Probably Glen Cook, and his “Black Company” fantasy series. Not that it got bad, really, just…well, dark. Depressing. I mean, this was hardly a cheery series to begin with, but from the timeline of book publication, the man’s dog must have died or something around 1989.
Hey, a little “grim and gritty” is one thing, leaving me wanting to chug a prozac smoothie is another.
Can’t say I blame her. Some people just can’t seem to shut up and listen to the music. I suspect the people who were scolded were the ones chattering to their friends during the quiet songs.
My beef with her is the same one I have with Sarah McLachlan. Both were a lot more interesting early in their careers when they would do a variety of songs, even ones with a (gasp) beat. Both later decided that they only wanted to do mopey, sad songs.
Dick Francis. I went through a huge binge of reading his books one summer about 20 years ago, and haven’t been able to stomach him since. I wouldn’t even be able to tell you why.
Especially because, since Cornwell rushes through the last two chapters of her latest books, the boyfriend was just casually sitting there, said hi, and… rush to end story before contract expires.
BTW, I really like S is for Silence. It has two stories intertwined (like Nevada Barr’s Flashback), and is a much more mature novel than A-R.
That guy who would go, “Well, you can call me Ray, and you can call me Jay…”.
It took a while, but his schtick finally got old. 
As I recall, they were committing the atrocious sin of actually cheering at the intro of songs they recognized and whooping, cheering, and, uh, applauding at each song’s completion. That is, they were doing that until Ms. Schoolmarm told them to get stuffed. In a related note, I find that nothing is less fun than going to a purported rock and roll show, only to have any of the fun leached out of the experience buy self important, pretentious, “serious” musicians. So, yeah, if the reports were true - and I have no reason to doubt them - fuck her.
There’s no good reason not to know the real name of that one-trick pony:
And I salute your good taste. He was “funny” for nineteen minutes.
In his favor is the fact that variety and specialty shows of that era had dozens just like him. Some of them lasted no longer than one or two appearances. It might make for a fun thread to list as many as we can remember or dig up on Wiki and elsewhere. In fact, I think I may start one later today if somebody doesn’t beat me to it. 
Another vote for Dick Francis, although it was not nearly so much of binge and bust for me as it seems to have been for RTFirefly. For years I could rely on Francis if I wanted some good, fun entertainment reading, and would zip through them at speed. The last one I read, however, took me over a year to finish (I finally got to the end a few weeks ago).
Perhaps this reflects a real decline in the quality of output from the “Dick Francis” brand, however. As I understand it, the man himself semi-retired quite a few years ago, and the more recent “Dick Francis” books were actually largely written by his son, although with Dad giving a fair bit of help with the plotting. (I am not sure what Junior is going to do now that Dad has actually died.)
Somehow, I doubt that was the case. As a member of the audience, I’ve confronted people chattering during songs and they NEVER acknowledge they were doing so, and acted all offended that I asked them to stop.
Writer: Harlan Ellison
TV: The Colbert Report
Musical genre: Bluegrass
Ricky Gervais
Diane Keaton
Literary:
Jean Auel and her Earth’s Children series of novels. The first one was the best. The second one was the second-best. The third one was the third best. The fourth one was the fourth best. And the fifth one sucked the worst. Also, the length of each book was in inverse proportion to its quality. They got longer as they got worse. I heard she was coming out with a sixth one, but I purposely avoided finding out if it was ever published. I don’t want to know.
Musically:
Enya.
(I agree about Liz Phair too.)
I can’t believe we’re on page 2 and no one has said Stephen King or Tom Clancy. I haven’t read a Tom Clancy in about 10 years. he used to be one of my favorite authors. It seems like he tanked about the same time the Soviet Union did.
Stephen King is even more pathetic. It almost seems like he (like Clancy) think that if their name is on a book, it doesn’t matter what’s in side. King wrote the first and only book to give me nightmares. Now his stuff is less than uninteresting. I was actually pissed when I got to the end of The Dome, it was so bad. Nightmares and Dreamscapes was the first King book I put down without finishing.
I will be the third to name Dennis Miller. When his current radio show first went on the air hereabouts I thought his commentary was witty and spot-on. At some point it became Mr. Miller and his sycophantic lap-dog co-host pretending that everything Miller says is the funniest thing ever said.
Stepehn King has bounced back a bit but is more uneven than finished. “The Dome” sucked, but he had a book of short stories before that, called “Just After Sunset” that I enjoyed. I’ve heard “Full Dark, No Stars” (4 novellas) is also very good. I think he needs to be confined by format to avoid bloated ridiculousness.
Maybe it is a case of “The bigger they are, the less power their editor has”.
The son, Felix Francis, is now writing the horsey mysteries on his own. His first solo effort comes out next week.
The ending was a bit of a letdown, truly, but nowhere near as jaw-droppingly lunkheaded as the WTF? conclusion of Pet Sematary, which forever ruined that piece of fiction for me. No, I found The Dome to be a welcome return of the King style of old. And if you want to read four really pretty great novellas, you should check out Full Dark, No Stars. And hell, his next big novel (11/22/63) sounds damn near unfuckupable.
That’s like saying not only do you love Jar Jar Binks in “Episode I”, but you hate Boba Fett for ruining “Empire Strikes Back.”
Really? You actually just compared Pet Sematary to The Empire Strikes Back? Let me tell you about this phenomenon known as “hyperbole”.