Popular Book series you’ve tried and failed to get into:

[red snow]

On 3/20/2019 at 12:43 PM, Mosi Mynn said:

I found the cast incredibly dull too.

And I dreaded Glokta's chapters!  He was witty and sardonic enough, but it's just so grim.

These posts are quite interesting to me as in the reread i was discussing how Abercrombie and his publishers took an insane risk by releasing a book that was essentially a first act with very little going on and essentially set up for book 2. You also make a good point about the characters too as it's the later books that make sense of things basically many of the characters are not exactly aa they seem. I know i almost gave up but the other books really do have the pay-off. Now i know there are at least two people who book 1 killed the series for.

[Mosi Mynn]

40 minutes ago, red snow said:

These posts are quite interesting to me as in the reread i was discussing how Abercrombie and his publishers took an insane risk by releasing a book that was essentially a first act with very little going on and essentially set up for book 2. You also make a good point about the characters too as it's the later books that make sense of things basically many of the characters are not exactly aa they seem. I know i almost gave up but the other books really do have the pay-off. Now i know there are at least two people who book 1 killed the series for.

Aargh!  Now I don't know if I should try and get through the trilogy! 

[Jo498]

1 hour ago, red snow said:

These posts are quite interesting to me as in the reread i was discussing how Abercrombie and his publishers took an insane risk by releasing a book that was essentially a first act with very little going on and essentially set up for book 2. You also make a good point about the characters too as it's the later books that make sense of things basically many of the characters are not exactly aa they seem. I know i almost gave up but the other books really do have the pay-off. Now i know there are at least two people who book 1 killed the series for.

This is somewhat surprising to me. I think Abercrombie's books are good but not great and have not had the impulse for re-reading them. But "The blade itself" was a page turner for me and basically brought me back to reading some fantasy after years of not bothering with the genre. I must have read it within a few days after Xmas 2010 (it was actually a gift to my brother but I commandoed the copy before he could finish it himself).

[BigFatCoward]

2 hours ago, Mosi Mynn said:

Aargh!  Now I don't know if I should try and get through the trilogy! 

You definitely should, because they also open up the 3 standalone novels which are for me even better. 

That being said the first law world is in my top 3 series of all time, if you didn't love it first time round you are no more likely to now that I'm banging on about it. 

[red snow]

2 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

You definitely should, because they also open up the 3 standalone novels which are for me even better. 

That being said the first law world is in my top 3 series of all time, if you didn't love it first time round you are no more likely to now that I'm banging on about it. 

The stand alones are where Abercrombie really hits his stride in terms of creating satisfying reads in of themselves. The first trilogy is excellent when read in a block too.

 

5 hours ago, Mosi Mynn said:

Aargh!  Now I don't know if I should try and get through the trilogy! 

It's worth trying book 2. If you're still not enjoying then give up.

 

4 hours ago, Jo498 said:

This is somewhat surprising to me. I think Abercrombie's books are good but not great and have not had the impulse for re-reading them. But "The blade itself" was a page turner for me and basically brought me back to reading some fantasy after years of not bothering with the genre. I must have read it within a few days after Xmas 2010 (it was actually a gift to my brother but I commandoed the copy before he could finish it himself).

When i read it was after ASOIAF so probably suffered from that comparison. I'm a huge Abercrombie fan but i do think the first book is weak in terms of action and things happening and essentially ending with "more might happen in the next book". I actually enjoyed it a lot more on the reread knowing where the series and characters were going.

[Mosi Mynn]

1 minute ago, red snow said:

When i read it was after ASOIAF so probably suffered from that comparison. I'm a huge Abercrombie fan but i do think the first book is weak in terms of action and things happening and essentially ending with "more might happen in the next book". I actually enjoyed it a lot more on the reread knowing where the series and characters were going.

That was another of my issues - I read 300+ pages and not much happened!  It was all setting the scene for the next book rather than a self-contained story with more to follow.

[red snow]

5 minutes ago, Mosi Mynn said:

That was another of my issues - I read 300+ pages and not much happened!  It was all setting the scene for the next book rather than a self-contained story with more to follow.

That's the book's main offence in my opinion. The writing is good but it needed a bit more than the rooftop action scene at the end. It's common for first books to do this but i feel the world building or tone has to really stand out to mske up for this.

His first book in the shattered seas series is a much better first book by him.

[Jo498]

20 hours ago, red snow said:

When i read it was after ASOIAF so probably suffered from that comparison. I'm a huge Abercrombie fan but i do think the first book is weak in terms of action and things happening and essentially ending with "more might happen in the next book". I actually enjoyed it a lot more on the reread knowing where the series and characters were going.

What one has read before could well be an important factor. In retrospect, I think I am aware of the flaws, in fact I even found the continuation of the trilogy somewhat problematic and I find the three stand-alones all flawed as well (although they might be more fluently written and better paced than TBI). Nevertheless when I started it, it felt very "fresh" and I didn't really have the impression of "not enough happening". But as I said, I had hardly read any fantasy for years. In fact FL brought be to reading ASoIaF although I had been vaguely aware of the latters existence since the first book appeared in 1996

[red snow]

35 minutes ago, Jo498 said:

What one has read before could well be an important factor. In retrospect, I think I am aware of the flaws, in fact I even found the continuation of the trilogy somewhat problematic and I find the three stand-alones all flawed as well (although they might be more fluently written and better paced than TBI). Nevertheless when I started it, it felt very "fresh" and I didn't really have the impression of "not enough happening". But as I said, I had hardly read any fantasy for years. In fact FL brought be to reading ASoIaF although I had been vaguely aware of the latters existence since the first book appeared in 1996

Oh, I'm sure it's still relatively fresh compared to the majority of stuff out there - especially ten years ago. I guess nowadays there're a lot more authors in Joe's style.

