|
|
|
|
|
| SFReader Forums > SF Fiction and Art > Science Fiction > Books that disappointed you | Forum Quick Jump
|
| 
Frank
Adept
      
Date Joined Aug 2005
Total Posts : 629
| Posted 8/13/2005 5:53 PM (GMT -4) |   | 'The Engines of God' by Jack McDevitt
I'd heard many great things about this author. I decided to begin with this novel. The opening chapter was right up my alley. So much promise, so many interesting questions raised. As I approached the end I kept saying to myself, "OK. He's gonna tie it all together any page now and answer all the questions." But he didn't. This book had the lamest ending of any novel I've ever read. So many questions left unanswered. I hate to say it but I'll never read anything else by this author. I'm too angry about having read through over 600 pages only to arrive at this lame ending.
'Icehenge' by Kim Stanley Robinson
An expansion of his short story 'On the North Pole of Pluto'. This novel, perhaps like a real-life trip to Pluto, just took too long to get there. Sorry, Kim. Stick to Mars. | | Back to Top | | |
 |
erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4475
| Posted 8/13/2005 6:44 PM (GMT -4) | | Frank,
Good topic! Ok, heres mine:
_The Frankenstien Papers_ by Fred Saberhagen. The ending of this one was so cheesy it pissed me off so that I didn't read another book by Saberhagen until 2003, after he'd personally appologised. I had gone into this book with very high hopes, having just finished _The Holmes-Dracula File_ and _An Old Friend of the Family_ which were both teriffic. I still read sf from Fred, but no fantasy or 'monster' books and damn little SF.
_Digital Knight_ by Ryk Spoor. Ryk's a friend, I'll say that right out. Seawasp, as he's known in cyberspace, writes a hell of a story and I was enjoying this nice, fast paced paranormal detective story when suddenly, right in the middle mind you, it segues into a lost atlantis history info dump that goes on for pages and pages, changes everything in the story and bores me to tears, I totally lost interest from that point on though I did, because Ryk's a friend, manage through dint of hard labor, to finish the book. If he leaves that junk out I'll read anything he writes but if he puts that bad gamer junk in it, I wont.
Those are two, I'm sure to have more but thats a start.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Two Ravens" in Amazing Journeys Magazine coming Sept. 05 | | Back to Top | | |
|
Red Viper
Acolyte
Date Joined Mar 2005
Total Posts : 439
| Posted 8/13/2005 6:57 PM (GMT -4) | | Saberhagen's the culprit in my disappointing book story, too. I enjoyed the Holmes-Dracula piece, and the Berserker stuff ... so I really looked forward to diving into the "Book of Swords" series. The cover blurbs had me fired up, too. And then the books just seemed to get ... nowhere. Foundations were laid for good stuff, some good ideas seemed on the verge of fruition, but ... poof. Not horrible, but just not what I expected or wanted, I guess.
Red Viper, aka Steve Goble
Fantasy writer with stories appearing soon in "Flashing Swords" and "Amazing Journeys Magazine" | | Back to Top | | |
|
erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4475
| Posted 8/13/2005 7:51 PM (GMT -4) | | Sabrehagen just doesn't seem to finish well. Don't understand it, he does most other things well enough.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Two Ravens" in Amazing Journeys Magazine coming Sept. 05 | | Back to Top | | |
|
Edward Knight
Jack of all Trades and Master of None
Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 1038
| Posted 8/14/2005 5:39 AM (GMT -4) | | Okay, I'll get toasted for this one, but I was disappointed by Dune. Maybe if I had read it early I wouldn't say that. But, after years of being hyped up by other readers, I finally gave it a try. It was a good book, but for me it didn't live up to the expectations I had been slowy building over the years.
