Ever re-read favorite books and dislike them?

[GreenWyvern]

When I was a young teen, Asimov was my #1 favourite SF author. I find his work unreadable today - shallow, one-dimensional characters acting in unbelievable ways. Ditto Heinlein.

I agree about Golden Age SF. Most of it now seems badly written and very dated.

There are exceptions. I am still a fan of Cordwainer Smith - but he seems to be a bit of an acquired taste. Either you love his style or you hate it, there doesn’t seem to be much middle ground.

[Noelq]

Heh. Everything I came to post has been said:

1. Heinlein. Loved him to death in my youth, perturbed by the sexism and lazy writing as an adult.
2. Eddings. The Belgariad is still held deep in my heart. But In re-reading, I’ve come to dislike Polgara, which hurts me.
3. Azimov. For the reasons listed above.
4. Dragonlance. Yeesh.
5. The Wildcard series. Just… sexist and wrong.

[BrotherCadfael]

As I have gotten older, I have come to realize that Travis McGee is kind of an asshole, especially in the earlier novels.

[Ulf_the_Unwashed]

@P-man

I’m guessing Catcher in the Rye wouldn’t hold up well for me.

When I was in elementary school one of my teachers read us My Side of the Mountain, and I loved it. I also enjoyed reading it myself. However, I struggled to get through parts of it when I read it to one of our sons. There were a lot of lengthy descriptions that I zoned out on or skipped over as a kid. Reading aloud I found these passages excruciating. As an adult I got to host the author, Jean Craighead George, at the library where I worked. I’m glad that happened before I had the negative experience with the book.

FWIW, I’ve read Catcher in the Rye three times–HS, early thirties, around age 50–and found that it was just as good each time. YMMV of course.

“The Once and Future King,” though. Read in college, and again in my early thirties, and LOVED it. Picked it up again in my early fifties, and…no. The turning into animals was repetitive, the falconry tiresome, Sir Pellinore and the Questing Beast downright annoying. The writing style had seemed fun and breezy; now it just seems cutesy. It got better after the first book, when we got into the Orkneys, but I’d lost heart and didn’t finish it. Disappointing.

[nightshadea]

Metrophage by Richard Kadrey

I haven’t read my favorite book in hs n 20 years because I lent it to someone and I never went back to get it I can still remember it tho

20 years ago it was just dystopian sci fi and the character was beyond being a dumbass now a lot of it came/is coming true but I don’t know if I could stand the nice compassionate but unbelievably stupid MF’er of a protagonist these days ……….

[DrDeth]

@Eonwe

Heinlein is tough; I re-read Stranger in a Strange Land last summer for probably the fourth or so time, but the first in over a decade. I enjoyed it, but it lacked the ‘edge’ I remembered. And the sexism of the era seemed a lot sharper. While it’s always been obvious, even as I read it as a young teen, this time there just seemed to be more individual sentences that just yanked me out; lots of words and actions of women that were not believable. The female characters are all so clearly acting out Heinlein’s fantasy version of sexy, liberated women, and it’s hard to get through…

Yes, and I couldnt enjoy re-reading The Moon is a Harsh Mistress for many of the same reasons. Long, boring and totally wrong political diatribes from Professor Bernardo de la Paz. Wyoh is one dimensional, with all the “dimpling”.

And I loved this book when I was young. Mind you, many other RAH are still quite readable, but the long, boring and totally wrong political diatribes get in the way of too many.

[DrDeth]

@LoneRhino

I recently re-read the series too. The brooding half-elf, the gruff dwarf, and all of the other cliches. Ugh. I still loved Tas.

Tas is fun unless you run into someone wanting to play him or a clone.

[DrDeth]

@furryman

After reading LOTR 30 times then saying NEVER AGAIN, I’ve decided there should be some kind of rule that you shouldn’t read your favorite books more than once.

I have re-read Nero Wolfe more than a dozen times, and Stout holds up nice. So does LotR.

[DrDeth]

@DigitalC

The Xanth books, what was i thinking?

First few still aren’t bad.

[DrDeth]

@Petrobey_Mavromihalis

I’m afraid it’s the Narnia books for me. I enjoyed them when I was young, and have enjoyed my son’s enjoyment as I have read them to him, but as an adult I can’t get past the misogyny and religious zeal. I didn’t read him The Last Battle.

I still enjoy them.

[kenobi_65]

@DrDeth

Tas is fun unless you run into someone wanting to play him or a clone.

Which I have, several times now (including one player in one of my long-standing groups who tries to revisit the concept every few years). Ugggggggh.

[DrDeth]

@kenobi_65

Which I have, several times now (including one player in one of my long-standing groups who tries to revisit the concept every few years). Ugggggggh.

As a DM with forty years of experience, I feel for you.

[furryman]

@dorvann

When I was kid I read the Executioner series as well as the other man’s adventures series published by Gold Eagle Publishing (Deathlands, Able Team, Phoenix Force among them). Looking back they were definitely simplistic and silly like you described the Destroyer series. I didn’t realize till a few years ago that Gold Eagle Publishing was just an imprint of Harlequin Books-the company that publishes all those cheesy romance books. Which explains a lot about the quality of the books I read.

I liked Deathlands but it’s pretty much the literature version of the action/adventure movie. I can’t imagine ever reading them again.

[tripthicket]

David Gerrold’s War With The Chtorr series. Tried to re-read the series a few years ago, and was continually gobsmacked at how this intense conflict with near-unstoppable alien invaders was so very largely sidelined again and again by this philosophical claptrap or that political doggerel. That’s not how I remembered it!

[Rilchiam]

@pkbites

When I was in high school in the mid-70’s The Outsiders was required reading for a Basic Comm class. I liked it and we were all impressed with how it was written by a teenager like us.

When I was in my 40’s I tried reading it again. I couldn’t believe I ever liked that pile of pig slop. It was obviously written by a child. A child who was probably a loner and an outcast and only guessing about the things she wrote about. Just my adult opinion of it, though.

Yes, and one thing mystifies me about this. The author has said many times in interviews that she was fed up with books aimed at teenage girls all being “Susie goes to the prom” saccharine, no substance. So to fill this gap…she writes a book about boys?