Crap you read in high school

[Maester Llama]

Oh yeah, I read a couple of those Trek tie-ins. Since I relied largely on audio books for a long time I even got to listen to the Shat reading I think two of them; it was awesome in that particular way in which listening to Shatner speak is awesome.

Funny thing: All the Star Wars audio books back in the day were abridged, in some cases quite significantly, and while I on principle think this is a bad thing it actually spared me from the shitness of Luuke Skywalker. He is totally in the audio version, but only in one scene; he never speaks and his name is never spoken. He is just a clone of Luke Skywalker. I honestly did not know "Luuke" was a thing until recently.

I was a blissfully ignorant little kid through all this teenage reading, in that it never occurred to me that anything I was reading might include social messages I wouldn't particularly be on board with if presented with them straight up, but which I was cool with absorbing via pop fiction. Part of this was absolutely my privilege, but part of it was an assumption, baked in deep, that authors were good people motivated by good things and that no author, or indeed person, could truly truly deep down believe bad shit. It could have been worse, though: I never bumped into Anthony, though that was pure luck -- I distinctly remember one person trying to push him on me and I avoided mostly by accident. I now consider several of the authors I clung to in high school vaguely retrograde but not outright toxic. There's TG of course, but as I said above I never got that invested in SoT during the phase in which I didn't think about the social work of books.

The only author whose stuff I really fell for and then got squicked out by under my own power is Feist, and indeed my journey through his Serpentwar series pretty much began my realization that it was possible for a novel to be sexist and do sexist work. I don't know why this isn't talked about more, almost certainly because nobody gives a fuck about Feist's Midkemia books at this late hour, but a lot of that series is high yield sexist shit -- though to give the early books some small credit it did get much worse later. I still remember some pieces of the series very fondly but there is a lot of ugly in there.

[The Evil Queen]

This whole thread makes me laugh, I happily admit to still liking and collecting a lot of these... Dragonlance, Eddings, Feist, Brooks, WoT, Star Trek, Modesitt jr. Funny that so much of my current bookcase is listed on this thread :D

However, I do shamefully admit to enjoying VC Andrews when I was a teen. My collection was pretty impressive, and it was so annoying when I tried to get rid them that book exchanges would not take them, had to donate them, thats how crappy they are :lol:

[kuenjato]

I was in middle school from 88-90, so that colors my experience.

Tolkien was the first and the initial hook (well, Narnia was a few years before, actually) when I was 12. After that, I was into Eddings, Donaldson, Brooks, a couple of Piers Anthony (Incarnations and Adept), first Fiest series, Earthsea, Ouroboros, King's Dark Tower, William's Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, Dragonlance. The bolded names were big sellers in the 80's.

Even then I could tell when books were well written and when they were relative shit. Brooks always seemed like kiddie-land cartoons. I realized Eddings was milking it around midway through the Mallorean (I got into fantasy around the time the 3rd book of this series was released) and grew disenchanted. Donaldson was a challenge with its despair and vocabulary but the Covenant world was so different and vivid that it didn't matter. I remember Dragonlance being hugely popular among the fantasy nerd subset I associated with but I always sort of considered it to be a serial factory churn, and thought even the Chronicles to be uneven (particularly the plot-less first book), though the second trilogy was much more precise and interesting. I recall reading the Mithgar books when I was in 7th grade and being astounded at what a blasé rip it was of LotR (far more than Sword of Shannara, even). King's first two Dark Tower books were almost mind-blowing to a nascent adolescent in '89.

Picking up Tad Williams' Dragonbone Chair was sort of a revelation in 1989--it felt like a mature, historically informed take on the genre. Most of my friends thought it paint-dry boring. WoT came out in 1990 and, though somewhat cartoonish a la Brooks, it had a breadth and relative depth missing from a lot of 80's era fantasy, and started to get seriously epic through books 2-4. I followed Jordan until book 11, but by book 7 (1996) it was obvious he was drawing it way, way too thin. I was out of high school by that point and more interested in literature and 'serious stuff' by that point, anyway. I don't think I actually read much fantasy in high school... had other interests (girls, music, snowboarding) that consumed my time.

Discovered ASoIAF in 1998 (Jordan's blurb on GoT paperback), and have periodically picked up new series, mostly from recs on westeros. I still read fantasy on occasion... last two series have been Abraham's Dagger and Coin and Morgan's Land fit for Heroes (currently on the third book) but this is usually as a chillout session from more intensive works--I read Infinite Jest, Gravity's Rainbow, and Europe Central this year, for example. Maybe because I'm older, but I definitely value the latter books far, far more than the SF/F.

