Nope. The previously mentioned Anita Blake series which came before SVM, but essentially had the same romantic triangle (although my understanding is that in later books, she started exploring non-Euclidean geometry).
Add me to the Wheel of Time: the first books intrigued me, but eventually it went to the “fuck that shit” pile when things went from “a choral novel” to “a cacophony of not-quite related emo songs”.
Picked an Anita Blake Vampire Lover in the airport and years later a book from a different series without recognizing the author’s name. I’ve got a post somewhere pointing out how many of those “porn for women” books involve men with hair down to their ankles (which mysteriously never gets in the way) wearing more lace and ruffles than Belgium produced in five centuries*; those books aren’t the only ones I’ve encountered which match the description, but they were among the most egregious (there were things I liked but the sexing was definitely not it - plus seriously, is there any [del]female[/del] character who isn’t either the Queen of Fuck or thinner than a cardboard cutout? And the QoF isn’t that deep either, but we get to know that she thinks).
I got in trouble when the Dune movie came out; there were rumors that Sting had been offered a different character but requested Feyd. At the weekly friki-fest in the bookstore, I said out loud that, as irrational as that dude is, he’s the only one who acts logically… I think being female is the only thing which saved me from being on the receiving end of some serious violence from the outraged fans.
- Isabel II of Spain is said to have described her husband and cousin Francisco de Asís (who by all accounts was gayer than a baby-pink feathered boa in a Pride parade) as “on our wedding night, he was wearing more lace than I did”. A lot of those “porn for women” books bring that line to mind.
I’m currently trying to push through the last book of this series. I think it would have been a much better series in 3 books instead of 6.
I stopped reading the Worldwar series after Yeager betrayed the human race and caused the death of millions of Americans.
It’s been a long, long time since I’ve looked at who published Weis and Hickman. I know that my daughter read the Deathgate cycle, and even played the computer game. But it’s been a long, long time since TSR was in business, too. Wizards of the Coast bought them.
I did so many book reports on those things…the only plot I can remember is one of the twins stealing money from their jointly-held stash to buy glow bracelets at the mall. I think there was also a massive walk-in closet?
The “Gor” books. I had just finished all the Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars books and was looking for something similar. Boy, was I in for an unhappy surprise. The first book is juuuuuust marginally acceptable enough to lure you on to the second.
2nd on the Shannara books. Dreadful. Same with the Thomas Covenant books. Shockingly bad.
+1
I had the “mystery” solved by page 10. It was so obvious and then everyone is OMFG!!!1111ONEONEONE at the end. I didn’t even bother to pick up book #2
Because of the upcoming movie and the controversy over the lead casting*, I decided to try Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels. I read the first (Killing Floor). It was flawed, but a quick, easy read. It was also the first novel out of 15, and the first by the author, so maybe the author just needed to warm up.
Then I read the second (Die Trying), which turned out to be the same as the first novel with different names, and all the same flaws. It reads like a bad NCIS episode (not that there are good NCIS episodes, but I digress). Now, I don’t know if novels 3 through 15 get better, but Mr. Child hasn’t given me any reason to try to find out.
*Despite the obvious physical differences, I really don’t have a problem with the casting. YMMV
I must have stopped reading before that happened, but I had the character pinned as an unlikable dick from the very first book.
The humans launched a missile strike at incoming colony ships and the lizards didn’t know who was responsible because (IIRC) they were sub based.
Yeager knowingly let a lizard captive go with the knowledge that the US had launched the missiles, and the lizards, in retaliation nuked Indianapolis. And Yeager, rather than being full of regret, was all self-righteous about it. The least believable part was that he wasn’t killed outright by his own people.
At this point, I’m pot-committed to A Song Of Ice & Fire. It’s definitely not a “crap series”, because there is some really good stuff in here. But for everything Martin does well, like world building and mythology, he does a lot of things that I should consider unforgivable. For one, he clearly hates his characters, considering all of the suffering he insists on inflicting upon them (he shares this tendency with Dan Simmons). He is guilty of continually introducing redundant characters (how many 8 ft tall murderous rogue knights does this story need). And by now he has clearly moved his story into Grady Tripp territory, where he can’t seem to make choices, and just keeps expanding and expanding and expanding…
A Dance With Dragons helped pull the story back in a little bit. But if we get another 2000 pages (ya know, in 5 years or so) and somehow we are back in Mereen, I’m going to tear my rotator cuff throwing that book.
