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Series you started but stopped reading


Alarich

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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.

:agree: That's damn near exactly the same complaints I've had with the series as well. I think I'm one of the rare ones that actually liked Elayne, but it's like he deliberately tried, and succeeded, I might add, at making her unlikable through the drivelous fluff he stuffed her chapters with. I mean, Essande? Why did she merit more than one sentence? Pages devoted to honey in the tea? They're like making syrup....50 gallons or so of the crapsap could be condensed to one gallon of fertilizersyrup. Book 11 was a great improvement over 10, but a more forceful editor in the Elayne chapters could have brought this book back on par with the earlier books.

No I haven't gave up, but CoT was slower than steam offa turd, and I nearly gave it up.

I haven't gave up on the Drizzt series either, but I don't get the books when they first come out in hardback either, I can wait 'til the paperbacks arrive, unlike say, ASOIAF

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Now that people have mentioned it, Dune. I read the first, and another (God-Emperor of Dune, IIRC). G-EoD and Internet reviews of the other Dune novels convinced me to stick with the first book and pretend the rest never existed (much like the Matrix movies, come to think of it).

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I have no idea how I got to the fifth (sixth?) Dune book. I just kept hoping that the story would eventually become as good as it was in the first book, which I loved, but it never did. One aspect of the fifth book's plot

SPOILER: Heretics of Dune
the sexual enslavement

was so ridiculous that I finally gave up. The first book is amazingly good and the second is worth reading just to know how Paul Atreides's story ends. Anything after that is garbage.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Dune series-made it to the start of the 3rd book but couldn't raise any interest

chronicles of thomas covenant-read lord fouls bane and stopped there. found the prose was very conceited ie.one big attempt to show how good the writers vocabulary is. i didn't like the world, a hell of alot of stuff just didn't make any logical sense, and thomas covenent isn't really a likeable protaganist at all.

The ellenian? by edding- read the diamond throne-first and last book i'll read by eddings, really amatuer writing.

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I'm a very persistant reader. I even finished some of the Brooks and Eddings series, the Wayfarer redemption, several Weiss/Hickman series; I'm at book 11 in the WoT series etc. But there's one series I never finished and never will and it's Tairy's SoT. I read WFR (actually to the end) felt the need to take a long long shower followed by a soaking bath (probably longer than Elayne's one) to get the deep stuff out and finish up with another shower. Never touched anything by G*dk*nd (BBHN,WLHHTU) again.

I don't mind graphic scenes, the occasional and maybe gratuitous s3x, the violence. GRRM does it just fine in a matter-of-fact descriptive way. But I felt disgusted by the way TG seemed to take pleasure from it. It's sort of a pr0nographic violence for the lack of a better word.

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I'm surprised that so many people have given up on Erickson...I didn't realise he'd written a series.

Erikson on the other hand...:) I'm a Malazanite myself, but I can understand why some people don't like it.

Authors I have stopped reading:

Julia Gray - I can't believe I even started this...it's utterly formulaic.

Terry Goodkind - I read Wizard's First Rule and wasn't really gripped, but I didn't think it was that bad. Then I saw how many people were rubbishing it and didn't bother to continue.

Ian Irvine - I finished The View from the Mirror series, though I didn't really enjoy it too much. But I wouldn't even consider moving on to The Well of Echoes Quartet.

Raymond E. Feist - I read the original trilogy, and then tried to read some of the later books. They convinced me to stop.

Elizabeth Moon - I picked up Hunting Party because I thought it was sci-fi...don't be decieved by the cover, it's about horse riding. So no more Serrano Legacy for me.

Sir Thursday

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-PELLINOR trilogy. Got halfway through the first one, The Naming, then realized I was wasting my time. It was a succession of Tolkiensish cliches.

-VIEW FROM THE MIRROR. Idem

-TIME MASTER TRILOGY by Louise Cooper. This series had so much potential! The first one was ok, but after that it just went downhill. I never bothered to read the third one. I hated the author for messing it up, because I really wanted to read a good book about Order and Chaos.

