Series you started but stopped reading

[Hereward]

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.

No it doesn't.

Actually, I think it would be easier to list the series I haven't given up on. Now that I think of it, I probably don't like fantasy that much, I've just been looking for something I love as much as Tolkien.

[Artas]

No it doesn't.

Yes, it does.

I've stopped reading Goodkind after the first book and Anne Rice after her Vampire Chronicles became excessively self-indulgent. I've tried to read The Silmarillion from cover to cover a couple of times, but I always get stuck somewhere in the middle.

[MinDonner]

Gormenghast <shudder>. I managed to struggle through the first two books and almost started enjoying it towards the end of the second one, but then all of a sudden I'm on Titus Alone and it just gets really silly. Too much lengthy and pointless description of everything, it's like wading through porridge.

I also failed to finish Robert Silverberg's Majipoor series - Lord Valentine's Castle was OK, the Majipoor Chronicles were kind of contrived but still slightly interesting, but the third book I only got about halfway through before putting down in disgust; I really couldn't care what happened to any of the characters and the evil alien race was more than welcome to destroy them all.

[Vestrit]

Series I have abandoned, both in fantasy/SF and other genres. These are just the ones that spring to mind, I'm sure there's been others:

WoT: I don't really need to explain why I jumped off this train wreck do I?

Donaldson's first Thomas Covenant trilogy: I think I lasted a couple of hundred pages of the first book before dumping this one. I'd list all the things I thought were wrong with it and we could argue about them. But the bottom line is that 200 pages into it, I wanted to stop reading it and I was able to put it aside easily and never ever think twice about it. I've never been tempted to pick it up again to find out what happens to the main character or to anybody else because I'm not in the slightest bit interested. For me, the fact that someone can get 200 pages into a book and be able to drop it so easily says something pretty damning about that writer's ability to engage the reader.

Dark Tower: I'm not sure why I went off this one. Read the first two or three I think and then just couldn't be arsed with the next one. Tried starting it and couldn't. It did feel like it was beginning to go downhill, but I'm not actually sure why I gave up on it.

Patricia Cornwall's Kay Scarpetta novels: Cornwall took what was, at the time, a great original idea (is she the grandmother of CSI?), built a realistic and gritty character and wrote a couple of interesting books based firmly in the realism of the character's working life. Then she took that and turned Scarpetta into 007 and all the supporting characters into uberheros chasing ridiculously fantastical criminals.

Kathy Reichs' Tempe Brennan books: Reichs copied Cornwall but had the advantage of actually doing the job she was writing about. But the criticisms above of Cornwall's work hold true for Reichs, except that Reichs had worse writing and characterisation

[Xray the Enforcer]

Patricia Cornwall's Kay Scarpetta novels: Cornwall took what was, at the time, a great original idea (is she the grandmother of CSI?), built a realistic and gritty character and wrote a couple of interesting books based firmly in the realism of the character's working life. Then she took that and turned Scarpetta into 007 and all the supporting characters into uberheros chasing ridiculously fantastical criminals.

Oooooh. I had forgotten about those! Yeah, I read 3 of them (and really liked the forensic aspect), and just couldn't take it no more. I must have at least 5 crime-novel series that I've chucked. They just get so bad.

Also:

OSC's Ender series. -- dood. Enuff already.

Rice Vampire Chronicles -- don't really need to explain this one. I made it through book 2.

Bujold -- Read Curse of Chalion, haven't managed to get to Paladin of Souls. I will probably get there eventually.

Pullman -- Read (and liked) Golden Compass, got half-way through book 2, and just couldn't do it. I'll probably never finish this series.

[Greyman]

Goodkind - I think it was called the Pillars of Creation? The one with Oba? Yeah. Stopped reading after that.

Jordan - I couldn't get through the first hundred pages of Crossroads of Twilight

Bakker - I finally just got sick of his bad writing.

Robin Hobb - Inexplicably lost interest once the main character grew up.

