Books you would never recommend to a non fantasy reader

[Grack21]

I have a friend who's never read scifi at all buy finds Reynolds to be very accessible. :shrug:'

I think the main thing I wouldn't recommend to a new reader is something that is not finished and far from being finished. I know people who refuse to read series until they're done.

And I apologize for the previous unpleasantness. I let my emotions get the better of me, and I should know better.

[Shael]

I also hate anything by Kevin J. Anderson.

Since you speak his name with hatred, I'll allow this. But in any other context, this man should never be mentioned. Only with hatred.

Coming at it from the perspective of a non-genre reader, it's hard to find anything to latch onto and it doesn't make a lot of sense. ...Which was something that the first chapter of Dune did not do, to my recollection.

I get you. It does just sort of throw you to the wolves. Herbert ain't the best at narrative, for sure.

Well, I guess it comes back to my not liking it very much, to be honest. I think it lacks strong characters

This is true. Not even Duncan Idaho has much of an arc, and he's around for every single book. Paul is basically the same person even after his 'hero's journey'. Another Herbert failing.

The wrongfooting element in SF is therefore setting, and my logic is that something with a more naturalistic base helps introduce that gently... ...Dune starts you off with too much SF and too little of anything else.

I see what you're saying. However, Dune was the first SF novel I ever read when I was young, and I loved being challenged in that way. Not like I needed any more evidence of my own weirdness, but there it is. What works for some doesn't work for others.

[Datepalm]

I see what you're saying. However, Dune was the first SF novel I ever read when I was young, and I loved being challenged in that way. Not like I needed any more evidence of my own weirdness, but there it is. What works for some doesn't work for others.

How old were you? I started reading SF with Zelazny and Brin, (and i'm pretty sure I read the second Uplift trilogy before the first, so it made even less sense.) but I was in like the 4-5th grade. I think as a kid you have both lower standards and are just much more willing to embrace anything a book throws at you, plus childrens (mainstream) books are generally much more sf/fantasy based anyway, so it's always seemed like a perfectly natural progression to me from, like, E. Nesbit and Goosebumps to Dune. The problem is if you lose that thread at some point and have to get back to it as an adult, with established tastes and a developed, set way of appreceating literature.

[Shael]

How old were you?

13 or 14? I was never really interested in fantasy or SF as a kid (more weirdness, I know), and never read hardly any. When I was interested, it was in something more like Bladerunner or Alien than Star Trek or Star Wars. I'm glad I never read Dragonlance or the Forgotten Realms stuff, as they're apparently rubbish. :lol: But I certainly saw my compatriots in nerd-dom reading them...

Actually, looking back, the things I read as a kid were books about just plain crazyness, like Casteneda, or modern psychology like Eric Berne. Lots of Carl Jung, too. My parents were both social workers/psychologists, and that's what we had around the house. Not that I completely understood what I was reading obviously, but I liked them. I think that really changed the way I assimilate things. :wacko:

[palimpsest.]

Uhh, I'd probably find it easier to list the books I would recommend to a person who is not a fan of the genre. It depends on the person, sure - I find it easier to recommend fantasy to people who read other genres than to people who read mostly 'high literature' - but I'm afraid that when I need to recommend a writer who not only creates a good plot but also has a great style, I only have a few names to resort to.

[Red Sun]

Uhh, I'd probably find it easier to list the books I would recommend to a person who is not a fan of the genre. It depends on the person, sure - I find it easier to recommend fantasy to people who read other genres than to people who read mostly 'high literature' - but I'm afraid that when I need to recommend a writer who not only creates a good plot but also has a great style, I only have a few names to resort to.

It's the same for me. The books I can or can not recommend to non-fantasy readers would really depend on their literary predisposition, for some people it's rather magical realism than outright fantasy (for ex. Murakami for my mother), for some it's Terry Pratchett because of the parody elements and the humour. The German equivalent of Terry Pratchett, Walter Moers, is almost mainstream anyways. However, I have yet to find someone in my aquantaince (fantasy readers or not) to whom I could recommend the big titles of modern epic fantasy (Jordan, Martin, Abraham etc.).

