When Good Authors Write Bad Books

[Guinevere Seaworth]

Robin Hobb.

I loved The Farseer and Liveship Traders trilogies.

Loved them so much that I re-read them some 6 months ago before I read The Tawny Man trilogy....what a load of rubbish was it.

Cannot bring myself to read Soldier Son or Rain Wild Chronicles because I am afraid it is going to be the same shit as The Tawny Man.

I just cannot believe how a writer who wrote 6 brilliant books could fall down so bad?

Robin Hobb was in my top 5!

I've held off reading Rainwild Chronicles for the very same reason due to the sucky Tawny Man. Liveships is one on my favorite series ever and I fear that she will destroy my love for Liveships if I read Rainwild.

Do give Soldier's Son a shot. I quite enjoyed it. It redeemed Robin Hobb for me after reading Tawny Man. I know it is love or hate book here on these boards.

[Zoë Sumra]

Funny; a very good friend who adores Hobb thought Tawny Man was her best series and Liveships sucked... different strokes for different folks, I guess.

[Jaxom 1974]

I read The Affinity Bridge by George Mann and loved it... then I read his next book, Ghosts of Manhattan, which is quite possibly the worst book ever written.

Well that's disappointing to hear...though I guess it's a good thing I've held off on Ghosts of Manhattan then...I guess I'll just wait for the sequel to Affinity Bridge to make here to the States and see what happens...

[Jaerv]

Bujold: The Hallowed Hunt.

Not really a bad book, but a major disappointment after the fantastic novels Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls.

[Bellis]

I've held off reading Rainwild Chronicles for the very same reason due to the sucky Tawny Man. Liveships is one on my favorite series ever and I fear that she will destroy my love for Liveships if I read Rainwild.

Do give Soldier's Son a shot. I quite enjoyed it. It redeemed Robin Hobb for me after reading Tawny Man. I know it is love or hate book here on these boards.

Dragon Keeper is a decent book, up there with Hobb's best. I would suggest reading that and then skipping Dragon Haven. Just extrapolate your own happy ending, it'll save you the time of reading it.

[Horza]

I think Tigana is possibly the most blatant case of false advertising ever - I read it cover to cover and tried viewing it metaphorically but it still remained a story about Italian wizards and shit, no Tigana, Magic Square or les Bleus, full stop. For shame, GGK, for shame.

[Durckad]

:agree:

David Eddings' Redemption of Althalus goes down as one of the worst book I've read and I like his stuff even if it is YA.

Oh my, that was a terrible, terrible book. Even after realising that his other works that I enjoyed were nothing more than candy literature - tastes great, but not very good for you - Redemption of Athalus was still terrible. Put me off reading Eddings other works and, from what I hear, I did not miss much.

Winter's Heart and Crossroads of Twilight are almost a given. I haven't read a new WoT book since because of those two steaming piles of fecal matter.

[Nerdanel]

Beyond Infinity by Gregory Benford. It was so bad on so many levels, and it didn't help that it was essentially Arthur C. Clarke Mary Sue fanfic with all the names changed.

[thx4allthefish]

-Everything after 1975 by Robert A Heinlein.

-The Baroque Trilogy by Neal Stephenson

<snip>

-A Crown of Swords thru Winter's Heart by Robert Jordan

<snip>

-Everything since the Fool Trilogy by Robin Hobb

-Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

-Dracula Unbound by Brian Aldiss

<snip>

:agree: All of the above.

Plus:

A Feast For Crows by George R. R. Martin. Used to the clear POVs of the first three ASoIaF books, the structured developmet, the elaborate settings, the pacing - this one was a complete downer. In many ways it seemed to be 'underdeveloped' - an assembly of background-stories to the main thread with no clear order or purpose. An average read, at best. I have tried time and again to get into this (audio)book - to no avail. Even as a standalone or an opener to a new series, this book is lacking ...

[red snow]

"9tail-fox" was pretty dire in comparison to Grimwood's "Arabesk" trilogy and "Stamping butterflies". Felt very much like a holiday read to me. I hope his new fantasy series is a return to form - although slightly worrying he's also making the sci-fi to fantasy jump too.