Edit: according to Goodreads, I've read 265 F/SF books. At this point, the only ones I'd consider re-reading are ASoIF, Bakker, and New Sun.

[David Selig]

L. Ron Hubbard's Mission Earth. I loved the first few volumes. I had no idea the author invented a cult to become rich. Still have a soft spot for them, they are flawed on many levels, the authors anti-psychiatry obsession is very annoying, and the plot is beyond stupid, but the first books are still quite funny. In translation at least, maybe the translator improved them. ;)

[Shryke]

L. Ron Hubbard's Mission Earth. I loved the first few volumes. I had no idea the author invented a cult to become rich. Still have a soft spot for them, they are flawed on many levels, the authors anti-psychiatry obsession is very annoying, and the plot is beyond stupid, but the first books are still quite funny. In translation at least, maybe the translator improved them. ;)

Damn. That's laying down the fucking gauntlet.

[SilentRoamer]

I happen to believe that Ender's Game is a very good book, and has held up well. It's certainly a far better novel than the works of Brooks and Eddings.

Well I haven't read Eddings but read almost all of the Brooks stuff and I definitely agree, even the better Brooks stuff isn't nearly as good. Enders Game can't be mentioned in the same breath as the works of Anthony and Goodkind, neither of the two has published anything near the quality of Enders Game.

L. Ron Hubbard's Mission Earth. I loved the first few volumes. I had no idea the author invented a cult to become rich. Still have a soft spot for them, they are flawed on many levels, the authors anti-psychiatry obsession is very annoying, and the plot is beyond stupid, but the first books are still quite funny. In translation at least, maybe the translator improved them. ;)

Damn. That's laying down the fucking gauntlet.

I didn't even get through the first one it was awful.

[Lullipop]

Somehow when I read the title of the thread I thought it would be a topic about the classical books we had to read In high school and how we usually hated them because we weren't mature enough to appreciate them and/or our educational system doesn't do a good job with working with these books in class, because that's a discussion I see a lot on college. :P

Well, I read a lot if girly stuff in my teenage days, but either I read some craps so crappys my brain blocked them from memory, or I just didn't read much crap at all. I mean, let's start with the least girly of them: The Vampire Chronicles series - man, I almost cried when Anne Rice released Prince Lestat some weeks ago! I also read the Artemis Fowl series and Diana Wynne Jone's Howl's Moving Castle and sequel are still between my favorite books until today. :wub:

Then, I read the Mists of Avalon and lots, lots of Meg Cabot - and I'm still very fond of her even nowadays. I mean, if a teenage girl has to read some silly thing made for teenage girls, Meg Cabot is still the better option, far, far better than the supernatural love triangle things we see today - and hey, Meg Cabot also did supernatural love triangle books, and they are good!

I've read all the Twilight books. That is all.

I read all the Twilight books because I knew it was bad and I wanted to laugh, but until five minutes ago I was under the impression I wasn't a teenager anymore when these books were out, but I was, so now I'm feeling young.

But the crappiest part of my teenage years is that I was a fucking weaboo.

[Darth Richard II]

Mists of Avalon is at least considered a classic. Some of the stuff I read in HS I'm struggling to even remember. Lots of Darell K Sweet covers(but I never got into RuneLords, thank God).

My feelings about Ender's Game I think are well known at this point :P

Man, Eddings. I remember the final Malorean book coming out and it being like the second coming of Christ.

I can never hate Brooks, I met him when i was like 14 and he was such a nice dude. :P

[AverageGuy]

Mostly I read a lot of books for AP English, so I didn't have a lot of time for "fun books".

Huh. Even if it had taken up all my reading time, we only had one year of AP English Lit in my high school.

Anyway, I still read a lot of stuff I'd classify as crap, but high school books are pretty similar to what's been mentioned. After picking up Jordan in a bookshop, I gott into fantasy in high school, after which I went through Brooks, Eddings, Goodkind, Modesitt (these days I'm not sure if it was really twenty-odd books or just one book I read over and over again. At the time I thought he was making some sort of deeper point about patterns repeating throughout history. The ways we delude ourselves...). Never really got into Dragonlance/Forgotten Realms (though in the category of crap I read as an adult, I did eventually read some of the Drizzt books), and I missed the Star Trek/Wars stuff because I largely avoided sci-fi at the time.

[Darth Richard II]

I avoided scifi like the plague outside of Star Wars/Trek stuff into, jeez, 2008? It took one of my roommates to basically hit me over the head with Book of the New Sun and go READ THIS STUPID before I would even consider reading anything that didn't have dragons in it.

Yeah, Modesitt wrote the same book, hell, is STILL writing the same book, at least a good 20 times.