However, the Lies of Locke Lamora did work for some people who are not avid readers of fantasy, despite a slight problem with the violence.

[SkynJay]

I'd also be nervous recommending any 'licensed' SF/F books to any newcomers. The Star Wars franchise is almost universally bad, and the Star Trek novels are crap. Anything that is involved with D&D is scrapping the bottom of the barrel in terms of quality. Although the D'rzzit books seemed to have floated to the top of the turd bucket in the early days. Still not good enough for a recommendation though.

I also hate anything by Kevin J. Anderson. On that basis alone i'll avoid recommending him to anyone.

Now we are working with age groups. If I am recommending books to a nephew or other child, I know i enjoyed many of the Star Wars books. They started with Tim Zahn, who is a solid author. Stackpool's X-Wing books were also very enjoyable.

It is true there is a whole lot of crap thrown into the EU as well, including several by the aforementioned Keven J. Anderson (i shutter to think of his jedi academy books, but as intro books for a youngster audience, it works.

[Liadin]

Uhh, I'd probably find it easier to list the books I would recommend to a person who is not a fan of the genre. It depends on the person, sure - I find it easier to recommend fantasy to people who read other genres than to people who read mostly 'high literature' - but I'm afraid that when I need to recommend a writer who not only creates a good plot but also has a great style, I only have a few names to resort to.

What do you recommend to these people? I have several friends who read mostly classics and I second-guess anything I think of recommending to them.

[Horselover Fat]

I just saw this book in the used bookstore, Ai! Pedrito! by...wait for it...the aforementioned Kevin J. Anderson and L. Ron Hubbard. I cannot think of a book I would be less likely to read (Stanek and Goodkind present ...)

[palimpsest.]

@Liadin: Catherynne M. Valente, Ursula K. Le Guin (mostly Lavinia though), Christopher Priest, Flowers for Algernon, The Road, Handmaid's Tale. It depends on the person, really; for example, my Dad won't read anything that has obviously made-up places in it so he enjoyed Flowers for Algernon and The Road, but he didn't want to read Left Hand of Darkness or The Affirmation (which are both books I could easily recommend to other people with similar taste in books). This is also why I rarely recommend Wasp Factory - I think it's a great book, but I'm not sure if people would see past the crazy stuff.

[Joanna vander Poele]

No Erikson, for a very, very, very long time, until they were deeply familiar with the genre and liked a little Philosophy 101 ;)

[Grack21]

In the spirit of the OP, Orcs by Stan Nicholas. To steal something someone on goodreeads said, it has the plot of a GameBoy RPG. It;s everything that's wrong with fantasy magnified a thousand times. I don;t mind torpes if they're done well, but here they're done to death, and badly, while claiming to not actually be tropes. Add in some wonderful scenes from the rapists point of view and you have a book so bad, I'd rather read Confessor again instead.

[Galactus]

I did seem to have gotten my half-brother hooked on fantasy via the usual means: IE: David Eddings.

[Liadin]

@Liadin: Catherynne M. Valente, Ursula K. Le Guin (mostly Lavinia though), Christopher Priest, Flowers for Algernon, The Road, Handmaid's Tale. It depends on the person, really; for example, my Dad won't read anything that has obviously made-up places in it so he enjoyed Flowers for Algernon and The Road, but he didn't want to read Left Hand of Darkness or The Affirmation (which are both books I could easily recommend to other people with similar taste in books). This is also why I rarely recommend Wasp Factory - I think it's a great book, but I'm not sure if people would see past the crazy stuff.

This makes sense. I guess I was asking more about what traditional fantasy books you'd recommend to somebody who's open to that but whose usual fare is classics or capital-L-Literature. (Assume they've already read, and enjoyed, LotR.) You've listed some more literary-leaning speculative fiction, mostly set in the real world, which is valuable to point out to people who think everything "not real" sucks, but it's very different from the kind of fantasy most people who identify as fantasy readers usually read, you know? I could rec One Hundred Years of Solitude too and nobody would claim it wasn't literary enough, but it's not really in keeping with most of the genre.

[Shryke]

Go with something by Gene Wolfe.

