Miguel de Cervantes.
Liked most of Don Quioxte, except for that bit in the middle of part one with all the tedious stories about pherphial characters.
I’ve tried reading his other stuff and none of it grabbed me like Quioxte did.
Robert W. Chambers:
The Reparier of Reputations is a great little story, but everything else of his I’ve read is…bleh.
Funny how tastes’ differ sometimes. When I saw the OP I thought of Neil Gaiman, too. I loved Good Omens, but I almost didn’t finish American Gods, and when I did, it was a while before I moved on to any of his other stuff.
I liked the premise and much of the storyline of American gods, but he really gave in to his tendency to indulge in over-the-top sex and gore (sometimes simultaneously.)
Scott Turow. Presumed Innocent kept me spellbound, the characters were inventive and believable, the dialog often made me smile. A good whodunnit, great drama, and had some spectacular comedic moments.
The Burden of Proof just plain sucked. Failed to entertain in nearly every aspect. It was a burden to finish it.
Richard Adams.
Watership Down. One of my favorite books ever.
The Girl in a Swing. One of the worst books I ever forced myself through. Boring as hell, and I figured out the ending almost right away. Even the fact that he was writing about places I was familiar with didn’t help. A swift kick in the ass to you, Mr. Adams! and can I have your autograph?
That’s exactly what I came in here to say. How on earth does she do it? She’s written about a million sci fi books on going native, and they’re all spectacularly good. They ought to get old after awhile but they don’t! And then she writes the occaisional real steaming turd of a fantasy novel. I guess sometimes you get a bad idea you’ve got to exorcise somehow.
Stephen Donaldson.
I loved the Covenant stuff, after overcoming my initial distaste for the flawed protagonist. By White Gold Wielder I was a big fan.
I actually made myself finish The Mirror of Her Dreams in the hopes that once again I would be shown something I had not expected. Alas, the embarrassingly stupid and passive protagonist spends most of the book idly fondling herself and fantasizing about the cold, strong, controlling hands of the villain mauling her fair bosom. I kid you not, it’s like he wrote it for the Harlequin line but they rejected it for portraying women as too easily sexually controlled.
Sailboat
Oooh, ooh, I thought of another!
Robert McCammon. Gone South was weird but compellingly well-written and fun. Offbeat in a good way. Bethany’s Sin*? Hard to read more than a couple pages without visualizing the author grabbing his nuts protectively and howling about evilbad castrating feminist womenfolks.
Hank Searls
Sounding Loved this book. I was really caught up be the change in perspective and the vaugely historical pretext.
Overboard WTF???
I wholeheartedly agree with both **Silenus ** (as to Heinlein’s high and low points) and **AHunter3 ** (as to Turow’s).
I would add Joe Haldeman:
“The Forever War” - Brilliant, scabrously funny military sci-fi, highly influenced by his experiences in Vietnam.
“Forever Peace” - Muddled, scattered, disappointing. Haldeman must’ve *really * wanted that Corvette.
Just to nitpick, the book’s title is Good As Gold.
To be fair, Heller is often asked why he has never written another book as good as Catch-22. Who has? is his response.
Most authors have a dud in their repertoire. Don DiLillo put out the unreadable Cosmopolis. Terry Southern followed up Candy and The Magic Christian with Blue Movie. Philip Roth did the very standard and dull When She Was Good just before Portnoy’s Complaint. Not everything works. Some experiments fail. So what?
TC Boyle:
Water Music I loved. A contemporary take on the historical picaresque novel, which never hits a single note wrong.
World’s End was better when PJ O’Rourke did it. In 8 pages in the Rolling Stone. And even then it wasn’t all that good.
John Barth
The Floating Opera (revised edition) is one of the classic Modern American novels. However, The Floating Opera (first edition) is excreble. It was Barth’s first novel, and his publisher felt that the ending needed to be changed, and brought tremendous pressure to bear. Barth caved, and years later, when he was an established author, released a revised edition. The problem was
The main character decides not to commit suicide. No problem, right? Only his justification is that, having discovered that there is no reason not to commit suicide, he extrapolates that there must also be no reason to commit suicide. And, since suicide requires taking an action, while continuing to live is a default position, he decides to live. In the first edition, he decides not to commit suicide because a little girl almost dies. The precise logical procession escapes me now.
Surprised that no one has mentioned Thomas Harris with a yay for RED DRAGON &/or SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and a major NAY for HANNIBAL.
But that’s not mine-
mine is more yay/meh- and that goes to Walker Percy twice, both re a novel & its sequel-
THE LAST GENTLEMAN- meh; THE SECOND COMING- yay!
and conversely
LOVE IN THE RUINS- yay; THE THANATOS SYNDROME- meh…
oh yeah- also-
Moses- Genesis- Yay, Leviticus- meh.
Paul- Romans to II Thessalonians- Yay, Philemon- meh.
Oh, good one. I must have blocked it.
Stephen R. Donaldson
Loved The Mirror of Her Dreams pair of books.
I could not stand Thomas Covenent the Unbeliever (at least, not the first book). I got about halfway through and was just not into it, and beginning to actively despise it. So I put it down and never looked back.
Douglas Adams:
Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Life, the Universe and Everything
Loved that one!
So Long And Thanks For All The Fish
Oh, how terribly terribly awful.
Oh and another…
Piers Anthony
Loved: On a Pale Horse
Hated: First two books of the “Mode” series, and probably everything else he’s ever churned out too from the looks of it.
Stephen King.
There’s many examples but to max out either end of the spectrum:
The Stand - Love it
Dreamcatcher - That these two books were written by the same man is hard to fathom. Hated it with a very deep passion.
AHunter3 already captured my feelings on Turow, and ddgryphon nailed Adams.
Frank Herbert : Dune - masterpiece. Fully deserving of its reputation.
God Emporer of Dune - So bad I never bothered to read any of the subsequent books.
Asimov: I absolutely love the original Foundation Trilogy. Heck, pretty much everything he wrote up until
Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain. Booooooooooooooooring!!! I know he wanted to redo Fantastic Voyage and get the science right, but would it have hurt to throw in a little story to go along with science? The book was a 100-page physics lecture followed by a 100-page microbiology textbook. At least the last 20 pages or so was a decent Cold War espionage thriller.
I’ll give The Silmarrillion a pass as it was posthumously cobbled together and not submitted for publication by Tolkein. For all I know, it eventually becomes excellent, but I’ve never gotten past the first 40 pages.
Let me second Piers Anthony. I could probably come up with 20 of his books in either category, but as much as he wowed me with Macroscope, Cluster, and Centaur Aisle, how can I forgive him for, um, The Color of Her Panties? :o
–Cliffy
It is a lot like reading Genesis, only none of the names are familiar.
FriarTed, how do you feel about The Moviegoer? First list or second?