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Series you started but stopped reading


Alarich

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uh, and Biter there are only 4 books in Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn

Uh, maybe I should have mentioned that in the swedish translation I read The Dragonbone Chair was divided into three separate books, and the other books were also divided into similar shorter segments. So I stopped reading around the time in the books when Simon got the nickname Simon Snowlock.

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I'm normally very reluctant to not finish a book, but I'm more willing to drop a series (after finishing the books in it I've already got). I'm stubborn enough to want to finish stories I've started, but not to the extent that I'll buy more books if I don't really want to read them.

Series I've abandoned:

Steven Donaldson - you know which series I mean - stopped reading after "Lord Foul's Bane". The writing was too dull and I didn't care what happened next.

Eddings - "The Dreamers" - I finished all his other series but I quite his latest after the first book which was possibly the laziest attempt at writing fantasy I've ever had to read, if I'd paid for the book I'd have been very upset.

Ricardo Pinto - "The Stone Dance of the Chameleon" - impressive world-building effort, pity about the plotting and characterisation. Not helped by being probably the most relentlessly depressing epic fantasy book I've read - I think there may possibly have been a couple of chapters in it without a gratuitous torture scene.

Phillip Jose Farmer - "Riverworld" - a fantastic concept, shame it was so poorly executed.

Patrick Tilley - "The Amtrak Wars" - I managed to plod through three books in the deluded belief it was a trilogy. Found out there were another three books after that. Gave up.

Frank Herbert - "Dune" - the first book is a classic, but the two sequels I read were very disappointing. I might read more some day, maybe.

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It looks like many of us hated the same series!

I stopped reading:

Terry Goodkind- Got through Book 7! I am so embarrased about it.

Michelle West- THe Sun Sword books (can't remember the exact title) I just could not keep the people and titles straight.

R. Scot Bakker- The Darkness the Comes Before. Got about half way through. I even took it on vacation with me, but I just didn't care anymore.

Steve Erickson- I heard so many good things about it, but could never finish the first book. I just didn't get all the stuiff about the warrens, and gods, and weirdo puppets.

Frank Herbert's Dune- I got through the first two and the first chapter or two of the third. I have no idea what I read. The Sci Fi miniseries bored me too.

Oh, and I think his name is David Drake. He wrote Lord of the Isles or somethin like that. What a piece of crap that was. It had some of the most underdevelopped characters, and weak plots I have ever read. Bah.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head.

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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!

I hate you. I put a jihad on you.

...well I guess it's okay to disagree. I loved the Dune series up to Chapterhouse.

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WoT after book 8, The Dark Tower after the 3rd book. Actually, I never stopped thinking I would never finish -- I have always thought that I would like to finish it one day, but the desire is diminished now and it's safe to say I don't think I would ever finish these two.

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This might be the ultimate in irony here for those that know me slightly, but I stopped reading the WoT series after the 9th book was released and it was more of the same to me. I can always read the chapter summaries at wotmania to know the events without having to endure things as that infamous silk-washing scene that I heard went on for a few pages in the 10th book ;)

SoT - first was okay, second was tolerable, had bought the 3rd and 4th along with the 2nd, so read those and thought it was getting worse, but for some odd reason bought the 5th. The chicken that wasn't a chicken was so atrociously bad that I read the 6th to see if it would be humorous in such an unintentional way, only to get extremely pissed off at the repugnant philosophy that had come to the fore, so I ended up reading the 7th just to see if I could be pissed off more, but the nobility of the goat convinced me at last it was time to stop.

M,S,&T - Never made it past page 100. That boring to me.

Oh, and I made the mistake of reading a couple of the Dune 'prequels' :sick:

But other than that, I rarely read series these days, so it's usually just individual books and those I tend to finish.

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There was like a whole month I had where I just kept putting down books of a series. The one that got the ball rolling was the critically-acclaimed Farseer Trilogy. I made myself read the first one but was disgusted practically the whole time until the end, and put it down halfway between the second one. Then I picked up Kate Elliott's A Crown of Stars series. Wow I read like 200 pages of that before giving up. Then I went to the library because I was sick of wasting money on bad books and took out the first book of The Dreamers by David Eddings because I had heard a lot about the author and thought he might be good. I actually enjoyed it a bit for the first one hundred pages. Then I realized how much of a goon Eddings was and the incredibly small amount of effort he put into his writing, and I never finished that. By this time I was so disgusted that I needed a guaranteed good book, so I bought The Silmarillion, and I loved it. But those other series sucked so badly.

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Bastress, I'm currently halfway through Royal Assassin as well - I've been halfway through that book for a half a year now - and while I don't hate the series, I know how you feel. The characters really rub me the wrong way for some reason, especially Fitz and Regal and Molly. I just have no drive to know more about this world at the moment, which is a shame because I really think Robin Hobb can write beautifully.

Other series I've given up on are:

Malazan: Read about 150 pages of Gardens of the Moon, realised I had no idea in hell what was going on, and pretty much lost interest from there. Erikson's writing style just seemed so...unnecessary as well, if you know what I mean.