As a contribution to books where the first instalment was enough for me, I'll add the "shattered mirror" book by Kameron Hurley. I'm still willing to give her SF a go though.

The Obsidian heart series by Mark Norris - one book was more than enough and it was a lesson in not every "daily deal" is necessarily worth a purchase. 

There the only ones I couldn't get into the rest are more I didn't gel with them as I went further into the series

Jasper Kent's vampire series. Started to get a bit too silly by the end of book 2. Shame as I really liked the Russian history aspect.

There's a bunch of series where I have the last book but haven't read such as Richard Morgan's fantasy series and Mark Charan Newton's first series. Not sure I ever will now as I don't particularly want to do a re-read.

 

[baxus]

The biggest one I just couldn't get into was The Wheel of Time. I tried it, stuck with it until Dragon Reborn, but just couldn't go on.

[Varysblackfyre321]

19 hours ago, baxus said:

The biggest one I just couldn't get into was The Wheel of Time. I tried it, stuck with it until Dragon Reborn, but just couldn't go on.

Someone has to explain what exactly is the appeal to that. I can’t see it. It just reads as the prototypical fantasy story.

[baxus]

I'd like to hear that, too.

[Werthead]

On 3/26/2019 at 6:03 AM, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Someone has to explain what exactly is the appeal to that. I can’t see it. It just reads as the prototypical fantasy story.

It was one of the first big fantasy series to have a majority of female characters with agency, it had reasonably detailed, credible worldbuilding (apart from languages) and it had story with a lot of logical depth to it, so whereas it starts as "seven people have to save the world" it expands way beyond that and gets into the politics and logistics of these "heroes" raising large armies and influencing the politics of nations. Jordan's prose was also above average for the time (remember this was the age when Brooks, Feist and Eddings were the biggest fantasy authors around).

Arguably it's all been done better since then (although not all in one series) and even the most ardent WoT fans have to admit the series' myriad faults, but it remains a touchstone of the genre for a reason.

[Little Valkyrie]

7 hours ago, Werthead said:

It was one of the first big fantasy series to have a majority of female characters with agency, it had reasonably detailed, credible worldbuilding (apart from languages) and it had story with a lot of logical depth to it, so whereas it starts as "seven people have to save the world" it expands way beyond that and gets into the politics and logistics of these "heroes" raising large armies and influencing the politics of nations. Jordan's prose was also above average for the time (remember this was the age when Brooks, Feist and Eddings were the biggest fantasy authors around).

Arguably it's all been done better since then (although not all in one series) and even the most ardent WoT fans have to admit the series' myriad faults, but it remains a touchstone of the genre for a reason.

Also, if you started like I did when the third book had just come out, there was a small but intense online community that worked on puzzling out the backstory and the hints, which was so much of the fun of reading it.  Who killed Asmodean?  What really happened in the past with Lews Therin?  Is Moiraine dead?  Those sorts of things really help generate a fandom and a following for the books, even when they fell into slog territory.  The scale of the thing was beyond anything else at the time, and for all his faults he wasn't doing the Eddings five books/rework five books model.

And yes, we now joke (and did then) about braid-pulling and all of that, but multiple powerful and interesting women were a significant appeal.

[Varysblackfyre321]

11 hours ago, Werthead said:

It was one of the first big fantasy series to have a majority of female characters with agency, it had reasonably detailed, credible worldbuilding (apart from languages) and it had story with a lot of logical depth to it, so whereas it starts as "seven people have to save the world" it expands way beyond that and gets into the politics and logistics of these "heroes" raising large armies and influencing the politics of nations. Jordan's prose was also above average for the time (remember this was the age when Brooks, Feist and Eddings were the biggest fantasy authors around).

Arguably it's all been done better since then (although not all in one series) and even the most ardent WoT fans have to admit the series' myriad faults, but it remains a touchstone of the genre for a reason.

Perhaps I’ll give it one more go.

[stonebender]

I stuck with the First Law trilogy but didn't think it improved much from the first book.  Bailed on the Tawny Man trilogy after the first book.  I found the Fitz POV exhausting.

[Lady Anna]

Perhaps this is the best place to ask. Is The Witcher series worth reading? What did you guys think of it?

[Rorshach]

Worth it.

But it is - as mentioned in the Witcher thread - critically important that you start with the books that aren't billed as part of the series - "The Witcher" and "Sword of Destiny". A couple - can't remember how many - of those short stories are needed to understand the series itself. 

[Lollygag]

On ‎4‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 3:58 PM, Lady Anna said:

Perhaps this is the best place to ask. Is The Witcher series worth reading? What did you guys think of it?

I enjoyed the short story collections and the first two novels or so, but it really dropped off after that and I couldn't make myself pick it up again. And how he writes women is just so cringy. 

[Varysblackfyre321]

2 hours ago, Lollygag said:

I enjoyed the short story collections and the first two novels or so, but it really dropped off after that and I couldn't make myself pick it up again. And how he writes women is just so cringy. 

Elaborate on your problems with the way he writes women?