Edward Knight
Editor
Journey Books Publishing
Amazing Journeys Magazine
http://www.journeybookspublishing.com
http://www.journeybooksonline.com | | Back to Top | | |
|
Frank
Adept
Date Joined Aug 2005
Total Posts : 629
| Posted 8/14/2005 1:43 PM (GMT -4) | | I can understand EdK's position with 'Dune'. It's really hard to live up to that much hype. You hear about a book over and over again for decades as being one of the supreme masterpieces of SF literature and then you read it and its good but not blow-your-mind-good and then you're disappointed because you expected the perfect sprawling epic that has always been there in your imagination and what you got was merely a shadow of that ultimate novel. (Wow, that sentence was way too long...sorry). I've felt that kind of reaction before, specifically with Bram Stocker's Dracula (which was an unreadable mess but I finished it anyway) and Frankenstein (which was almost as bad except for the middle section in which she told some of the story from the point of view of the monster) and I also felt that way about The Iliad which suprised me greatly because I had enjoyed The Odyssey so much.
I've not yet read any Saberhagen but I've had a few of his 'Sword' books sitting on my shelves for years. Now I'm wondering whether or not I should ever start them. | | Back to Top | | |
|
Edward Knight
Jack of all Trades and Master of None
Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 1038
| Posted 8/14/2005 3:13 PM (GMT -4) | | Much with the Iliad and the Odyssey depends on translation. Some are better than others.
Some of the old classics are hard to read. The language was different then. I tried to read Dumas a few times and gave up. I have a hard time with Hemmingway, but I like Melville. I wonder if future readers will find it hard to understand current writing? I'm sure they will.
Edward Knight
Editor
Journey Books Publishing
Amazing Journeys Magazine
http://www.journeybookspublishing.com
http://www.journeybooksonline.com | | Back to Top | | |
|
erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4475
| Posted 8/14/2005 3:41 PM (GMT -4) | | Frank,
Don't write off Saberhagen based on anything I've said about him. He writes a hell of a book. I never read the swords series and I'm told by many it has fewer flaws in the execution than some of the work I've cited. Fred has made a good living at this game for more years than many of us have been alive and he must do something right.
That said I have mostly loved his SF for its ideas instead of his writing. The beserker series was just cool even if the writing didn't exactly glow. He's also a heck of a teacher and if you can sit a panel featuring him do so, if you can catch one of his infrequent solo panels on writing, jump at it. He puts across more good info quickly and cleanly than most writers and is a heck of a gracious guy to boot.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Two Ravens" in Amazing Journeys Magazine coming Sept. 05 | | Back to Top | | |
|
Frank
Adept
Date Joined Aug 2005
Total Posts : 629
| Posted 8/14/2005 3:49 PM (GMT -4) | | I agree with Edk's point on translation. I once tried to read a translation of Pinocchio that was so bad I couldn't get past the second chapter. I quickly traded it but now my problem is finding a different translation so I can finally read the book.
Funny thing about my experience with Homer is that I was reading modern prose translations of the epic poems. There are several different modern prose versions available. Those "in the know" generally regard E.V Rieu's translations for Penguin as the best. I loved Rieu's Odyssey but I didn't care for his Iliad. Yet, Rieu goes on and on in the introduction about how he regards the Iliad as the superior poem of the two. Bizarre.