JV Jones - I hated every moment of the Book of Words, and finally gave up during the second one.

Terry Brooks - The Sword of Shanara is just a bad series.

and, you'll all love me for this one...

Tolkien - I grew so bored during the second LOTR book, that I put it down and never once thought of going back to finish it.

[whoareyou?noone.]

Robin Hobb- Tawny Man Series: Bored to tears (nice to see that I wasn't alone)

Dune- surprisingly I finished 5 books, have attempted to read the 6 book (there are six right?) two times, but don't really remember anything after God Emperor Dune. Couldn't get past the fact that Leto II was a worm in love with a human, who is supposed to be a God but can't move his worm body, etc.... Remember nothing about 5 or 6.

Margaret Wiess and Tracey Hickman "The Soveriegn Stone Trilogy" got through the first 20 pages.

[sologdin]

robert jizzle.

the tarry gookizzle.

erickson.

quit with dune during heretics.

haven't read the second generation foundation books.

the dark tower.

all those john jakes books.

fenimore cooper.

and embarrassed to admit i haven't finished reading the all of livy yet (intend to rectify this, unlike the others.)

[Alarich]

fenimore cooper.

What? Why?

I loved the books (but I was 12 at that time)....

[Crates of Thebes]

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

Right on. As soon as I opened the book, I decided I didn't want to read it.

Like most posters, I also quit the Sword of Truth.

J.V. Jones' The Book of Words was terrible too. It was so obvious from the beginning, and it read like an outline of a story, not an actual novel.

Dune: Star Wars and the Wheel of Time do what Dune did, only they do it much better.

For that matter, if you consider the Star Wars books a series, I quit those too; too juvenile, repetitive, and far too many to keep up with.

I once started reading the first Dragonlance book, but quit half-way through because it was so cliche.

I read the original Shannara trilogy, the prequel and the Heritage of Shannara books, but haven't read the later ones as the ones I did read were just rehashes of each other.

I also started In the Eye of Heaven, but it was such a disjointed narrative that I hated it. (I believe it will eventually become a series.)

I read the first Ender's paralell novel about Bean, and then stopped because it seemed like Card just kept writing more books to make money, not because there was an actual story there.

[moot]

WoT - threw in the towel after #7; gave away all the books I had

Goodkind - gave up after page 30 of the first book; sold it to a used bookstore (it was still pristine)

Pern - lost interest; gave away the books I had through bookcrossing.com

Elric - stopped after the 2nd book because I lost momentum, not because it was particularly bad; still have the books

[Be'lal]

Eddings. It sucked. Period.

Pern. I stopped after 30 pages. I hated the "no dialouge" writing style.

Dune. Couldn't get into the third book. Dune was great, didn't need anymore.

The Ender series through Xenocide, had enough.

[Dunhallym]

Finally, I realise I stopped some :

- Rice's vampires chronicles : I just read the first one. I didn't find it bad, but I don't like much her writing, and I couldn't get myself to read another one.

- Pern : a friend of mine had lent it to me. I can't say I really enjoyed it but I found it "readable". Until a certain point.

- Dune : I really loved the first 2. I didn'' t like much the 3rd one and didn't try to read the other ones. For me the first 2 are a really nice story, and don't need a following, and I didn't like what Herbert began with the 3rd one, so I dropped it.

- Ender : I loved the first one, began to have difficulties with the 2nd, and really disliked the 3rd one. There seems to be more after that but I didn't try.

- Alvin the Maker : this one is a bit different. I read only the first 3, and I really loved them when I did. I didn't know more would come and discovered about it a few years later. I was not sure it would dtill please me, so I didn't buy them.

- The Silmarillion : I couldn't read past the first pages, All this talk about elves. I hate elves.

[Watcher]

A shout out to Ron for teaching how to walk away from a bad series.

L Ron Hubbard Mission Earth is the first series of books I couldn’t finish.

