I read all kinds of fiction, sci-fi, thrillers, mysteries, and so on. Lately I’ve been reading John Grisham, and in spite of some absurd plot lines or improbable characters I really like his work. It’s fantasy in the real world.
But I just finished The Associate and am going WTF? I kept waiting for a big reveal, or killer of an ending, and, well, nothing much happened. This one read more like the first installment of a series, leaving, IMNSHO, a lot of plot threads unresolved. I’ll be tossing this one in the donation bin at the library.
Has anyone else had this happen with an author they usually enjoy? The books don’t have to be great art, just the kind of stuff you like.
Jim Butcher jumped the shark (or something) with his craptacular 12th Harry Dresden book, Ghost Story. It was so bad, it made me stop giving a shit about a story and characters that I had thoroughly enjoyed for 11 novels and a bunch of short stories.
Richard K. Morgan’s Market Forces was terrible, and usually he is a very good writer with excellent ideas. But this novel seemed like something he wrote in college and put in a box in his closet, only hauling it out and having it published because it was easier than actually writing something new. I guess I can’t blame him much for fulfilling his contractual obligations as simply as possible, but it sure sucked to read.
Snowboarder Bo, your mention of the Dresden files fits right in with my own experience. A second example for me! I haven’t read Butcher since Ghost Story, and before that I really liked the books.
Callahan’s Con, by Spider Robinson, was very disappointing. He killed off a major character for no apparent reason, way overused his “talking animals” gimmick, and otherwise just sorta phoned it in. I think maybe he just went as far as he could go with that series, and then published one book too many. I think he’s started a new series, but I haven’t tried it.
I love much of Ursula K. LeGuin’s SF and fantasy writing, particularly the Earthsea Trilogy. But most of her subsequent Earthsea books starting with Tehanu have disappointed and annoyed me to some extent (although a couple of the later Earthsea short stories are among the best things she ever wrote).
The majority of the later Earthsea stuff reads like a bunch of New Age feminist revisionists got their hands on the original legends and history and produced a more politically correct sanitized version of them. (And I’m an uncompromising feminist myself, btw, but I think the point of feminism is to change the present and the future, not to falsify the past, even a fictional past.)
I read the “new Earthsea” books sort of mentally squinting to try to pick out the fragments of the “real” Earthsea that still remain visible.
And before anyone objects: yeah yeah yeah, I know that LeGuin is the creator of this fantasy world and therefore technically has the right to reinterpret it however she wants. Tough. Part of the price you pay for constructing a fictional world successfully is that it takes on an imaginative reality of its own which needs to be respected in later writings, even by the original author.
If LeGuin tries to tell me that dragons aren’t anthropophagous after all, I’ll respond just as I would if Tolkien tried to tell me that Elves aren’t immortal or Asimov tried to tell me that robots routinely kill humans: “Bullshit”.
And if the author in question tries to trump that by playing the “But I’m the author” card, my response is merely “Then you damn well ought to know better”.
I’ve found something to like in everything Stephen King has written (even Tommyknockers and Dreamcatcher) but Under the Dome shouldn’t have seen the light of day. Apparently he wrote it (or started to write it) as a teenager, and for something written by a teenager it’s acceptable (if not publishable) but man, that book stunk.
I enjoyed everything by Dan Simmons until Black Hills. I don’t doubt that Custer and his wife were a love match and that they enjoyed a healthy sex life, but she’s gonna give him a blow job in some bushes as his troops wait nearby on the road? Gimme a break. There were other things wrong with that book too, but the porn was the worst.
David L. Martin – loved his literary stuff (Crying Heart Tattoo) and his thrillers (Lie to Me, Tap Tap) and a wonderful book about animal rights (Crazy Love) but in Facing Rushmore he writes like he’s just discovered that Americans treated Native Americans badly.
I’m still buying King but I’m done with Simmons and Martin.
That’s what I was going to say. Can’t even put into words how stupid that was. And Jesus Christ, if my neighbors were that fucking concerned about my holiday plans I would definitely move far away from Stalkerville, and maybe get a restraining order.
I was going to say Niven’s Ringworld sequels, but on thinking about them, their biggest flaw is that they acknowledge Protector. Ringworld makes no sense in the same world as Protector. One of the two has to go, and Ringworld is far the superior of the two.
I think that Protector was the result of Niven being in denial about getting old. “I’m not decrepit, really! My body is trying to turn into an unstoppable killing machine! Arthritis is supposed to be a good thing!”
I love Barbara Hambly’s fantasy stories. I particularly enjoyed Dragonsbane, and have given it to several people. She wrote some sequels to this book, though, which were absolutely dreadful. It was right after her soulmate died, and she had a contract to fulfill. I like to think that if she’d had the time to grieve and accept his death, she could have written much better books for the sequels. As it was, though, she was going through hell, and she took her readers with her.
I really liked Richard Russo’s Straight Man and also Empire Falls, but I couldn’t even get halfway through Bridge of Sighs before putting it down due to complete lack of interest.
John Ringo and Travis Taylor co-authored a series of books called the Looking Glass Series.
In it, humanity accidentally (almost catastrophically) discovers wormholes, makes first contact wth a couple of alien species (one of which is decidedly hostile), and are handed an alien artifact that permits FTL travel.
The series progresses pretty well, until the 4th book, in which our intrepid space explorers find an abandoned alien space station shaped like a christmas tree, that’s powered by music and can focus the sun’s energy to move planets and destroy enemy fleets.
The control mechanism? Music.
The crew has to play live music to make it work. And it likes goth metal best.
:dubious: :rolleyes:
Yeah. That’s the last book of that series I’m buying.
Robinson’s wife died from cancer and the last I heard his only daughter had advanced cancer too. He wasn’t planning on writing when I checked last. But he lost me long ago. All his stories follow the Spider formula and I’m sick of it.
Many years ago when I first took up sci-fi, I got disappointed the more of Robert A. Heinlein that I read. It seemed to me that he topped out with Starship Troopers. But then, I’ve always been a fan of straightforward bug-eyed-monsters and first contact epics.
Tom Clancy quickly got old; IMO the more money he made, the less and less care and more personal opinion that his novels seemed to contain.
Since I’ve started writing for publication myself, I have, however, learned a humbling lesson about the art and craft of writing: it ain’t as easy as it seems.