I do think "bad books" by good authors suffer from their other successes though. Most other authors would probably kill to have a book that is considered bad. Eg AFFC would be a 5 star book if I wasn't comparing it to the rest of the series.

[lokisnow]

I thought this was going to be an Orson Scott Card thread, and here I'm the first one to mention him.

Basically, everything OSC wrote after 9/11 is awful. though some of his short stories have not been as bad as his best novels in this time period, some have been markedly worse than all except Empire.

But yeah, Empire should be the king of this thread.

the plotline is that evil liberals have been secretly hiding badass advanced military tech from the military (like mechs) and use it to take over Manhattan while simultaneously assassinating the blessed president bush, true-hero president cheney, and sanctified Speaker of the House Roy Blunt. And the liberals are SOOOO sneaky they clumsily try to make it look like conservatives attacked Manhattan! Hero of the day is just your every day all american son of Bosnian/serbian immigrants christian special forces op who is scornful of PTSD (it doesn't matter, if you're fighting to protect your family your psyche will never be affected) whose special forces assignment--like all the special forces assignments assigned by conservatives running the middle eastern wars who are all peace loving geniuses of combat--is a gentle genius that has been building towns and relationships in the middle east perfectly and surgically taking out the one or two extremist bad guys when the locals inevitably turn them over to the wonderful christian westerner... that is until the sneaky evil liberals would pull the plug on his non-violent warfare and ruined things. Our hero naturally writes all of his school notes in arabic, just to keep people from copying his notes, shockingly, these notes will later be very important and his wife will have to have them translated--oh noes. And he just so happens to be in NYC when those mechs start taking over the island.

[Astra]

I've held off reading Rainwild Chronicles for the very same reason due to the sucky Tawny Man. Liveships is one on my favorite series ever and I fear that she will destroy my love for Liveships if I read Rainwild.

Do give Soldier's Son a shot. I quite enjoyed it. It redeemed Robin Hobb for me after reading Tawny Man. I know it is love or hate book here on these boards.

OK. You convinced me. I will try it.

Eloisa

Funny; a very good friend who adores Hobb thought Tawny Man was her best series and Liveships sucked... different strokes for different folks, I guess.

Probably depends on what she usually likes.

If she likes soap operas, I can imagine why she liked it.

There is no fantasy in it but endless soap opera with one the most unrealistic, improbable, silly endings I have read in the last 10 years.

[Grack21]

I thought this was going to be an Orson Scott Card thread, and here I'm the first one to mention him.

Basically, everything OSC wrote after 9/11 is awful. though some of his short stories have not been as bad as his best novels in this time period, some have been markedly worse than all except Empire.

But yeah, Empire should be the king of this thread.

This. A million times this.

[Morrigan]

I disagree. Orson Scott Card isn't a good author and has never been. :P

[Nerdanel]

I disagree. Orson Scott Card isn't a good author and has never been. :P

I think Card HAS been a good author, but it was long ago. He showed some real talent in his early short stories but then it all went down the drain. On the short story front, just compare the difference between Sandmagic and that awful awful awful story which is about (and I am not making this up) Ender having to file his taxes for the first time.

I haven't read Empire and don't want to. The last-written Card novel I've read was Xenocide and it was just terrible. And it's sequel, Children of the Mind, is supposed to be even worse...

[Horza]

Yeah, I read that stuff happily in my teens (though even then Enders Game struck an awkward chord...) and have no doubt I would go "wtf?!" were I to re-read.

[delete this account pls]

Orson Scott Card is such an overwelmingly homophobic hateful piece-of-shit douchebag that I wouldn't touch one of his books even if I had the runs and was out of toilet paper.

[Horza]

Eh, lots of great writers have their bigotries - Card only starts working them in in later books.

...why are you lurking this thread Paxy don't you have a game to get to? :P

[MinDonner]

The Algebraist by Banks. And The Steep Approach to Garbadale, though his M-less output has been mediocre for quite a while now.

[delete this account pls]

Eh, lots of great writers have their bigotries - Card only starts working them in in later books.

...why are you lurking this thread Paxy don't you have a game to get to? :P

Well, I've never read any of his stuff before. But his views are so repellant to me that I just can't divorce the author from the art in this case.