A classic example are the first two Discworld books. They are mildly funny parodies of Fantasy tropes, and books. But you would never think that the books would change into a wonderful fantasy series, full of original characters, ideas and heart even. So when we recommend Pratchett, we suggest other, later works in Discworld.
Someone gave me the Jack Reacher prequel book. Pretty damn good. Not great literature, but entertaining and a real page turner.
But the first book? I just read that- full of errors about the Treasury dept, guns and other stuff. I would have dropped the series if I had started there.
I am a big fan of Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone (Alphabet Mystery) series…which I started reading with the second book, “B” is for Burglar. The first book, “A” is for Alibi, is my least favorite in the series, and I shudder to wonder how much awesome writing I would have missed out on if I had read that one first and therefore didn’t read further in the series.
The first book in Sapir and Murphy’s The Destroyer series was a dry and humorless rip-off of the Executioner series. The absurd but wonderful silliness doesn’t start until the second book.
I know this is an opinion not universally shared, but I found The Gunslinger to be by far the least enjoyable installment of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, and it put me off reading the rest for far too long.
There is a significant jump in quality after the first book in the Malazan book of the fallen series by Steven Eriksson. Not that it’s BAD or anything, but books 2 through 10 are much better.
I’ve read them all. I first caught Grafton around D or E, went back and read the earlier ones, and then snagged each new one as it came out. I think you can see a definite maturing process as the books go along. In the last few, I’m not so sure her reach didn’t exceed her grasp in terms of trying to write something meaningful about social issues. But maybe only sightly, and it’s better that way than than not trying at all. So maybe the best books of the series are in the middle, but I’d have to reread them to be sure about my opinion.
The first Louise Penny Inspector Gamache book I read was A Brutal Telling, which is #5 in the series. I liked it so much I went back and read 1 through 4 and then continued with 6.
I think if I’d started with Still Life, #1 in the series, I may never had read any others.
The first Bosch book was a bit too generic for me. The character seemed forced and it was just kind of. . .like every other cop book out there. By the third book, Connelly was hitting his stride and Bosch was becoming someone interesting.
The Blandings series by P.G. Wodehouse. The first one I read was Summer Lightning. Great book, # 3 in publication order. Then I read Leave it to Psmith - i was chuckling all the way through it; # 2 in publication order.
Then I hunted out Something Fresh, the first book about Blandings. It was dull and bland (ironic ). It introduced the main characters, like the Earl of Emsworth and Baxter (plus the cold ox tongue, of course), but it didn’t sparkle. If I had read it first, I probably wouldn’t have read any of the others.
Authors have to learn their trade, just like anyone else. It took a while for Plum to figure out how to make Blandings the gem it was.
ETA: and even then, there is a different feel between Leave it to Psmith and Summer Lightning. Psmith by that time was a well-established characted in the Wodehouse œuvre, and Plum apparently had the idea of sending him to Blandings, maybe to liven it up? But that was the last Psmith book, and the point where Blandings started to gel.
Stephen R Donaldson’s Gap Cycle is very much not for all tastes, but if you enjoy very (very) dark SF with classical roots and byzantine plotting, there’s much to recommend the series. But first you have to get through the first book. The Real Story is thin and unsatisfying, and gives very little sense of the epic that will follow; it’s barely a sketch of a novel, especially compared to the other four. (When you learn the circumstances of its writing, this makes sense.)
The first volume of Goscinny and Uderzo’s French comic strip Asterix didn’t quite hit it right. As often happens with comic strips, the characters didn’t even look right (look at the first year of Garfield), and the tropes were still getting established. The later books are much better.
I’ve never understood this. The first two books are brilliant, funny and contain great homages to classic fantasy series. There’s nothing wrong with them, and I always recommend people start with them.
If people drop Discworld because they didn’t like the first two, they don’t deserve Discworld.
They’re basically a different series, though. The writing, the humor, it’s all very different from the rest of the series. I agree with DrDeth, they are the weakest.
I really can’t think of another series I’ve read where the first one wasn’t very good. I guess, if I didn’t like the first in a series, I probably wouldn’t read the rest.
But Rincewind is (IMHO, naturally) the least interesting and least likeable of all Pterry’s leading characters. Vimes, Weatherwax, Ogg, Lipwick, Aching, and Death are much more engaging characters, and their stories often touch upon more serious issues, while also generally being funnier and more entertaining.
Decades ago, based on praise for Discworld here and from friends, I read The Color of Magic, and found it dull and unfunny. I concluded that Discworld fans had very different taste from me, and gave up on Pratchett for years. It was only after reading Guards! Guards! that I realized that (most of) Discworld really was as funny and worth reading as everyone had said.
). It introduced the main characters, like the Earl of Emsworth and Baxter (plus the cold ox tongue, of course), but it didn’t sparkle. If I had read it first, I probably wouldn’t have read any of the others.