Swans' War: Nearly finished the first book, but it was a long hard slog for me because everything seemed to be moving so slowly, so I threw it in and decided to read something more fun.

Thomas Covenant: Read Lord Foul's Bane to the end, and realised that I hated everyone and everything relating to The Land, most especially Thomas himself (the whiny sonuvabitch) and as such, I didn't care what happened to it. Or him.

Otori Trilogy: Nearly finished this one, though I seethed at it almost the whole way through, but halfway through the last book (Brilliance of the Moon) something that I can't remember at the moment happened, and I actually threw the book across the room. Hate these books with a hatred I admit to being unreasonable.

Green Rider: I read the first 100 or so pages of Green Rider and simply found it boring. I dunno; maybe if I try it again sometime I might get into it.

Wheel of Time: Managed to get through most of Eye of the World a few years ago, but wasn't inspired to try any more. Too slow for me.

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Farseer Trilogy: I managed to read it to book three and it shouldn't be in this list but I believe that this is were belongs. I got really fed up with Fitz complaining about how unfair things are, how underserving of anything he is and then doing nothing. And nothing, and nothing, and nothing.

Dune: I stopped reading during book three.

Malazan: my first assault on this book failed in the first pages while reading a conversation between two characters that talk in a way that they are important-powerful-significant and you are not. Some of the names didn't help at all. I might try again.

MS&T: A hundred pages and nothing at all happens. I mean nothing, just everyday life in the castle and some hints of two princes quarrelling. Maybe I didn't have the correct mindset when I started reading this book and I'm being terribly unfair with it.

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SOT- I read books 1-7 twice but it was 8 that finally convinced me that I should stop overlooking the author's philosophy because the story might still be good, but that the story WAS the author's philosophy and it was all garbage.

WOT- stopped in the middle of book 10 because I couldn't take it any more, but then I picked it up again with book 11, made it through that one and don't feel I missed anything by not finishing 10.

The Elvenbane series by Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey, I think. Read the first two books because someone gave them to me, even though I realized early on these were fantasy books for adolesent girls, I plunged ahead, but I'm done with the series now.

David Drake's Lord of the Isles, just putrid.

Tolkien, got as far as ROTK but stopped early in that book I just had enough of middle earth.

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Goodkind after book 5 (in my defense I had stopped after book 4 but saw book 5 in hardcover for AUD9.95. 'Bargain!' thinks I. How wrong was that - they should have been paying me AUD9.95 to take that shit off their hands) for reasons well covered on this board.

Kate Elliot's Crown of Stars after book 3 - seemed like bland fantasy to me.

Donaldson's First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant after the second book - loved the stuff set in our world, found the fantasy world to be as boring as the proverbial batshit.

Steph Swainston's in the middle of the first book - only book I've stopped in the middle. Got to 100 pages in and still didn't know where it was going.

Collen McCullough's Masters of Rome series after book 2 - more because I never got round to picking up the rest. While it was obvious she had a crush on Caesar, there was a good story in there.

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I think Ser Paladin mentioned having a high threshold for pain, which is something I don't have, but I do have the gift (?) of putting my mind into idle when I'm reading bad novels. I just coast through them without giving them much thought. It would have to be especially cretinous for me to abandon, and even then I've forced myself to finish The Redemption of Althalus by Dave Eddings, still the worst fantasy novel I've read.

I have given up on:

The Sword of Truth -- Which I read through #7 The Pillars of Creation. Richard rescuing the goat was the final straw. Even more ridiculous than the demon chickens.

Shannara -- I read The Sword of Shannara, and that's it. The writing is on the level of Sonic & Knuckles fan fiction. This is poplular?

Thomas Covenant (Second Trilogy) -- Decided not to read. I didn't particularly hate the first trilogy, but it wasn't especially interesting. TC is an insufferable whiner.

Malazan series -- Got through Gardens of the Moon and I enjoyed the hell out of it. It was a struggle, but a rewarding read. I only got about 100 pages through Deadhouse Gates, and it was interesting, but I wanted a bit more continuity. I put it down three months ago, but I still plan to read it... eventually...

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R. Scot Bakker- The Darkness the Comes Before. Got about half way through. I even took it on vacation with me, but I just didn't care anymore.

Steve Erickson- I heard so many good things about it, but could never finish the first book. I just didn't get all the stuiff about the warrens, and gods, and weirdo puppets.

Frank Herbert's Dune- I got through the first two and the first chapter or two of the third. I have no idea what I read. The Sci Fi miniseries bored me too.

Halfway through TDTCB is about right where that series takes off. WP and TTT have awesome momentum and intensity.

There are not enough wierdo puppets in fantasy. I would love the egomanical puppet from GOTM to face off with the Wathi Doll from THE WARRIOR PROPHET.

I only got 100 pages into DUNE before stopping but not due to quality. It's somewhere in my to be read pile.

I got 10 pages into WOT and stopped because I can't stand scenery description. Once you start describing the contours of a hill or the shape of a tree I fall asleep.

Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice: Read the first 3 but struggled though QUEEN OF THE DAMNED.