As for Dumas, I have a version of The Three Musketeers as translated by Lowell Bair and I think it's quite good. It's a hard cover from 1998 by William Morrow & Company, illustrated by Tom Kidd. (ISBN: 0-688-14583-3)
Sometimes it's difficult to believe how much language can change, how modes of speech can go in and out of fashion, and this can make certain books a difficult read to us today. Yet, sometimes two different authors from the same period and writing in the same language can seem worlds apart. War of the Worlds and Dracula were published in the same year and in the same country, yet Wells is a pleasure to read and Stoker is unbearable. I realize that Stoker became famous for the subject matter and not for the quality of the writing but I honestly don't know how anyone (then or now) could stand to read him. I finished Dracula but I'll never read anything else by Stoker. Wells, on the other hand, I'll read again and again, regardless of subject matter, simply for the pleasure of his use of language. | | Back to Top | | |
|
erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4475
| Posted 8/14/2005 4:16 PM (GMT -4) | | Frank,
Its definatly not just the year of publication that makes some older works harder to read. I find this true across the board. I have no trouble reading Doyle's Holmes or Baum's Oz but I have trouble with Stoker or Barre's Peter Pan. Somethings just don't sing.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Two Ravens" in Amazing Journeys Magazine coming Sept. 05 | | Back to Top | | |
|
Frank
Adept
Date Joined Aug 2005
Total Posts : 629
| Posted 8/14/2005 5:45 PM (GMT -4) | | | Yeah it's weird like that. I also have trouble with Doyle, Baum seems slightly odd to me but still readable, but Barre I find very charming. I recently read Barre's novelized Peter Pan and enjoyed it immensely. My wife found the opening chapter a bit too weird for her and put it down but I found it funny and well written. | | Back to Top | | |
|
erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4475
| Posted 8/15/2005 9:16 PM (GMT -4) | | I think Baum still comes across to the young reader, its the subtle add ins for the adults that don't come across and seem odd. there's a lot of subtext in the books, especially the first six, that has to do with topical subjects of his time thats just lost to the causual reader. You see it but don't get it and end up saying "huh?"
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Two Ravens" in Amazing Journeys Magazine coming Sept. 05 | | Back to Top | | |
|
Storn
Neophyte
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 153
| Posted 8/16/2005 4:15 AM (GMT -4) | | For me, at this very moment, I'm finding the "Golden compass" by Pullman to be a real slog and not all that interesting.
Which is a shame, several folks have raved about it to me. But I rarely discontinue reading books and I'm contemplating dropping this one.
Visual Storytelling
http://www.stornc.rpggallery.com/ | | Back to Top | | |
|
Frank
Adept
Date Joined Aug 2005
Total Posts : 629
| Posted 1/9/2006 4:25 AM (GMT -4) | | One thing I'm finding quite annoying as I get older is depressing fiction. Allow me to explain exactly what I mean:
Reading about characters who are depressed is a very different thing from reading a depressing description of a woe-begotten character. In Frederick Pohl's Gateway, for example, the main character is obviously depressed, and for good reasons, but reading about him is not depressing. In fact I very much enjoyed reading Gateway and would read it again.
In Kim Stanley Robinson's Icehenge, however, the main character is not only depressed but it is depressing to read about him as well. When the fiction itself is depressing I have a problem finishing the novel. My real life is depressing enough, I don't need to be further depressed by what I'm supposed to be reading for pleasure.
Robert Silverberg's Dying Inside is a brilliant novel, but I also found it difficult to read because it's another example of the double-depressing whammy: both the character's life and the mood of the writing itself are disheartening. One cannot deny its genius, but the experience of reading it was so thoroughly depressing that I never want to read even a single chapter of it ever again. But in Silverberg's case at least the fiction was good, while in Robinson's case the fiction was both depressing and mediochre.
I think that's one more reason why I prefer old school SF&F: rarely was the mood of the writing sombre, even while describing sombre events. Flowers For Algernon, for instance, is a sad tale. Yet, the description of the events in that story is not depressing to read, and will I gladly read it again.
My problem with a lot of SF written after the late 1970's is that authors began reflecting the real world around us (which everyone knows has gone to hell) a little too accurately in the mood of their writing and characters are described with far too much depressing psycho-analytical babble.
And what's with all the shrouding in mystery? SF&F has become too mysterious for its own good. Too many questions and not enough answers, in my opinion, or the answers provided in the end are so lame you want to light the book on fire. That was my experience with McDevitt's The Engines of God. By the end of that novel I was so angry with the author for wasting what precious little spare time I have that I could've crashed my car through the publisher's front door, had I lived in New York at the time.
So I guess my advice to any professional writers out there is this: some readers (like me) have at least a few unresolved major issues in their personal lives, and we don't like it when anyone wastes our time. If you're going to write a 600 pager you better make damn sure it's worth reading to the very end. Because we're getting angry, and you wouldn't like us when we're angry...HA HA HA!!! | | Back to Top | | |
|
erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4475
| Posted 1/9/2006 6:50 AM (GMT -4) | | Frank,
I know what you mean by depressing books. If I wanted to depressing stories I'd get a newspaper.