[MattD]

I guess I was asking more about what traditional fantasy books you'd recommend to somebody who's open to that but whose usual fare is classics or capital-L-Literature.

A question better posed as a new thread? But to give a quick answer...well, it depends on what classics they like, someone who likes Pride and Prejudice won't necessarily like The Sound and the Fury won't necessarily like Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss, and so forth. But as far as secondary world fantasy: Martin of course also goes over well with those interested in historical fiction (as does Kay, although I don't know if his secondary worlds are "secondary" enough); beyond that, K.J. Bishop's The Etched City, Jeff Ford's Well-Built City Trilogy, Michael Cisco's The Traitor, Jeff VanderMeer's Shriek: An Afterword, Catherynne Valente's Orphan's Tales, Michael Swanwick's Iron Dragon's Daughter or Dragons of Babel, Peter Beagle's The Last Unicorn or The Innkeeper's Song; having now read it I don't know what you'd say about a book like Mieville's The Scar, but it would be on my long list; as would Greer Gilman's Cloud & Ashes, if they are especially clever.

[Liadin]

A question better posed as a new thread? But to give a quick answer...well, it depends on what classics they like, someone who likes Pride and Prejudice won't necessarily like The Sound and the Fury won't necessarily like Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss, and so forth. But as far as secondary world fantasy: Martin of course also goes over well with those interested in historical fiction (as does Kay, although I don't know if his secondary worlds are "secondary" enough); beyond that, K.J. Bishop's The Etched City, Jeff Ford's Well-Built City Trilogy, Michael Cisco's The Traitor, Jeff VanderMeer's Shriek: An Afterword, Catherynne Valente's Orphan's Tales, Michael Swanwick's Iron Dragon's Daughter or Dragons of Babel, Peter Beagle's The Last Unicorn or The Innkeeper's Song; having now read it I don't know what you'd say about a book like Mieville's The Scar, but it would be on my long list; as would Greer Gilman's Cloud & Ashes, if they are especially clever.

Heh, if I get one of these friends to act as guinea pig I will start a thread on it. Seems unfair to do that to the board when I can't come back with periodic updates on their reactions. :P But, some things here I might check out.

I'd be hesitant to recommend The Scar to friends who haven't read much fantasy just because of the high level of weirdness--several different "races," plus bizarre sea creatures, plus magical powers, plus possibility mining, plus grafting machines into people and so on might overwhelm somebody who isn't used to fantasy. And the prose didn't really stand out for me, although there's enough going on thematically that literary readers could probably still find it worthwhile. I'm of two minds about Kay: I think his use of language is excellent, but wonder if someone more steeped in the classics might find it pretentious. (And even for non-literary types, I wouldn't recommend Kay to everyone--you have to like slow, emotional books.)

[Liadin]

DP

[MattD]

Heh, if I get one of these friends to act as guinea pig I will start a thread on it. Seems unfair to do that to the board when I can't come back with periodic updates on their reactions. :P But, some things here I might check out.

I'd be hesitant to recommend The Scar to friends who haven't read much fantasy just because of the high level of weirdness--several different "races," plus bizarre sea creatures, plus magical powers, plus possibility mining, plus grafting machines into people and so on might overwhelm somebody who isn't used to fantasy.

N.B. The books I mentioned tend toward the weird side. If you want less weird recs, well, there are also books like Swordspoint / Privilege of the Sword. But when you rejected Trin's suggestions and talked about wanting "traditional fantasy" recs, I assumed you meant secondary-world fantasy with different races, monsters, magic, and so forth. I mean, really, compared to realist fiction, is Lord of the Rings less weird than The Scar? But The Scar strikes me as tonally much closer to "capital-L literature" in the way it avoids ex machina setups and sentimentality; when I see people rejecting fantasy, these are often big strikes against it.

[Borque]

I'm of two minds about Kay: I think his use of language is excellent, but wonder if someone more steeped in the classics might find it pretentious. (And even for non-literary types, I wouldn't recommend Kay to everyone--you have to like slow, emotional books.)

I was going to suggest Kay's Lions of al-Rassan just before I saw this. And I think you are right. It might work, but it does need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

I'd consider suggesting either A Canticle for Leibowitz or Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.