Farm Kid/Cooper/Wood-worker/Black-Smith/some crafting class guy goes on journey to learn to use the force. Uses too much, gets headaches/goes blind. Contemplates nature of said force. Marries hot girl.

[Disputatious]

If this is making some feel old, consider that more than 90% of the books mentioned above had not been written when I was in High School. The big new thing my last HS year (1965-1966) was The Lord of the Rings, which I thought was wonderful (and still like, of course), but I read the ACE paperbacks, which were all that were available in 1965. (I was into buying books, but only ones I could afford. It would not have occurred to me to have my parents take me over to the local University library, besides their copies were probably on permanent checkout by then.)

Other than that I did not read much Fantasy, but a fair amount of Sci-Fi, most of which, other than the Asimov Foundation Trilogy and the Heinlein has probably disappeared into oblivion, which is what usually happens to the trashy stuff.

[kuenjato]

Mists of Avalon is at least considered a classic. Some of the stuff I read in HS I'm struggling to even remember. Lots of Darell K Sweet covers(but I never got into RuneLords, thank God). My feelings about Ender's Game I think are well known at this point :P Man, Eddings. I remember the final Malorean book coming out and it being like the second coming of Christ. I can never hate Brooks, I met him when i was like 14 and he was such a nice dude. :P

But wasn't that final Mallorean book just by the numbers crap even at the time? I think I was like 15 when it came out and it was the final nail in the coffin (but yes, I was excited at the time, I'll admit that...)

[Jo498]

I thought this was going to be about what I read in HS as part of the curriculum, but outside of that I mostly read thrillers and mystery books. A lot of James Patterson/Ellroy/Grisham, which I generally regard as not-very-good now, and the Agatha Christie types, and some of those can be pretty good. I did read some older fantasy back in the day, Gormenghast, Worm of Ouroboros, Broken Sword, LotR, and KoELD are the ones I can recall of the top of my head, and those were and are still pretty good, IMO.

What is KoELD?

As I said, I came somewhat late to fantasy but with 12 or so I read two pseudo-medieval/fantasy books by Dutch author Tonke Dragt I liked a lot (although I am afraid with re-reading they might come up as well written but a little prententious) "The letter for the King" and "The wild forest". I wonder if they were known in the anglo-world or if any of the Dutch or German people here know them.

[Darth Richard II]

But wasn't that final Mallorean book just by the numbers crap even at the time? I think I was like 15 when it came out and it was the final nail in the coffin (but yes, I was excited at the time, I'll admit that...)

Maybe? I have tried to re read Eddings in a loooong time. I remember the second Sparhawk trilogy being a much bigger disappointment.

[Shryke]

Maybe? I have tried to re read Eddings in a loooong time. I remember the second Sparhawk trilogy being a much bigger disappointment.

The Belgariad and Malloreon books are no better or worse then each other really imo.

The Sparhawk books are a definite step down followed by a continual slide in quality though.

[Darth Richard II]

Yeah I never bothered with his final series, which even his fans felt was... Lacking. There was this really, really bad series I used to read but all I can remember was the main hero got into lots of threesomes with hot barbarian women, and that it wasn't Gor.

[Yersinia]

I too read Ayn Rand as a teenager. The Fountainhead at least wasn't as insane as Atlas Shrugged. As I've heard it described, The Fountainhead is a novel about an Objectivist, while Atlas Shrugged is a novel about Objectivism.

Yeah, ok, I read The Fountainhead as a teenager, too. But only because you could win some kind of scholarship if your essay about it was the best. I can't think of a much better reason to read it than the promise of money.

[Anatúrinbor]

What is KoELD?

My bad, that was supposed to say The King of Elfland's Daughter.

[Jo498]

Thanks, I have to admit that I got stuck in this one as an adult. It's still on my shelves and while I generally liked the poetic fairy-tale-like language, I became bored... might try again at some stage, because I generally have a fondness for Fantasy before it became a huge genre after Tolkien with all the standard tropes, clichés and with sophomoric prose and style.

[benpeek]

Well I haven't read Eddings but read almost all of the Brooks stuff and I definitely agree, even the better Brooks stuff isn't nearly as good. Enders Game can't be mentioned in the same breath as the works of Anthony and Goodkind, neither of the two has published anything near the quality of Enders Game.

You guys are welcome to disagree, naturally, but I'm going to stand by the statement. I have Darth Richard II to support me, and I am sure, when Darth Richard III shows up, he will as well. Combined with the natural support of Darth Richard I, I feel a compelling arguement is made ;)

(Though, I have to say, the Hubbard books was a bit of a gauntlet laid down. Not much is going to equal that for bad.)