But don't blame the writers exclusivly for 600 downer pages. I might be perfectly happy reading a depressing but fascinating novel if it would do the job in two to three hundred pages. The publishers, bless them all, have decided people, meaning you and I, won't buy shorter works anymore. If I had a great story and was pressured to extend it an extra three hundred pages, I'd be depressed about it and I think it would show.
OTOH it does seem to be quite fashionable to write long, intricate novels that basicly say "the world sucks and then, if you're lucky, you die". I never really have been able to see the point to this. Its okay when done well by a master, say Philip K. Dick, to a point. Myself, I'd rather leave my audience feeling uplifted and hopeful than confirmed in the belief the world is scat.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Two Ravens" in Amazing Journeys Magazine #9 Sept. 05
"An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern" in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises | | Back to Top | | |
|
jackmangan
Neophyte
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 79
| Posted 1/9/2006 9:17 AM (GMT -4) | | I partially agree with you guys.
Frank and Mike Turner both make good points, so I'm not looking to troll or debate - just to offer another POV.
I don't know about other readers, but I tend to carry a book around with me while in the midst of reading it. I remember a friend commenting about Naked Lunch while he was halfway through it that while the book is brilliant, he didn't want to internalize and carry all of that horrific imagery around in his head. I tend to agree, but I'm also still really glad to have read Naked Lunch. It's easier for most audiences to handle utter despair in film, music, etc. because that comes in smaller doses, which are finished up in a matter of hours or minutes -- in one session. You carry a dark book around with you for however long it takes you to read it. If the 600+ page bleak novel is especially moving, then a long time with that gloom might begin to weigh on you. I suppose the dosage of conveyed misery is the key. Hamlet made us sympathize with his misery and even mourn his f##ked up final days, but the play wasn't such a downer that you'd read it and want to your "quietus make".
OTOH, I think dark, brooding, depressing fiction is as necessary as fiction in all other tones and moods, whether you or I or my friend want to read it or not. I'm all for accurate reflections of our world and its grimmer places and feelings. Let's not shy away from that stuff and pretend it isn't there! Art is one of our most powerful tools for understanding and coping with our reality, especially literature, IMHO. (that's not what I believe Frank or Mike Turner are suggesting either. I read their posts as expressions of personal tastes, not as manifestos against dark tones in literature).
Get Spherical!
"Spherical Tomi" from Creative Guy Publishing
http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/eBook33162.htm
| | Back to Top | | |
|
darkbow
Rabbit lord
Date Joined Oct 2005
Total Posts : 1584
| Posted 1/9/2006 12:20 PM (GMT -4) | | One word: Silmarillion.
It took me months to finish that book. The only other book so dry to me has been Bill Clinton's "My Life."
"Peter Piker the Pankin Man" -- upcoming in "Liquid Ohio" in 2006 | | Back to Top | | |
|
Frank
Adept
Date Joined Aug 2005
Total Posts : 629
| Posted 1/9/2006 1:44 PM (GMT -4) | | | You really thought so about The Silmarillion? Even Beren and Luthien? When I read it about ten years ago I thought much of it quite beautiful. Of course, we must keep in mind that this volume and all the other History of Middle Earth books that followed were pieced-together fragments edited by Tolkien's son. The old man himself never intended any of it to be read by anyone. It was all just a few million words of backstory building up to the published works. | | Back to Top | | |
|
darkbow
Rabbit lord
Date Joined Oct 2005
Total Posts : 1584
| Posted 1/9/2006 2:06 PM (GMT -4) | | I understand it wasn't originally meant for publication, and there were sections of The Silmarillion I did enjoy, but as a whole I didn't care for it. For that matter, I feel like I have to trudge through the Two Towers. I do, however, love Fellowship and the Hobbit. Return of the King was so-so to me.