-FARSEER TRILOGY. Ok, go ahead. Shoot me! The first one was ok...the first half of the second one was ok, but then I stopped. I didn't care a straw for Fitz or Molly or...ok so maybe I cared a little bit about Nighteyes, and I really wanted to know more about the Fool. But the gloomy mood of the series put me off. Did the sun ever shine in it?

-DREAMERS by Eddings. I can't believed these books got published.

-BLACK JEWELS TRILOGY. The world was cool and the characters (the MALE characters) even cooler. However, there was no plot and the violent sex very unsettling and out of place. Couldn't get myself to read past the first half of book 2.

-FREEDOM'S LANDING. I don't remember the actual name of the series. But it was one of these American-propagandist books. Nuff said.

-THE RIDDLE-MASTER OF HED. Don't even remember what it was about.

-TALON OF THE SILVER HAWK by Feist. :o

Oh, yeah. Some YA series I tried to read--but they were just crap! (THE GUARDIANS OF TIME TRILOGY--THE KIESH'ARA BOOKS, BARTIMOLEUS(or something like that)...

Some books I'm ashamed I even started to read. Seriously. Especially the Lady series by Evangelynn Stratton. :bang: The worst is that I bought them!! I hate these cheap, cheezy romances... and I thought I was buying Fantasy.

I'm sure there's more. But I can't think of them right now.

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I forgot to mention the ANITA BLAKE books. Read Guilty Pleasures". That was it. The "ardeur"? :o

No offfense to you fans, but the heroine was a just kick-ass whore, nothing more. And the vampires, pale copies of Anne Rice's characters -- plus the active sexuality. :leaving:

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I'm surprised that so many people have given up on Erickson...I didn't realise he'd written a series.

Erikson on the other hand...:) I'm a Malazanite myself, but I can understand why some people don't like it.

:|

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I don't think I'll pick up Erikson's Deadhouse Gates... I finished off Gardens of the Moon, but I never really liked it. Halfway through it became a slush, IMO, and I only wanted to finish it because I had started it. But unless I'm clinically bored in the future, I won't be picking up his other work.

I've started Wheel of Time; I'm halfway through Eye of the World. So far it's entertaining, but not yet great. Think I'll see where it goes. As there are so many boarders here that complain about the story going nowhere from book five or six onwards, I guess I'll how far I go. If I still reasonably enjoy them, I may finish his series. That is, the books he has published. Unfortunately it seems he is fighting a losing battle against a severe illness.

I started into Goodkind way back when, but as the later novels seem to keep devoling into political muck, I'm suprised I still keep reading them. I'm not buying them new anymore, but I still want to know how the story ends, and what happens to the main characters.

I stopped the Dragonlance books after the original trilogies of Chronicles and Legends. I learned but late of continued writings in that universe, and by then I had grown out of it. Feel no large need to pick them up again.

I also never bothered with the rest of the Drizzt series. I read the Icewind Dale trilogy (simple yet pleasant reads), but that was enough for me. No need for more.

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The Dragonlance Books - I read a lot of them through middle school, and enjoyed them, but I grew out of them. There's so many of those things that I don't know if you'd really call it a series. After dropping this series I moved to:

The Wheel of Time - I hated it at first. I hated the characters and the blatant referencing of just about every other fantasy and myth concept ever made. I put the first book down for a long time, but eventually powered through it, got accustomed to the taste, and lasted all the way to Winter's Heart before the toxins built up to critical mass. I moved on to:

The Sword of Truth - For a while, I was just content to read a fantasy series in which the main characters actually liked each other and didn't bicker constantly. I got annoyed by the thin world and repetitive, episodic nature, but the appearance of Objectivism was my exit cue. After that I moved to Martin.

Some others I've dropped between those are:

Dune - I really enjoyed this book, but I've heard that the series gets worse with every book, so I never bothered reading any sequels.

Eddings - I read three Sparhawk books. I don't know if the series goes beyond that, actually. I only read them because a friend loaned them too me and I didn't particularly enjoy them, so I never read any more Eddings.

Malazan - I don't have much desire to pick up the second book. I thought the first was okay in a sort of comic book super-hero way, but I found it very empty and unengaging.

Gunslinger - I never finished the first book, as slim as it is. It wasn't that it was all THAT dull, I just wasn't very interested, and I never bothered to pick it up again.

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