Before this I would read everything, watch really horrible movies, until the end. After the fourth book I started to question why I was still reading this crap. By the sixth book my only answer was because I started it and I realized that wasn’t a very good reason.

Sciencetology does work

[Waterdancer]

The Silmarillion causes me to lose consciousness. I've made multiple efforts, but I cannot get through that book.

The Dark Tower. Yeah, I had to read the last book. But I realized the series was gone to hell by Wolves of the Calla. I never read Song of Susanna. I could pick up on the last book no problem, so apparently I didn't miss much. Actually there was a problem - the series f*cking sucked.

I flatly refuse to read any so-called "Dune" books that came out after Frank Herbert's death. They are not the real deal, and every review I read said they sucked ass. BTW, I agree that books 2 & 3 weren't all that. But the series picked back up again in Heretics and Chapterhouse. I wish I could've known how it ends...

Aside from those, I have a compulsion about finishing a series. I will NOT pick up WoT and am leary about an series at this point because they just suck up so much of my time and money.

[MeanMrMustard]

The Border Trilogy. I stopped after Matt Damon got involved.

[Blaine]

Patricia Cornwall's Kay Scarpetta novels: Cornwall took what was, at the time, a great original idea (is she the grandmother of CSI?), built a realistic and gritty character and wrote a couple of interesting books based firmly in the realism of the character's working life. Then she took that and turned Scarpetta into 007 and all the supporting characters into uberheros chasing ridiculously fantastical criminals.

My boss used to listent to these booktapes in the office and I overheard most of them. The series also got really... what's the word here... gay. Or lesbian, to be more factual.

Now, my own abandoned series.

Series I abandoned because I grew up:

Anything that had a D&D brand logo involved with it. Yes, I'm looking at you, Drizzt and Raistlin.

Anything with the word "Eddings" on the cover.

Anything involving Anne Rice.

Ditto McCaffrey.

Sha-Sha-Shannarra.

Piers "punnin' it up" Anthony, to boot.

Series I abandoned simply because they suck (or came to suck):

Terry Goodkind - I bailed after the first book. It was just too stupid, too S&Mish, too badly written for me.

Robert Jordan - I bailed about 4 books after I should have when the "retrun to quality" just got too painful to hope for with each book.

Steven Erikson - Ordered the first two books from the UK after I heard them raved about here. Forced myself on bloody knuckles to finish the completely unenjoyable GotM, then found DHG to be only a lesser relief. I would have quit during the first book if I hadn't already paid and imported the first two books. Plus, I kept hearing "how good it gets". I say this is untrue.

Orson Scott Card - Loved Ender's Game. Loved Speaker for the Dead. Really should've stopped there. They just get worse the further away they get from the source novel.

Series that don't exist to me:

Anything "milked out" after the author's death - I'm looking at you, the estates of Frank Herbert, Roger Zelazny, Robert E. Howard and JRR Tolkein.

[Westfall]

A Clash of Kings. The first 100 pages went nowhere.

[ztemhead]

the Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson. I ceased caring about the characters 100 pages into the first book. A novel without interesting characters is simply a history of something that never happened.

[The White Bull]

1: Sword of Truth - I read the first book, enjoyed it, but never continued. Just reading the description of the second book turned me away from it. I will say, however, that I own the first six books that were given to me by my aunt so I will probably get back on the horse after I read the Malazan.

2: The Wheel of Time - A friend bought me books 4-6. Why start at four I don't know, but I did read half or more of the 4th one before it was obvious I had no clue what was going on and I didn't really care either way. Doubt I'll ever read this series after all the moaning I've heard about it.

3: Dragonlance setting - When Chaos came to Krynn and Palin was starting a new magical order, it was way past time for me to GTFO.

4: Forgotten Realms/Drizzt - I actually read this up until the third book in the last series Salvatore wrote, believe it or not. I even have the third book, I believe it's called the Lone Drow. I just can't find interest in it anymore though, and I have plenty other stuff to read.