"Peter Piker the Pankin Man" -- upcoming in "Liquid Ohio" in 2006 | | Back to Top | | |
|
Frank
Adept
Date Joined Aug 2005
Total Posts : 629
| Posted 1/9/2006 4:37 PM (GMT -4) | | | I enjoyed all of the Lord of the Rings books but I agree that Fellowship and The Hobbit are Tolkien's best works. I've read The Hobbit four times over the years and Fellowship three times. I just never tire of them. | | Back to Top | | |
|
ScrewMoonshine
Adept
Date Joined Aug 2005
Total Posts : 852
| Posted 1/10/2006 9:11 AM (GMT -4) | | I second darkbow's comments on The Silmarillion. In addition to finding it incredibly dry, I was annoyed at how derivative the vast majority of the stories were. It felt like reading a scrapbook of pages ripped from the Bible, the Knights of the Round Table, and Norse mythology(except the writing in that scrapbook would be better than in Tolkein's). I don't blame Tokein for writing it, but I do blame whoever decided to publish it.
Another big disappointment for me was The Pillars of Creation by Terry Goodkind. Believe it or not, I hadn't noticed the decline in The Sword of Truth(at one time one of my favorite series) from truth-seeking and great storytelling to prejudice,close-mindedness, and preaching until this book. And then I was foolish enough to pick up and read Naked Empire...[begin deep,convulsive shuddering] At any rate, I've finally learned my lesson where Goodkind is concerned.
Robert Orme | | Back to Top | | |
|
jackmangan
Neophyte
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 79
| Posted 1/10/2006 11:23 AM (GMT -4) | | Gotta stick up for the Silmarillion.
I'd tried a few times, but could never get through it until I reached my 20s. Once I finally did, I also found it to be extremely slow and dry -- like a history text -- which is exactly what the Silmarillion is. There are many stories told within, the majority full of wonder and amazing richness of imagination. Great stuff, steeply rooted in real-world historical legends and traditions. It's not "light reading" in the way that Hobbit and LOTR may be, but I still found it well worth the effort. I believe that Mr. Tolkien and his wife have "Beren" and "Luthien" inscribed on their tombstones.
Get Spherical!
"Spherical Tomi" from Creative Guy Publishing
http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/eBook33162.htm
| | Back to Top | | |
|
ragemachine
Neophyte
Date Joined May 2005
Total Posts : 73
| Posted 1/29/2006 2:53 PM (GMT -4) | | I love Saberhagen's stuff. maybe I haven't read the right ones. The author I think ends poorly is Stephen King. He's a short story writer who writes huge novels. Always about 3/4 of the way through he peters out. (He's also hugely successful so I guess I'm wrong.)
GW
G. W. Thomas has appeared in over 350 different books, magazines and ezines including Black October Magazine, Writer's Digest and The Armchair Detective.
http://ragemachinemag.tripod.com | | Back to Top | | |
|
erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4475
| Posted 1/29/2006 4:18 PM (GMT -4) | | G.W.,
I wouldn't say that you are wrong about S. King. He's an incredible writer who needs a gutsy editor to make him toe the line and get the most from his work. He hasn't had one for a couple of decades and it shows.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Two Ravens" in Amazing Journeys Magazine #9 Sept. 05
"An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern" in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises | | Back to Top | | |
|
Blue Tyson
Stablehand
Date Joined Dec 2006
Total Posts : 24
| Posted 12/22/2006 3:54 AM (GMT -4) | | | | |
| 47 posts in this thread.
Viewing Page : 1 2 |
| Forum Information | Currently it is Saturday, September 06, 2008 4:06 AM (GMT -4)
There are a total of 80,547 posts in 6,393 threads.
In the last 3 days there were 22 new threads and 114 reply posts. View Active Threads
| | Who's Online | This forum has 1226 registered members. Please welcome our newest member, michelleb.
8 Guest(s), 0 Registered Member(s) are currently online. Details
|
Forum powered by dotNetBB v2.42EC SP2
dotNetBB © 2000-2008
(c) SFReader |
|
|
|