nothing happy was ever, ever going to happen and said forget it. Life is too short to read books by a man who is clearly a reincarnated Thomas Hardy.
Are they as fatalistic about the youngest one dying in the novel as they are in the movie? They cry around her like she’s already dead. Didn’t anybody survive the fever?