oneeye Posted January 22, 2007 Share Posted January 22, 2007 Eragon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparky Posted January 22, 2007 Share Posted January 22, 2007 The most overrated novel I ever read was David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest." One man's trash is another's treasure. IJ is my favorite novel, in any genre, ever. Wallace is godly, although I'm not sure we'll ever see another novel out of him. Sigh. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beniowa Posted January 22, 2007 Share Posted January 22, 2007 It doesn't speak to whether Shakespeare's plays are overrated or not, but the language is neither Old English nor particularly difficult to understand. Maybe it depends on the person, but I've always had difficulty understanding Shakespeare's language. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Wedge Posted January 22, 2007 Share Posted January 22, 2007 *raises hand* Duly noted and I'll head back into my dark corner to shut my yap... :cry: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparky Posted January 22, 2007 Share Posted January 22, 2007 Maybe it depends on the person, but I've always had difficulty understanding Shakespeare's language. That's why you get an annotated edition. Anything else is a waste of time. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Qyburn Posted January 22, 2007 Share Posted January 22, 2007 *raises hand* You don't count. You deviant furriner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vethnar Posted January 22, 2007 Share Posted January 22, 2007 I doubt anyone on this board will agree with me, but I think Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay is overrated. At least this reader agrees. Tigana was a huge disappointment to me. Fortunately, I bought Tigana and A Song for Arbonne together, and because I always try to read the books I buy, I decided to read ASfA despite my dislike for Tigana. To my surprise, I found that I liked ASfA so much that I also picked up GGK's later books, which turned out to be even better (especially the Sarantine Mosaic). Based on Tigana alone, I would never have given Kay a second chance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashara Posted January 22, 2007 Share Posted January 22, 2007 I would say that "Humiliated and Insulted" or however you translate the title to English is the most overrated novel by Dostoyevskiy. Pretty much everything else is insanely good, but that one, and by whatever reason it is one of the most famous. Why, I'll never know. From fantasy books, that would be Bakker's Prince of Nothing trilogy. The first book was great but the two subsequented ones were terrible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H von T Posted January 22, 2007 Share Posted January 22, 2007 Heart of Darkness by Conrad. Boring. Most everything by Hemingway. Pynchon sucks IMHO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emberling Posted January 22, 2007 Share Posted January 22, 2007 You really didn't like Lord of Light? I thought it was good. Oh, I was going to mention that too. Picked it up at a used bookstore for hella cheap, but I haven't been able to force myself past the first fifty pages or so. It just utterly bores me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arakasi Posted January 22, 2007 Share Posted January 22, 2007 Yeah that's weird on Lord of Light. It is one of my favorite novels ever. Sure it's different and of course purposely ties into the Buddhist myth and such, but it works for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mauvka Posted January 22, 2007 Share Posted January 22, 2007 What I've learned from these kinds of discussions, is that most every book will have it's supporters. I've once brought up A Different Peace at one discussion as an example of a book I found worthless , and had two people reply to they found it relevant and moving. Certainly they were in the minority and certainly it made no change to my own opinion, but this just illustrates that getting any kind of unanimous agreement on this topic is nigh on impossible. ...Although given this board community, Eragon or SoT won't be finding much love here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rubies & Jade Posted January 22, 2007 Share Posted January 22, 2007 Anything by Asimov. Terribly terribly dated, yes I could read it and appreciate how amazing it was for its time, but, I disagree. Hell, I think Neuromancer is far more startling in its predictions, from way back when in the 80s. oh my. Neuromancer is great, but if you are looking for startling predictions, read The Machine Stops by EM Forster. Its written in 1909, but has amazing "predictions" about the internet. Its a short story... here's a link: http://brighton.ncsa.uiuc.edu/prajlich/forster.html To make this an on topic post, I didn't like The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson at all... and I loved the Mars Trilogy. Rice & Salt was one of the very few novels that I just couldn't bring myself to finish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spring Bass Posted January 22, 2007 Share Posted January 22, 2007 You loved the Mars Trilogy? To be honest, I thought it was vastly overrated. Robinson never bloody lets his characters die, so awful, awful characters like Ann Clayborne stick around forever. Not to mention that by the third book, he seems to have become overly fond of describing massive sexual