Series you started but stopped reading

[Alarich]

Ok, normally I don't like unresolved plots so I always try to finish the series I start to read. Only three exceptions:

1. Goodkind: Stopped after the second book, because I felt that the plot was sufficiently resolved. The characters did nothing for me, the prose wasn't great, the "idea" of the story was sort of meh, so I didn't bother.

2. Eriksson: Stopped after the second book as well (i.e. I've read GotM and DG). The plot was nowhere near to any resolve and it was a close decision but in the end I couldn't care for any of the characters (except perhaps Felisin), there were too many shallow characters, too high-powered Ãœber-fighter/mage/thieves etc - I just realized that I don't care for D&D-fic. And I didn't want to get further into the series because I've already got WOT on my hands and I didn't want to start another series that showed all signs of getting out of control right from the beginning.

3. Salvatore: This whole Drizzt series, don't know which book it was, I guess I just grew out of the series as I started to read other Fantasy stuff. Simply lost all interest in his hack'n slash campaigns.

[Faceless Dude]

1: Goodkind. I got thought the plot was sufficiently resolved after Stone of Tears, and confirmed that when I read Blood of the Fold and nothing really happened. I read Temple of the Winds only because I needed something to read at work and a co-worker had it. Hated it, thought the whole "Let's see if Richard can get out of THIS prophecy" storyline was lame.

2: Jordan- Wheel of Time. 'nuff said.Totally written it off. I now longer care if the Dark one wins or not.

Cheers

[MinDonner]

Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld series. Struggled through the first book, no intention of reading any more, ever. Horribly contrived.

[Gerold Hightower]

Gave up on Eriksson after the third book. Should have stopped after the second. There's a limit to how far suspension of disbelief can carry you.

Nearly gave up on Jordan. But I guess I'll finish his series now. Don't keep copies of his books anymore, though.

Goodkind. No comment on that one.

With the exception of GRRM, I don't read multi-volume Fantasy epics anymore.

[Tes'thesula]

Same as the Faceless Dude, although i got further in Goodkind...I make up for it by reading all the Goodkind threads and laughing heartily

[Mallory]

i stopped reading Gregory Keyes and Scott Bakker. that is all i can think of right now. i might try to get back into them later

[blackwater]

I gave up on David Eddings-I was reading Belgariad series and after few books it was boring.Never finished it.

[14th Dragon]

Turtledove's Darkness series. I read through book four, then became very hostile after I realized he was slowing everything down for the sake of writing more books. Also his attempt to make a fantasy allegory to WWII was really falling apart by then. I did go back and read the last half of book six or seven where the series finally ended, just to get some sort of plot resolution. It was not pretty IMHO.

[Rimmer]

I got halfway through Book 5 of WOT before I stopped. Didn't even make a concious decision about it really; I just suddenly never thought of reading it one day, because the plot was going absolutely nowhere.

[The Wolf Maid]

SoT books by Goodkind: For reasons, please see GK2, GK3, GK4, GK5, and GK6 threads. I could barely finish the first book (I actually skipped directly to the 'ending' chapters)

David Eddings: ....I've finished the series, actually, but I did it without reading book 1 and 2 of the Belgariad. (With Edding,s you can read the last book of his series and not miss an important thing)

Greg Keyes: I couldn't find any copies of his series after The Briar King anywhere!

[MinDonner]

Trudi Canavan, the Black Magician Trilogy, that's another series I couldn't get through and wouldn't want to try. Maybe if I was 12 it would be different, but those days are gone...

[BranTheBuilder]

WoT - by book 10 or something I found that I couldn't tell the characters apart, or remember what the hell wa sgoing on - so I'm waiting till he's done before doing a reread... I'm hoping that an intensive read will be worht it and that the story will flow well when done...

Dune - read the firs three and gave up - partly 'cos I coudn't find book 4 on Dad's shelves and partly because they were getting to be less enjoyable...

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

Wheel of Time: I know it's kind of ironic, but I just can't get through it. I stopped after reading Crossroads of Twilight. Afterwards, I finally decided that I shouldn't have to put myself through any of this. When I was beginning high school, I could count on my enthusiasm (and lack of refined literary taste) to get me through the books. The characters became too many to remember, too shallow to differentiate, and too tied to "important" character twists to swallow. The first three books actually proved that the series could be done in that little time, but it eventually slowed down to a snailish pace. I think the turning point may have been when he decided to add more POVs to the story that actually didn't move the plot forward, specifically the female POVs (I'm looking at you Elayne and Egwene). In ASoIaF, the POVs exist where the action is. In WoT, the POVs just exist. In the Dragon Reborn, Rand & Co. moved across the entire land in one book. In Crossroads of Twilight, Mat is struggling to move a few miles in a single book. The Wheel of Time was a series that had vision and potential, but ultimately suffered when the author lost sight of that original vision. Jordan is a sellout.

[Telamonios]

Some of the important ones:

Eriksson. After the second book. Too hard to follow.

Goodkind. Only read the first one. Astonishingly dull.

Robin Hobb. After the second one. I hate first person narrative.

[Jaxom 1974]

Are we talking just series?

I've stopped in the middle of SoT and Keye's Kingdom of Thorn and Bone...

Individual books I've started and never finished?

Just three in my life:

The Fellowship of the Ring. Boring.

Michelle West's Broken Crown (Book 1 of the Sun Sword). Just plain uninteresting.

The Crimson Petal and the White. One of the most dreadfully boring books ever commited to paper.

[Winterfella]

The Crimson Petal and the White. One of the most dreadfully boring books ever commited to paper.

I couldn't finish that one either. I liked the writing at first, but a couple hundred pages in I realized that there just wasn't any point.

[Alarich]

Dune - read the firs three and gave up

Forgot that one on my list. Actually, I love Dune as a stand-alone novel. It's absolutely fantastic. Then I read the second one and got disgusted. Somehow the originality went out, I didn't care about the characters, the plot seemed stupid and contrieved.... meh!

[Doppelganger]

Wheel of Time - Got half way through the second one, and got bored, bored, bored. I quite enjoyed the first one, but I had a feeling that I wouldn't continute that far into the series. I was right, I guess.

Dark Tower - I actually stopped three-quarters of the way through the seventh book. Mainly because the characters had totally changed from who they were previously; the book was also dragging on and I lost interest. This was also pretty sad for me, as I was such a fan of the Dark Tower series; but yeah, the seventh book really killed it for me.

[No Stranger to Valyrian Steel]

I simply couldn't bring myself to finish the first WoT book.

I remember starting some series by Piers Anthony about Death or something (this was quite some time ago) but two or three books in I was done.

There was some series... I want to call it the Swan Wars but that doesn't sound just right and Google isn't helping. Anyway it put me to sleep and I barely finished the first book with no willpower to continue.

[Rabbit21]

Goodkind-I enjoyed it for the most part, but I got tired of the obvious Jordan rip-off and after the 4th book I just lost interest.

Runelord's by David Farland- Story just became uninteresting and I got bored of it.

Nightrunner by Lynn Flewelling- Started out interestingly but the homosexual theme eventually became too much for me. Flame away if you like but I'm just being honest.

Lord of the Isles by David Drake- It got to the point where it was too hard to keep track of the different characters and I got too confused to keep up with it.

Erickson's series- The scope got too big and there was no real carryover from the first book to the second one. The giant magic ripping people apart at every turn got pretty tiring as well.

I usually try to stick with a series until the end mainly because I want to what happens in the end, but these series just never gave me enough of a reason to stick with them.