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Peter Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy. Good books in many ways, but the fashion in which he writes and structures his numerous POV's annoys and bores me to no end. Stopped caring after finishing The Reality Dysfunction. Oddly enough, I forced myself to finish his Commonwealth duology. If anything, Night's Dawn was considerably better. Weird.

Dan Simmons' Hyperion novels. Read both Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, and loved them to death, but the sense of closure I got at the end of those two books was such that I felt there wasn't anywhere to go from there. Story was over, done, completed. So I had little compunction to read the Endymion duology, especially not after the mixed reviews I had heard.

Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel novels. The first one was decent enough, but there were a lot of aspects to it that I didn't like at all, specifically the beautiful characters, the strangely unerotic - but overabundant - sex, and the fact that the author pretty much stopped talking about the Night Court (which was probably the only really interesting idea in the first book) after about 50 pages. And what happened to the gypsy boy whose name I can't recall had me going WTF the whole way through.

Donaldson's...can you guess? Jumping on the bandwagon, I couldn't stand the whole setting of the Land in The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. The only way I might have liked the first book would have been if it had been written from the perspective of Lord Foul.

Actually managed to read through Soul of the Fire in Tairy Goodkind's Sword of Objectivist Propaganda series. I would be ashamed, but having read so many of his books makes it much easier to bash him. And we all know how much fun that is.

Gave up on Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen after Deadhouse Gates. A year later, I find myself caving in and reading Memories of Ice, which is enjoyable enough so far. Despite the man's innumerable flaws as a writer, his world is finally starting to come alive for me. Or, at the very least, it's caught my interest.

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MS&T: A hundred pages and nothing at all happens. I mean nothing, just everyday life in the castle and some hints of two princes quarrelling. Maybe I didn't have the correct mindset when I started reading this book and I'm being terribly unfair with it.

If you've only read the first 100 pages then you probably missed the really boring bit in the middle of the book where Simon wanders through a forest for what seemed like an eternity.

The series does actually get better later on.

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Goodkind - I read the first book cuz I told my cousin I would. I bought the second at the same time I bought the first but I haven't even opened it. I just didn't like the storyline or Goodkind's way of writing. Plus his characters were pretty weak, imo.

WOT - I am actually trying to read Book 11 right now. I actually enjoyed the book for a while and after the first day I remembered why I liked the series. But then I ran into the Elayne chapters and I have been reading sparingly ever since. I didn't even bother finishing Book 10 when I began Book 11 because I just completely lost interest in it and gave up on Jordan, but my cousin, who read Book 11 said to just jump to Book 11 since nothing really happens in Book 10 anyway. So I got some chapter summaries somewhere and read those before starting on 11. But then after losing interest in it, I realized that I stopped reading Book 10 right around the Elayne chapters. I just couldn't get through it, just like I have such a hard time getting through it now on Book 11. Looking at the Elayne chapters just shows what is wrong in the way in which Jordan has fucked up his series. I mean, an entire chapter in which Elayne is drenched in water and she gets lost in her own bloody palace?!? WTF is wrong with this guy? There's stuff going on in the Elayne storyline but he just puts too much meaningless crap into her chapters that they're unbearable to read. He's trying to stretch out the storyline, just like with Egwene. It's sickening and I'm glad that he's only going to have only one more book after 11.

Erikson - I must have bought this book four times because I lost it so many bloody times. Strangely enough I have eventually found them all and now I have a shitload of copies of the first book. I still haven't read past 150 pages. It's just too hard to get into but I heard good things from the people I know personally who have read it and I probably will read it someday.

Tad Williams - I coudn't even finish the first book (Otherland, I believe). The story just seemed to silly for me.

Oh and,

Gemmell - realised the game was up when I couldn't tell half his books apart from one another in my mind.

The thing about Gemmell is that his books aren't really part of any real series (by that I mean a continuing storyline), they're just stand-alone stories in the same worlds, like the Drenai and Rigante. But I agree with you on the similarities between the books. It's why I haven't even picked up one of his books in years. It's a seen there and done that kind of thing.

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What about the Ender's series? I liked Ender's Game but could not get through the beginning of Speaker of the Dead. Just like I could not make it through Dune Messiah.

First book of Kushiel was fun but I didn't really care what happened next.

I read the first Amber cycle, but could not wrap my head past the fact that a bad ass such as Corwin would name his son Merlin.

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What I'd like to know is how many different ways can people mispell Erikson's name? :lol

As for me, Marco's Eye of God or whatnot. Total crap. Feist and Brooks I've given up. Jordan pretty close too. The last two books I've skimmed so bad I can likely only say I've read one book total. Goodkind. West's Sun Sword. Too slow for me. Bakker well I have the third book right now. I just don't know if I'll read it. I think he is a very good writer, I just have issues with the series and how he chooses to write it.

Sadly it seems there isn't a lot of series I read anymore that I'm waiting on. Erikson, Martin, Rowling, Westerfeld (if he ever returns to Risen Empire), Weber (my guilty pleasure) and maybe 1 or 2 others. Certainly not a lot of fantasy/sci-fi I read lately.

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