Koontz’s Odd Thomas series. Ye Gods how did I get sucked into this pile of dreck? They aren’t even well written, but yet I must know how it ends.
I utterly refuse to give Koontz any more of money for it though - I’m 57th in line at the local library to read the newest installment. Truth be told I’m dying to know . . .
What the heck this pregnant chick has to do with anything. . . and his crazy Aunt. There was an Aunt, wasn’t there?!?
The only thing I am curious about is whether the poor kid ever gets laid.
Suddenly, my hating him for stealing and impregnating the wife of one of the actually likable characters in the series seems petty and small.
Regarding the spoiler material
[spoiler] Geez, the book with the pregnant woman was like HALF a book. Having her be all mysterious only goes so far - freakin’ TELL US SOMETHING, IT’S A STORY! Also, the scene near the beginning where Odd hides under the dock is INTERMINABLE!
Rock climbing, Joel.
Rock climbing, Servo. [/spoiler]
Haha! This is oddly, my EXACT impressions upon reading that book. It’s a bizarre combination of Kelts in Space and Planet of the Mary Sues, but I couldn’t really bring myself to dislike it. It was so good naturedly ridiculous.
I did not, however, feel any urge to read any other books in the series.
I too discarded Wheel of Time (around book 4 or so, when I realized I hadn’t seen the only character I actually liked for an ENTIRE BOOK) and Game of Thrones (after book 1, since I no longer cared about any of the surviving cast.). I don’t precisely regret reading them however. That honor goes to Weiss & Hickman’s “Dark Sword” books, which were so wretched that even though I quit in the midst of book 2, I STILL regret reading them.
Edit: Oh god, I forgot about Thomas Covenant. I don’t think I made it past chapter 3, and it still smarts.
A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones).
When the series came on TV I saw so many posts online from people frothing at the mouth that their favourite ever books were made in to a TV show at long last!!! I watched one episode of the show and hated it. So I picked up the first book, and thought it was equally bad. I said so and someone pointed out that it’s an epic series and the first book is merely the starter course before the main course. So I bought the next three books in the series, and started reading them.
I gave up after the 3rd one. Couldn’t follow what was going on any more
cos every last bugger gets killed off
I also found a lot of the content to be rather misogynistic. I got the impression that the author got fed up of writing but for some reason has to keep writing the books.
There is a story in there somewhere, but I couldn’t figure out for the life of me what it was!
Have found this thread via bldysabba’s link from the “Disapprove of a book list…” one – I can seldom resist chuntering on about Harry Turtledove…
I wouldn’t altogether agree about his likeable characters getting short shrift, and his nastier ones flourishing like the green bay tree; but won’t get into citing examples here.
I found much good stuff in Timeline-191; but for me, it’s the least interesting and appealing of his major series. I could regret its seeming to get far more discussion from fans, than anything else by him – suppose that with my not being American, it strikes less of a chord with me than it might otherwise do. I found it wearisome about most of the second half or so of TL-191, that the events of the 1920s / 30s/ early 40s there, are largely a formulaic mirror-image of those in “our timeline”, only with the USA and Germany as the (relative) good guys.
The final novel of the series, “In At The Death”, became for me a good deal more interesting, with the end and immediate aftermath of World War 2 substantially and imaginatively different from events in “OTL”. I’d have liked to learn what happened in North America and further afield, in the later 1940s; but the author chose to end the series in 1944 / 45. What came about later, probably would not have been very pleasant; TL-191 is indeed a borderline dystopia, full of the horribly-intractable.
Some things in TL-191, I also find most implausible; an instance is the USA militarily occupying Canada “in perpetuity” – with all the other things they need to attend to…
Re Worldwar, I admit to being something of a “Lizard-lover”, which is liable to make me unpopular with some. I see what happened to Indianapolis as being part of a foully unpleasant and difficult situation for everyone, with no good choices. Overall, many fans appear to find all the Yeagers obnoxious for various reasons, not only “species-treason” – I always liked them well enough as characters, albeit sometimes not admirable in behaviour; everyone on earth has done things which they are – or should be – ashamed of.
I wish I had stopped reading Wheel of Time after the 6th book. It just kept dragging on after that.
The sword of truth series was good for me until the fifth one. I did finish the series, but it was such a let down.
I’ve read the entire Anita Blake series to date, and regret doing so. Obsidian Butterfly was the last good book in the series. I keep hoping Hamilton will get off her slut kick and restart the series from there, but I know that’s just a pipe dream.
If I had started the Dresden series with storm front instead of small favors, I would never have read the entire thing.