orgies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kat Posted January 23, 2007 Share Posted January 23, 2007 You loved the Mars Trilogy? To be honest, I thought it was vastly overrated. Robinson never bloody lets his characters die, so awful, awful characters like Ann Clayborne stick around forever. Not to mention that by the third book, he seems to have become overly fond of describing massive sexual orgies. Bah. Ann is my favorite character in the Mars books. I have to say that for overrated books, The Unvanquished by Faulkner ranks right up there on my list. Nobel Prize for this? Hmmm. His other books are better. This one I didn't find very special, and was, indeed, kind of boring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparky Posted January 23, 2007 Share Posted January 23, 2007 The Unvanquished by Faulkner ranks right up there on my list. Nobel Prize for this? Not to nitpick, but the Nobel is for an entire body of work, not one book. Pulitzer, maybe? EDIT: According to wikipedia, The Unvanquished didn't win any major award, so your opinion of it is shared, sort of.... Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gwinna Posted January 23, 2007 Share Posted January 23, 2007 At least this reader agrees. Tigana was a huge disappointment to me. Fortunately, I bought Tigana and A Song for Arbonne together, and because I always try to read the books I buy, I decided to read ASfA despite my dislike for Tigana. To my surprise, I found that I liked ASfA so much that I also picked up GGK's later books, which turned out to be even better (especially the Sarantine Mosaic). Based on Tigana alone, I would never have given Kay a second chance. Yay, someone agrees with me! Well, based on what you say, maybe I'll give A Song for Arbonne or The Sarantine Mosaic a try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJDonegal Posted January 23, 2007 Share Posted January 23, 2007 Having only skim read the thread, I don't think anyone picked what I deem to be a heinously overrated novel, but I agree with some of the other shouts on here. I detested The Great Gatsby, but I've been trying to get started on The Grapes of Wrath as well, and I'm struggling to stay with it. Apart from that, I really don't know many of the novels you guys have mentioned... and you didn't even mention TGoW... I think. But my pick for the most overrated novel is The Man In The High Castle by Philip K. Dick. I stuck with it because I loved the idea of a setting in a post-WWII world with a vastly different outcome, but the delivery left a hell of a lot to be desired, and the ending? Don't get me started. As I understand it, this book won a Hugo Award, and that's enough reason for me to call it overrated tripe. I know without this man we wouldn't have Blade Runner, but seriously, I hated this book, and I griped about it the whole time I was reading it, but I have a bad condition that forces me to finish a book I've started. Haven't recommended it to a single soul, and never will. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mackaxx Posted January 23, 2007 Share Posted January 23, 2007 What are you 12? Way back in the 80's sheeesh. Some of Asimov's stuff was written in the 40's. So yes some of it is dated. But the concepts are still great. The original Foundation stuff rocks. Don't be so wrapped up in the science as much as the story. Excuse me? In foundation the story is the worst bit, and from book to book it only gets crappier. Boring character does action X, and, doesnt actually achieve anything, because its all in the grand plan. Repeat, add spice after a few books with something that does change the plan. Put it back to normal, repeat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamjm Posted January 23, 2007 Share Posted January 23, 2007 I doubt anyone on this board will agree with me, but I think Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay is overrated. If you really want to know why, read my amazon review (you'll have to scroll down a bit - it's under the same name as I have here). But it was my first-ever amazon review, and it's not all that good. One point about the review, you say you have an issue with the end-justifies-the-means philosophy of the characters. While I can understand your objection, I don't think it's a valid criticism of the book - as I see it that's pretty much the whole point of the book, I think Kay intends the reader to conclude that Alessan and his companions do some extremely ruthless things to get to their goal and despite what you say they do admit they are wrong sometimes - Alessan admits to Erlein that he was wrong to ever enslave him when he releases him from the coercion and says then that he has realised there are limits to the things he wants to see done for any cause, even his own. To make this an on topic post, I didn't like The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson at all... and I loved the Mars Trilogy. Rice & Salt was one of the very few novels that I just couldn't bring myself to finish. I couldn't bring myself to finish fifty pages of it. I couldn't have stood reading any more of that writing style. Oh, I was going to mention that too. Picked it up at a used bookstore for hella cheap, but I haven't been able to force myself past the first fifty pages or so. It just utterly bores me. Lord Of Light does have an unnecessarily dull start but gets much better later on IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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